1 10 12 https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/ff9cf4e5d3ad5ec5cd3e626e6268d788.jpg d8c8e955ba43d5a7c6b75546f51f612a Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Yen Tran OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Yen Tran 2018oh002_btba_004 1:36:40 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Vietnamese in North Texas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Yen Tran Betsy Brody mp3 oh-audio-dig-tran_y_20181102.mp3 1:|14(2)|23(15)|31(14)|43(8)|53(12)|65(1)|74(14)|85(3)|96(8)|107(6)|117(3)|127(5)|138(2)|146(12)|155(15)|166(8)|177(13)|187(5)|197(12)|208(5)|218(4)|229(1)|238(16)|250(6)|260(14)|271(6)|282(3)|294(18)|307(2)|319(11)|329(7)|341(1)|350(2)|360(6)|370(3)|380(3)|390(7)|401(8)|413(9)|423(6)|432(9)|443(1)|453(1)|463(5)|476(5)|486(1)|497(14)|506(12)|515(8)|524(12)|535(7)|547(4)|557(10)|567(1)|576(12)|588(2)|598(9)|611(5)|623(8)|632(3)|642(8)|651(8)|661(6)|670(10)|681(10)|692(3)|702(7)|714(8)|725(1)|735(11)|745(13)|757(12)|768(4)|779(1)|787(5)|795(7)|806(4)|817(6)|826(1)|834(11)|843(6)|852(6)|862(1)|875(5)|885(4)|894(7)|903(17)|912(9)|919(13)|931(1)|942(7)|952(8)|963(7)|976(4)|987(6)|997(10) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/114144 Aviary audio 2 Introduction &quot ; Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans&quot ; 26 Age when leaving Vietnam Okay, thank you for joining me, and I just wanted to ask you, first of all, how old were you when you left Vietnam? TRAN: I was four. I was four years old. escape ; leaving Vietnam 35 Father's work with U.S. Embassy in Vietnam and her family's departure from Vietnam TRAN: Well, my dad had worked for the U.S. embassy in Vietnam as an interpreter, and so before the actual fall he was well aware that he would not be able to stay in the country once the Viet Congs took over, and so— BRODY: It would be too dangerous? TRAN: Yes. And actually, before that, he had been picked up a couple of times already by the local authorities, and my mom had to actually go and find him and pay money to get him out. So even though during the time that he had worked with the U.S. embassy, he didn’t make his job or his role with them very public, but he knew that his life and our lives would be in danger if we had stayed. And so he was responsible for my grandmother and my younger—his two younger sisters and younger brother from the age of ten. And so he didn’t just think about the family as his wife and the four kids that he had, but he had an obligation to take his mom along, his two teenage sisters and his brother, who was studying at university at that time. And so we were airlifted from Vietnam and we travelled through Guam, then the Philippines, and then stayed in a refugee camp in California before we were offered permanent resettlement in Dallas. Fall of Saigon ; Guam ; interpreter ; Phillippines ; U.S. Embassy ; Viet COng 212 Memories of airlift and day of departure from Vietnam/Being reunited with dad and uncle in Guam refugee camp BRODY: What do you remember—I know you were young, but what do you remember of the airlift? TRAN: I remember—so I remember vividly the day that we left. There was a candy store—it wasn’t even really a candy store, it was probably just a stand—that I used to walk to every day to buy candy. And the day that we left, I remember seeing people tearing down the candy stand and not really understanding, you know, what was going on. Then my grandmother, who is—she’s a survivor and she’s very loud and she was probably the one that’s constantly keeping us together, because I’m sure it was complete chaos at that time with so—them trying to get so many people out of the country. It was a miracle that they kept all of us together (laughs) during the trip. But I do remember the day that we were reunited with my dad and my uncle, because we were in the refugee camp, I was just waking up from a nap, and I could hear my grandmother and my aunt say, “Oh, there’s Sao, there’s Sao!” And I looked around and I saw my dad walking towards us. It was almost like a dream, because at four years old, it’s hard to make sense of things, but you also sense it through the adults who are around you and what kind of anxiety and stress that they have, and you could feel that—I don’t remember if I knew that my dad wasn’t with us, but I do remember the sense of excitement and relief when he came walking towards us, and how my grandmother and my mom was just overwhelmed by it. airlift ; memories of leaving Vietnam ; refugee camps ; reunion with father Refugees--Vietnam 326 Memories of refugee camps in Guam, Phillipines, and Guam TRAN: I think we went from Guam to the Philippines, and then we went to California. BRODY: And then how did you find out or arrange the—do you know much about how the adults arranged the sponsorship, or— TRAN: From what I remember, I think we were in California for a while. I remember we lived in tents, you know, and not very different from the tents that we lived in in the Philippines or Guam. But there would be American soldiers working the food lines, and we would go every day to get our food, we had tickets. But I think they were just, at that point, just getting the first wave of refugees in and probably relying on charities and churches to sponsor and help resettle these refugees that were coming in from Vietnam. BRODY: Right, so this is still 1975. TRAN: Yes, 1975. 1975 ; California ; food lines ; Guam ; Phillippnes ; refugee camps ; resettlement ; sponsorship ; tents 383 Memories of arriving in Texas/Early acclimation BRODY: So the connection with north Texas is through the sponsorship of the Catholic Church and St. Pius. Tell me what you remember about your initial impressions or arrival in Texas. TRAN: Oh, wow, so I remember getting on the plane to fly from California to Texas, and I still remember—I think it was the Delta airline, and the stewardess gave me a little pin with wings, and I remember looking out the window and seeing ocean, even. But the first few years, I think I just remember my grandmother and my aunts and uncles, the old adults, just recounting those first days. For us, you know, we were just kids, we just kind of go with the flow to where we were and what we needed to do, because at that time, I was just speaking Vietnamese to my siblings, but you know, soon after our arrival we started kindergarten, and so we started going to school. But my grandmother would talk about how the first—when they first got there, they just didn’t even know how to go to a grocery store. My dad said that, you know, he was the first one to ever go to the grocery store, and he didn’t know what to even buy, he even bought a jar of oysters, when he brought it home he didn’t know what to do with it. (both laugh) And then my mom and my aunts would walk to the store and my uncle would tell them, “You have to walk”— there was a certain route that they thought they had to go in order to get to the store, but my aunt and my grandmother, my mom thought, There’s a faster way, but my uncle just kept insisting that they go that way every day. But one day they had enough courage to say, “You know what? We’re not going to listen to them, we’re just going this way,” and so slowly they started, you know, being able to figure things out and navigate through life in the U.S. arrival in Texas ; food ; groceries ; sponorship ; St. Pius X 507 Housing/St. Pius Catholic Church as hub of Vietnamese community BRODY: Wow. So you lived in a house near the church. Was the church sort of a hub for the families? TRAN: Yes, it really was. It was a hub for the entire Vietnamese community, and because my dad and my uncle were the only ones who knew how to speak English, they did—they looked to my dad and uncle, especially my dad, a lot too as kind of the liaison and the leader, and every time somebody was in the hospital, they would call my dad to come out and act as an interpreter. He was the one who kind of—he was the one who interfaced with Monsignor Weinzapfel, who was the head—who was the pastor at St. Pius at that time. And we were able to have Vietnamese church, you know, Vietnamese Mass at St. Pius at the four o’clock slot on Sunday. And so once that was established, then more Vietnamese families from around the area started congregating to St. Pius. BRODY: That’s really interesting. So were there activities for kids, for the Vietnamese refugees and their children or for family activities? TRAN: Yeah, I mean, we would have—you know, they would—every New Year’s they would have a special Mass in celebration, and of course they always had the ceremony, the flag ceremony and the anthem, singing of the old anthem, and it was always the old flag, (laughs) it was never the new flag at all. So they still tried to continue that tradition, and then they also offered Vietnamese classes and Vietnamese—and then also Sunday School, so CCD [Confraternity of Christian Doctrine] classes in Vietnamese. So I—my sister and I—I have a twin sister—she and I and a friend of mine who still lives in this area—her parents are the ones who still have that house near St. Pius—we were one of the first, I guess, graduating class to get our first communion in the Vietnamese Catholic community there at St. Pius. BRODY: That’s great, I would love to see pictures. TRAN: (laughs) Actually, I do have one. CCD ; English ; housing ; language ; St. Pius X ; Vietnamese flag ; Vietnamese mass ; Weinzapfel 696 Older generation's attitudes toward post-war Vietnamese politics/communism BRODY: That’s interesting, what you said about the anthem and the ceremony and the flag. How involved in the postwar politics of Vietnam do you think—I mean, in your experience, were some of the older generation refugees? TRAN: They took a very strong stance because, you know, the wave of immigrants I came with were the ones who were truly, you know, fleeing from the war because of their own political stance, and they had lost their country not of their own will. They didn’t leave their country of their own will, and so there was a loss there, and there was a lot of fear of the communists. I remember my aunts always making comments and jokes about,“Oh, the Viet Congs, they’re going to come get us,” or “He’s Viet Cong,” or whatever. BRODY: Even after being here? TRAN: Yes. Being here, you would always hear, “Oh, he’s a Viet Cong, he’s Viet Cong.” And so, you know, I grew up with that—the term Viet Cong was meaning something to be scared and fearful of, because I heard the adults in my family, you know, speaking—using it in a way that was not—that was out of fear, anxiety, and negative connotation. But over the years as, you know, the U.S. and Vietnam relations had started to thaw, several years ago there was a lady who—I guess that she’s a nanny for my sister and she also helped me out when Mi Lan, my second, was born. And her daughter was going through the senior project that she was doing in high school, and so she wanted to interview me, and the questions that—she made a comment during the interview, because she grew up—she was born and grew up under the new regime. And the comments that she made, initially I was surprised at my reaction, because I was very taken aback that she was very sympathetic to the government that she grew up in. And it was interesting that I caught myself having that reaction. attitudes toward Vietnam ; communists ; politics ; Viet Cong 854 Experiences in kindergarten at Gill Elementary and Truett Elementary So I went to Gill Elementary. We started off in kindergarten with a lot of the other Vietnamese children that had also relocated close to St. Pius. And then after a year, my dad found a house probably about, maybe, two miles away, but in another school zone, and so our whole family moved there and then I went to Truett Elementary until sixth grade, because elementary school went through sixth grade at that time. BRODY: So in the first school, where there were a lot of Vietnamese kids, what was that like? Were you—did you feel comfortable having people who had shared a similar experience? TRAN: I don’t remember much about it, but I do remember not feeling out of place in kindergarten. I honestly didn’t feel out of place until we moved, in first grade, to the school that was just two miles away, but didn’t have any Vietnamese students there. So looking back, I can now put it into perspective and put in context, you know, and make more sense of some of the experiences and how I was—I guess how some of the students reacted to me and— BRODY: Tell me about that. How did they react to you? TRAN: I do remember standing in the lunch line one time, and there was a friend of mine, her name was—I don’t remember her name now—she was a very sweet girl, we were very close and she always made me feel welcomed, even though I started school, not in kindergarten but first grade. And we were standing in lunch line and she told me that her uncle—she knew that I was Vietnamese, and she said that her—and she said it ©Baylor University 10 not in a mean way but just like what a six-year-old would say. She said, “Yeah, my uncle fought in the Vietnam War, and he told me that I’m not supposed to talk to anybody who’s Vietnamese.” BRODY: Oh, boy. TRAN: And I couldn’t—you know, as a six-year-old I just couldn’t—I couldn’t make sense of it. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel, but I didn’t know even how to respond to that at the time. elementary school ; Gill Elementary ; kindergarten ; Truett Elementary 945 Early experiences of racism BRODY: Tell me about that. How did they react to you? TRAN: I do remember standing in the lunch line one time, and there was a friend of mine, her name was—I don’t remember her name now—she was a very sweet girl, we were very close and she always made me feel welcomed, even though I started school, not in kindergarten but first grade. And we were standing in lunch line and she told me that her uncle—she knew that I was Vietnamese, and she said that her—and she said it not in a mean way but just like what a six-year-old would say. She said, “Yeah, my uncle fought in the Vietnam War, and he told me that I’m not supposed to talk to anybody who’s Vietnamese.” BRODY: Oh, boy. TRAN: And I couldn’t—you know, as a six-year-old I just couldn’t—I couldn’t make sense of it. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel, but I didn’t know even how to respond to that at the time. BRODY: Do you remember how you responded? TRAN: I don’t remember saying anything because, you know, I didn’t know much about the war other than that we had to leave our country and that, I do know that the Vietnamese who ran the country at that time were bad people, is what I thought. And it didn’t make sense to me as a child that my family had fought alongside the Americans, and yet, here was an American man who had never met me before—and I was only a first grader—and he was telling his niece not to talk to me because I was from a different, you know, ethnicity or from that country. I just—yeah, it was—I think my reaction was more confusion. discrimination ; elementary school ; racism ; teasing 1058 Experiences translating for other students/Memories of busing in Dallas BRODY: Sure, sure. So the rest of your elementary school experience were—I mean, did more Vietnamese kids move into this school, or were you pretty much—? ©Baylor University 11 TRAN: There were a few, yes. There were a few. After a couple of years there was another kid and another kid, and they would—if my brother was around, because he was two years older, the school administration would call my brother to come and help translate for him or her, and then when he moved on—I remember, there was another girl who was new, and they actually called me to help translate for her and explain to her, you know, you can eat here, this is time to eat, this is time to go to school, go back to class. But I do remember, other than that one incident with my friend whose uncle said, you know, not—that she wasn’t allowed to talk to me, but I do remember that there were kids who were being bused into the school where I was going ; kids who didn’t live in the area, a lot of African American kids. And you know, I think looking back, I was experiencing and witnessing, you know, I guess, the busing phenomenon. BRODY: Right, in Dallas. TRAN: In Dallas, in the south. BRODY: Yeah. What do you remember about that? Was there conflict? TRAN: Oh yes, there was a lot of conflict. I mean, you’ve got—at the time I didn’t understand why there was so much conflict, but now, you know, knowing the history and knowing how recent that history was, then having—injecting into that mix a whole new group of people that most people had never—in America—had never even encountered before. It must’ve been really hard for all the children at that time to be able to make sense of. African Americans ; busing ; discrimination ; racism ; translating Busing for school integration ; Racism 1187 Role of Mr. and Mrs. Harmon as sponsors for the family's resettlement BRODY: With the sponsors, what role did they play, once you got here, in sort of setting up your life here in Texas? TRAN: They helped my dad. Mr. and Mrs. Harmon, they were our sponsors, and they helped my dad and my uncle get a job. I think it was in the computer center, hanging computer tapes, at that time, for Sun Exploration and Production. And then they also helped us, you know, just get our basic necessities, like clothing and furniture and bedding and whatnot. And then they also helped my uncle and my dad go back to school so that they could get a degree. I think both of them went back to school for computer science degrees. And so they were—through that, they were able to get positions, you know, computer analyst positions with Sun Exploration. And they worked there for, I think, until the company changed to Oryx and then, eventually, the entire IT [Information Technology] department was outsourced, maybe about sixteen years ago? And so they both worked at the same company from the time they came to the U.S. until, you know, it was time for either early retirement or being outsourced to another company at the time. BRODY: That’s a close family. TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) Exactly. But I do remember the Harmons inviting us over to their house for a party once, and they had a pool. And my brother, I think he’s probably six at the time, or seven, he didn’t know how to swim but he just ran excitedly out there and there was a little floatie, and he stepped on the floatie and, of course, fell into the pool, and the Harmons’ daughter had to jump in and save him. (laughs) education ; employment ; jobs ; pool party ; sponsors ; sponsorship ; Sun Exploration and Production Refugees--Vietnam 1308 Role of culture in family dynamics/closeness of the Vietnamese community BRODY: That’s a great story. So your whole family, they do sound very close. Is that something you feel like was, you know, particular to your culture of—or the experience of travelling as refugees and making a new life here? TRAN: I think it’s very—I knew it was very particular to the culture, our culture at that time, and I think it was made—reinforced by the fact that my aunts were both underage at that time, because—so there was a certain responsibility that my father had to make sure that they finished school, and then—plus my dad being their caretaker for most of his life. My mom told me that even after she married him, whatever salary that he made, he always sent half of it home to his mom and his siblings, and then the other half was what he used to take care of us. But I think also because, I mean, when you have suffered or gone through something that’s life-changing and stressful and traumatic, you do tend to stick together more, and so it wasn’t just our family that was close, but all the other families were very tight-knit, too, with each other, and the community was more tightknit because there were just fewer of us at that time. I mean, there were no Vietnamese grocery stores, you know, so whatever we could come up with, whatever could grow in the garden in our backyard, we shared with other families and vice-versa. But our family, compared to other families in the community, was relatively small. My grandmother only had four kids, and so I was always jealous of my friends, because they had twenty cousins and all their cousins went to church and they hung out together, and we had no cousins, because my dad was the oldest and he was the first one to get married. It wasn’t until much—I think—I’m ten years older than my oldest cousin, so it wasn’t until I was ten years old that I even had a cousin. culture ; family values ; refugee experience ; trauma 1439 Social activities, Christmas, Easter, and Vietnamese New Year celebrations in the community BRODY: Right. So that community that you’re talking about, what kinds of social things did you guys do together? TRAN: Going to church every week. They also did the Christmas celebrations and the Easter celebrations, and that was always special, in addition to the Vietnamese New Year’s. So those were always opportunities for us to do more than just go to Mass and pray, but to get together as a community and do programs and, you know, dances or singing together and sharing food. I remember growing up, there was always somebody coming to visit my house ; you know, one of the men, a couple of the men from the church would come to call on my dad, and it was just very much a part of our life. You know, if they come and then—my job was to make sure that there was tea and then we’d bring out food or whatever to host the mother there. But it was definitely more of a closer-knit community, not just within our family but then also people visiting each other’s homes too. BRODY: Did that persist all the way through, you know, your high school years, or did the community kind of dissipate as time passed, and— Catholic Church ; food 1511 Founding of St. Peter's Vietnamese Catholic Church in Garland BRODY: Did that persist all the way through, you know, your high school years, or did the community kind of dissipate as time passed, and— TRAN: Yeah. I think it’s dissipated more since times past. I think it probably persisted, probably all the way through even past law school for me, so probably over twenty years. But I think that’s probably a function of the fact that my dad was so—had played such a large role in the community. And so every time there was something that—something with the church, then people would come and talk to him about it, and he was instrumental in actually finding a church—a separate physical facility for the Vietnamese congregation, when I was in college. So that was almost twenty years after we came, so almost twenty years after the Vietnamese congregation started at St. Pius, they were able to find a separate church and have their own presence. Because before then, we could only celebrate whenever, you know, St. Pius was available to us. BRODY: Right. So the new church is called— TRAN: It’s called St. Peter’s Vietnamese Catholic Church. It’s in Garland. Garland ; St. Peter's Vietnamese Catholic Church ; St. Pius X 1596 Learning English/Maintaining Vietnamese language skills BRODY: I wanted to go back to talk about language because, I mean, obviously, you mentioned that you were speaking Vietnamese with your siblings at the time that you left Vietnam. How quickly or how difficult was it for you to pick up English? TRAN: It was—I guess at four, it wasn’t that difficult at all. I remember in kindergarten speaking Vietnamese to my sister and then probably in first grade we were already in English. BRODY: Right. You learned quickly. Was that the experience of your older sibling? TRAN: Yes. BRODY: Yeah, so everybody kind of picked it up real quickly. TRAN: Yes, because he was only six. So it was very easy for him to pick up too. BRODY: Good. TRAN: Plus it was also a way for us to speak without (laughs) the adults understanding what we’re saying. (laughs) BRODY: That’s really funny. (laughs) So you’re still bilingual? TRAN: Yes. BRODY: You speak both Vietnamese and in English. Are all of your siblings? TRAN: I have two younger sisters who were born here, and I think both of them, they do speak it, it’s a little more broken than ours, but we—it helped that we had our grandmother live with us, because she could only speak Vietnamese, and she was the one who was in the house all the time. And so she was there when we left, she was there when we got home from school, she was there when our parents weren’t home from work yet, and so we had to speak Vietnamese or we couldn’t communicate with her. And my grandma, my mom, and my dad only spoke Vietnamese to us too. And so that’s why they were able to speak Vietnamese. I don’t think that they’re as fluent as my brother and my—you know, my twin sister and I, but they’re able to hold conversations still. BRODY: Right. So that must’ve been pretty comforting for you all to have your grandmother in your house and also a relief for your parents. TRAN: Yes, definitely. bilingualism ; communication ; English ; extended family ; grandmother ; language ; Vietnamese language Bilingualism ; English language--Acquisition 1707 Employment of Vietnamese women in Dallas/Assembly and soldering work BRODY: You’ve mentioned what your dad did. What did you mom do as far as work? TRAN: She worked for—she and my aunt, my oldest aunt—so after my oldest aunt graduated from high school and my mom and she, they both worked at Garrett, I think it’s Garrett Electronics. It’s a company that made metal detectors. And so they soldered electronic boards. BRODY: Had she had experience doing stuff like that before? TRAN: No, and it seemed like that was the job that a lot of the Vietnamese women did, was working in assembly jobs, working—doing soldering assembly work. BRODY: That’s interesting. TRAN: Yeah, my mom worked that. She worked there for probably thirty years, and then my aunt is still working for the same company. BRODY: Oh, really? Are there still a lot of Vietnamese women working there? TRAN: Yes, there are, especially that generation, because they didn’t get a chance to learn English as well, and so they weren’t—you know, it’s a job that didn’t—it’s more of a hands-on job. assembly work ; Garrett Electonics ; soldering ; Vietnamese refugee women ; women's work Political refugees--Employment ; Solder and soldering 1771 Gardening/Growing vegetables/Role of food BRODY: Right. That makes sense. So the—okay, you mentioned your garden in your house and the vegetables you grew. I know that there was not that much of a Vietnamese community in terms of the stores and restaurants and things at that time, in the seventies. What kind of vegetables did you grow, and— TRAN: Oh wow, we grew—my grandmother was—she had a green thumb. So she didn’t work because she was older when she came, and so that’s what she did in her free time, she would grow bitter melon and squash, all types of Vietnamese squashes, Vietnamese water spinach, and lemongrass. What else? And then this leaf, I don’t know how you say it in English, it’s called ______(??). It’s a large leaf, it grows on a vine, but it has a really gelatinous consistency to it when you cook it and it’s actually supposed to be very good for you. (laughs) And then also cilantro and basil and mints, chives. She would also sprout her own bean sprouts from mung beans, so she was a very avid gardener. BRODY: And did she cook everything too? TRAN: Yes, she cooked. She cooked—and so we grew up eating Vietnamese food. Rice and Vietnamese food, and whatever she cooked, we ate the vegetables of whatever she cooked in the garden. BRODY: So did she teach you how to cook? TRAN: No, (laughs) but I learned from being in the kitchen with my mom, just starting with cutting onions and garlic, and just being in the kitchen with them, I learned to cook from there. But my grandmother, she was always such a very independent women, so she just does it and then would say, “Well, you do this,” but she’s not—she was not the teacher type, for sure. (both laugh) bitter melon, squash ; chives ; cilantro ; cooking ; food ; Gardening ; grandmother ; lemongrass ; mint ; mung beans ; rice ; Vietnamese food ; Vietnamese vegetables ; Vietnamese water spinach 1887 Elementary School/Fitting In BRODY: So we got to first grade. So the rest of elementary school, just tell me, what do you remember about growing up as a Vietnamese American in Dallas through your schooling? TRAN: Well, elementary school was—you know, I remember having really good teachers, and then also some mean teachers at that time. It was a different, I think—it was a different time where teachers were allowed to—some teachers were allowed to yell more. I mean, paddling was really, pretty common. Of course, I mean, I was always (laughs) the perfectly behaved kid, I would never get in trouble at school, but I just never felt like I fit in very well. My—our life didn’t consist of a lot of frivolous things. So we went to school—that was our main job—went to church, and we stayed home. And then every once in a while on the weekends, if my mom would take one of us to go the store with her, because she didn’t want to go by herself, you know, to have somebody to translate. And that was our life, and so it was hard to develop friendships if you can’t go to a birthday party, or you weren’t allowed to go to a movie with somebody, because that just wasn’t—we couldn’t afford it and it just wasn’t even, I think, in our parents’ radar to think that that was an important thing for us. BRODY: So was it just that, or were they afraid as well? TRAN: Yeah, I’m sure part of it was they were also afraid of letting us out of their sight. My grandmother, especially, was also a—I think neurotically protective because of, you know, her own life situation, being that old and having to raise four kids by herself. And then my parents, my mom is also a very—a worrywart as well. And so I think it was those first few years, the adults were just focused on surviving, you know? Providing for us, and so, you know, the idea that we would even think about going to another person’s house to play, or go to a birthday party, and that wasn’t even something that we would even ask permission for. birthday parties ; elementary school ; Friendships ; paddling 2043 Emphasis on education/Attitudes toward education for women BRODY: Right. And did they emphasize studying and education? TRAN: Oh, very much so. Very much so. BRODY: Yeah, tell me about that. TRAN: My dad especially, because he was—you know, he came from a very, very poor part of Vietnam, and he lost his dad at a very young age, and so my grandmother, even though she never went to school, she was not literate, she was very determined for her kids, mainly her boys, to have an education because she saw that as the only way to get out of poverty. And so she pushed education a lot for my father and my uncle. And my dad, I think he was the first to even graduate from high school in that time. BRODY: So she did it. TRAN: Yeah. My aunt, you know, my aunt and my mom worked for—at the Garrett Electronics doing soldering _________(??), so when I was fifteen, I worked a summer with them, and I would listen to my aunt tell stories with the other women about, you know, things that happened with her family, and so I learned a lot about my family from listening to—during that summer with my aunt. And she told a story about how after my grandmother lost her husband, that a lot of men would come and try to, you know, court her, but she never wanted to remarry. Men would come and try to conscript my dad and my uncle to go and fight in the war—and she’s only 4’10”, seventy-seven pounds, she was a very tiny lady—and she would fight them off, she would not let them take my dad and my uncle to go fight, because she said, “My boys are going to go to school, they’re not going to go and fight your fight and get killed.” And I don’t know how she did it, but she was able to scare them off. (laughs) BRODY: That’s amazing. So they got their education, and then once they were here and had all of you, they also emphasized your studies. TRAN: Oh, very much so, and my dad was very progressive for his time. I really think so. And I think it had a lot to do with his background of having a strong matriarch figure. He never made my sister and me feel like we could—we could or should do less because we were a girl. You know, my two aunts were still in high school when we first came, and my second aunt, she was younger, and she met a man that she wanted to get married to her senior year in high school. And my dad was so against it. He told my grandmother, “You need to let her go to school. You need to let her have an education, you cannot allow her to get married at such a young age because she’s going to be in the same situation that—” you know, my grandmother was. So if her husband is not able to take care of her, she would be left with nothing. So he saw education as a very—as something that was very valuable and would help my aunt, you know, be able to establish herself in this new life in the US. But my grandmother said, “Well she’s my child, I’ll just let her do whatever she wants,” because my grandmother, even though she pushed her sons very hard, she was pregnant with my aunt when she lost her husband. And so she really babied my youngest aunt and just let her do, really, whatever she wanted, she would let her have, and whatever she wanted to do she would let her do. And my aunt told my cousin this story a few years ago about how the night before her wedding my dad woke her up in the middle of the night and begged her not to get married, and he said, “If you go to college, I’ll buy you a new car so you can drive to college by yourself, you don’t have to worry about having our brother have to take you.” And of course, she didn’t take him up on the offer. (laughs) BRODY: He was serious though. education ; education for women ; poverty 2336 High School in Dallas BRODY: That’s hard. So, high school. Tell me about that. You must have—you and your siblings must have been among the first batch of Vietnamese Americans graduating from high schools in Dallas. TRAN: Definitely. Well, we also met—we were able to meet two more Vietnamese when we went to middle school, from our elementary school. So we did really well, yeah, academically in elementary school, and so we were invited to apply for Spence Academy, which is the GT [Gifted and Talented] Academy for DISD [Dallas Independent School District]. And so there—and the kids that I met there, I still keep in touch with, because—and they’re from different backgrounds, and different ethnic backgrounds, but for some reason they were more like-minded and, you know, had some of the more similar values towards education and now, even many years later in speaking with them, towards social policies, but we did get to meet a couple more Vietnamese kids in middle school. And then when we went to high school, we went to a very large high school, at Skyline High School, so a class of a thousand in each grade, and so there were a few more Vietnamese students when we got to high school, but because the classes were so big, it was hard to really, you know, know a lot of people. BRODY: So did you feel by then that you were more integrated into the high school or— BRODY: Through church? TRAN: —through church, and I was singing in the church choir and so met more friends there. But still, through high school, I did—I still felt like one of the few people, you know, one of the few Vietnamese people in that environment. BRODY: So that experience that, you know, from the very beginning that you had of not feeling like—not quite fitting in, that just kept on, or you just kind of were more tied to your Vietnamese church community? TRAN: I think in school itself it did keep on. I mean, we made friends and we did—you know, we were involved in a lot of extracurricular activities, but I always felt that I was ethnically different, you know? And I think people—my peer also, would make comments that, whether it was joking or not, that I was different. BRODY: What kind of comments? TRAN: You know, I think things that wouldn’t be even—could be repeated these days, (laughs) that’s not PC [politically correct], you know, the “chink” word and all the derogatory jokes about eyes and whatnot, and even I remember having a high school science teacher who made a joke about Asian—you know, the Asian language, as well. chink ; church community ; cultural identity ; Dallas Independent School District ; discrimination ; DISD ; ethnic differences ; extracurricular activities ; friendships ; Gifted and Talented ; GT ; high school ; racism ; Skyline High School ; Spence Academy ; teasing Racism 2574 College and law School/Community attitudes toward law school BRODY: So by the end of high school, what were you—you know, when you were thinking about your future after high school, what was your mindset and what were you looking forward to doing? TRAN: Well, I wanted to—I always had that inner drive to do something to give back. You know, I mean, everybody has their own, I guess, mode of how they interact in the world, and I know that, you know, in all the personality tests I’ve taken in my life, you know, I rank very strong as a caregiver. And so I wanted to do something that would help people. I thought, well, maybe a social worker, but my dad was very pragmatic. He said, you know, “You have to get a job that’s going to be able to feed your family. You have to get a profession, not just a degree.” My brother, my older brother had graduated two years before us, and he had applied to University of Dallas and gotten a full scholarship, and so he went there. And so when my sister and I were graduating, we really didn’t have a choice on where we were going to go to school because my parents didn’t even like the idea of us moving out, and so they wanted to keep us close in— BRODY: They wanted you to be together? TRAN: Yes, and so we—that was the only school that we applied to, was University of Dallas. But he told us going in, because he knew it was a liberal arts school, that we had to go beyond college. It had to be professional school or graduate school at that time. BRODY: Right off the bat, you knew that’s what you were getting into. TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) BRODY: So what ended up happening? What did you major in? TRAN: I majored in psychology, which I thought was the most relevant study for me. You know, literature was great, theology was great, but I really wanted to understand human behavior and really into the human psyche and how to—I felt that way I can actually tap into how I can help people. But I didn’t know—I wasn’t sure of actually going on to grad school and getting a Ph.D. and being a psychologist, because I wasn’t convinced that that was the right or the most effective way for me to help people. And at that time, most Ph.D. programs were only taking one per year, and even then, after you take a lot of student loans, you graduate and then the most you can do is teach, you know, at a lower salary than you could—that you would need to be able to pay back the student loans. And my parents had six kids, so they couldn’t—they were relying on us to be as independent and financially independent as possible, as soon as possible. And so my dad called me up one day towards the end of my fall semester and—actually I had graduated a year early, because my dad—he’d never asked us to do anything other than, you know, of course we had chores at home, but he never wanted us to feel that we had financial pressure to do anything other than going to school, and after our first semester at UD, he felt, I think, some financial pressure, because he had to take money out of his 401k to pay for our college. So he had three kids in college and three at home, and he said, “Well, if you can graduate even a semester early, that would save a lot of money.” And I think I was struck by the fact that he asked me something like that, because that was a huge thing to ask, and for him, he would never even approach us with something like that unless he felt that pressure, so I worked really hard to graduate a year early. So developed my whole graduation plan, and I was able to leave a year early. But the semester before I graduated—no, the fall semester of my last year, he said, “Well, why don’t you look at law school too? That way you can open up your options, in case you don’t get into one of these Ph.D. programs.” And so I said, “Oh, okay, I guess I can do that.” But, you know, when I agreed to applying to law school, that was my—my fate was sealed as far as my parents were concerned. And I think, looking back at that time, honestly, and the fact that he even suggested law school for me, I didn’t realize how progressive he was, because all of the Vietnamese kids my age, all my peer, were going to science-based fields. They were all going to pharmacy, or dental school, or medical school, or engineering. There were—nobody going to law school, especially females going to law school. And now, I can even recount a couple of instances where that was even—that kind of forwardthinking step was kind of—was a shock for some people. Because there was a Vietnamese friend of mine at UD at the time, and when he found out that I was going to apply to law school, he asked me, “Well, how are you going to be able to find a husband if you’re going to be a lawyer? Everybody’s going to be intimidated by you and by you being that educated.” careers ; college ; financial pressure ; graduate school ; law school ; professional school ; University of Dallas ; University of Houston 3114 Legal career BRODY: Okay. And what kind of law did you end up practicing? TRAN: Okay, so my first—I went to law school knowing that I didn’t want to do litigation, but I did well in law school because I can read and write very well. And I loved constitutional law and I loved everything that was more principle-based, rather than contract-based or property rights or criminal law and whatnot. I was really drawn to the policy work more. And so as I got closer to graduation, I did a few clerkships. I clerked at a law firm in their corporate law department, and then I clerked with the Supreme Court. And so I knew that I had a strength in being able to write judicial decisions and researching and writing, and so I wasn’t quite ready to make a decision as to what law field I wanted to go into, and so I was able to get a position with the Attorney General’s Honors Program. The Attorney General’s Honors Program, they recruit students out of law school and they place them in different positions within the Department of Justice. And so I was—I interviewed with a judge from the Board of Immigration Appeals, and he actually offered me a clerkship with the Houston Immigration Court. So I clerked for five immigration judges my first year out of school, and that was, you know, where I was able to actually see firsthand human rights law, immigration law, asylum law, and how it worked and how it got played, and to see the laws changing right before my eyes while I was there that first year. I mean, I remember having a case where the gentleman had one small conviction for possession of marijuana, and because he never applied for citizenship—he was thirty, he never applied for citizenship—that made him subject to deportation under the law. But all his family were U.S. citizens or permanent residents, he had a gainful job, he’d never had any other criminal record, and apparently it wasn’t even his marijuana. He was driving—he was on a date with a girl and it was hers, and he got stopped for speeding, and he took the hit for her. That landed him in deportation proceedings. But under the law before the Immigration Reform Act, he would go before the immigration court, and that would’ve been a slam dunk case for relief. We would grant him—he met other requirements that would be in his favor, he would be granted relief from deportation and hopefully, you know, nothing like that would ever happen again. But before his case came up for hearing, the Immigration Reform Act was passed, and that took away that right. BRODY: So what happened to him? TRAN: I’m not sure, because they kept having to defer his case, and so that—and then also, the experience of having—and asylum, unlike what people think, is very hard to get. I mean, I had the awful job of determining people’s future because the judges—if it was a really clear case that they would grant it or deny it, they would do it right then and there in their oral decision. If it was a difficult case they would give it to me, and then I would have to research the law and I’d have to read the transcript, and then I would have to make that decision. And it was very heartbreaking to have to deny people’s asylum cases because they didn’t meet the standards under the law for asylum. Their lives were in danger, they were targeted by people in their home country, but it wasn’t—you know, on the five protected grounds of, you know, race, religion, whatever. And so I knew—after my first year there, I didn’t want to continue in that field, because I just wasn’t sure if I had it in me to continue to fight something like that, because I am not a fighter. I prefer to be able to work together, collaborate on changes to help people. So that’s why I was always drawn to policy. And so I went back to get an LL.M. [Legum Magister] in health law and health policy, because that was really where I felt my passion was. And so I applied and got accepted into the LL.M. program at U of H, which was, at that time, one of the best programs in the nation. And so I had a class—was in a class with five people ; really great, you know, minds and I really enjoyed my study there. I got to study one summer with—through Syracuse University and went to study in Europe and studied their healthcare system and meet with all their bioethicists, and I felt like health policy is something that is universal to everybody and it’s where you can make a lot of difference. But then I got recruited by these law firms. (laughs) I was facing graduation at that time and thinking, you know, I got all these student loan debts, my brother is still in medical school, he still has residency to go through, my parents have these younger kids to take care of, my sister was still in medical school, and I felt that pressure to at least get out and start making money and start helping them. And so I was recruited by a big law firm to work in their health law department, but it was really transactional work ; hospital mergers and whatnot with that regulatory overlay. So that was a lot of what I did for seventeen years. But because of my immigration background, there was always a need for immigration help too, so I also built a book of business with companies that were looking to hire people from outside the country ; you know, hospitals that were needing to hire cancer researchers or cardiac CT [cardiothoracic] surgeons that they weren’t able to find in the U.S., or engineers that were more involved in R and D [Research and Development] because the U.S. engineers tend to get their bachelor’s and go and work, whereas the foreign graduates would go on and get their master’s and their Ph.D.s, and those were the skillsets that a lot of the R and D companies were looking for. asylum law ; human rights law 3521 Impact of refugee experience on attitudes about the law BRODY: Interesting. How much did your own experience, your own life experience, inform your work in the law, or your way of looking at the law? TRAN: Oh, it just really, definitely colors everything that I look at, and how I look at— BRODY: How so? TRAN: Well, basic human rights. I mean, to me, law is not just local or federal, but there’s some basic human laws that preexist even the, you know, the formation of this country. Asylum is a doctrine that has been around for thousands and thousands of years, that human beings have an ethical, even a moral and legal obligation to give safe haven to people who are fleeing from their country because they are not able to exercise some very basic rights, or they’re not able to change something that is so immutable to them as, you know, the race that they were born in or the religion that they followed. And so I look at law with everything from that stance, you know, a basic human rights stance, and due process. And so even if it’s a traffic light law that they implement, I am a strong believer that you have to go through the whole due process, you know, you have to meet due process in implementing something like that. BRODY: Yeah. So it sounds like your own experience is really informing how you have gone about your work and—are there other things that you’ve been doing that you feel like are flavored by the experiences you’ve had? TRAN: Yes, definitely. So after the—I think practice of transaction law is really—it’s great, but it’s very—the actual application of it’s all reading and writing and arguing over little points and deals and, in the end, it’s about, you know, formalizing in paper and legalese what each party wants to get out of a particular deal, whether it’s a hospitalmerger or, you know, a large multibillion dollar deal to develop a sports arena. It’s about making money and engaging in, you know, transactions between parties, but it always came down to money in the end. That was the very—you know, the ultimate goal of the transactions that I did, all the MNA [Master Netting Agreement] work that I did, and it was so far removed from where I wanted to be, what I wanted to be able to do and the connection that I made. So being able to maintain the immigration law piece of my practice, even if I was representing a hospital or a company that was bringing in an engineer—I got to speak to the engineer, I got to get information about them, and even if I never met the person, I knew that I was actually making a difference in somebody’s life. I was able to give them an opportunity to contribute to society. And also, it really made me understand why this country had been so far ahead and had become a leader in the world is because we had this constant intake, this constantly influx of new talent and of skill and new motivation that drove the country forward in progress. I mean, I was bringing in people that had skills that were just phenomenal, people that were doing, you know, research that was not being done in the U.S. in every field, whether it was petroleum exploration or medical field. And, you know, being able to bring them in—and they’re the ones who were contributing to our growth as a country. And so I did feel like I was, in a way, contributing back in that way. due process ; human rights ; law ; legal views 3791 Engagement with politics BRODY: Sure. That sounds like—that makes me think about politics too. Are you—have you or your family been engaged with politics in the United States? TRAN: Oh, yes. Well, we’ve proven very active, I think—I was not as—had I not gone into law, I don’t think I would’ve been as—in a position to even be knowledgeable enough, but I think my first year out of school and seeing how a piece of legislation that was passed by a bipartisan Congress and signed by a Democratic president—even though when he signed it, he signed it begrudgingly saying, you know, “I don’t agree with this law, it’s going to affect a lot of family members—people who have lived here for a long time.” I think what he was saying was that, “Reelect me and we’ll try to find a way to fix it.” But it’s a lot easier to pass a law than to fix a law. It takes a lot more time (laughs) and effort into fixing a law. And so that was my first taste of seeing how politics and law affects everyday lives. I mean, in my practice I had another situation where there was a teenage boy who was eighteen at the time, same situation. He was a permanent resident, able to, you know—just never bothered to apply for citizenship, and he was facing deportation. And Lamar Smith, who was a congressman in Texas at that time, he was one of the proponents of this Immigration Reform Act that was passed in ’95. His mom that this—this gentleman’s mom lived in Lamar Smith’s district. She went to his office and explained her son’s situation, and their response was, “Well, why don’t you write down all of your equities and present it before the immigration court?” I mean they had no idea that they had taken that relief away from this family. BRODY: Yeah, the real-life impact of the law. TRAN: Exactly, and it really opened my eyes to the fact that we elect people to represent us, and we elect them to make sure that laws that are passed are going to benefit us as a society, yet a lot of these lawmakers are taking actions and doing things that they don’t even understand the consequences of. BRODY: Yeah, how do you think that can be addressed? TRAN: Well, I mean, I think more education, but that’s really hard. I mean, I think— when I left law and went back to do occupational therapy, which was my second career, I thought there’s always going to be somebody. I mean, I was very impressed with the bar at the time, I got to meet a lot of very articulate people, a lot of very driven people, especially in the immigration bar, and I always felt that they’re always going to be there to fight the good fight. They were always going to be able to do it better than I can, because I’m not as articulate as they are, I am not as capable as they are, and so there’s always going to be people that are going to be able to fight and stand up in this area. But I’m just ready to do something that’s going to be a lot more—not as combative. That’s going to be more in my own caregiving nature. immigrants ; Immigration Reform Act 1985 ; law ; politics 4008 Career change to occupational therapy BRODY: So you’re doing occupational therapy now? TRAN: Yes. (laughs) BRODY: Tell me what led you down that path. TRAN: Okay, so after my fourth child was born, you know, I guess I was going back to my roots in psychology, and I was—I kept looking at him and thinking, You know, he’s going to be—eighteen years he’s going to be gone, and what am I going to do? Am I ©Baylor University 37 going to continue sitting at my desk and writing these petitions and—yeah, it’s great to talk. My favorite part of practice was being able to talk to people and talk to clients and consult with them but, you know, the work itself that I do for them is all paper-driven, and it was very isolating, because I do need that human interaction. And so after about seventeen years of it I said, you know, I need to do something else and I want to do something else. The more I looked to occupational therapy the more I really felt like that was field for me because, first of all, I just believe in the power of occupational therapy because it helps people be able to function in a better—you know, function with what needs that they have in their lives and what they desire to be able to—to do in their life, to make their life more satisfying. And with my background in health policy, I had studied, you know, all the different—you know, the different approaches to healthcare, not just in the U.S. but in Europe too. And having a lot of healthcare professionals in my family that a lot of doctors—it was frustrating to see doctors patching people up and sending them home, but they’re not giving any instruction or any assistance in what they—they still need to live their life, they still have a baby to feed, they still have kids to take care of, they still have a dog to walk, and doctors, they just, you know, operate on them or they give them medication and that was it. And so I did see that the more research I did, the more I saw that occupational therapy was a field that I could be able to be able to pull from both my health policy background as well as my law background and then, also, my own—I think my personal talents, because I have a talent for being able to identify when one of my kids was struggling with a task and helping them be able to practice that one step until they are able to master it. And so I’m just a natural problem solver by nature. And so it’s a great field for me. I mean, I love it. I worked really hard, ©Baylor University 38 harder than I have expected because education changed so much from the twentysomething years before when I had last gone to school, but my goal in the end is always to be able to at least practice a few years. And also occupational therapy gave me the freedom to do work that was more fungible than law. I mean, when I was doing law, I would have a client that I would stick with for months or years, you know? And it wasn’t something that I could easily transfer to somebody else. Every time I had a baby, I was either working immediately afterwards or meeting clients a week later or consulting with another attorney on another client, so I never was able to get away from that work because my fingerprint was all over it. And it was very stressful to be able to know that that kind of responsibility hung on me while I had so many other responsibilities at home in raising my kids too, and helping Thai with his practice. So I saw occupational therapy—I went in knowing that I would only do PRN [pro re nata] work, and that would give me the flexibility to be able to do that work, and then when the kids are older, be able to go back and be able to speak with a lot more authority that I was in the clinical world and I could identify where all the problems are and be able to be a part of the solution for it. career change ; health policy ; occupational therapy 4279 Marriage and Family Life/Role of Vietnamese culture in approach to family BRODY: So you—that sounds like a good transition but a really different world that you went through, law to occupational therapy. (Tran laughs) You mentioned your family, so your husband and you have four kids. Tell me a little bit about your home life. TRAN: Oh gosh, it’s very hectic, to say the least. (laughs) BRODY: So your husband is— ©Baylor University 39 TRAN: Yes, he’s also Vietnamese, he came to the U.S. when he was ten, not in ’75, but they left in ’79. BRODY: How did you meet? TRAN: We met—he was a classmate of my sister’s in medical school. So I met him through her. And so we dated—started dating after I graduated from law school. BRODY: Had you always thought that you would marry another Vietnamese person? TRAN: No, it’s so funny, I grew up thinking that Vietnamese men were yucky, (laughs) because of the stories I told you earlier. You know, they were, you know, very chauvinistic and weren’t very nice. I didn’t think that they were very nice and didn’t appreciate women and what they can bring to the table. And so I really didn’t, all through high school, even, I didn’t think that I would ever marry a Vietnamese person. It wasn’t until college where I felt that I was able to come into my own and really identify with—I think in college, I was able to identify with more the—being away from my family, I think, also made me realize how homesick I was and how much I valued my family and my connection with my family. Through that, I was able to really know myself more, in that sense, and I realized that, you know, I probably would marry a Vietnamese person because they did share the same, I think, approach to family. connections to family ; family life ; identity ; marriage ; values 4388 Ideas about family life BRODY: Yeah, can you tell me about, like, how you would articulate that approach to family, or that mindset? TRAN: I think because family is not—at least the culture that I came from, family is not just the nuclear family, because I grew up with my uncle in the house, my grandmother in the house, my two aunts, and they didn’t leave until they got married. And even when they got married, they were still very involved in our lives. We saw them weekly, all three of them had houses that were within two miles of us and we saw each other every weekend. BRODY: For meals? TRAN: Yes. And so raising a family was not just the job of two parents, but it was also the job of the aunts and uncles too. And, you know, you have that support, and when you—when I was living away, for the first time, from my family in college—even though it wasn’t that far, but just not being in the house anymore—was the first time I felt, like, true loneliness. And I think having family grounds you. You know, grounds you in a way that when you’re facing all the changes that life will throw at you, you do have them to fall back on. You do have them as sounding boards to help guide you. My cousin, my aunt’s daughter, got pregnant when she was sixteen. And what she—I really do think that if she had not been born in the family that she was born in—and then also the man—the boy that she was involved in, he was also Vietnamese—and she could’ve easily been— end up being another welfare mom, you know? But the whole family came together and problem-solved together how to address the situation, how to support her, and they always called on my dad, because they didn’t have a dad around, so they always called on my dad for advice and guidance. And so she ended up having the baby and my aunt says,“You’re not going to get married, even if you need to graduate from high school at least.” So she graduated from high school, and even after high school she goes, “You’re not going to get married until you graduate from college, you need to go to college.” During that time, his mom took care of the baby for them, and my grandmother, my aunts, everybody was there for her when she needed. She always had somebody to help her with the baby because she had family on both sides, and she wouldn’t have been able to have that, you know, if she had been born, I think, in a different situation or under different circumstances. extended family ; parenting 4587 Dating BRODY: Sure. That makes sense. So you went on a date, you were set up by your sister. TRAN: Oh, I wasn’t set up. (laughs) So she—yeah, so my sister, you know, in the medical field, there were a lot more Vietnamese people, students, than in law school. And so she—when she started medical school, she got to know all the other Vietnamese students in her class. And she was making a Vietnamese noodle soup at our apartment, and I lived with her at the time. So she invited all of them over for dinner and that’s how I met him. Yeah, but we didn’t start dating until two years later. We would see each other at different social gatherings and whatnot, but didn’t date until two years after we met. BRODY: Right. And then now it’s been how many years? TRAN: (laughs) Wow. I think it’s going to be twenty years anniversary next year, in 2019. So almost twenty-three years? children ; dating ; marriage ; pho 4648 Identity and Tradition BRODY: Wow, and four kids. And so when you think about your life together and your kids, do you identify yourself more as Vietnamese, Vietnamese American? Do you notice differences between your perspective and your husband’s perspective? TRAN: Oh yes, I think so. I mean, I think Thai is a lot more—he’s more of a traditionalist in terms of Vietnamese values ; one, because he’s older and, I think, two, because his family is even more traditional than mine. His family, on a whole, is older than my family. His parents are more than ten years older, and his oldest sister is a grandmother, his oldest sister. And so he is towards the younger end of his siblings, and he has an extended family that’s very close, even closer than my family. And so they identify very strongly with their roots. And I understand that too. Like, his siblings, all eight of them are married to Vietnamese. His brother was involved with a girl who was Filipino and he has a son from that relationship, but he eventually married a Vietnamese girl. And so they have a child. And on my side, three of our siblings are married to Vietnamese and three are married to Caucasians, Americans. And we were much younger ; the oldest sibling in my family was six when we came over, and I was four. And I think being a girl, I don’t know if it’s just—I don’t know if it’s more cultural—as I’ve gotten older, I don’t know if it’s more cultural or it was more the fact of the gender that makes a difference in how close you stay to your family, because both my brothers, one’s married to an American Caucasian girl and one is married to a Vietnamese, but both of them, I think, are not as close and as attentive as the daughters are—including the daughters who are not married to Vietnamese. So as I’ve gotten older, I think my perspective has gotten broader in that sense, because in my own experience as a daughter, you know, when my grandmother was towards the end of her life and she was on her deathbed, all the granddaughters, every single one of the granddaughters—I think the youngest granddaughter, at that time, was high school or even early college. All the granddaughters were there. Not only all the granddaughters were there, but each granddaughter’s either husband, fiancé, or boyfriend was present. And the boyfriends were of all different types of ethnic background. But there was only one grandson that was there, and he was the one who was not dating anybody or married at that time. |01:20:59| generational differences ; identity ; interethnic marriage ; interracial marriage ; traditions ; values ; Vietnamese traditions 4862 American identity vs. Vietnamese American identity BRODY: So it’s hard to parse out gender, culture, and so on. I don’t know. So do you think of yourself as American? TRAN: I think of myself as—I think I think of myself as Vietnamese American, for sure. BRODY: And what does that mean to you? TRAN: I think it means that I’m an immigrant, you know? First of all, I’m an immigrant who comes from an ethnic culture that has a specific taste in food, they share certain traditions and perceptions in life. But then I’m also very, I think, Americanized. I’ve always been—you know, it was kind of hard because the Vietnamese kids that I knew growing up all the way through school always considered my sister and me too Americanized, but then we were never Americanized enough for our American friends. (laughs) But the reason why is because I think we weren’t—my dad did not raise us— he’s traditional, but I think his mindset and his outlook on our development encouraged us to be—to, I think, express ourself and pursue interests that probably wouldn’t even be on the mindset or even be in the reality of some of my peer. I mean, I didn’t realize until I was in—probably in college—that some of my friends, some of my Vietnamese girl friends have been told by their parents, had been made to feel that they were less because they were girls, or they were discouraged from pursuing higher educational opportunities or higher education because they were girls. BRODY: Wow, by their parents. TRAN: By their parents. American identity ; gender ; identity ; immigrant identity ; tradition ; Vietnamese American identity 4955 Feminism/Attitudes about gender I didn’t realize until I was in—probably in college—that some of my friends, some of my Vietnamese girl friends have been told by their parents, had been made to feel that they were less because they were girls, or they were discouraged from pursuing higher educational opportunities or higher education because they were girls. BRODY: Wow, by their parents. TRAN: By their parents. BRODY: Growing up, even though they were growing up here in the United States. So your dad was not like that? TRAN: Not at all, and I didn’t even—I wasn’t even aware of that until I started talking more to my other Vietnamese girl friends as we’ve gotten older. I had a friend who—her dream was always to go to medical school, and she was the second oldest, but her dad told her that she had to go to pharmacy school because she would be too old to get married if she went to medical school. So her older brother went to medical school. Her baby sister went to medical school, and her younger brother went to medical school. But she was the only one who went to a pharmacy school. BRODY: That’s a sad story. TRAN: Yes. BRODY: So as a mom of daughters—I know you have daughters as well as a son—you know, who grew up here, how do you approach those types of issues? TRAN: I think I’ve become a lot—I’ve found my feminist voice a lot more since having daughters. I try to let them know that I’m not one to, I think, sugarcoat the world for them. I’m not going to say, “Oh, you could be the best that you can be.” Yes, I tell them, I encourage them all the time, you can be whatever you want with a lot of hard work. And that’s part of the reason why I decided to go back to school, because I felt that the time that I was put into going to school and—versus the time that I would spend being with them and raising them, I think what—if I had lived by example, it could show them that they can do whatever, they do have the strength to do whatever they want if they— with enough hard work. But then I also am very realistic to let them know all the—I think, all the dynamics in our culture and our society still that are still working against that. BRODY: What do you mean by that? TRAN: To be a country as we are now and never having had a female leader is just—I think it speaks volumes to the culture. The American culture is a lot more misogynist than, I think, I thought and, I think, what most people had thought, and so we’re right at this point where there’s the turning point of “#MeToo.” We still have a long way to go, I think, in changing people’s perceptions, and I think it’s turning towards the right way, in the right direction, but I always tell our girls that, you know, it’s up to their generation to bring it even further along. #MeToo ; feminism ; gender ; misogyny Feminism 5153 Thoughts about American identity/Freedom and opportunity BRODY: Right. That’s hopeful. When you think about your kids growing up as, obviously, American and yourself and your own experiences and your husband’s experiences and your parents’ experiences, what—if you could in just a couple of words or one word, describe what it means to you to be American. What does that mean when somebody says, “I’m American,” or, you know, sum up what that sort of means to you personally? TRAN: I think America, the U.S., has always been—has stood in a position of uniqueness in the opportunities. And I know it sounds very cliché-ist, but it’s true that the opportunities that are available to immigrants here, to be able to be who they want to be and to be able to pursue their dreams or what they want to accomplish with enough work—and luck too, because that’s not to say if you have no family support, how can you even go to school? I mean, if you have five kids and you have nobody to watch them, how can you even go to school? And so—but I still think that the U.S. has more open doors and avenues, opportunities that will allow people who are willing to and able to, to be able to make something of themself, whatever that may be, more than other cultures. We have friends in Italy and I talk to them a lot about, you know, about the differences. And in Italy and in a lot of European countries still, there are still a lot of class-based barriers to advancement that are not available in the U.S. because, you know, we were— we’re a hodgepodge of immigrants that came in with, you know, not a lot of distinction between class. And so I think being American is being able to—I think, being a beneficiary of that system, coming from that system where you think of the mindset of having that individual liberty to do what you want and accomplish what you want in your life and in your family’s life and making those decisions. In a sense, that also adds to some of our problems in our—you know, because we give voice to everybody, even if it’s a dissenter, then a lot of the policies that we want to be able to enact that—you know, in Europe you would think, oh yeah, it’s unbalanced, it’s going to be—that makes more sense, this is more pragmatic, it’s going to benefit more people. But, you know, because we have to respect the religious liberty of a certain group of people, we’re not able to provide the level of sexual education in our school as the majority of the people would want, and that’s just one example. But I think being American is having to live with that reality— BRODY: Compromise. TRAN: —is that you have to give voice and have to respect everybody’s voice. I think it’s a huge amount of freedom and liberty that people take advantage of and don’t always use it in the right way and can hurt people through the exercise of their freedom, but at the same time, it opens you up to possibilities that are not available in other countries. American identity ; being American ; class ; freedom ; hard work ; immigration ; liberty ; luck ; opportunities ; opportunity ; social class 5399 Vietnamese community in North Texas today/Changes in the community BRODY: That’s true. I wanted to circle back just to one more thing, the Vietnamese community today. What are the main differences that you notice between when you first—your family first came, and what we have around us in north Texas today. ©Baylor University 48 TRAN: I think that’s really interesting, because I left Dallas about ten years to go to law school and I was down there for ten years before I moved back. And so when I moved back I had—our first child was one, and I thought coming back, I’m going to go back to the same community, it’s going to be the same tight-knit community, both within my family and then within the larger Vietnamese community where I’m going to raise my kids, and it did not—it has not turned out to be like that, surprisingly. BRODY: Really? What are the differences? TRAN: I think, you know, back then the community was much smaller, so it was a lot— we had to rely more on each other. And now the community is so large, it’s not homogenous anymore. It’s made up of people with—Vietnamese people with very many—with different backgrounds who came over through different avenues and, even now, is made of Vietnamese people who are here temporarily. You know, people who are here on student visas, people who have no intention of staying here but are just currently here to visit family, or currently here to get an education or are currently here to work a temporary job and go back to Vietnam. And so it’s not as tight-knit, it’s not as homogenous, and as our families have gotten older, my parents—you know, each individual family becomes their own family. Like my uncle has become the head of his own family with his four kids and eventually his grandkids, and my dad is the same way, and so within the aunts and uncles, we’re not as close anymore either. BRODY: Is that due to time or distance? TRAN: I think it’s time and distance, and then also the passing of my grandmother, because she was the one that tied everybody together. And then also because my husband did not grow up in a Vietnamese community, really. He’s more Vietnamese than I am, but he grew up in El Paso with his uncle, so he didn’t go to temple, he didn’t have a traditional Vietnamese community, a greater Vietnamese community that he saw regularly. He had a bigger network of people because of his family being bigger and the people they knew. So he had interaction with the Vietnamese community through, I think, more family interaction. And he’s also very anti-religious establishment, and so raising—he wasn’t too keen on raising our kids in the Vietnamese Catholic church, but that was the only avenue we could go—it was only placement for them to be able to learn and interact with other Vietnamese kids. And then I thought, Well, why don’t we go—if you’re against the Catholic church, let’s put them in the temple. Because, you know, they also offer a lot of the same social activities. No, he’s not—he didn’t want to send them to a temple, (laughs) and so they have grown up with not as much interaction with Vietnamese— Dallas ; Vietnamese community 5613 Passing on Vietnamese language BRODY: Do they speak Vietnamese? TRAN: They don’t. BRODY: Because those two avenues would’ve been the way to learn the language. TRAN: Yes, exactly. Because we speak English, there’s no need for them to speak Vietnamese, even though our oldest spoke Vietnamese until she started preschool and ©Baylor University 50 then after that, everybody else—all the other kids just spoke English because she spoke English. BRODY: Tell me about how that makes you feel, are you— TRAN: I feel like that is my biggest failure as a parent, because my in-laws, they don’t speak Vietnamese—I mean, they don’t speak English. They came over when they were in their sixties, and so they resettled from Vietnam into Holland for many years. And they were there until they—until I started dating Thai. And so when they finally came to the U.S., they were much older, probably about my grandmother’s age. So by then, it’s too late to really pick up a new language. And English is a hard language to pick up when you’re older, and so my kids cannot communicate with their grandparents on their dad’s side. And I do feel a lot of guilt because of that, because it’s—it really affects their ability to get to know their grandparents, and for the grandparents to get to know them, too. But they can speak to my parents, because my parents know English. BRODY: Sure. Yeah, language is an important piece of culture, for sure. TRAN: Yes, it really is. culture ; English language ; language learning ; parenting ; Vietnamese language 5706 Reflections on immigrants and assimilation/Melting Pot BRODY: Well, I want to say thank you for this conversation. Is there anything that you wanted to add or anything that I did not ask you? TRAN: Oh gosh, I think that—I think I want to add, like, one perception that I was able to gain when I started working at Zale Lipshy [University Hospital], where I do my PRN work with occupational therapy. I was able to treat a patient who was Nigerian, and he belongs to a Catholic church, a Nigerian Catholic church. And seeing the men who would come and visit him from the church community, it reminded me of my family back in, you know, back when we first came to the US and how tight-knit they were, and it does make me sad, in a way, to see that every group of immigrants that have come to the U.S., eventually they end up integrating into the general population and then eventually phasing out in their cultural values until another group comes in. And so, you know, I think that’s just the process of life. BRODY: Do you think that’s the melting pot? TRAN: Yeah, that’s the melting pot. But we have to keep more metals (laughs) coming in to add to that pot, because that’s what adds to the color of it. BRODY: That’s really interesting, yes, and this area certainly has a lot of different immigrant groups melting together, so— TRAN: Well, thank you so much for speaking with me to today. assimilation ; immigrant integration ; immigration ; integration ; melting pot ; Zale Lipshy Baylor University Institute for Oral History Yen Tran Oral History Memoir Interview Number 1 Interviewed by Betsy T. Brody November 2, 2018 Richardson, Texas Project -- Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans: The Making of the Vietnamese Community in North Texas BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is November 2, 2018. I am interviewing, for the first time, Ms. Yen Tran. This interview is taking place in my home in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History, and is part of the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. Okay, thank you for joining me, and I just wanted to ask you, first of all, how old were you when you left Vietnam? |00:00:29| TRAN: I was four. I was four years old. BRODY: Tell me about how you got here and what your story was. TRAN: Well, my dad had worked for the US embassy in Vietnam as an interpreter, and so before the actual fall he was well aware that he would not be able to stay in the country once the Viet Congs took over, and so-- BRODY: It would be too dangerous? TRAN: Yes. And actually, before that, he had been picked up a couple of times already by the local authorities, and my mom had to actually go and find him and pay money to get him out. So even though during the time that he had worked with the US embassy, he didn&#039 ; t make his job or his role with them very public, but he knew that his life and our lives would be in danger if we had stayed. And so he was responsible for my grandmother and my younger--his two younger sisters and younger brother from the age of ten. And so he didn&#039 ; t just think about the family as his wife and the four kids that he had, but he had an obligation to take his mom along, his two teenage sisters and his brother, who was studying at university at that time. And so we were airlifted from Vietnam and we travelled through Guam, then the Philippines, and then stayed in a refugee camp in California before we were offered permanent resettlement in Dallas. We were sponsored by the Catholic Church and the diocese in Dallas. There were about twenty families that were sponsored, and we were taken in by the people at the St. Pius Church in east Dallas. My father, at the time, when we were leaving, he sent us on--my brothers and sisters and my mom and his two sisters and his mom first, so it was just two female adults and six underage children travelling to Guam and the Philippines, and my father had to get an American GI [General Issue] to fly him by helicopter over to the island to look for his younger brother who was working on his PhD, I believe, at that time on an island right off of Vietnam. And so he found him, and then miraculously they were dropped in the same refugee camp in Guam where we were. And then from there we were able to travel together as a family. BRODY: That&#039 ; s amazing that he ended up in the same place that you were. TRAN: It really was. |00:03:29| BRODY: What do you remember--I know you were young, but what do you remember of the airlift? TRAN: I remember--so I remember vividly the day that we left. There was a candy store--it wasn&#039 ; t even really a candy store, it was probably just a stand--that I used to walk to every day to buy candy. And the day that we left, I remember seeing people tearing down the candy stand and not really understanding, you know, what was going on. Then my grandmother, who is--she&#039 ; s a survivor and she&#039 ; s very loud and she was probably the one that&#039 ; s constantly keeping us together, because I&#039 ; m sure it was complete chaos at that time with so--them trying to get so many people out of the country. It was a miracle that they kept all of us together (laughs) during the trip. But I do remember the day that we were reunited with my dad and my uncle, because we were in the refugee camp, I was just waking up from a nap, and I could hear my grandmother and my aunt say, &quot ; Oh, there&#039 ; s Sao, there&#039 ; s Sao!&quot ; And I looked around and I saw my dad walking towards us. It was almost like a dream, because at four years old, it&#039 ; s hard to make sense of things, but you also sense it through the adults who are around you and what kind of anxiety and stress that they have, and you could feel that--I don&#039 ; t remember if I knew that my dad wasn&#039 ; t with us, but I do remember the sense of excitement and relief when he came walking towards us, and how my grandmother and my mom was just overwhelmed by it. |00:05:11| BRODY: That&#039 ; s just absolutely amazing that you all were in Guam together. So after Guam, you headed to California? TRAN: I think we went from Guam to the Philippines, and then we went to California. BRODY: And then how did you find out or arrange the--do you know much about how the adults arranged the sponsorship, or-- TRAN: From what I remember, I think we were in California for a while. I remember we lived in tents, you know, and not very different from the tents that we lived in in the Philippines or Guam. But there would be American soldiers working the food lines, and we would go every day to get our food, we had tickets. But I think they were just, at that point, just getting the first wave of refugees in and probably relying on charities and churches to sponsor and help resettle these refugees that were coming in from Vietnam. BRODY: Right, so this is still 1975. TRAN: Yes, 1975. |00:06:20| BRODY: So the connection with North Texas is through the sponsorship of the Catholic Church and St. Pius. Tell me what you remember about your initial impressions or arrival in Texas. TRAN: Oh, wow, so I remember getting on the plane to fly from California to Texas, and I still remember--I think it was the Delta airline, and the stewardess gave me a little pin with wings, and I remember looking out the window and seeing ocean, even. But the first few years, I think I just remember my grandmother and my aunts and uncles, the old adults, just recounting those first days. For us, you know, we were just kids, we just kind of go with the flow to where we were and what we needed to do, because at that time, I was just speaking Vietnamese to my siblings, but you know, soon after our arrival we started kindergarten, and so we started going to school. But my grandmother would talk about how the first--when they first got there, they just didn&#039 ; t even know how to go to a grocery store. My dad said that, you know, he was the first one to ever go to the grocery store, and he didn&#039 ; t know what to even buy, he even bought a jar of oysters, when he brought it home he didn&#039 ; t know what to do with it. (both laugh) And then my mom and my aunts would walk to the store and my uncle would tell them, &quot ; You have to walk&quot ; -- there was a certain route that they thought they had to go in order to get to the store, but my aunt and my grandmother, my mom thought, There&#039 ; s a faster way, but my uncle just kept insisting that they go that way every day. But one day they had enough courage to say, &quot ; You know what? We&#039 ; re not going to listen to them, we&#039 ; re just going this way,&quot ; and so slowly they started, you know, being able to figure things out and navigate through life in the US. |00:08:24| BRODY: Initially, where were you living? TRAN: We were living in--I think we were living in an--I think at the time there were dorms, is what my dad told me. There were dorms on the UTD [University of Texas-- Dallas] campus, or somewhere around there. And then we were actually sponsored, officially sponsored, we started moving in homes and renting homes around the St. Pius neighborhood. Our very first home that we rented was very close to the church there, and of the twenty families that were resettled there, there was--I know of one who still lives there. BRODY: Really? TRAN: Yes. |00:09:10| BRODY: Wow. So you lived in a house near the church. Was the church sort of a hub for the families? TRAN: Yes, it really was. It was a hub for the entire Vietnamese community, and because my dad and my uncle were the only ones who knew how to speak English, they did--they looked to my dad and uncle, especially my dad, a lot too as kind of the liaison and the leader, and every time somebody was in the hospital, they would call my dad to come out and act as an interpreter. He was the one who kind of--he was the one who interfaced with Monsignor Weinzapfel, who was the head--who was the pastor at St. Pius at that time. And we were able to have Vietnamese church, you know, Vietnamese Mass at St. Pius at the four o&#039 ; clock slot on Sunday. And so once that was established, then more Vietnamese families from around the area started congregating to St. Pius. BRODY: That&#039 ; s really interesting. So were there activities for kids, for the Vietnamese refugees and their children or for family activities? TRAN: Yeah, I mean, we would have--you know, they would--every New Year&#039 ; s they would have a special Mass in celebration, and of course they always had the ceremony, the flag ceremony and the anthem, singing of the old anthem, and it was always the old flag, (laughs) it was never the new flag at all. So they still tried to continue that tradition, and then they also offered Vietnamese classes and Vietnamese--and then also Sunday School, so CCD [Confraternity of Christian Doctrine] classes in Vietnamese. So I--my sister and I--I have a twin sister--she and I and a friend of mine who still lives in this area--her parents are the ones who still have that house near St. Pius--we were one of the first, I guess, graduating class to get our first communion in the Vietnamese Catholic community there at St. Pius. BRODY: That&#039 ; s great, I would love to see pictures. TRAN: (laughs) Actually, I do have one. |00:11:33| BRODY: That&#039 ; s interesting, what you said about the anthem and the ceremony and the flag. How involved in the postwar politics of Vietnam do you think--I mean, in your experience, were some of the older generation refugees? TRAN: They took a very strong stance because, you know, the wave of immigrants I came with were the ones who were truly, you know, fleeing from the war because of their own political stance, and they had lost their country not of their own will. They didn&#039 ; t leave their country of their own will, and so there was a loss there, and there was a lot of fear of the communists. I remember my aunts always making comments and jokes about, &quot ; Oh, the Viet Congs, they&#039 ; re going to come get us,&quot ; or &quot ; He&#039 ; s Viet Cong,&quot ; or whatever. BRODY: Even after being here? TRAN: Yes. Being here, you would always hear, &quot ; Oh, he&#039 ; s a Viet Cong, he&#039 ; s Viet Cong.&quot ; And so, you know, I grew up with that--the term Viet Cong was meaning something to be scared and fearful of, because I heard the adults in my family, you know, speaking--using it in a way that was not--that was out of fear, anxiety, and negative connotation. But over the years as, you know, the US and Vietnam relations had started to thaw, several years ago there was a lady who--I guess that she&#039 ; s a nanny for my sister and she also helped me out when Mi Lan, my second, was born. And her daughter was going through the senior project that she was doing in high school, and so she wanted to interview me, and the questions that--she made a comment during the interview, because she grew up--she was born and grew up under the new regime. And the comments that she made, initially I was surprised at my reaction, because I was very taken aback that she was very sympathetic to the government that she grew up in. And it was interesting that I caught myself having that reaction. |00:14:04| BRODY: Yeah, that is really interesting, the different generational experience, I guess. Tell me about school. So if you were kindergarten when you first came, what was your experience of--what high school--or what kindergarten did you go to? TRAN: So I went to Gill Elementary. We started off in kindergarten with a lot of the other Vietnamese children that had also relocated close to St. Pius. And then after a year, my dad found a house probably about, maybe, two miles away, but in another school zone, and so our whole family moved there and then I went to Truett Elementary until sixth grade, because elementary school went through sixth grade at that time. BRODY: So in the first school, where there were a lot of Vietnamese kids, what was that like? Were you--did you feel comfortable having people who had shared a similar experience? TRAN: I don&#039 ; t remember much about it, but I do remember not feeling out of place in kindergarten. I honestly didn&#039 ; t feel out of place until we moved, in first grade, to the school that was just two miles away, but didn&#039 ; t have any Vietnamese students there. So looking back, I can now put it into perspective and put in context, you know, and make more sense of some of the experiences and how I was--I guess how some of the students reacted to me and-- |00:15:41| BRODY: Tell me about that. How did they react to you? TRAN: I do remember standing in the lunch line one time, and there was a friend of mine, her name was--I don&#039 ; t remember her name now--she was a very sweet girl, we were very close and she always made me feel welcomed, even though I started school, not in kindergarten but first grade. And we were standing in lunch line and she told me that her uncle--she knew that I was Vietnamese, and she said that her--and she said it not in a mean way but just like what a six-year-old would say. She said, &quot ; Yeah, my uncle fought in the Vietnam War, and he told me that I&#039 ; m not supposed to talk to anybody who&#039 ; s Vietnamese.&quot ; BRODY: Oh boy. TRAN: And I couldn&#039 ; t--you know, as a six-year-old I just couldn&#039 ; t--I couldn&#039 ; t make sense of it. I didn&#039 ; t know how I was supposed to feel, but I didn&#039 ; t know even how to respond to that at the time. |00:16:44| BRODY: Do you remember how you responded? TRAN: I don&#039 ; t remember saying anything because, you know, I didn&#039 ; t know much about the war other than that we had to leave our country and that, I do know that the Vietnamese who ran the country at that time were bad people, is what I thought. And it didn&#039 ; t make sense to me as a child that my family had fought alongside the Americans, and yet, here was an American man who had never met me before--and I was only a first grader--and he was telling his niece not to talk to me because I was from a different, you know, ethnicity or from that country. I just--yeah, it was--I think my reaction was more confusion. BRODY: Sure, sure. So the rest of your elementary school experience were--I mean, did more Vietnamese kids move into this school, or were you pretty much--? TRAN: There were a few, yes. There were a few. After a couple of years there was another kid and another kid, and they would--if my brother was around, because he was two years older, the school administration would call my brother to come and help translate for him or her, and then when he moved on--I remember, there was another girl who was new, and they actually called me to help translate for her and explain to her, you know, you can eat here, this is time to eat, this is time to go to school, go back to class. But I do remember, other than that one incident with my friend whose uncle said, you know, not--that she wasn&#039 ; t allowed to talk to me, but I do remember that there were kids who were being bused into the school where I was going ; kids who didn&#039 ; t live in the area, a lot of African American kids. And you know, I think looking back, I was experiencing and witnessing, you know, I guess, the busing phenomenon. BRODY: Right, in Dallas. TRAN: In Dallas, in the south. |00:18:59| BRODY: Yeah. What do you remember about that? Was there conflict? TRAN: Oh yes, there was a lot of conflict. I mean, you&#039 ; ve got--at the time I didn&#039 ; t understand why there was so much conflict, but now, you know, knowing the history and knowing how recent that history was, then having--injecting into that mix a whole new group of people that most people had never--in America--had never even encountered before. It must&#039 ; ve been really hard for all the children at that time to be able to make sense of. BRODY: Yeah. I think as children, it&#039 ; s probably very difficult to process what&#039 ; s going on. TRAN: Yes. Um-hm. |00:19:45| BRODY: With the sponsors, what role did they play, once you got here, in sort of setting up your life here in Texas? TRAN: They helped my dad. Mr. and Mrs. Harmon, they were our sponsors, and they helped my dad and my uncle get a job. I think it was in the computer center, hanging computer tapes, at that time, for Sun Exploration and Production. And then they also helped us, you know, just get our basic necessities, like clothing and furniture and bedding and whatnot. And then they also helped my uncle and my dad go back to school so that they could get a degree. I think both of them went back to school for computer science degrees. And so they were--through that, they were able to get positions, you know, computer analyst positions with Sun Exploration. And they worked there for, I think, until the company changed to Oryx and then, eventually, the entire IT [Information Technology] department was outsourced, maybe about sixteen years ago? And so they both worked at the same company from the time they came to the US until, you know, it was time for either early retirement or being outsourced to another company at the time. BRODY: That&#039 ; s a close family. TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) Exactly. But I do remember the Harmons inviting us over to their house for a party once, and they had a pool. And my brother, I think he&#039 ; s probably six at the time, or seven, he didn&#039 ; t know how to swim but he just ran excitedly out there and there was a little floatie, and he stepped on the floatie and, of course, fell into the pool, and the Harmons&#039 ; daughter had to jump in and save him. (laughs) |00:21:41| BRODY: That&#039 ; s a great story. So your whole family, they do sound very close. Is that something you feel like was, you know, particular to your culture of--or the experience of travelling as refugees and making a new life here? TRAN: I think it&#039 ; s very--I knew it was very particular to the culture, our culture at that time, and I think it was made--reinforced by the fact that my aunts were both underage at that time, because--so there was a certain responsibility that my father had to make sure that they finished school, and then--plus my dad being their caretaker for most of his life. My mom told me that even after she married him, whatever salary that he made, he always sent half of it home to his mom and his siblings, and then the other half was what he used to take care of us. But I think also because, I mean, when you have suffered or gone through something that&#039 ; s life-changing and stressful and traumatic, you do tend to stick together more, and so it wasn&#039 ; t just our family that was close, but all the other families were very tight-knit, too, with each other, and the community was more tight- knit because there were just fewer of us at that time. I mean, there were no Vietnamese grocery stores, you know, so whatever we could come up with, whatever could grow in the garden in our backyard, we shared with other families and vice versa. But our family, compared to other families in the community, was relatively small. My grandmother only had four kids, and so I was always jealous of my friends, because they had twenty cousins and all their cousins went to church and they hung out together, and we had no cousins, because my dad was the oldest and he was the first one to get married. It wasn&#039 ; t until much--I think--I&#039 ; m ten years older than my oldest cousin, so it wasn&#039 ; t until I was ten years old that I even had a cousin. |00:23:56| BRODY: Right. So that community that you&#039 ; re talking about, what kinds of social things did you guys do together? TRAN: Going to church every week. They also did the Christmas celebrations and the Easter celebrations, and that was always special, in addition to the Vietnamese New Year&#039 ; s. So those were always opportunities for us to do more than just go to Mass and pray, but to get together as a community and do programs and, you know, dances or singing together and sharing food. I remember growing up, there was always somebody coming to visit my house ; you know, one of the men, a couple of the men from the church would come to call on my dad, and it was just very much a part of our life. You know, if they come and then--my job was to make sure that there was tea and then we&#039 ; d bring out food or whatever to host the mother there. But it was definitely more of a closer-knit community, not just within our family but then also people visiting each other&#039 ; s homes too. BRODY: Did that persist all the way through, you know, your high school years, or did the community kind of dissipate as time passed, and-- TRAN: Yeah. I think it&#039 ; s dissipated more since times past. I think it probably persisted, probably all the way through even past law school for me, so probably over twenty years. But I think that&#039 ; s probably a function of the fact that my dad was so--had played such a large role in the community. And so every time there was something that--something with the church, then people would come and talk to him about it, and he was instrumental in actually finding a church--a separate physical facility for the Vietnamese congregation, when I was in college. So that was almost twenty years after we came, so almost twenty years after the Vietnamese congregation started at St. Pius, they were able to find a separate church and have their own presence. Because before then, we could only celebrate whenever, you know, St. Pius was available to us. BRODY: Right. So the new church is called-- TRAN: It&#039 ; s called St. Peter&#039 ; s Vietnamese Catholic Church. It&#039 ; s in Garland. |00:26:36| BRODY: I wanted to go back to talk about language because, I mean, obviously, you mentioned that you were speaking Vietnamese with your siblings at the time that you left Vietnam. How quickly or how difficult was it for you to pick up English? TRAN: It was--I guess at four, it wasn&#039 ; t that difficult at all. I remember in kindergarten speaking Vietnamese to my sister and then probably in first grade we were already in English. BRODY: Right. You learned quickly. Was that the experience of your older sibling? TRAN: Yes. BRODY: Yeah, so everybody kind of picked it up real quickly. TRAN: Yes, because he was only six. So it was very easy for him to pick up too. BRODY: Good. TRAN: Plus it was also a way for us to speak without (laughs) the adults understanding what we&#039 ; re saying. (laughs) BRODY: That&#039 ; s really funny. (laughs) So you&#039 ; re still bilingual? TRAN: Yes. BRODY: You speak both Vietnamese and in English. Are all of your siblings? TRAN: I have two younger sisters who were born here, and I think both of them, they do speak it, it&#039 ; s a little more broken than ours, but we--it helped that we had our grandmother live with us, because she could only speak Vietnamese, and she was the one who was in the house all the time. And so she was there when we left, she was there when we got home from school, she was there when our parents weren&#039 ; t home from work yet, and so we had to speak Vietnamese or we couldn&#039 ; t communicate with her. And my grandma, my mom, and my dad only spoke Vietnamese to us too. And so that&#039 ; s why they were able to speak Vietnamese. I don&#039 ; t think that they&#039 ; re as fluent as my brother and my--you know, my twin sister and I, but they&#039 ; re able to hold conversations still. BRODY: Right. So that must&#039 ; ve been pretty comforting for you all to have your grandmother in your house and also a relief for your parents. TRAN: Yes, definitely. |00:28:24| BRODY: You&#039 ; ve mentioned what your dad did. What did you mom do as far as work? TRAN: She worked for--she and my aunt, my oldest aunt--so after my oldest aunt graduated from high school and my mom and she, they both worked at Garrett, I think it&#039 ; s Garrett Electronics. It&#039 ; s a company that made metal detectors. And so they soldered electronic boards. BRODY: Had she had experience doing stuff like that before? TRAN: No, and it seemed like that was the job that a lot of the Vietnamese women did, was working in assembly jobs, working--doing soldering assembly work. BRODY: That&#039 ; s interesting. TRAN: Yeah, my mom worked that. She worked there for probably thirty years, and then my aunt is still working for the same company. BRODY: Oh, really? Are there still a lot of Vietnamese women working there? TRAN: Yes, there are, especially that generation, because they didn&#039 ; t get a chance to learn English as well, and so they weren&#039 ; t--you know, it&#039 ; s a job that didn&#039 ; t--it&#039 ; s more of a hands-on job. |00:29:30| BRODY: Right. That makes sense. So the--okay, you mentioned your garden in your house and the vegetables you grew. I know that there was not that much of a Vietnamese community in terms of the stores and restaurants and things at that time, in the seventies. What kind of vegetables did you grow, and-- TRAN: Oh wow, we grew--my grandmother was--she had a green thumb. So she didn&#039 ; t work because she was older when she came, and so that&#039 ; s what she did in her free time, she would grow bitter melon and squash, all types of Vietnamese squashes, Vietnamese water spinach, and lemongrass. What else? And then this leaf, I don&#039 ; t know how you say it in English, it&#039 ; s called (??). It&#039 ; s a large leaf, it grows on a vine, but it has a really gelatinous consistency to it when you cook it and it&#039 ; s actually supposed to be very good for you. (laughs) And then also cilantro and basil and mints, chives. She would also sprout her own bean sprouts from mung beans, so she was a very avid gardener. BRODY: And did she cook everything too? TRAN: Yes, she cooked. She cooked--and so we grew up eating Vietnamese food. Rice and Vietnamese food, and whatever she cooked, we ate the vegetables of whatever she cooked in the garden. BRODY: So did she teach you how to cook? TRAN: No, (laughs) but I learned from being in the kitchen with my mom, just starting with cutting onions and garlic, and just being in the kitchen with them, I learned to cook from there. But my grandmother, she was always such a very independent women, so she just does it and then would say, &quot ; Well, you do this,&quot ; but she&#039 ; s not--she was not the teacher type, for sure. (both laugh) |00:31:22| BRODY: So we got to first grade. So the rest of elementary school, just tell me, what do you remember about growing up as a Vietnamese American in Dallas through your schooling? TRAN: Well, elementary school was--you know, I remember having really good teachers, and then also some mean teachers at that time. It was a different, I think--it was a different time where teachers were allowed to--some teachers were allowed to yell more. I mean, paddling was really, pretty common. Of course, I mean, I was always (laughs) the perfectly behaved kid, I would never get in trouble at school, but I just never felt like I fit in very well. My--our life didn&#039 ; t consist of a lot of frivolous things. So we went to school--that was our main job--went to church, and we stayed home. And then every once in a while on the weekends, if my mom would take one of us to go the store with her, because she didn&#039 ; t want to go by herself, you know, to have somebody to translate. And that was our life, and so it was hard to develop friendships if you can&#039 ; t go to a birthday party, or you weren&#039 ; t allowed to go to a movie with somebody, because that just wasn&#039 ; t--we couldn&#039 ; t afford it and it just wasn&#039 ; t even, I think, in our parents&#039 ; radar to think that that was an important thing for us. BRODY: So was it just that, or were they afraid as well? TRAN: Yeah, I&#039 ; m sure part of it was they were also afraid of letting us out of their sight. My grandmother, especially, was also a--I think neurotically protective because of, you know, her own life situation, being that old and having to raise four kids by herself. And then my parents, my mom is also a very--a worrywart as well. And so I think it was those first few years, the adults were just focused on surviving, you know? Providing for us, and so, you know, the idea that we would even think about going to another person&#039 ; s house to play, or go to a birthday party, and that wasn&#039 ; t even something that we would even ask permission for. |00:34:00| BRODY: Right. And did they emphasize studying and education? TRAN: Oh, very much so. Very much so. BRODY: Yeah, tell me about that. TRAN: My dad especially, because he was--you know, he came from a very, very poor part of Vietnam, and he lost his dad at a very young age, and so my grandmother, even though she never went to school, she was not literate, she was very determined for her kids, mainly her boys, to have an education because she saw that as the only way to get out of poverty. And so she pushed education a lot for my father and my uncle. And my dad, I think he was the first to even graduate from high school in that time. BRODY: So she did it. TRAN: Yeah. You know, my aunt and my mom worked for--at the Garrett Electronics doing soldering work. So when I was fifteen, I worked a summer with them, and I would listen to my aunt tell stories with the other women about, you know, things that happened with her family. I learned a lot about my family from listening to--during that summer with my aunt. And she told a story about how after my grandmother lost her husband, that a lot of men would come and try to, you know, court her, but she never wanted to remarry. Men would come and try to conscript my dad and my uncle to go and fight in the war--and she&#039 ; s only 4&#039 ; 10&quot ; , seventy-seven pounds, she was a very tiny lady--and she would fight them off, she would not let them take my dad and my uncle to go fight, because she said, &quot ; My boys are going to go to school, they&#039 ; re not going to go and fight your fight and get killed.&quot ; And I don&#039 ; t know how she did it, but she was able to scare them off. (laughs) |00:36:01| BRODY: That&#039 ; s amazing. So they got their education, and then once they were here and had all of you, they also emphasized your studies. TRAN: Oh, very much so, and my dad was very progressive for his time. I really think so. And I think it had a lot to do with his background of having a strong matriarch figure. He never made my sister and me feel like we could--we could or should do less because we were a girl. You know, my two aunts were still in high school when we first came, and my second aunt, she was younger, and she met a man that she wanted to get married to her senior year in high school. And my dad was so against it. He told my grandmother, &quot ; You need to let her go to school. You need to let her have an education, you cannot allow her to get married at such a young age because she&#039 ; s going to be in the same situation that--&quot ; you know, my grandmother was. So if her husband is not able to take care of her, she would be left with nothing. So he saw education as a very--as something that was very valuable and would help my aunt, you know, be able to establish herself in this new life in the US. But my grandmother said, &quot ; Well she&#039 ; s my child, I&#039 ; ll just let her do whatever she wants,&quot ; because my grandmother, even though she pushed her sons very hard, she was pregnant with my aunt when she lost her husband. And so she really babied my youngest aunt and just let her do, really, whatever she wanted, she would let her have, and whatever she wanted to do she would let her do. And my aunt told my cousin this story a few years ago about how the night before her wedding my dad woke her up in the middle of the night and begged her not to get married, and he said, &quot ; If you go to college, I&#039 ; ll buy you a new car so you can drive to college by yourself, you don&#039 ; t have to worry about having our brother have to take you.&quot ; And of course, she didn&#039 ; t take him up on the offer. (laughs) BRODY: He was serious though. TRAN: Yes, he was that serious. |00:38:19| BRODY: So she married the man that she met while she was still in high school. TRAN: Yes. She didn&#039 ; t even go to her high school graduation. BRODY: Oh boy. TRAN: So she was--and then now--and then she divorced him many years later, and so--he was right. And she&#039 ; s still, out of the four of them, she was the only one who divorced and she has struggled financially most of her life ; hasn&#039 ; t had as stable of a life as the other siblings. |00:38:50| BRODY: That&#039 ; s hard. So, high school. Tell me about that. You must have--you and your siblings must have been among the first batch of Vietnamese Americans graduating from high schools in Dallas. TRAN: Definitely. Well, we also met--we were able to meet two more Vietnamese when we went to middle school, from our elementary school. So we did really well, yeah, academically in elementary school, and so we were invited to apply for Spence Academy, which is the GT [Gifted and Talented] Academy for DISD [Dallas Independent School District]. And so there--and the kids that I met there, I still keep in touch with, because--and they&#039 ; re from different backgrounds, and different ethnic backgrounds, but for some reason they were more like-minded and, you know, had some of the more similar values towards education and now, even many years later in speaking with them, towards social policies, but we did get to meet a couple more Vietnamese kids in middle school. And then when we went to high school, we went to a very large high school, at Skyline High School, so a class of a thousand in each grade, and so there were a few more Vietnamese students when we got to high school, but because the classes were so big, it was hard to really, you know, know a lot of people. BRODY: So did you feel by then that you were more integrated into the high school or-- TRAN: Probably not at school as much. I mean, I felt like I had my cultural identity from my church community. So by then it was--the community was growing a lot, and we got to meet with a lot--got to interact with a lot of people-- BRODY: Through church? TRAN: --through church, and I was singing in the church choir and so met more friends there. But still, through high school, I did--I still felt like one of the few people, you know, one of the few Vietnamese people in that environment. |00:41:14| BRODY: So that experience that, you know, from the very beginning that you had of not feeling like--not quite fitting in, that just kept on, or you just kind of were more tied to your Vietnamese church community? TRAN: I think in school itself it did keep on. I mean, we made friends and we did--you know, we were involved in a lot of extracurricular activities, but I always felt that I was ethnically different, you know? And I think people--my peer also, would make comments that, whether it was joking or not, that I was different. BRODY: What kind of comments? TRAN: You know, I think things that wouldn&#039 ; t be even--could be repeated these days, (laughs) that&#039 ; s not PC [politically correct], you know, the &quot ; chink&quot ; word and all the derogatory jokes about eyes and whatnot, and even I remember having a high school science teacher who made a joke about Asian--you know, the Asian language, as well. And to me, I didn&#039 ; t think it was anything--I didn&#039 ; t take offense to it, but deep down inside I knew that it just kind of--it didn&#039 ; t sit right with me, but I didn&#039 ; t know how to--I didn&#039 ; t have a word for it or how to identify it, even how to react to it. BRODY: Yeah, that&#039 ; s understandable. TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) |00:42:50| BRODY: So by the end of high school, what were you--you know, when you were thinking about your future after high school, what was your mindset and what were you looking forward to doing? TRAN: Well, I wanted to--I always had that inner drive to do something to give back. You know, I mean, everybody has their own, I guess, mode of how they interact in the world, and I know that, you know, in all the personality tests I&#039 ; ve taken in my life, you know, I rank very strong as a caregiver. And so I wanted to do something that would help people. I thought, well, maybe a social worker, but my dad was very pragmatic. He said, you know, &quot ; You have to get a job that&#039 ; s going to be able to feed your family. You have to get a profession, not just a degree.&quot ; My brother, my older brother had graduated two years before us, and he had applied to University of Dallas and gotten a full scholarship, and so he went there. And so when my sister and I were graduating, we really didn&#039 ; t have a choice on where we were going to go to school because my parents didn&#039 ; t even like the idea of us moving out, and so they wanted to keep us close in-- BRODY: They wanted you to be together? TRAN: Yes, and so we--that was the only school that we applied to, was University of Dallas. But he told us going in, because he knew it was a liberal arts school, that we had to go beyond college. It had to be professional school or graduate school at that time. BRODY: Right off the bat, you knew that&#039 ; s what you were getting into. TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) |00:44:29| BRODY: So what ended up happening? What did you major in? TRAN: I majored in psychology, which I thought was the most relevant study for me. You know, literature was great, theology was great, but I really wanted to understand human behavior and really into the human psyche and how to--I felt that way I can actually tap into how I can help people. But I didn&#039 ; t know--I wasn&#039 ; t sure of actually going on to grad school and getting a PhD and being a psychologist, because I wasn&#039 ; t convinced that that was the right or the most effective way for me to help people. And at that time, most PhD programs were only taking one per year, and even then, after you take a lot of student loans, you graduate and then the most you can do is teach, you know, at a lower salary than you could--that you would need to be able to pay back the student loans. And my parents had six kids, so they couldn&#039 ; t--they were relying on us to be as independent and financially independent as possible, as soon as possible. And so my dad called me up one day towards the end of my fall semester and--actually I had graduated a year early, because my dad--he&#039 ; d never asked us to do anything other than, you know, of course we had chores at home, but he never wanted us to feel that we had financial pressure to do anything other than going to school, and after our first semester at UD, he felt, I think, some financial pressure, because he had to take money out of his 401k to pay for our college. So he had three kids in college and three at home, and he said, &quot ; Well, if you can graduate even a semester early, that would save a lot of money.&quot ; And I think I was struck by the fact that he asked me something like that, because that was a huge thing to ask, and for him, he would never even approach us with something like that unless he felt that pressure, so I worked really hard to graduate a year early. So developed my whole graduation plan, and I was able to leave a year early. But the semester before I graduated--no, the fall semester of my last year, he said, &quot ; Well, why don&#039 ; t you look at law school too? That way you can open up your options, in case you don&#039 ; t get into one of these PhD programs.&quot ; And so I said, &quot ; Oh, okay, I guess I can do that.&quot ; But, you know, when I agreed to applying to law school, that was my--my fate was sealed as far as my parents were concerned. And I think, looking back at that time, honestly, and the fact that he even suggested law school for me, I didn&#039 ; t realize how progressive he was, because all of the Vietnamese kids my age, all my peer, were going to science-based fields. They were all going to pharmacy, or dental school, or medical school, or engineering. There were--nobody going to law school, especially females going to law school. And now, I can even recount a couple of instances where that was even--that kind of forward- thinking step was kind of--was a shock for some people. Because there was a Vietnamese friend of mine at UD at the time, and when he found out that I was going to apply to law school, he asked me, &quot ; Well, how are you going to be able to find a husband if you&#039 ; re going to be a lawyer? Everybody&#039 ; s going to be intimidated by you and by you being that educated.&quot ; BRODY: Really? |00:48:40| TRAN: And at that time, I knew enough at that point to be offended--well, be offended, but I didn&#039 ; t have an answer to that, because I hadn&#039 ; t quite developed my own voice, just for standing up for myself and my own feminist voice. And then my first year in law school, my brother&#039 ; s friend, he had a friend--he was in medical school at that time, and he had a Vietnamese friend that he had met in medical school. And so he called to our house to talk to my brother over Christmas break and I answered the phone, and he was making small talk: &quot ; Oh yeah, you&#039 ; re the sister who&#039 ; s in law school, right?&quot ; And I said yes, and he said, &quot ; How are you able to, I guess, justify being a lawyer with being a Catholic?&quot ; That was his question to me. The first time I ever talked to this person, and that was his question to me. BRODY: And what was he driving at? TRAN: I guess he was--I guess in his eyes, and I think a lot of Vietnamese people&#039 ; s eyes at that time, they didn&#039 ; t know enough about what lawyers do or the law field, they just thought maybe lawyers were ambulance chasers, or, you know, defended people who did bad things in criminal court, and they couldn&#039 ; t understand why a Vietnamese girl would choose to study law and become a lawyer when everybody else is just, you know-- BRODY: Yeah. Do you remember what you said? TRAN: I don&#039 ; t remember what I said, because I didn&#039 ; t know where he was coming from at that time. I think, maybe, I would say--I think, at that time, I was very aware of the Vietnamese refugee situation at that time. Before I went to law school, I had gotten in contact with a Vietnamese gentleman in [Washington,] DC, and he had worked with--I think he was working with Catholic Charities [USA] or the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees], and he was actually in--he had worked in the refugee camps, helping people with their asylum cases too. And so he--through my contact with him, I was actually offered a position to actually go and work in the refugee camps and help people with their asylum case. BRODY: Did you do that? TRAN: My mom said, &quot ; Heck no.&quot ; (laughs) &quot ; No way. That&#039 ; s not a safe place for you to go, you need to go to law school.&quot ; And so I think--and then my first year in--my second year in law school, I made the law review international journal, and so I did a lot of research into asylum law and human rights, and so I think--I don&#039 ; t remember exactly what I said, but I think I pulled from that experience in saying, you know, that as a Catholic I think I can do a lot of good with the law as well. |00:51:47| BRODY: Yeah. Where did you go to law school? TRAN: I went to University of Houston. BRODY: Okay. And what kind of law did you end up practicing? TRAN: Okay, so my first--I went to law school knowing that I didn&#039 ; t want to do litigation, but I did well in law school because I can read and write very well. And I loved constitutional law and I loved everything that was more principle-based, rather than contract-based or property rights or criminal law and whatnot. I was really drawn to the policy work more. And so as I got closer to graduation, I did a few clerkships. I clerked at a law firm in their corporate law department, and then I clerked with the Supreme Court. And so I knew that I had a strength in being able to write judicial decisions and researching and writing, and so I wasn&#039 ; t quite ready to make a decision as to what law field I wanted to go into, and so I was able to get a position with the Attorney General&#039 ; s Honors Program. The Attorney General&#039 ; s Honors Program, they recruit students out of law school and they place them in different positions within the Department of Justice. And so I was--I interviewed with a judge from the Board of Immigration Appeals, and he actually offered me a clerkship with the Houston Immigration Court. So I clerked for five immigration judges my first year out of school, and that was, you know, where I was able to actually see firsthand human rights law, immigration law, asylum law, and how it worked and how it got played, and to see the laws changing right before my eyes while I was there that first year. I mean, I remember having a case where the gentleman had one small conviction for possession of marijuana, and because he never applied for citizenship--he was thirty, he never applied for citizenship--that made him subject to deportation under the law. But all his family were US citizens or permanent residents, he had a gainful job, he&#039 ; d never had any other criminal record, and apparently it wasn&#039 ; t even his marijuana. He was driving--he was on a date with a girl and it was hers, and he got stopped for speeding, and he took the hit for her. That landed him in deportation proceedings. But under the law before the Immigration Reform Act, he would go before the immigration court, and that would&#039 ; ve been a slam dunk case for relief. We would grant him--he met other requirements that would be in his favor, he would be granted relief from deportation and hopefully, you know, nothing like that would ever happen again. But before his case came up for hearing, the Immigration Reform Act was passed, and that took away that right. |00:55:09| BRODY: So what happened to him? TRAN: I&#039 ; m not sure, because they kept having to defer his case, and so that--and then also, the experience of having--and asylum, unlike what people think, is very hard to get. I mean, I had the awful job of determining people&#039 ; s future because the judges--if it was a really clear case that they would grant it or deny it, they would do it right then and there in their oral decision. If it was a difficult case they would give it to me, and then I would have to research the law and I&#039 ; d have to read the transcript, and then I would have to make that decision. And it was very heartbreaking to have to deny people&#039 ; s asylum cases because they didn&#039 ; t meet the standards under the law for asylum. Their lives were in danger, they were targeted by people in their home country, but it wasn&#039 ; t--you know, on the five protected grounds of, you know, race, religion, whatever. And so I knew--after my first year there, I didn&#039 ; t want to continue in that field, because I just wasn&#039 ; t sure if I had it in me to continue to fight something like that, because I am not a fighter. I prefer to be able to work together, collaborate on changes to help people. So that&#039 ; s why I was always drawn to policy. And so I went back to get an LLM [legum magister] in health law and health policy, because that was really where I felt my passion was. And so I applied and got accepted into the LLM program at U of H, which was, at that time, one of the best programs in the nation. And so I had a class--was in a class with five people ; really great, you know, minds and I really enjoyed my study there. I got to study one summer with--through Syracuse University and went to study in Europe and studied their healthcare system and meet with all their bioethicists, and I felt like health policy is something that is universal to everybody and it&#039 ; s where you can make a lot of difference. But then I got recruited by these law firms. (laughs) I was facing graduation at that time and thinking, you know, I got all these student loan debts, my brother is still in medical school, he still has residency to go through, my parents have these younger kids to take care of, my sister was still in medical school, and I felt that pressure to at least get out and start making money and start helping them. And so I was recruited by a big law firm to work in their health law department, but it was really transactional work ; hospital mergers and whatnot with that regulatory overlay. So that was a lot of what I did for seventeen years. But because of my immigration background, there was always a need for immigration help too, so I also built a book of business with companies that were looking to hire people from outside the country ; you know, hospitals that were needing to hire cancer researchers or cardiac CT [cardiothoracic] surgeons that they weren&#039 ; t able to find in the US, or engineers that were more involved in R and D [Research and Development] because the US engineers tend to get their bachelor&#039 ; s and go and work, whereas the foreign graduates would go on and get their master&#039 ; s and their PhDs, and those were the skillsets that a lot of the R and D companies were looking for. |00:58:38| BRODY: Interesting. How much did your own experience, your own life experience, inform your work in the law, or your way of looking at the law? TRAN: Oh, it just really, definitely colors everything that I look at, and how I look at-- BRODY: How so? TRAN: Well, basic human rights. I mean, to me, law is not just local or federal, but there&#039 ; s some basic human laws that preexist even the, you know, the formation of this country. Asylum is a doctrine that has been around for thousands and thousands of years, that human beings have an ethical, even a moral and legal obligation to give safe haven to people who are fleeing from their country because they are not able to exercise some very basic rights, or they&#039 ; re not able to change something that is so immutable to them as, you know, the race that they were born in or the religion that they followed. And so I look at law with everything from that stance, you know, a basic human rights stance, and due process. And so even if it&#039 ; s a traffic light law that they implement, I am a strong believer that you have to go through the whole due process, you know, you have to meet due process in implementing something like that. |01:00:15| BRODY: Yeah. So it sounds like your own experience is really informing how you have gone about your work and--are there other things that you&#039 ; ve been doing that you feel like are flavored by the experiences you&#039 ; ve had? TRAN: Yes, definitely. So after the--I think practice of transaction law is really--it&#039 ; s great, but it&#039 ; s very--the actual application of it&#039 ; s all reading and writing and arguing over little points and deals and, in the end, it&#039 ; s about, you know, formalizing in paper and legalese what each party wants to get out of a particular deal, whether it&#039 ; s a hospital merger or, you know, a large multibillion dollar deal to develop a sports arena. It&#039 ; s about making money and engaging in, you know, transactions between parties, but it always came down to money in the end. That was the very--you know, the ultimate goal of the transactions that I did, all the MNA [Master Netting Agreement] work that I did, and it was so far removed from where I wanted to be, what I wanted to be able to do and the connection that I made. So being able to maintain the immigration law piece of my practice, even if I was representing a hospital or a company that was bringing in an engineer--I got to speak to the engineer, I got to get information about them, and even if I never met the person, I knew that I was actually making a difference in somebody&#039 ; s life. I was able to give them an opportunity to contribute to society. And also, it really made me understand why this country had been so far ahead and had become a leader in the world is because we had this constant intake, this constantly influx of new talent and of skill and new motivation that drove the country forward in progress. I mean, I was bringing in people that had skills that were just phenomenal, people that were doing, you know, research that was not being done in the US in every field, whether it was petroleum exploration or medical field. And, you know, being able to bring them in--and they&#039 ; re the ones who were contributing to our growth as a country. And so I did feel like I was, in a way, contributing back in that way. |01:03:01| BRODY: Sure. That sounds like--that makes me think about politics too. Are you--have you or your family been engaged with politics in the United States? TRAN: Oh, yes. Well, we&#039 ; ve proven very active, I think--I was not as--had I not gone into law, I don&#039 ; t think I would&#039 ; ve been as--in a position to even be knowledgeable enough, but I think my first year out of school and seeing how a piece of legislation that was passed by a bipartisan Congress and signed by a Democratic president--even though when he signed it, he signed it begrudgingly saying, you know, &quot ; I don&#039 ; t agree with this law, it&#039 ; s going to affect a lot of family members--people who have lived here for a long time.&quot ; I think what he was saying was that, &quot ; Reelect me and we&#039 ; ll try to find a way to fix it.&quot ; But it&#039 ; s a lot easier to pass a law than to fix a law. It takes a lot more time (laughs) and effort into fixing a law. And so that was my first taste of seeing how politics and law affects everyday lives. I mean, in my practice I had another situation where there was a teenage boy who was eighteen at the time, same situation. He was a permanent resident, able to, you know--just never bothered to apply for citizenship, and he was facing deportation. And Lamar Smith, who was a congressman in Texas at that time, he was one of the proponents of this Immigration Reform Act that was passed in &#039 ; 95. His mom that this--this gentleman&#039 ; s mom lived in Lamar Smith&#039 ; s district. She went to his office and explained her son&#039 ; s situation, and their response was, &quot ; Well, why don&#039 ; t you write down all of your equities and present it before the immigration court?&quot ; I mean they had no idea that they had taken that relief away from this family. |01:05:09| BRODY: Yeah, the real-life impact of the law. TRAN: Exactly, and it really opened my eyes to the fact that we elect people to represent us, and we elect them to make sure that laws that are passed are going to benefit us as a society, yet a lot of these lawmakers are taking actions and doing things that they don&#039 ; t even understand the consequences of. BRODY: Yeah, how do you think that can be addressed? TRAN: Well, I mean, I think more education, but that&#039 ; s really hard. I mean, I think-- when I left law and went back to do occupational therapy, which was my second career, I thought there&#039 ; s always going to be somebody. I mean, I was very impressed with the bar at the time, I got to meet a lot of very articulate people, a lot of very driven people, especially in the immigration bar, and I always felt that they&#039 ; re always going to be there to fight the good fight. They were always going to be able to do it better than I can, because I&#039 ; m not as articulate as they are, I am not as capable as they are, and so there&#039 ; s always going to be people that are going to be able to fight and stand up in this area. But I&#039 ; m just ready to do something that&#039 ; s going to be a lot more--not as combative. That&#039 ; s going to be more in my own caregiving nature. |01:06:46| BRODY: So you&#039 ; re doing occupational therapy now? TRAN: Yes. (laughs) BRODY: Tell me what led you down that path. TRAN: Okay, so after my fourth child was born, you know, I guess I was going back to my roots in psychology, and I was--I kept looking at him and thinking, You know, he&#039 ; s going to be--eighteen years he&#039 ; s going to be gone, and what am I going to do? Am I going to continue sitting at my desk and writing these petitions and--yeah, it&#039 ; s great to talk. My favorite part of practice was being able to talk to people and talk to clients and consult with them but, you know, the work itself that I do for them is all paper-driven, and it was very isolating, because I do need that human interaction. And so after about seventeen years of it I said, you know, I need to do something else and I want to do something else. The more I looked to occupational therapy the more I really felt like that was field for me because, first of all, I just believe in the power of occupational therapy because it helps people be able to function in a better--you know, function with what needs that they have in their lives and what they desire to be able to--to do in their life, to make their life more satisfying. And with my background in health policy, I had studied, you know, all the different--you know, the different approaches to healthcare, not just in the US but in Europe too. And having a lot of healthcare professionals in my family that a lot of doctors--it was frustrating to see doctors patching people up and sending them home, but they&#039 ; re not giving any instruction or any assistance in what they--they still need to live their life, they still have a baby to feed, they still have kids to take care of, they still have a dog to walk, and doctors, they just, you know, operate on them or they give them medication and that was it. And so I did see that the more research I did, the more I saw that occupational therapy was a field that I could be able to be able to pull from both my health policy background as well as my law background and then, also, my own--I think my personal talents, because I have a talent for being able to identify when one of my kids was struggling with a task and helping them be able to practice that one step until they are able to master it. And so I&#039 ; m just a natural problem solver by nature. And so it&#039 ; s a great field for me. I mean, I love it. I worked really hard, harder than I have expected because education changed so much from the twenty- something years before when I had last gone to school, but my goal in the end is always to be able to at least practice a few years. And also occupational therapy gave me the freedom to do work that was more fungible than law. I mean, when I was doing law, I would have a client that I would stick with for months or years, you know? And it wasn&#039 ; t something that I could easily transfer to somebody else. Every time I had a baby, I was either working immediately afterwards or meeting clients a week later or consulting with another attorney on another client, so I never was able to get away from that work because my fingerprint was all over it. And it was very stressful to be able to know that that kind of responsibility hung on me while I had so many other responsibilities at home in raising my kids too, and helping Thai with his practice. So I saw occupational therapy--I went in knowing that I would only do PRN [pro re nata] work, and that would give me the flexibility to be able to do that work, and then when the kids are older, be able to go back and be able to speak with a lot more authority that I was in the clinical world and I could identify where all the problems are and be able to be a part of the solution for it. |01:11:08| BRODY: So you--that sounds like a good transition but a really different world that you went through, law to occupational therapy. (Tran laughs) You mentioned your family, so your husband and you have four kids. Tell me a little bit about your home life. TRAN: Oh gosh, it&#039 ; s very hectic, to say the least. (laughs) BRODY: So your husband is-- TRAN: Yes, he&#039 ; s also Vietnamese, he came to the US when he was ten, not in &#039 ; 75, but they left in &#039 ; 79. BRODY: How did you meet? TRAN: We met--he was a classmate of my sister&#039 ; s in medical school. So I met him through her. And so we dated--started dating after I graduated from law school. BRODY: Had you always thought that you would marry another Vietnamese person? TRAN: No, it&#039 ; s so funny, I grew up thinking that Vietnamese men were yucky, (laughs) because of the stories I told you earlier. You know, they were, you know, very chauvinistic and weren&#039 ; t very nice. I didn&#039 ; t think that they were very nice and didn&#039 ; t appreciate women and what they can bring to the table. And so I really didn&#039 ; t, all through high school, even, I didn&#039 ; t think that I would ever marry a Vietnamese person. It wasn&#039 ; t until college where I felt that I was able to come into my own and really identify with--I think in college, I was able to identify with more the--being away from my family, I think, also made me realize how homesick I was and how much I valued my family and my connection with my family. Through that, I was able to really know myself more, in that sense, and I realized that, you know, I probably would marry a Vietnamese person because they did share the same, I think, approach to family. |01:13:04| BRODY: Yeah, can you tell me about, like, how you would articulate that approach to family, or that mindset? TRAN: I think because family is not--at least the culture that I came from, family is not just the nuclear family, because I grew up with my uncle in the house, my grandmother in the house, my two aunts, and they didn&#039 ; t leave until they got married. And even when they got married, they were still very involved in our lives. We saw them weekly, all three of them had houses that were within two miles of us and we saw each other every weekend. BRODY: For meals? |01:13:42| TRAN: Yes. And so raising a family was not just the job of two parents, but it was also the job of the aunts and uncles too. And, you know, you have that support, and when you--when I was living away, for the first time, from my family in college--even though it wasn&#039 ; t that far, but just not being in the house anymore--was the first time I felt, like, true loneliness. And I think having family grounds you. You know, grounds you in a way that when you&#039 ; re facing all the changes that life will throw at you, you do have them to fall back on. You do have them as sounding boards to help guide you. My cousin, my aunt&#039 ; s daughter, got pregnant when she was sixteen. And what she--I really do think that if she had not been born in the family that she was born in--and then also the man--the boy that she was involved in, he was also Vietnamese--and she could&#039 ; ve easily been-- end up being another welfare mom, you know? But the whole family came together and problem-solved together how to address the situation, how to support her, and they always called on my dad, because they didn&#039 ; t have a dad around, so they always called on my dad for advice and guidance. And so she ended up having the baby and my aunt says, &quot ; You&#039 ; re not going to get married, even if you need to graduate from high school at least.&quot ; So she graduated from high school, and even after high school she goes, &quot ; You&#039 ; re not going to get married until you graduate from college, you need to go to college.&quot ; During that time, his mom took care of the baby for them, and my grandmother, my aunts, everybody was there for her when she needed. She always had somebody to help her with the baby because she had family on both sides, and she wouldn&#039 ; t have been able to have that, you know, if she had been born, I think, in a different situation or under different circumstances. |01:16:24| BRODY: Sure. That makes sense. So you went on a date, you were set up by your sister. TRAN: Oh, I wasn&#039 ; t set up. (laughs) So she--yeah, so my sister, you know, in the medical field, there were a lot more Vietnamese people, students, than in law school. And so she--when she started medical school, she got to know all the other Vietnamese students in her class. And she was making a Vietnamese noodle soup at our apartment, and I lived with her at the time. So she invited all of them over for dinner and that&#039 ; s how I met him. Yeah, but we didn&#039 ; t start dating until two years later. We would see each other at different social gatherings and whatnot, but didn&#039 ; t date until two years after we met. BRODY: Right. And then now it&#039 ; s been how many years? TRAN: (laughs) Wow. I think it&#039 ; s going to be twenty years anniversary next year, in 2019. So almost twenty-three years? |01:17:24| BRODY: Wow, and four kids. And so when you think about your life together and your kids, do you identify yourself more as Vietnamese, Vietnamese American? Do you notice differences between your perspective and your husband&#039 ; s perspective? TRAN: Oh yes, I think so. I mean, I think Thai is a lot more--he&#039 ; s more of a traditionalist in terms of Vietnamese values ; one, because he&#039 ; s older and, I think, two, because his family is even more traditional than mine. His family, on a whole, is older than my family. His parents are more than ten years older, and his oldest sister is a grandmother, his oldest sister. And so he is towards the younger end of his siblings, and he has an extended family that&#039 ; s very close, even closer than my family. And so they identify very strongly with their roots. And I understand that too. Like, his siblings, all eight of them are married to Vietnamese. His brother was involved with a girl who was Filipino and he has a son from that relationship, but he eventually married a Vietnamese girl. And so they have a child. And on my side, three of our siblings are married to Vietnamese and three are married to Caucasians, Americans. And we were much younger ; the oldest sibling in my family was six when we came over, and I was four. And I think being a girl, I don&#039 ; t know if it&#039 ; s just--I don&#039 ; t know if it&#039 ; s more cultural--as I&#039 ; ve gotten older, I don&#039 ; t know if it&#039 ; s more cultural or it was more the fact of the gender that makes a difference in how close you stay to your family, because both my brothers, one&#039 ; s married to an American Caucasian girl and one is married to a Vietnamese, but both of them, I think, are not as close and as attentive as the daughters are--including the daughters who are not married to Vietnamese. So as I&#039 ; ve gotten older, I think my perspective has gotten broader in that sense, because in my own experience as a daughter, you know, when my grandmother was towards the end of her life and she was on her deathbed, all the granddaughters, every single one of the granddaughters--I think the youngest granddaughter, at that time, was high school or even early college. All the granddaughters were there. Not only all the granddaughters were there, but each granddaughter&#039 ; s either husband, fiancé, or boyfriend was present. And the boyfriends were of all different types of ethnic background. But there was only one grandson that was there, and he was the one who was not dating anybody or married at that time. |01:20:59| BRODY: So it&#039 ; s hard to parse out gender, culture, and so on. I don&#039 ; t know. So do you think of yourself as American? TRAN: I think of myself as--I think I think of myself as Vietnamese American, for sure. BRODY: And what does that mean to you? TRAN: I think it means that I&#039 ; m an immigrant, you know? First of all, I&#039 ; m an immigrant who comes from an ethnic culture that has a specific taste in food, they share certain traditions and perceptions in life. But then I&#039 ; m also very, I think, Americanized. I&#039 ; ve always been--you know, it was kind of hard because the Vietnamese kids that I knew growing up all the way through school always considered my sister and me too Americanized, but then we were never Americanized enough for our American friends. (laughs) But the reason why is because I think we weren&#039 ; t--my dad did not raise us-- he&#039 ; s traditional, but I think his mindset and his outlook on our development encouraged us to be--to, I think, express ourself and pursue interests that probably wouldn&#039 ; t even be on the mindset or even be in the reality of some of my peer. I mean, I didn&#039 ; t realize until I was in--probably in college--that some of my friends, some of my Vietnamese girl friends have been told by their parents, had been made to feel that they were less because they were girls, or they were discouraged from pursuing higher educational opportunities or higher education because they were girls. BRODY: Wow, by their parents. TRAN: By their parents. |01:22:57| BRODY: Growing up, even though they were growing up here in the United States. So your dad was not like that? TRAN: Not at all, and I didn&#039 ; t even--I wasn&#039 ; t even aware of that until I started talking more to my other Vietnamese girl friends as we&#039 ; ve gotten older. I had a friend who--her dream was always to go to medical school, and she was the second oldest, but her dad told her that she had to go to pharmacy school because she would be too old to get married if she went to medical school. So her older brother went to medical school. Her baby sister went to medical school, and her younger brother went to medical school. But she was the only one who went to a pharmacy school. BRODY: That&#039 ; s a sad story. TRAN: Yes. (laughs) |01:23:39| BRODY: So as a mom of daughters--I know you have daughters as well as a son--you know, who grew up here, how do you approach those types of issues? TRAN: I think I&#039 ; ve become a lot--I&#039 ; ve found my feminist voice a lot more since having daughters. I try to let them know that I&#039 ; m not one to, I think, sugarcoat the world for them. I&#039 ; m not going to say, &quot ; Oh, you could be the best that you can be.&quot ; Yes, I tell them, I encourage them all the time, you can be whatever you want with a lot of hard work. And that&#039 ; s part of the reason why I decided to go back to school, because I felt that the time that I was put into going to school and--versus the time that I would spend being with them and raising them, I think what--if I had lived by example, it could show them that they can do whatever, they do have the strength to do whatever they want if they-- with enough hard work. But then I also am very realistic to let them know all the--I think, all the dynamics in our culture and our society still that are still working against that. |01:24:57| BRODY: What do you mean by that? TRAN: To be a country as we are now and never having had a female leader is just--I think it speaks volumes to the culture. The American culture is a lot more misogynist than, I think, I thought and, I think, what most people had thought, and so we&#039 ; re right at this point where there&#039 ; s the turning point of &quot ; #MeToo.&quot ; We still have a long way to go, I think, in changing people&#039 ; s perceptions, and I think it&#039 ; s turning towards the right way, in the right direction, but I always tell our girls that, you know, it&#039 ; s up to their generation to bring it even further along. |01:25:50| BRODY: Right. That&#039 ; s hopeful. When you think about your kids growing up as, obviously, American and yourself and your own experiences and your husband&#039 ; s experiences and your parents&#039 ; experiences, what--if you could in just a couple of words or one word, describe what it means to you to be American. What does that mean when somebody says, &quot ; I&#039 ; m American,&quot ; or, you know, sum up what that sort of means to you personally? TRAN: I think America, the US, has always been--has stood in a position of uniqueness in the opportunities. And I know it sounds very cliché-ist, but it&#039 ; s true that the opportunities that are available to immigrants here, to be able to be who they want to be and to be able to pursue their dreams or what they want to accomplish with enough work--and luck too, because that&#039 ; s not to say if you have no family support, how can you even go to school? I mean, if you have five kids and you have nobody to watch them, how can you even go to school? And so--but I still think that the US has more open doors and avenues, opportunities that will allow people who are willing to and able to, to be able to make something of themself, whatever that may be, more than other cultures. We have friends in Italy and I talk to them a lot about, you know, about the differences. And in Italy and in a lot of European countries still, there are still a lot of class-based barriers to advancement that are not available in the US because, you know, we were-- we&#039 ; re a hodgepodge of immigrants that came in with, you know, not a lot of distinction between class. And so I think being American is being able to--I think, being a beneficiary of that system, coming from that system where you think of the mindset of having that individual liberty to do what you want and accomplish what you want in your life and in your family&#039 ; s life and making those decisions. In a sense, that also adds to some of our problems in our--you know, because we give voice to everybody, even if it&#039 ; s a dissenter, then a lot of the policies that we want to be able to enact that--you know, in Europe you would think, oh yeah, it&#039 ; s unbalanced, it&#039 ; s going to be--that makes more sense, this is more pragmatic, it&#039 ; s going to benefit more people. But, you know, because we have to respect the religious liberty of a certain group of people, we&#039 ; re not able to provide the level of sexual education in our school as the majority of the people would want, and that&#039 ; s just one example. But I think being American is having to live with that reality-- BRODY: Compromise. TRAN: --is that you have to give voice and have to respect everybody&#039 ; s voice. I think it&#039 ; s a huge amount of freedom and liberty that people take advantage of and don&#039 ; t always use it in the right way and can hurt people through the exercise of their freedom, but at the same time, it opens you up to possibilities that are not available in other countries. |01:29:54| BRODY: That&#039 ; s true. I wanted to circle back just to one more thing, the Vietnamese community today. What are the main differences that you notice between when you first--your family first came, and what we have around us in North Texas today. TRAN: I think that&#039 ; s really interesting, because I left Dallas about ten years to go to law school and I was down there for ten years before I moved back. And so when I moved back I had--our first child was one, and I thought coming back, I&#039 ; m going to go back to the same community, it&#039 ; s going to be the same tight-knit community, both within my family and then within the larger Vietnamese community where I&#039 ; m going to raise my kids, and it did not--it has not turned out to be like that, surprisingly. |01:30:46| BRODY: Really? What are the differences? TRAN: I think, you know, back then the community was much smaller, so it was a lot-- we had to rely more on each other. And now the community is so large, it&#039 ; s not homogenous anymore. It&#039 ; s made up of people with--Vietnamese people with very many--with different backgrounds who came over through different avenues and, even now, is made of Vietnamese people who are here temporarily. You know, people who are here on student visas, people who have no intention of staying here but are just currently here to visit family, or currently here to get an education or are currently here to work a temporary job and go back to Vietnam. And so it&#039 ; s not as tight-knit, it&#039 ; s not as homogenous, and as our families have gotten older, my parents--you know, each individual family becomes their own family. Like my uncle has become the head of his own family with his four kids and eventually his grandkids, and my dad is the same way, and so within the aunts and uncles, we&#039 ; re not as close anymore either. BRODY: Is that due to time or distance? TRAN: I think it&#039 ; s time and distance, and then also the passing of my grandmother, because she was the one that tied everybody together. And then also because my husband did not grow up in a Vietnamese community, really. He&#039 ; s more Vietnamese than I am, but he grew up in El Paso with his uncle, so he didn&#039 ; t go to temple, he didn&#039 ; t have a traditional Vietnamese community, a greater Vietnamese community that he saw regularly. He had a bigger network of people because of his family being bigger and the people they knew. So he had interaction with the Vietnamese community through, I think, more family interaction. And he&#039 ; s also very anti-religious establishment, and so raising--he wasn&#039 ; t too keen on raising our kids in the Vietnamese Catholic church, but that was the only avenue we could go--it was only placement for them to be able to learn and interact with other Vietnamese kids. And then I thought, Well, why don&#039 ; t we go--if you&#039 ; re against the Catholic Church, let&#039 ; s put them in the temple. Because, you know, they also offer a lot of the same social activities. No, he&#039 ; s not--he didn&#039 ; t want to send them to a temple, (laughs) and so they have grown up with not as much interaction with Vietnamese-- |01:33:30| BRODY: Do they speak Vietnamese? TRAN: They don&#039 ; t. BRODY: Because those two avenues would&#039 ; ve been the way to learn the language. TRAN: Yes, exactly. Because we speak English, there&#039 ; s no need for them to speak Vietnamese, even though our oldest spoke Vietnamese until she started preschool and then after that, everybody else--all the other kids just spoke English because she spoke English. BRODY: Tell me about how that makes you feel, are you-- TRAN: I feel like that is my biggest failure as a parent, because my in-laws, they don&#039 ; t speak Vietnamese--I mean, they don&#039 ; t speak English. They came over when they were in their sixties, and so they resettled from Vietnam into Holland for many years. And they were there until they--until I started dating Thai. And so when they finally came to the US, they were much older, probably about my grandmother&#039 ; s age. So by then, it&#039 ; s too late to really pick up a new language. And English is a hard language to pick up when you&#039 ; re older, and so my kids cannot communicate with their grandparents on their dad&#039 ; s side. And I do feel a lot of guilt because of that, because it&#039 ; s--it really affects their ability to get to know their grandparents, and for the grandparents to get to know them, too. But they can speak to my parents, because my parents know English. BRODY: Sure. Yeah, language is an important piece of culture, for sure. TRAN: Yes, it really is. |01:34:55| BRODY: Well, I want to say thank you for this conversation. Is there anything that you wanted to add or anything that I did not ask you? TRAN: Oh gosh, I think that--I think I want to add, like, one perception that I was able to gain when I started working at Zale Lipshy [University Hospital], where I do my PRN work with occupational therapy. I was able to treat a patient who was Nigerian, and he belongs to a Catholic church, a Nigerian Catholic church. And seeing the men who would come and visit him from the church community, it reminded me of my family back in, you know, back when we first came to the US and how tight-knit they were, and it does make me sad, in a way, to see that every group of immigrants that have come to the US, eventually they end up integrating into the general population and then eventually phasing out in their cultural values until another group comes in. And so, you know, I think that&#039 ; s just the process of life. |01:36:14| BRODY: Do you think that&#039 ; s the melting pot? TRAN: Yeah, that&#039 ; s the melting pot. But we have to keep more metals (laughs) coming in to add to that pot, because that&#039 ; s what adds to the color of it. BRODY: That&#039 ; s really interesting, yes, and this area certainly has a lot of different immigrant groups melting together, so-- TRAN: Well, thank you so much for speaking with me to today. BRODY: Thank you, I really appreciate it, it&#039 ; s been fun. TRAN: Yeah, my pleasure. end of interview All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2018oh002_btba_004.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Yen Tran Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2018oh002_btba_004 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-11-02 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/931610d3868fb4a067bddbdf57e10bc9.jpg 87585cc6a89c6713bd8ade831785f61b Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Kha Pham OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Kha Pham, August 31, 2018 2018oh004_btba_002 2:21:48 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Vietnamese in North Texas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Kha Pham Betsy Brody mp3 oh-interviews_pham-k_2018-08-31_bdg_acc.mp3 1:|14(2)|21(12)|31(6)|41(1)|49(2)|56(8)|65(4)|75(12)|84(11)|94(10)|103(10)|114(1)|125(11)|137(12)|149(2)|158(12)|168(4)|177(12)|186(13)|197(12)|206(1)|213(15)|225(16)|234(14)|243(5)|251(14)|259(16)|268(16)|279(5)|291(4)|301(4)|309(11)|318(12)|328(8)|338(5)|345(3)|356(3)|365(12)|375(10)|384(11)|394(2)|404(1)|413(11)|424(8)|436(2)|446(9)|457(1)|466(15)|476(5)|486(8)|497(6)|509(6)|520(1)|529(11)|540(5)|551(8)|560(14)|570(10)|581(3)|590(14)|599(10)|610(1)|619(4)|630(12)|640(13)|648(18)|659(11)|671(7)|680(7)|690(1)|702(6)|713(8)|725(11)|736(6)|746(11)|758(2)|768(3)|780(8)|789(8)|799(8)|810(9)|820(10)|831(13)|842(4)|853(2)|862(12)|873(5)|884(3)|892(12)|903(6)|912(16)|922(10)|932(9)|942(8)|952(6)|959(15)|972(2)|982(16)|993(2)|1002(5)|1013(14)|1024(14)|1035(11)|1047(15)|1059(12)|1069(15)|1079(8)|1087(13)|1096(13)|1106(4)|1115(17)|1124(17)|1135(9)|1145(14)|1155(15)|1165(7)|1176(11)|1186(6)|1196(13)|1207(13)|1218(12)|1226(8)|1235(11)|1244(10)|1254(7)|1263(3)|1271(9)|1281(14)|1290(3)|1299(10)|1310(13)|1319(6)|1328(2)|1338(8)|1346(12)|1356(2)|1365(8)|1374(4)|1385(2)|1396(17)|1406(4) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/117366 Aviary audio 1 Introduction BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is August 31, 2018. I’m interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Kha Pham. This interview is taking place at the home of Mr. Pham’s daughter in Addison, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. All right. Good afternoon, Mr. Pham. Thank you for meeting me. Brody introduces the project &quot ; Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans&quot ; and the interviewee, Kha Pham. 28 Family and working at a naval base in Da Nang BRODY: So just to start out with, let’s talk about how—what your life was like in Vietnam, just as the war was ending. What was your— PHAM: Well, before the war, luckily, I’m not in the fighting zone. I’m at the naval base in the island called Phu Quoc Island, very far south and kind of east of Vietnam. At that point I am a—my name is—I am a lieutenant in the navy, and I am a executive officer at the base, naval base. So my job is to keep the security, work on the base like every naval base, and I have a small boat, you know, around to do patrol, to— BRODY: Because it was an island. PHAM: —around the island. And on the land we have a small group, you know, keep post security around the base. And that’s it. And my wife at that time, you know, at that time I lived with my wife and two kids. And my younger kid at that time, only two and three years old. And another kid, the oldest, one year older, she about four years old, and she lived with her grandparents, my wife’s parents, very far north. BRODY: Okay. What town did they live in? PHAM: They lived in Danang. BRODY: Danang, okay. PHAM: Yeah, because we have two kids together, three kids, you know, three years apart, so that’s why, you know, they take care of my older kid. BRODY: So your in-laws were taking care of your older child because you had two younger children at home? PHAM: Yeah, and we did not help them. My wife, she was a teacher at an elementary school very close to the base, and that’s it. And we worked like normally. You know, in land, I don’t go to fighting or anything the last two or three years. Before that, I am on another unit on land and have a—you know, we have a lot of small boats, we go on the river, we know to patrol and keep security, keep between the Cambodian land and the Vietnamese border. BRODY: Okay, on the border there. PHAM: About—I believe about forty miles. BRODY: So that was a few years earlier? PHAM: About two, three years earlier, yes. And at that time, you know, I go to a patrol, like two or three days and go back, and keep working at the base in a few days and keep doing like that for two, three years, at that time before I go to here, to the base and don’t do anything. But my life before that, we have the navy, so I go to the ship, many ships before. But then you don’t need to know that, right? Pham describes his family when he was in Vietnam and his duties as a lieutenant and executive officer on a navy base. Danang ; Phu Quoc Island ; Vietnam ; Vietnam War ; Vietnamese Navy 16.0544, 108.2022 17 The city Da Nang, where Pham's family lived. 229 Working with American sailors in the navy BRODY: No, it’s interesting. So how much did you have contact with the Americans and (both talking) before the war? PHAM: Oh, okay. Yeah, the American—I go to the Vietnamese academy of 1966, and get out in 1968. And then I go to the landing ship, one of the Vietnamese biggest ships, you know, LST—they call it a LST-502. BRODY: That was the name of the ship? PHAM: Yeah, the name of the ship. The name was Vietnamese too, but you know, that’s the number of the ship, LST-502. Vietnamese at that time, they have only three ships like that, the bigger ones. For landing, they transport, you know, from north to south along the coastal. And I’m in there, like training an officer and I do a lot of stuff there from— exactly the first year and half I’m there, we took—I took—do, like, training from one part to another part, to know the ship. And after that, they trade me to another small boat, not boat, but a ship, but it’s smaller, they call it the PGM-617. They’re brand new. They sailed from America to Vietnam, and we see the ship. And we’re training with—they have American in there to training us, to learn the ship from everything, and then I—on this ship, we go to—I go to patrol the coastal. BRODY: The coast. PHAM: The coast—I got—in the ship, they have one American advisor. He’s a lieutenant, I don’t remember his name, but—and the Vietnamese, the captain is a lieutenant also. BRODY: Okay. PHAM: And at that point, I am—I might as well mention, in a school for the first two years of my rank is ensign. BRODY: Ensign? PHAM: Yeah. And there for, for a year, I mean, almost a year and a half, and then they change me to another place very far north, you know. This right here, they call the coastal zone unit, close to the communists. BRODY: Okay. Yes, up north. PHAM: Right on that seventeenth, almost seventeenth— BRODY: Parallel. PHAM: Parallel, yeah. They call the coastal (unintelligible), that’s the far base, the far, far north. BRODY: So you were far north? PHAM: Far north, you know, they trade me to there in 1968. And that—the coastal zone, they have a small, very small old boat, no ship, the boat, they’ve got wood, they’ve got their own kind of— BRODY: It’s really old. PHAM: Very old, like a fishing boat almost, so, you know— BRODY: So that’s what you had to work with there. (laughs) PHAM: I have to work in there with the boat. And, you know, in that base we have about, I think, two or three advisors. BRODY: American advisors? PHAM: American advisors, you know, they rank from lieutenant to petty officer. They’ve got two officers, two petty officers in there. And they check the communication more than they do anything. You know, they’ve got the base they have, they communicate with the big ship out there from their seventh fleet. They have a very big ship, you know, ___(??) outside there. Pham describes his time in the navy academy and the role Americans played in the navy's ranks. American advisors ; LST-502 ; Vietnam War 485 The Tet Offensive PHAM: In there, if we have any problem or with the friend unit have a problem, we can call them, they can do the—they can shoot in to help. At that point, that’s right between the Tet, they call it Mau Than Tet, you know, that very big event at that time. The communists, they arrange Tet, you know, they say, “Well, we take four or five days, don’t do anything” and then shortly they open fire, everything, and they captured a lot of planes and ______________(??) and my base also. They don’t attack our base, but when we go to patrol and land in some place and then they can ambush, they should not have there, but they come—from the north they come in, they dig holes and then they ambush. And the day we come up there and they ambush us, we have, like, thirty people, we come with the villagers there. And they ambush and a lot of fight, and at that time, I’m not—I don’t know everything, you know, the ammunition goes through, I don’t know what is here, what is here, who’s shooting and we are shooting or everything, I can’t— BRODY: Right, because it was a surprise. PHAM: Surprise, complete surprise, everything. We got up there and we go to—and we got out to the place, you know a lot of sand out there, dunes of sand, all that big, and a lot of shooting, and we fight back and forth. And we have one unit of us out there, like, ten people before they—and then they got trapped out there on the cemetery. They were stranded there, and I have two or three of them got wounded or killed in there, we don’t know. And then we have to try to get them out, pull them back, everything, and after we got in a shooting, somebody got fell. But we don’t see anything. BRODY: This is after you got the wounded people back? PHAM: We got some back, but some still there and I can’t—if we come out, we had more that had retreat and they shoot. And then at that time we no look like we hit the people, the small unit, so very big out there, and we don’t know—very big place. And then Americans come in. They’re next to our base, big base of Americans, because at that time the Americans, they bring in, looks like __________(??) point, there’s a high point in the period of time because they’re going to have a lot of units. You know, they have a mountain and they’ve got the river, they go in and they have a large supply and the have a lot of other help, at least two—I remember, at least two battalions of Americans—what is the—the Marines—next to my base. BRODY: So the Marines were there next to you. PHAM: Yeah, there are two, only two companies, two battalions. I don’t know, I don’t remember. But they move in. They move in to help. They move in far north, they do a round, they come back, and they got stuck too. BRODY: They got stuck? PHAM: Yeah, they stuck because they fired back. You know, it’s not before we think that it is small but then, you know, the Americans, our advisors, they call the Americans and then they move in around so they tried to help to keep out there so we can—but then we cannot go through. ___________(??) us, they cannot even go through. We stuck there, we cannot get out to—you’ve got the people there. BRODY: So how did it end? PHAM: And then we got the—oh man, at that we fired by very close. They threw a grenade at us, and we threw— BRODY: So they were that close to you? PHAM: Yeah, they’re close, they dig a hole we don’t see and then finally, you know, I got some—they throw the grenade, but the grenade, it’s not very good grenade. BRODY: Okay, a bad grenade. PHAM: It’s not—it explodes, but it not—I got hit on my butt. BRODY: Oh my gosh. PHAM: Yeah. (laughs) But they throw the grenade, you know, because if I had been— if it goes high right here, if it goes higher, maybe it should do that, right? But you go low and then ____________ (??) hit my man behind. I got two Americans behind me, side by side me too. And then I got hit, and he—I don’t remember, he got hit or he don’t get hit, but—and then I tried to help him or something and finally after that they give me a Bronze Star. BRODY: They gave you a Bronze Star? PHAM: Yeah, American base, they gave me—I still have the document here, and I’ve got the Bronze Star here. BRODY: Oh, that’s amazing. Let’s take a look. PHAM: They gave me a Bronze Star, on 1968 on the Tet, they gave me the Bronze Star. BRODY: Whoa, look at this. So we’ve got the certificate, the Bronze Star medal. PHAM: Yeah. BRODY: Well, I will—if you don’t mind, take a photo of that before we finish. Congratulations. PHAM: I got a Bronze Star. After that they gave me a Bronze Star. But when I got injured—and my men got a lot of them—I believe, four or five people got killed or something like that, but injuries are a lot of people, like twenty of them. BRODY: So it was a major event. PHAM: Yeah. And the American side, at that point, you know, they have at least twenty, you know, had been killed or wounded on the other side, and finally because after that we retreat all of my people. Everybody retreats ; they retreat too, they go back to camp. At least they have—finally, after we know it, they have at least almost a half division of the companies, military, there. BRODY: They were right there. PHAM: Right there. They blend in. And then they—because the invasion of the whole country, everywhere. So they—at that point we know at least if I have a division over there, the whole far north of the zone there. BRODY: So you knew what was going on. PHAM: But then they don’t attack, they just sit there at that point. And we retreat, we retreat, and after that I have to go to funerals of kids, all my men, you know, a funeral of them, all that stuff. I have to go to American base with the medical over there, so they clean my wounded on my butt. (both laugh) They help. Because the Americans, they— around us, ______________(??) Americans are there because they have a lot of American very west of us—they call Khe Sanh and Con Thien. And every American, they know the place. You know, they have a knot right there, so they can stop the north coming in. But then they have many route to come in, so they cannot stop it. BRODY: Through the jungle. PHAM: Yeah, they go through and we cannot stop them. BRODY: So, you were pretty closely working with the Americans Pham recounts his experiences during the Tet Offensive, including the assistance received from American forces and his being awarded a Bronze Star. American advisors ; Bronze Star ; Communism ; grenades ; Marines ; Tet Offensive ; USMC ; Vietnam War 945 American camaraderie during the Vietnam War BRODY: So, you were pretty closely working with the Americans. So if we go forward to, you know, 1974, 1975, you were on the island doing patrols and things like that. Tell me about what was happening around the Fall of Saigon for you. PHAM: Oh yeah, not that—my story of that part right here, and then after that I got one of my best American friends, he’s—they call me Partner. He gave me a Zippo, you know, the— BRODY: Yeah, the lighter. PHAM: The lighter. I lost that but, you know, he called me a partner. He buys all that Zippo and I lost it, I said I’m sorry. And—sorry he got killed. BRODY: Oh. What was his name? PHAM: I—that is one more I cannot remember, but I know, he told me his name at that point. He’s from a very big family. The name of the family is a very big, not like McCain but, you know, it’s very big. But I don’t remember, and he, you know, he got ambushed on that—you know, this right here. It goes on the sixteenth zone, far, far south after I tried try and free—after the war at Tet. And he got wounded, he got killed. He died when he wounded and they buried him on the sea. And I don’t know at that point, I got—I don’t know what point, why I don’t go to his funeral or anything. I don’t know why, because I got something, a mission, I don’t know. And I don’t remember. BRODY: Something happened. PHAM: Yeah. But then after that, I transferred to very far—in ‘70 I moved to very far south. BRODY: In 1970? PHAM: In 1970, I moved far south. Same zone, but very far south. BRODY: So the coastal zone, but further south? PHAM: The first one, the first coastal zone. This was a four coastal zone, very far south, and then I said we—we have American every time we go to battle, I have four or five small boat went with us, and have at least one American. BRODY: An advisor? PHAM: Advisor, yeah. BRODY: Okay. So they were always with you. PHAM: Always with me, up to before they retreat. But they go with me, and every time we go to patrol, they’re very helpful. When they call for a helicopter or something like that, or supplies or thing. And they do very helpful, you know, and very badly is I’m not very good English at that point, so I don’t have a lot of communication or know their family if we talked about it. BRODY: Right, but you worked together. PHAM: Yeah, we worked together, but we talked by writing or something because I’m learn the English from the Vietnamese teacher. He don’t know anything English and he teach, you know, (Brody laughs) and he cannot even speak English. (laughs) BRODY: That’s pretty funny. PHAM: Yeah. That’s why we don’t—at that point. And then we were very friendly with all of my advisor, you know? We drink together. Most of us, you know, we drink beer and something on the trip. We go, and he eat our food, everything. And my people, they cook very good when we go travel like that, they cook very good, and they fishing and whatever there, and they cook. BRODY: So you get to cook and share and have some good times? PHAM: Everything with them, yeah. Pham discusses his friendship with American sailors and the assistance provided by American forces during operations. American advisors ; American soldiers ; cooking ; food ; friendship ; lighter ; McCain ; Vietnam War ; Zippo 1186 Attempt to rescue daughter in Danang/ Return to protecting people on base BRODY: So then as the war was winding down— PHAM: The war was not winding down, the war— BRODY: —well, still on. PHAM: But then when they got to take, you know, the Americans retreat. On, like, ’72, ’73, all Americans—that’s why the war going more, because the south—the north communists bring a lot more power, more people, more tanks, more weapons, more everything. BRODY: Coming further south? PHAM: Yeah, from north, they come in everywhere. On our side, you know, American retreat after the ________(??) side, they call it the north, the one they call the war, like, the communists, Vietnamese communists, but they cannot, they work inside, they come from the south, and the ____________(??) to north. And on our side, our Vietnamese and then American. And then the agreement in Paris on 1972, and they said, “Well, right now, this side, you there, and American can retreat,” so Americans retreat. And they agreed to supply anything they need to _______(??) and before that they transfer a lot of equipment, a lot of boat before—on the south side, on our side, you know. Even on the river, we have Vietnamese unit there. But beside that, we have American unit also, and they have very fast boat, they have a lot of unit—like John Kerry, he on the PCF right here on the south. And then they retreated and they train us to take over the unit. So at that point, our navy, they need more personnel, they need more military, they need more officers, so they’re training very quick, very quick. You know, like a Vietnamese, they don’t have a place, like maybe before that every year, only training a hundred people, and hundred officer. And now they turn into two to three hundred officer, and then— BRODY: You were training two or three hundred officers? PHAM: No. At my point when I go to school, only a hundred people a year. But after that, on that point, they were training like more. BRODY: Two or three times as much. PHAM: Two, three time, and then the time to training is shorter. A lot of them training, they went to American too, to train and bring back, and they had a lot more people so they can take care of all that. BRODY: Sure. So they take over all of the duties? So if we fast-forward to 1975, what was going on in your life in 1975? PHAM: On 1975, at that point when the north—they take over a lot of—they take over the very far north, like Hue, and then my father-in-law, my parents, you know, lives in Danang. That—I’m talking about on April or March. BRODY: March. And your daughter was there too? PHAM: March 30 or something. My daughter over there. So my wife said we’ll have to bring her, come back there, I have to fly there to bring my daughter back with us, because we know the war very, very, very, very big now. So I got permission from my commander and I fly to Saigon, and from there I fly to Danang to get my daughter. But I cannot land in Danang. BRODY: Oh, the plane couldn’t land. PHAM: Because at the time they have to return it, we cannot land, because a lot of people from _______(??) the airport and they tried to—any airplane land now, they ___(??) I mean, they stand everywhere around airplane, so the airplane cannot fly, you know. Very _____(??), you know, very bad. So I cannot go there, I cannot land, and I stay there in Saigon and I try to get to the sea, you know, on the sea is okay. We control on the sea completely, all our ship, everything go north to there and I think, Well, we—I can get out there, tried to go get my daughter. But then that night—I had a friend, he commanded the communication unit—I leave with him that night, and I hear all that out there and look like they lose, so everybody retreat. So they all—everybody go to the boat and get out to the ship, everything, you know, go south. BRODY: Everybody’s retreating. PHAM: So when then all of that happened and then all of the navy—the navy have to help to transfer all the people that can, but then another meeting, like the army or air, all of that stuff, they don’t have place to go and they depend on, you know, us to pick them up. But then, you know, we don’t have enough, don’t have the boat to pick them up, and a lot of my friend on the ship, they say, you know—our whole people there, whole battalion of people, they got out. And even, you know, the boat anchor far from the shore, but they swim out there and they—a lot of people got killed and everything. And beside that, the communist unit, they shooting in and I mean, it looked like World War II. BRODY: Yeah, that’s very dangerous. PHAM: That whole _______(??) like that. And that night, I hear the commanding officer of the whole force over there, the general right there, he yell out to the boat. I said, “Well, that’s that.” So a friend of mine told me, “Now you have to go back to your family. If not, you stuck here and every”—you know. So I say, “I cannot go and get my daughter,” so we— BRODY: That must have been hard for you. PHAM: Yeah, I come back to my family and there. But then when that lose, that won one before Saigon lose, back on March. And then a lot of people, I mean, at least a hundred thousand people, all of them, they got out to sea. And a lot of American boat or ship, big ship, they look like they know before that—American, they know before that. I don’t know anything, but they look like they know that. And they send a lot of _______(??) ship, or merchandise ship, and also they’re on the shore, on the sea, but like a two or three mile out there. And if people got out, they pick them up. If you got out, they pick them up. So a lot of people pick up because after that at my base, seven days later, they bring all their people to the island where I live because that is a very— BRODY: Safe. PHAM: —safe, very safe place, and we have a—they’ve got a big base, everything, they can fit, like forty, fifty people there. BRODY: So they brought the people who they rescued at the sea and brought them to the island. PHAM: And then bring to them the island there, the island where I live at that point. BRODY: And so by then were you back at the island? PHAM: Who? BRODY: Where you back in the island? PHAM: I’m back over there, that day I’m back. I come back the same day the base at the low coastal zone—a number—first—they call it first army—lose, I come back. So I am there. BRODY: You’re with your family and then— PHAM: My family _________ (??) but then at that point—so my mission at that time right now is just to take care of that forty thousand people, you know, keep coming to the base, keep coming. And then now, you know, the base—my base need, you know, keep safety—all of those safety and they keep water for them—food coming, everything. Take care of the people there. And then the airport, opened the airport more so they bring food, everything, you know, to take care of the forty people there. BRODY: So you’re in charge of taking care of these forty thousand people? PHAM: I’m in charge of some parts. You know, everybody take care—I’m not have that rank to do everything, but my rank at that point, you know, I still do my job on the base, but also I have to keep the road from the seas supplied to the place—like about three or four miles—safe. BRODY: Keeping it safe. PHAM: Yeah. Pham describes the escalations that occurred during the war and his responsibilities to protecting people on his military base. Communism ; Communists ; Danang ; daughter ; Hue ; John Kerry ; retreat ; Saigon ; Vietnam War 1791 Retreating before the Fall of Saigon BRODY: So then after that, what happened with your family’s decision? How did you end up here in the United States? PHAM: My family were with me and Dai only about two years old. BRODY: She was two years old. PHAM: And we—her brother only three years old. BRODY: So you had two little babies. PHAM: Two little babies there, and my wife still teach every day. And then the north, you know, I hear the news. You know, we don’t have CNN or whatever, (laughs) we don’t have a lot of—a friend of my ________(??) ship, we even don’t know anything, you know? And then I hear something, like my father is very bad sick. My father family from north, where the communist, they moved to and then they keep retreat, retreat. Finally, they move to the place kind of a hundred mile north of Saigon and live there. My father and my brother, young brother, lived there. And in Saigon I have one—my younger brother in Saigon. And he have a family—they don’t have a kid yet—but a family, and my sister, younger sister, live there. And when I hear my father sick, almost died, that was on ten days before the Saigon lose, only ten days. BRODY: Wow. So you found out ten days before that your father was sick. PHAM: Before Saigon lose, yeah—sick, very badly sick. So I think, Well—at that point somehow when all that _____(??), all of that, I have one American. He’s a reverend, and he’s a friend of my friend. He come to see me and somehow I go to coffee with him, he say something, look like the American, they want to get out. And they got the code. So you got something when you hear on the radio, they’ve got the sign, look like the song— a Christmas song or some kind like that, that’s what the point they all of them had to get out. Before, they get out already, but you know, still a lot of units still in Saigon, some advisor or something were in Saigon, but all unit, no American at all. I don’t know how many thousand were still there, but very last. And he told me that. So I know that, but I don’t know when, you know, when it would be that day. And the ten day before the Fall, thirty of April, and my father kind of sick. So I said, “Well, I have to go to Saigon to see what happened and bring him here,” because Saigon carries a lot of people come to my place, like forty, fifty thousand people ; no place to live, so they come to my place. But in Saigon, a lot of people everywhere around, they stuck in there, it’s a—the city is like fish in there, you know, fifteen _______ (??). BRODY: People are everywhere. PHAM: Everywhere, everything there. So I come there, and my father, he don’t have a house in Saigon, so the place where my brother live—a very small, like this area right here. And, you know, all of my brother, my father, my mother, all of them live there. So I say, “Well, I don’t think he can live there.” So I say, “Well, come with us to my place.” At least my place—it not that big area, but we live in the camp, you know, but I’ve got the place to live, I’ve got food, I’ve got everything. So I think it’s better than live with my brother, so I bring them in. I don’t think when we can leave or not, we don’t know when or where and when we leave, but at least we’ve go to my place better. So I bring them, that is and my father and my mother, my three young brother—the older one is seventeen years old, the younger one like eleven, two younger one is eleven years old, and my sister is like fourteen, fifteen years old. BRODY: So you brought them all with you back to your— PHAM: And my sister—brother, he—at school he’s like at last place on school. But then he say, well, he’s twenty years old, he’s ___(??) on the school, you know, I don’t remember that is a bachelor, he had like that. So he follow with my mother too, and one of my wife niece, so come to my place. So we come, you know, we have to go by, and no place to go, we go by land. We go take about a day from Saigon to another place and then from there at night we got the—you know, boat, we go to my place. So when they come to my place and my place very small, we have to build a lot of decks so they can live in there. And the very next day, that road we go—they cut off, can’t go back and forth, everything, you know? BRODY: So you were lucky you all made it? PHAM: We’re lucky to go the first there today, but after that day, yeah, I cannot bring them in. So we are only on the—I remember that day on April 23rd, they got out to my place. So when they got to my place, everything is, you know, it’s just normal, everything, my kids go to—my brothers go to play, you know, beer all that stuff, and we’re normal, nobody think anything, because while there, my place, it’s kind of safety, you know, no—everything, only thing is that a lot of people now. And then that is very cool for a little bit. And then to today—you want to know before that, you want to know something else or not? BRODY: Yes. PHAM: And then before that—and then we retreat before that, and we lose every part on the south. Every part. BRODY: Every port? PHAM: Every land, you know? Everybody lose and keep coming— BRODY: Coming south. PHAM: Coming to the south. On the land, we keep lose, lose, a lot of—they lose up to— on the thirtieth, that night. And I still don’t know anything until I still go to patrol through the area outside there, and very—and a very nice day, a very night. The night is very— the moon very nice. And I have the Honda, you know, with one of my officer— BRODY: Motorcycle? PHAM: Yeah, motorcycle, it’s a very small motorcycle. We got that—I don’t have that, but that from one of the people, they bring from the north to the boat everything, so when they bring it up here and somehow I got that. (laughs) BRODY: You got the motorcycle. That was lucky. PHAM: Yeah, I got lucky. I ride around on that with him. And I hear something, look like a—I see from outside the sea—got one big ship, you know, merchandise ship, you know, big, out there, and got light, very light. And somehow on my—not my base, another base, supply base there that saved a lot of __________ (??), they bring people in the base land to the ship. I don’t know what—I don’t have and nobody say anything, and nobody have any order or anything, you know? But I know where—we lose up there already, somehow we have to get out. BRODY: Right. PHAM: But I’m still in the unit here, I can’t even get out. If nobody get out, I can’t get out. I can’t—you know, things like that. You know, we can’t go, I don’t know where to go or anything. We don’t have any idea, no anything. BRODY: No information. PHAM: But I see that. So I come in and look at what happened. And I see—it looked like they bring some of the unit, the Vietnamese unit, looked like—you know, it not military, kind of like a radio station or some kind of people, some kind of people work for the American or something. So they bring it out to the ship. So the ship wait out there to take people. BRODY: Taking people away. PHAM: Away. And that people, you know, some kind of connection with the American. BRODY: Americans, right. PHAM: But my unit, all of my friend, to take all of the four hundred, four, fifty, forty thousand people up there, nobody know—up there, nobody know, in our unit nobody know anything. But then I see that, so I come back. So I come to the radio station. You know, we have this—the coastal zone, we have very big communication. In the coastal zone, they can connect with Saigon, with all the navy. And I got in there, and it look different, only one officer in there! And I asked him what happened. And he say, well— he told me, he says, well—he told me, he said, “Saigon, all the navy got the order: ‘All the navy ship get out. Get out of Saigon. Get out.’” At that point, all the navy ship got out. That night, the twenty-ninth—the night is twenty-nine— BRODY: April twenty-ninth. PHAM: About twelve at night, you know, and he told me all the ship got ordered to get out. And over here, we don’t know anything, you know, all the ship, all—they change the frequency, everything, so nobody know and get out. And they go and get out to order somewhere on the island—another island outside the border. And I said, “Well, what happened?” And they get out. So, I said “Well, what do we do now?” And I ask him, you know, where the commanding officer of our base—he’s the captain named—his name is Captain Tien. He’s commander of a whole area in our base. I ask him where. He say he don’t know. BRODY: He didn’t know? PHAM: He don’t know where that captain go, where the commanding officer go. And I see, well, I have a—he have a two Swift boat, you know, for him. And all of my base give him another boat up there, you know, and park it right on that pier, right there. And I go see there, I don’t see no boat, no Swift boat. So he had to go somewhere. And I go and I think maybe he go out to the American boat and maybe he— BRODY: He escaped— PHAM: —he escape already! BRODY: Wow. PHAM: And I think—I asked, you know—because I am the command—executive officer of the base, so I know everything, and I drive around at night and I see something. I don’t know, nobody say anything, and I go there and I go to the pier. I see his Jeep in there. BRODY: Really? PHAM: He’s got his Jeep— BRODY: Yeah, his Jeep is there at the pier. PHAM: In the pier. But no boat, no nothing, and I think, He gone. And I ask my guard— you know, they secure the gate—you know, the guard see something, he say the commanding officer family look like been leaving already and that was before. BRODY: So he left with his family before— PHAM: That what they say, you know, I think he don’t say something. They don’t go at the same time, but they ___(??) they do, they go with the—the people I’m talking about, the pickup ______(??). BRODY: Yeah, they just escaped with them. PHAM: And I say, well—I take the Jeep. BRODY: You took the Jeep? PHAM: I picked up my family. (laughs) BRODY: You picked up your family? PHAM: I pick up my family, the whole family. I pick the whole family, my family. Took the Jeep. And on the—the lucky one for me is that at that time I got five ship at that time for the zone, you know. We got five ship out there. But two ship are parking on the pier, you know, next to my base. And one of them in there is my commanding officer of that ship, he’s my friend, same class of me. So I go, well, why is—you know, he don’t know anything! He’s still sleep in there. So I go to bring my family and I ride through the base and I go to his place, a lot of officer, a lot of family that followed me because they don’t know anything but see me going, they think I know something. BRODY: Right. They followed you out. PHAM: Because the thing is, before the north win, they got a lot of people, got killed, got “stambled” because, you know, when they got to the ship a lot of people—they could sink your ship. I mean, they can go on— BRODY: Because too many people. PHAM: —there’s too many people, that’s why. But at my place, I think, at that point is very calm. Nobody know, nobody anything so I am kind of—I got through that. (laughs) I got in the ship, I got to his sleeping bed, you know, to his room. He’s still sleep. BRODY: He had no idea. PHAM: He had no idea. I kick him up. I say “Wake up man, all of Saigon,” I said, “All of the navy leave, gone. We have to leave too.” He said, “What?” He say he don’t know anything. But anyway, he let my family in his ship. BRODY: So your family was able to go from the Jeep into the ship. (laughs) PHAM: And then that’s that. The rest, nobody got in there. I know the ship next to him, they don’t let nobody got in. They got gun, everything. They don’t let nobody else, because he’s my friend so I got a favor from him, you know? He had all my family, you know, eleven people including me got in there. We got in. I said, “Out, get out. Open gate, go out,” because, you know, why stay here for? So he say—I commanded him: “Go!” BRODY: So where did you go? PHAM: So at that point, we don’t go yet. It’s still, the story is still my story. Nobody know this but only me. We—and a few people—and he got out. He tell the guy everything, you know, open the— BRODY: Open the gates. PHAM: What—opened the cable, everything, you know, so they got out. And another ship get out too. And the only thing on that ship is my family and another family—he’s commanding officer—my commanding officer, you know, base commander, he’s a friend of mine too, you know—family. BRODY: So about, maybe, twenty-five people on the ship? PHAM: Maybe only—not twenty-five, maybe my family about ten, he’s about sevensomething, you know? That much. But we got out, got out. We got out about an hour. And he don’t have anything, he don’t know what to do, because he don’t hear from Saigon, from the commanding office. The navy don’t say anything, he don’t know anything. On this base, here that, you know, the captain don’t say anything, no say anything, so he don’t know. So he got out. And a lot of ship, you know, come back. They patrol, you know, outside the __(??) they come back in. A friend of mine too, another friend of mine, commanding officer of that ship got me in and then somehow he hear the voice of the commanding officer of his base unit, the big one. You know, he’s the number one, big one there, you know? He calling everybody, “Come back!” Calling, “No go nowhere.” He come back somehow, he don’t get out. I believe he got refuse, the refuse him to get in the ship or somehow. So he got back. BRODY: He got sent back. PHAM: So we have to move back in. But I don’t know, I say ___(??), but this commanding officer at that time, he’s very tough and he—you know, when a lot of people from the north come in, they move in everything, a lot of people got—a lot of people, very bad people in the boat, in the ship, they go American ship. When them in there, a lot of bad people in there. They kill a lot of people, they take the chaos, you know, they kill people, they take people money, they do a lot of stuff. BRODY: On the ship? PHAM: On the ship from—on twenty days, you know, from the north, they move into my place. It not easy, they got in there and all of them got gun, got force so they can— people don’t have anything, they know they got money so they could kill them, they could be because when the people come the tell you people rob them, people rape them, they do all that stuff like that. So that what we do very security, very tight. So we can investigate everything. They investigate, so they try to good people got in. The bad people, they— BRODY: Right. Keep people safe. PHAM: They keep people safe. And the northern people, they captain, you know, and he killed two, three people because very bad. So somehow they have to keep come, so this time, this guy, you know, he think I could move, now he could kill me or something, so I say, “Oh,” and my—the ship captain, my friend, he don’t know what to do, so he anchor out there. BRODY: He anchored out at sea? PHAM: At the sea, he anchor. So I said—because he wouldn’t come in, you know had to hold it. So I got in. I call, you know, some fishing boat that come in, so I got the fishing boat, got back in the land. BRODY: Just you? PHAM: Just me. BRODY: And so you left the family on— PHAM: The family out there. And I came back in and everything like normal. And the next morning, all the ship come back to the pier, all my family come back to the house. BRODY: Oh, they came back. PHAM: Come back, because he said that nobody go! So I have to go back, everybody come back, go to house. Pham recounts the days leading up to the fall of Saigon and bringing family and other vulnerable people to the military base. Then, he describes the time he was out on the sea with these people, before being ordered to return to Vietnam. boat ; Escape from Vietnam ; Fall of Saigon ; family ; friendship ; illness ; Jeep ; leaving Vietnam ; motorcycle ; Saigon ; Swift boat 3027 Escaping from Vietnam PHAM: So I don’t know what happened, but I know Saigon is lose, everything else. And this guy, I know he don’t—he can’t go or he don’t know and we don’t—nothing we can do, we cannot fight anymore and that look like have to leave somewhere. My point at that time, I don’t know where to go. We keep go and we try to go to some place on my mind or my friend might go, you know, got out there, find some island somewhere out in the Pacific, go to Australia or somewhere, you know, to live. We don’t know. BRODY: Just to get out. PHAM: Just to get out. Because, you know, people don’t know communists. You don’t know the communists. I know the communists. My mom know the communists. A lot of people don’t know them. But the communists, they different, they’re different people. Even if—even your brother or sister, whatever, but they turn out to communists, and they the communists. You cannot change their mind, you know? They could kill you, your brother, your sister, they can __(??) the communists, it’s a bad one. So they look like a demon or some kind of __(??), you know, the people who got ___(??) or something, __(??) so bad. BRODY: So you knew you wanted to get out? PHAM: Get out. You know, I don’t know how, maybe die outside on the sea? I don’t have any money on my hand, I don’t know nothing, know nothing. BRODY: And your father is sick, and you’ve got two little kids. PHAM: Yeah. My kid, I know my brother there, you know, we got to—that just on my mind, that, Oh, you have to find out—get out. And at that point before I left my—(phone rings) and before we got to go to my friend ship right there, we can get bigger ship. But now, out there we’ve got two—that thing I said, the big ship, American ship there, you know, merchandise ship? They have another one on another side of the island also, so we’ve got two of them there, big one. One of them like eighty tons, very big ship, a hundred ton or something, a hundred thousand ton, big one like that. So out there somehow we try to get out of that ship. But have to be do without some, you know, control out there, the commanding officer, whatever they all find someplace. You know, I got all my small ship of mine can bring us to there, we planning, we just sit in there trying to plan that, we know Saigon is lose already, everything. But then luckily at that point, the Vietnamese—the government of the Vietnamese, the president, General Minh, he talk on the radio and say he—everybody can go. We lose. Everybody can go. BRODY: So then you didn’t have to worry about orders. PHAM: About, you know, who can order or anything, he said everybody can go and all of that. At that point when we know that, everybody can go, and then— BRODY: You had a plan? PHAM: I have a plan to go. So, you know, my friend’s ship out there, he take out, he out there. So I got my family, I call my family on the—they just got in, they just got in only an hour ago. And now I said, “Let go.” BRODY: We’re going again. PHAM: Go again. So they—now we don’t go by Jeep, but we walk, everybody only have a sack or something like that, whole family go to a small boat from my—actually, my people, you know, my—all of my—it’s just men, you know, only thing anybody want to go, and they looked like not a lot of people to go on my unit. Nobody want to go. BRODY: So your family— PHAM: So they got—so, they make the route for me, they got the boat for me, everything, so I bring my family to the ship. And the base still—you know, they still stand there, people, lot of people at that time, and then I don’t know what they do after that but then I go to the ship. BRODY: So did you make it to the big merchandise ship? PHAM: No, we go to my friend ship. BRODY: Okay. PHAM: Because, you know—so a lot of people outside the base, everything they know that a lot of people go in, a lot of family, they go on his ship. So, it’s like, about two hundred people. BRODY: Two hundred people were on your friend’s ship? PHAM: —were on my friend’s ship. BRODY: And then where did it go from there, once you got— PHAM: And then when he got in there, we’re still wait the commanding office somehow, you know, and we have to four or five ship, you know, and all the—oh, let’s see—two ship—four ship at that point. And every ship, we got like a hundred or two hundred, my friend’s ship will have a lot more than that. And then we there, we wait. At that point— around like twelve o’clock until four o’clock and then the commanding officer and family go to another ship, and we get out. And a lot of people—I mean, they got out boat, small boat, everything, they’re all around the water, see all kind of ship around the water. Some of them got in my—this ship, some got into the big ship, a lot of them when they got up there, they can fall off and they killed—I mean everything would be chaos. And until that afternoon—that’s on the thirtieth—and that time the sea very bad. I mean, you know, very rough. Very rough sea. Wind, no rain, but a lot of wind, a lot of dark sky and kind of very bad. And we move. We move the route, they try to plan to go to Australia. BRODY: The plan was to go to Australia? PHAM: Yeah, the plan where they go. So they—but still they go, you know, past Singapore and past something to go to Singapore to Australia. And then between, you know, the two to go there and then every two, three hour, a lot of people, they want to get back. They don’t want to go. So lots more ship, they go pass through and they can put people who— BRODY: They took people off when you were on— PHAM: —people when they got on, go in or back, whatever they do that with the rough sea, everything that until the next morning. And then at that point, somehow, you know, the wind died down and the sea, complete calm. I mean, you never see at that point, the sea, it calm for twenty days. No even waves. I can’t believe it, it’s just like on the lake. The whole twenty days. And take two, three days later, we—our ship, you know, because the ship we in only have—they had eight engine. Only two engine work. Six of them no work. BRODY: Were dead. PHAM: Were dead. So we have another ship pull our ship. BRODY: So you got towed? PHAM: So we got tow, only have two engine still that—so we go like maybe two, three miles, you know, they call—it not miles, they call it what— (voice off mic whispers “knots”) knots? (voice off mic whispers, “per minute or something? Knots per minute?”) (Pham laughs) Only two or three knots. BRODY: Wow, so not very fast. PHAM: So we’re not very fast, but the sea somehow, it’s very, very, very cool, very cool. And then we had to feed that many people there. The ship people has to ship people and they don’t have family there, they—all of them, they go to ___(??). And, you know, my friend, he’s a fellow officer, a petty officer, only in __(??), but nobody got family there, like about hundred people in there and they don’t have— BRODY: No family. PHAM: No family. And they have to feed all of these family. BRODY: Wow. (laughs) PHAM: Yeah. They have to feed all these family they have there. Luckily—and somehow they got that—at that time—by that time they wanted to go back to Saigon already, so they buy a lot of food, you know, like Nuoc Mam, all that thing, you know, store on the ship. So they have food. So they feed everybody, you know, they feed. And somehow we go to that route and before we pass Singapore, somehow—because the American, they’ve got a very big operation, so they—up there, they have a lot of airplane, they follow a lot of ship around, everything. So before we go with the later one—four ship, we’re with the later one. Before that, like almost fifty ship or something, they go to Subic Bay or they go to Guam. They got ordered to go there and they go that way, and with the guy from American ship or from airplane, everything. Before us, by one day before. We later. (phone rings) They have been buzzing all day long. And then somehow before we pass Singapore –and we got communication, they say, well, we have to go to Singapore. Pham describes taking his family away from Vietnam on a ship, eventually finding their way to Singapore. Australia ; boat ; Communism ; Communists ; escaping Vietnam ; Fall of Saigon ; family ; food ; General Minh ; Guam ; Jeep ; leaving Vietnam ; Nuoc Mam ; radio ; ship ; Singapore ; Subic Bay 3636 Refuge at Subic Bay BRODY: So you ended up— PHAM: We ended up, a whole four ship, we go to Singapore. We go to Singapore, stay there for two, three day and night because the officer, they go up there and see what happened, and then Singapore don’t take us. But they say, “Americans, they got the base at Philippine, they call Subic Bay.” They say what they’re planning, they got the camp there. “If you go to Subic Bay, they can take you.” BRODY: So you left Singapore? PHAM: So the next two days after that, we left Singapore and we go to Philippine on Subic Bay. But before we got four, right? Four ship. But then when we go to the next day, next morning, we see only three ship. We lost another ship. BRODY: What happened to the other one? PHAM: Somehow one of them in there, some of the people in there, they want to go back and go back, and— BRODY: To Vietnam? PHAM: Yeah. The captain don’t want to go back or something. You know, the captain is my friend, same class as me ; good friend, too. And then they killed him and they took— BRODY: And they took the ship? PHAM: —they took the ship. We look the morning—the next morning, we don’t see that ship. And we turn around, you know, few hour, can’t find no more, so we have to go. So finally, after—now we know he got killed. And his body put to sea, they kill him, and then they took the ship back. We don’t know exactly— BRODY: Why? PHAM: Why—the “why” we know: they wanted to go back and, you know, don’t have any transportation for them to go back. They want—they turn violent and somehow, they killed him. So after seventeen days, or eighteen days, because we only have two knot or three knot— (laughs) BRODY: Right, took a long drive. PHAM: Yeah, we went to Subic Bay. BRODY: So there, there was a camp? PHAM: They got a camp. And everybody live in there for seventeen days, at least fifteen days. The camp, they got food, they got everything—very nice there. And we’re the new people come in, like almost a thousand people at that point. We got in and they planned already! They got all new tent, they got new bed, everything, they got planned everything. So we got in there and they set up us to the camp very nicely, everything. BRODY: All eleven of you? PHAM: All eleven of us. And at that point, and then we’re in there, they normally, they do all that stuff and they trained us how to do this and that. They teach us for tax, how to pay tax, (laughs) all that stuff. BRODY: So at that point, did you know you would be heading to the United States? PHAM: Yeah. At that point when we got up the base, we know we go to the United States and everything there. We don’t worry anything anymore because they got food— plenty of food, and plenty of supply. I mean, everything, they got everything there, better than we’d have. And so even—you know, that good. And then we end look like we—and if I know that we don’t worry after that, I could be enjoying like a real vacation, (Brody laughs) but at that time we wanted everything, for my kid. Like, my young one, the older one, Hui, he got a lot of—his skin, you know got—(speaks to someone in Vietnamese off-mic. She responds, “hives”)—yeah, it’s very bad, you know, he hurt, so I carry him, have to take care of that stuff, and he hurt so I got that. But now he’s very good, so he don’t have a problem or anything. And we there for—let’s see, fifteen days. Pham explains that, after arriving at Singapore, his ship sailed to Subic Bay, where he and his family were provided food, medical care, and education. boat ; boats ; Escaping Vietnam ; hives ; Leaving Vietnam ; Phillippines ; refugee camps ; ships ; Singapore ; Subic Bay ; taxes ; United States 3890 Arriving at Wake Island PHAM: So they got two choice: one, you can to Midway Island. BRODY: Midway Island? PHAM: First, we don’t go to direct to American yet, but go to Midway. And another group could go to Guam. BRODY: Okay. So there were two choices. PHAM: Yeah, two choice. And from Guam, they could be go direct to American, or they go to Korea (?). And then my parent and all—you know, his three son and daughter, they go to Guam, because he said he’s going to wait, maybe another brother of mine somehow, they get to Guam or not. So they want to go to Guam. And my family, that mean me, my wife, and my two kid and then my niece, my wife niece, and then my younger brother, my wife young brother, we go to Wake, because I have to—you know, my kid too young. We go to Wake, easy one, you know, so we don’t have to be Guam. A lot of people like Guam so everything, so I choose Wake, so I choose very good time, and we go to Wake Island. We stay at Wake Island, and Wake Island look like that place, look like the place for American retreat or something, military retreat. They have a house, they have very nice house, you know? They got house, they built look like this. They got garage, they got, you know—and they got the very comfortable living there. They got all the tennis court, they got the TV, they got all kind of stuff, you know, on that island. Wake Island, a very, very good island. Look like they say, “Well, that place for American family,” they live there, they’re on the—whatever the base, you know, in there. Pham describes his arrival to Wake Island and the amenities provided. escaping Vietnam ; Guam ; housing ; leaving Vietnam ; Midway Island ; military retreat ; United States ; Wake Island 4010 Culinary differences between American and Vietnamese cultures BRODY: So it was nice? PHAM: Only thing is we cannot go to fish. A lot of fish are there—I mean fish, very good fish. There, cannot go to fish. BRODY: Why couldn’t you fish? PHAM: They say the fish had contamination or some kind of—you know, not good to eat or something. But we Vietnamese, we don’t care, (___________??) (Brody laughs) They can sneak out there, you know, trying to catch them— BRODY: Catch the fish. PHAM:—catch some fish. Then we cannot farm out there but, you know, somehow we still (laughs)—I can still eat two or three time at that. We got a guy that live with us in the same house. We have a lot of people that live in the same house, you know, like maybe like a house like this, you know, like twenty, thirty people living together. We’re very close. But then eating three meals a day. You have to go in line, you eat every food, a lot of food. But they—American, I don’t know why, but they have a lot of food. After we head out here, we know expensive. BRODY: Right. PHAM: But in there, they gave us the food, and we don’t like them very much. BRODY: (laughs) That’s funny. PHAM: Yeah. The one that—what they call—what, what kind of food they leave us and we don’t like very much, and then—(talking off-mic in Vietnamese to his daughter, she says “Ham?”)—ham, ham. Yeah. Expensive, right? BRODY: So they gave it to you— PHAM: Every day, and a lot. I mean it’s like—and we like fried chicken—that’s what we like—they give you one or two. That’s all. BRODY: Oh, but so much ham. PHAM: Yeah, whole bunch ham. (Brody laughs) And the thing we like, chicken. Chicken, fried chicken or thing like that, we love very much, and they don’t have that very much. And a lot of food, you know, they don’t have. Like, we need jalapenos or very hot spice ; they don’t have that, and we love that. And they don’t have—and then give a lot of food, but a lot of them, you know— BRODY: Not your taste. PHAM: —we don’t really like to taste. That the problem. But we had food morning, lunch, afternoon, and at night they got open TV out there until twelve o’clock at night. (laughs) So we get—you like a vacation. Very nice. And then they have the open a lot of play. They give you clothes—old clothes, they not new, but people donation. And they got up there and they gave us clothes and everything, you know. And the thing they give us a lot is a cigarette. BRODY: A lot of cigarettes. PHAM: Yeah. Every two packs— BRODY: Did you smoke? PHAM: At that time I smoked, yeah. I smoke a lot at that time, (both laugh) I smoked maybe one or two pack cigarette a day, you know. We smoked—everybody smoked! BRODY: Right. And they gave you a lot. PHAM: They give us a lot of smoke. So we got good games, we played poker by cigarette, you know? (Brody laughs) We don’t have money to play but we play— BRODY: But you trade cigarettes. (laughs) PHAM: We play cigarette. BRODY: So how long were you there? PHAM: I live in there at least for a month. Pham describes his first experiences with the American food he was given on Wake Island. cigarettes ; clothing ; cooking ; fish ; fishing ; food ; fried chicken ; ham ; housing ; jalapenos ; poker ; smoking ; spice ; TV 4225 Wake Island and waiting for a sponsorship in the United States BRODY: For one month. Okay, so then—so the family then after that, they brought you— PHAM: My parents’ family, after two, three weeks in Guam and then they moved to Wake— BRODY: To Waco? PHAM: They come back to Wake, they don’t wait to go to here, they come back. BRODY: From Guam to— PHAM: From Guam to Wake. So they live at the place close to us and maybe can walk, like, a hundred yards. BRODY: So during that month they came? PHAM: Yeah, they came in with us. They don’t live together, but they live in— BRODY: Nearby. PHAM: —nearby. And we go to learn, we go to everything there. And everybody, you know, it very good fitting, everything, but everybody wanted for everything else, you know, a lot of thing, I don’t know how much and what it—a lot of them. We keep communication with the people. We know, they coming or not, here or there. We stay in there for like, say, a month or two, and then the whole family of us, now we don’t separate. BRODY: Right. Now you’re all together. PHAM: We are together. And we go to Fort Smith, Arkansas. BRODY: So you get to Arkansas. PHAM: Yeah. They got three place—we don’t have a choice. At that time, they want us to where—we go to where. So they bring us to Arkansas, Fort Smith, Arkansas. BRODY: So you all flew together? PHAM: We all flew together to Fort Smith, Arkansas. BRODY: All right. So you’re in Arkansas, you’re all together. PHAM: And then at that point, we have to training to a lot of stuff, life in the United States. We have to do—you know, the training to do—more like them they training us more, you know, English, you can do, and then they train us to do the tax. Mostly, it’s the tax. Taxes, the more they added them, because we don’t pay tax before. In Vietnam, we don’t pay tax. BRODY: So they’re just letting you know. PHAM: The house, we don’t pay tax. We bought the house, and then once we have the house and then we don’t have to do anything on that house. That’s our house, and we don’t have to do. And here, you have to do all that property tax, all that stuff that, (laughs) but over there we don’t. BRODY: So they trained you on all those details. PHAM: They trained us on detail there. Actually, my family, you know, only me speak English and all the kid small. My parent, he kind of that thing—oh, my parent at that time, he’s sixty-five years old. My mom like fifty-five, but she don’t speak any English. He speak French but then—and then on the camp, that what we do. And we eat, and when we go to movie and then kind of, you know, prepare to get out. BRODY: Right. PHAM: But then the ___(??) to prepare to get out. So a lot of people, they know people outside already, or they know people in another country, like Canada, or they got—most of them in France, a lot of Vietnamese, they’re connect with France, you know? So they want to go there. So they go very fast. Sponsor over there, and they go very fast. The people who want to American, want to get out American or another country, a lot of people, they want to go to a different country, they go to Brazil, they go everywhere. They got people in there to go. So they go faster. Go to American for me is kind of harder because we eleven people. Who can sponsor eleven people to get out? BRODY: Right. So how did you come to find your sponsors? PHAM: And then we have to—my only request, I want to go to warm country, a warm, warm place. I don’t want to go north, cold, anything. I want to go warm. So somehow they—so what I—I waited in delay until September. Got the church from a Presbyterian church with a member of the church, they sponsored us to go to here, Richardson. BRODY: To come to Richardson. So the First Presbyterian Church of Richardson— PHAM: Yeah. The whole family— BRODY: —sponsored the whole family? PHAM: The whole family, eleven people, all of us, as a full family. We live at the place very close to my house right now. When I got the place I don’t move too far. I got the apartment there. I got four bedroom apartment, and they got up there. We come out on the Labor Day ; September second, Labor Day, yeah. BRODY: So your anniversary is coming up. PHAM: Yeah. BRODY: So what was the apartment like? Four bedroom— PHAM: Four bedroom, yeah. We got very—you know, I come up here, we got bedroom, we got—what, carpet on the floor. We never live on a carpet floor. We never had a carpet floor, now we got carpet floor, everything. And the first meal have that much people, so that was— BRODY: So, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine families sponsored, so— PHAM: (laughs) So they come in. So at least half of that, you know, that come in, themself. So they got us fried chicken. BRODY: They got you fried chicken. (laughs) Finally. You got the fried chicken. PHAM: Yeah, I got fried chicken. They—oh man, you know, that night, fried chicken on the second, yeah, and the family. And then they explain it to us, what Sunday I go to the church, I have to go to speech, something, and then, you know, prepare kid because school. BRODY: It was starting, yes. PHAM: It started. Pham described what he was taught while waiting on Wake Island for a sponsorship to move to the United States. apartment ; Arkansas ; Brazil ; Canada ; church ; English language ; escapng Vietnam ; famiy ; First Presbyterian Church of Richardson ; food ; Fort Smith ; France ; French language ; fried chicken ; Guam ; housing ; Labor Day ; language learning ; leaving Vietnam ; Presbyterian Church ; refugees ; Richardson ; school ; sponsor ; sponsors ; sponsorship ; taxes ; United States ; Wake Island 4575 Adjusting to life in the United States PHAM: So kid go to school. So I got four or five kid go to school. Two of these right here cannot go to the school yet because they still small, so they have to pass preschool or something. Another, my two young brother, twin, my sister, a little bit older, she like twelve, thirteen years old, and then another girl, you know, like, my niece, my wife niece—but four of them go to school. BRODY: So they’re all—yeah, they all had to be signed up for school and get ready for school. PHAM: For school, the Dobie close to my house, everything. And then, you know, they go to school. BRODY: So what school did they go to? PHAM: Dobie Elementary School. BRODY: Dobie Elementary in Richardson. PHAM: Yeah, right on that—you know, that recent border of Dallas, but Dobie at that time, very good school. You know, somehow lucky, good school. BRODY: Were there other Vietnamese families at the school? PHAM: They got—at that time they live there very close. A lot of Vietnamese live there at that area. At that point, you know, a lot of Vietnamese live in that apartment. But now nobody live there no more, only me. The rest of them move everywhere, but only me live there. But Dobie school. And my kid, later on, they go to—the church got the preschool somewhere very close, and so my kid go to that school and the lady here, you know, bring them to go to school. My kid go to Dobie school, and we can walk, they can walk to school. BRODY: So the sponsors really helped you and your family adjust. What kinds of things did the sponsors do? PHAM: The sponsor, they—I believe before I got out the camp, looked like ___(??), they gave us, every person, they got ten dollar or something—a hundred dollar, I believe, you know, something too. So when I got out of that, I gave that money to the sponsor people here, you know, that __(??) people, the money. But they plan already. They rent the apartment for one month. They paid for. BRODY: They took care of that. PHAM: The food, they paid for the food a whole month or something. And every day they’d come in to bring us to go to grocery to buy food. And we eat a lot of rice at that time, and they—the grocery at that time, they close the market, got the Safeway, and we got in there to buy rice. And see, you have two, three bag of rice ; the whole section, they have three bag of rice, like a five pound or something like that, and we grab all five pound but five pound, we maybe eat only one or two days. BRODY: Right. PHAM: You know, and then they—we have to buy food, they teach us how to buy food cheaper. You know, each season you don’t like to ________(??) fruit, you don’t buy them right now because it may be expensive, right? Another month may be cheaper, so they help us how to buy them, good priced food. And __(??), cheap so that one is—I still remember is right here. I think they buy cheap, so they go to buy chicken. So at that time they buy—they sell chicken neck. You know, a lot of that is cheapest. BRODY: It’s cheap. PHAM: Yeah. So I think that one because it’s cheap, so I buy a lot of chicken necks. BRODY: Oh boy. (laughs) PHAM: But after that, for, I mean years after that and some of the lady in here, they bring to me a lot of chicken neck because they think I love it. (laughs) They bring them to give us, you know, they think because I like it, we like it. But actually, you know, we eat because it cheap. BRODY: It was cheap. (laughs) That’s pretty funny. But they thought you loved chicken necks. (laughs) PHAM: Yeah, love the necks, so they bought it. But that what they teach us. That, and then find out I said, “Well, I have to find some place where we buy a lot of rice.” You know, more rice, that is not enough. We cannot go to buy rice every day and everywhere, so finally somehow they—one lady at this apartment, she find a place in downtown that sells rice. We bought a hundred pound. BRODY: A hundred pounds of rice. PHAM: A thousand kilo, that’d be two hundred pound, right? Yeah. We bought a whole bag like that. BRODY: That lasted longer? PHAM: Yeah, and then we go there and they—all of them, they no very good drive to downtown and they got lost out there. But they got the courage to go there to buy rice. And then one family, they help us to go to every—we go to farmer’s market down there to buy fruit, vegetable, something like that, to do that for us. And my wife, and my mom, she very good cook. So she cook something they like very much, like they want a eggroll. __(??) At that time, you know, nobody know eggroll look like and how eat them. My mom, she cook eggroll. BRODY: She cooked eggrolls for all the sponsors? PHAM: Yeah. And a lot of family right here, we ___(??) she love it, and she asked, “What in there?” (laughs) And when my wife tell what in there and she no eat no more. BRODY: Oh no. (laughs) PHAM: Yeah. Because the way we cook eggroll out there in Vietnam, the best part on the chicken look like a liver, the gizzard, thing like that. BRODY: Goes into the eggroll. PHAM: We ____ (??) we put in there. It make it crunchy, everything good. But American, you know, a lot of people, they don’t ever eat the ___(??), I don’t, that thing is no good at all. Now they eat a lot. But before that time, nobody know how to eat that! BRODY: So she was shocked when she found out? PHAM: She was shocked when she know we ___(??) she eat the good, she didn’t say anything! But then my wife, she show her how to cook, she got the gizzard in there. From there, she no eat them no more. I say, “Well, next time tell her we don’t put that in there, we put meat. We don’t put that stuff in there.” (laughs) BRODY: Yes. She was sorry she asked, I’m sure. (laughs) Pham describes his family's adjustment to life in the United States, including housing, school, and food. 4988 Starting work in the United States BRODY: So were you working at this time? PHAM: Okay. And then they find us to go to looking for job. BRODY: So the sponsors helped you find jobs too? PHAM: And I don’t have a job, I don’t know what skill I got, so I say, “Well, anything I can do.” So first one they see me go to do the place what they do—what, do yardwork, you know, to do—cut grass or something. But they look at us, I’m not—you know, I’m only a hundred and fifty pound, and my father is same size, you know. Then they say, “Well, these guys, you know, don’t look like they have strong enough to do work,” or something. And they don’t take us. (laughs) BRODY: So they didn’t take you for the yard work? PHAM: No, they don’t take us for that. So I said, “What kind of job we do?” I’m thinking, Well, here they have a lot of cars, so I say, “Well, let’s do car.” BRODY: Cars. PHAM: Yeah, let’s do car. So I go to look for a car at the Sear Roebuck. They got the place, the guy worked out there. Somehow, he got that they know they’re looking for a car mechanic, do helper or something. So they bring me over there. So they take me for car mechanic, and I don’t know anything for car, mechanic, or anything, you know? I don’t know, and I worked with the guy, his name is Tommy DeComb, he’s younger than me. He’s certainly same year, same old—same age my kid, and he a very nice guy. He take care of the shop, he take care of the garage. He don’t fix for people, they take care of the fleet. So I’m the helper. I come and help, I say, “Well, you can teach—you have to teach me, because I don’t know anything. But I’ll tell you, I can learn very fast.” So he say, “Okay.” He’s a very nice guy. And every time he under the car, right, he want a spare part. So I stand on the toolbox, I put it up, this spare part? This spare part? So when he says, “Yes,” so I got—“Oh, this screwdriver, Phillips screwdriver or what?” BRODY: So you learned a lot of words quickly. PHAM: So I learned a lot of words, but I don’t know what all of that was, you know? So I help him. And I learn very fast, you know. Even the driver—the tow truck—even I never drived a tow truck, you know, and I—you know, he says go to pick up. I, at that time, am not drive a tow truck yet, and the tow truck at that time, is not that good like a tow truck right now. And I, over in Vietnam, we never have a moisture or anything. At that time, very close to the winter, right? I come in December and I walk on the job. The next few weeks and then the winter come in, and I drive the truck and something circling (makes sound effect) don’t see anything, all of that moisture, it collect, and I don’t know what the, how to open the defroster, anything. Because I got defrost, you know, it clear, but I never know that. BRODY: You didn’t have that experience? PHAM: But the nice time—now, it’s bad, but that time, you know, the road a lot clearer than now. You know, forty-five years old, it be a lot of clear. Like on the [Interstate] 635 just opened, and it—you drive the car, you know, you can see the car in front, like, a mile ahead, you know, nobody __(??) so no have traffic that much. BRODY: Right, it’s not as much traffic. PHAM: I remember I drive the tow truck, pick up—very bad tow truck, pick up the van—big van, cargo van, you know—they go to work and that van broke down right on Downtown [Interstate] 30 and I drived out there and I pick up that, drive the middle of the lane and pick up that, and when I walk I how scary it is. And you go under there—it not truck like now, you know, just hang in there and pick up—you have to crawl under there to hook all the cable and crawl all around. I not going to scare anything. I don’t know. And I pulled that big and go home. I had no problem at all. I do it. And then—I think before that, before I worked for the Sear—I mean, I know before I worked Sear?— no, no, no, yeah, that first, yeah. And then he build—oh, change the oil—I tell you change the oil. They got the truck, right? The six-cylinder Ford. So they got the air filter there and then they got the pipe go down. To take the oil out is easy. I got down there to go get the screw and take oil out and filter seal there—easy. But when put oil in, I don’t know where to put. You see, the one on the heater, raiser go from the heat there to the manifold got in, you know. I put oil in there. (laughs) I put in there. So I said, wow, I kind of—very, very, you know, kind of— BRODY: You’re learning on the job. PHAM: I’m learning. But that time you don’t see people—if they see you do anything like that, he kind of—shoddy kind of thing like that, you know? And you a mechanic? You do that? (laughs) But then I learn that, and he—that guy, he build racecar, he race cars, a lot of, you know, racecar. He do fast racecar, you know, and every week he go to race. And he build—he got the Barracuda or whatever his car, you know. And this guy, he said every time—he __(??) on that car, he’d only put one dollar. Drive to his house, only one dollar. He write a check, one dollar. Every time he put only one dollar. I guess, at that time, like thirty-five cent a gallon, but, you know, the one dollar to put car there and that gas in there, and he build—he fix his car all the time at night. So I say, well, I volunteer to go to his place to help him to learn—I don’t know what the transmission is or what is that, so I go in there every night, you know? I go home—my house here, his house—he’s live in Mesquite. And I have to go to his place, and at ten o’clock I go home. And I learn from him, you know, how what do it, and he don’t teach me. He said do what, you do that, and then when he do—I saw what he did, he did the valve job and put there—lift there, you know, lift there, everything, so I—you know, I—after he done and I follow, I do it. You know, somehow I do there—but that guy, he’s younger than me, but he made me lose the job. BRODY: Oh no. How did that happen? PHAM: Yeah. He go to pick up a car, you know, a van, stuck on somewhere. So I go with him. And he drive, he talk, somehow he almost hit people, he got to the ditch, so then we got in there to put the truck out, everything, somehow then now, they got somehow, they report, whatever there, so he say, “Well, it look like my fault or something.” So I think that’s why they fired me, or something. Pham describes his first jobs in the United States and his learning to be a mechanic while working. car repair ; Dallas ; employment ; English ; jobs ; language learning ; learning English ; mechanic ; Sears Roebuck ; sponsors ; toolbox ; tools ; tow truck ; yardwork 5470 Recovering from being fired One time—at that time we ran out, we live easy. I tell you what—how it’s hard at that time. The life easy, but I have to choose __________(??) people from here. They give me all the house, they give furniture, they give everything. A lot of, you know, dish I still have here now. And they give a television, the old television, we’ve got black and white, and they __(??). So when the Sear—I work for Sear, right? So I go to Sear store, I sold—I got the 19—I think 19 television—that’s a better new one at that time—television, Sony. Cost about five hundred dollar. So I have fifty dollar. That time I saved fifty dollar. So I want to buy— fifty dollar—I buy a TV. I say I work for Sear for almost a year, right? So I think, Well, they give me buy the TV, I borrow. And application, everything, you know? I make—at that time, I work for Sear, pay three dollars and fifty cents an hour. And I said—fifty dollars—so I said, “Well, I give $50 and borrow $150.” And wait for two-three weeks, way, way, way after ___(??) my TV. And he say, “Wait, wait, they don’t have that.” Finally they give me authorized to buy. They give me the credit. But the credit you pay for it, that fifty dollar, they give me fifty dollar finance. (laughs) BRODY: That’s not a very good deal. (laughs) PHAM: No, it—so I cannot buy the TV, okay? That the one. Another one, they don’t give me that, and then after I—but I called Sear. They give you a lot of class, you know, like a different kind of mechanics, small lawnmower or something, ___(??) gasoline or air conditioning, all kind of stuff, a small class, and I’m very good at that, you know? Every class I make, you know, everything, and yet all is sort of ______(??). And after they fire me—I work for a year, and they fire me and I go looking mechanic job. You know, mechanic job, I look, go to downtown, they got the place, you know, very bad, don’t look very good, everything, but I go in. Look like they don’t give me a job. And then somehow friend of mine, they work for—at that time in here, maybe a thousand American Vietnamese only, right? You don’t have Vietnamese restaurant, you don’t have nothing. You have only one place where we buy Vietnamese food or anything. You got the downtown, very downtown, we’ve got a Chinese place—big, like this house—they sell Nouc Mam or all that food, that’s it. But we don’t have anything. BRODY: Right. PHAM: And then they—all that they’re doing the outside ___(??), but when I do a second job and I—they give me—they got a friend of mine, he worked like a machinist. And he a real machinist. In Vietnam, he’s a mechanic. So—he not mechanic—but he an officer, but he did engineering, you know? So he know all of that, all that stuff. So he got the job in there, and he very—they love him. Everybody love him in there. He very good. You know, precision, worked fast, so everybody he recommend, they took it. So I say I know him, so he said “Wow,” want to go apply job. And I never know how machinist do, and you know, I don’t know how to cut, and how to— BRODY: That wasn’t your experience. PHAM: I never know! I say even they do the mechanic here, I don’t have enough experience, and he said, “Well, okay.” So I go apply. They ask me, I say that’s a friend of mine there. He recommend here. So they ask me what tool I got. I have one tool, you know, like micrometer? They have a lot of micrometer, every distance you have the different micrometer. But all I know is micrometer, same thing, you know? When they ask me in there, what you got, a five micrometer, ten micrometer? I —“yes,” even though I have only one. (laughs) I have the one caliber, one micrometer, that’s all I got. But they ask me and I don’t __(??) I answer _____________(??), but I am truly be very good, so they hire me right away. That thing paid $5.50, so it’s a lot better than $3.50 or so, right? So I got in there, finally I got in there, they don’t give me—I say, “Well, I’m not doing that again.” They don’t open that, they got to open the place—cut—saw machine cut. And I got in there, got the supervisor, got in there, they ask me to cut. I see the machine, I already got the machine, only the cut, and he gave me the paper, the diagram, to cut angle and that stuff ; “Oh man, how to cut this?” (laughs) BRODY: You didn’t know how to do it? PHAM: I don’t know how to do it. I ask him, “You cut one to let me see how to cut it.” So he cut it. He got all that—he bring all the tuner there, tried to set up, so he cut angle, right? And so I went, “Okay.” So I cut. And then the next day, I cut it, and all of them from now, anything that hard cut, I cut, because all the big people there, they cannot cut good, because they know how to cut, but they don’t cut to precision, they don’t cut bad or anything. Like I do the sheer machine—the guy do the machine, I see the guy, he do the—American guy, he do sheer and he do the big machine, and he cut a lot. And it look like he bought a brand-new car, everything. And so man, I think he really good. Next week he got fire, because he cut a lot, but he cut wrong. He cut wrong dimension, you know? But because, you know, for me I look on that diagram there when I cut, I could only cut short, because short better than cut long. It’s different if right there, you can see it, you know. Cut short, you can make work. But you cut long, you cannot make it work, you cannot weld. Like this way, short, you can make it open right here. It long, you know, in the wall, you cannot do it. That machine, that piece of ________(??), throw them away. But I do cut for two more months, but anything I come in there, anything harder, that me to cut. BRODY: So you learned quickly. PHAM: Oh, I’m learn—you cannot believe how learn I am learned fast. I got skilled mechanic, very skilled. And then after two, three months, I got the guy, he worked for Don Snell Buick car, he’s a Air Force guy, officer. He got a job in there. He go— somehow he had. But then he got the job in Austin—or Houston, sorry, Houston—and he tell me job, he got applied okay for mechanic at Don Snell. If I wanted, I can go to see what. So I go to—I see mechanic, that’s what I want to do— BRODY: That’s what you wanted to do, yeah. PHAM: —car mechanic. So I go to apply for his job. Somehow they took me. I say I do all of that, ________ (??) the guy took me on that big dealership, that Don Snell Buick, only four dealership at that time, you know, like a Buick, Ford, Chevrolet, two, three, four. It’s not like now, where you don’t have a Honda mechanic or anything like that, just only Ford, Buick, like five, six Chevrolet, and Pontiac, maybe one or two, and they took me and I go be helper mechanic for the guy. And he got the big toolbox, everything, you know, I think he’s—but basically that guy, not very good mechanic, you know? He do—I think he can do it ________(??) he would give me, but he do everything. He do, I look like—after I do work for him for three, four months. Every car, if I have to pay him, he have to pay me to fix my car. That’s why I’m say how good he is. He have to pay me to fix my car. And everything he do it, he hide from me, because I don’t know how to do, like, the random valves, you have to do the valve job. You have the machine, you go in there to set up a machine to do the valve job, everything. And then if you show me one time—I can see he do one time, and I can do it. BRODY: You can learn it. PHAM: I can learn it. I can do it right away. I can learn it, but he hide, he do it. I say, “Well, this valve, it look very bad, it certainly come out very clean and nice.” I say, “Well, how you do that?” He don’t say anything. BRODY: So he wasn’t sharing? PHAM: He don’t—he should be. I am the helper, I make money for him. But somehow he don’t show me. He’s a very nice guy, but somehow he don’t do that. And he do something I see very bad ; like people, they bring in the car, and all the car he fix, at that time he do an Opel car from Germany, you know, Opel. And it little bit different precision car, an American, whatever there. But car at that time, they don’t pay deal very good, or right now. They broken every—even brand-new car, like five, six thousand mile, they broke already. And he do the car, he do the valve job or whatever, he do the rim job. And the guy drive and then I stuck all the spark plug and it don’t run good, bring what he do. He clean them up, put them back, and ship away again. BRODY: So he wasn’t really fixing anything. PHAM: He never fix! And at one time he do it—and I let the car run, see how it work, and he got mad at me, “Why you let him run?” And I said, “You have to run to see how it work.” Because if I run it, the oil foul up the spark plug. And when the guy pick up the car it don’t run good, so that’s what, you know—and everything he fix, it broke. You know, the stake he had is not very good, he got in there, he didn’t fix up and make something more wrong then bad because that Opel is very small. Opel GT, you know, it’s small, it’s a very tiny, look like a—and he got in there and he don’t know how to fix. And I tell the manager, I say I don’t want to work with him no more. Pham explains what he did after being fired from his previous job: working at Sears and operating a machine cutter. Then, he describes apprenticing with a mechanic who refused to teach him. Buick ; car repair ; Chevrolet ; Chinese grocery ; classes ; cooking ; credit ; Dallas ; Don Snell Buick ; education ; employment ; food ; Ford ; friendship ; furniture ; housing ; Houston ; jobs ; machinist ; mechanic ; micrometer ; Nouc Mam ; Opel ; restaurant ; Sears Roebuck ; spark plug ; toolbox ; tools ; training ; TV ; valves ; welding 6160 Advancing as a mechanic PHAM: I want to do it by myself. BRODY: Did the manager say yes? PHAM: Yeah, he said yes, because he know me. You know, he know me, I can do the job, they see that guy with me because ___(??) even I know them, and I ___(??) anything, but he take. I do it by myself. But when I do by myself I have to have a tool, and I have only a box this big for tool. So how we do that? So I have to go to buy tool box. And Snap-On, they don’t sell tool—not like now, they sell a lot of people—but at that time, they don’t sell. And they have to go to the bank to borrow money. At that time I have a fifteen-hundred dollar—no, I have eight-hundred dollar— BRODY: In the bank? PHAM: On the bank, it not—it not fifty dollar, ___(??). So I go to borrow money, and they told me—how much I want to borrow? I say fifteen-hundred dollar, because that is enough for me to do it, fifteen-hundred dollar, and they say, “Oh, well, you have fifteen hundred dollar borrow?” I say yeah, they say I have eight hundred dollar. So what they do for me, let me borrow eight hundred dollar, because I have to put eight hundred dollar in there for creditor, whatever there. Only, let me borrow eight hundred dollar. So I say, “Oh no, it not”—I want to pay fifteen, so I have to borrow seven, eight dollars or whatever, and I even though _________(??) they don’t let me borrow! BRODY: Why do you think they didn’t let you borrow? PHAM: Because I don’t have any credit. No credit. At that time, nobody got credit card off, no they don’t—you have eight hundred dollar, only thing I have to borrow is eight hundred dollar. You have to keep eight hundred dollar in there, for me, for sure, (laughs), right? They don’t let me borrow seven dollar. BRODY: So you couldn’t get the tools? PHAM: I don’t get the tools from that, but I go to talk to my—the owner, Don Snell owner, he’s a World War II—he’s an aviator. You know, somehow he know me, so I say—he tell the toolbox to sell to him for me. BRODY: Oh, that’s great. PHAM: So he lent me and bought tool. Exceptional. Nobody, you know, they give to— because I bought tools and ___(??) only one. So he trust me very good. BRODY: So he trusted you and he actually gave you tools to— PHAM: —to do that, so I buy—get tool box for fifteen hundred dollars. I buy tool box, I work by myself. And luckily, I found the guy next to me, now he’s best friend up to now for me, you know, he’s my teacher, he’s Terry Bussing(??). He a mechanic ; a good, good mechanic. He fix everything. He can build a house from bottom-up, he do everything. And he from up north. Somehow, he still got to Dallas a year ago, and he work next to me. So when I do my job with anything I don’t know, I ask him and he tell me. BRODY: He helps you. So it was different— PHAM: A lot of guys there don’t tell you, they look at you like very discommunication. A lot of guys, you know, an older guy, all the thing I have to—I’m a very good tae kwon do man, I show him, so they respect me because I got power, fast, everything. But mechanic, I am not very good. English, am not very good. But this guy, you know, he love me. So he’s my partner. So from there up to later on, whatever, I make any outside money, I share with him. He do outside money, he give me half. And I learned a lot from him, something. He can weld, like, a gas tank with a lot of gas in it, full gas. One of the time he got crack ; you had to fix it, right? You have to pull this gas tank out, you drain all the water in the tank out, and then you send to somebody else. Or you can put water in there to clean it very good, and then you weld them, and then it be done, right? This guy, he weld together tank with gas, full gas in there. And a lot of people, they worry, they run away. All of the mechanics, there big smoke coming, everything. They ran away. But because they don’t understand, because, you know, the gas—explosion—the gas explosion, it not the gas itself, it _______(??). Because it not—it can vibrate the gas, if you put the fire in there, it burn, but you don’t use the gas that—you don’t use the— what—the flame. So you hit another thing, you know, make that red-hot and then you solder them and you weld them or whatever there, even, you know, the red go down to the gas, you can hear the sh-sh, there’s no explosion. BRODY: There’s no explosion? PHAM: Yeah. I learned a lot of stuff from him, you know? I learned all that stuff. And all, whatever do the fix the car, fix for—only take one year. I think it take one year, 1973, ’74—no, ’81, ’82, ’83—and then I am become the best mechanic in town. BRODY: You did? PHAM: Yeah, I am the master mechanic. I got all the certificate for the ASA [Automotive Service Association], they call it the highest, you know, mechanic. And every mechanic, I am the best mechanic and I make money beside that guy. The second guy make more money then, because we make by—the faster we make, they do commission. It not by the hour, like, the weld, you making five dollar, but I make one day, like, I work eight hours, I make fifteen hour, twenty hour, I make a lot more time, and then ___(??). That’s why I make money like that guy. And besides that, you know, a lot of car, you know, people outside we can do the job at his house and we should have the money, everything, and I make good money at Don Snell with him. I work with him until ’85 or almost ten year there. And I am the best mechanic and I do— BRODY: That’s quite a journey, from 1975 to 1985. PHAM: Oh yeah, 1975, no until ’85, I am very good at—and then that owner and the manager, everybody, the mechanics, they love me after, you know, a few years. And anything broke, I can fix anything. Even they got the computer, the telephone broke, want me to fix. The door on the main gate broke, they want me to fix. The one machine to pull all the—for the bank, you see ______________(??) broke, they want me to fix. The boat, he got the fast boat, they want to fix. Only me could fix the roller machine to do on-floor clean. (laughs) BRODY: The call you for everything. PHAM: They want me to fix, because they don’t call me, I will fix because it cost a lot of money to outside the __(??) I fix and they pay me by—they give me a job, a car, and the side car. But at that time, you know, a lot of car broken. A lot of cars go into the dealership, you work all day long, you no can— BRODY: You’re busy. PHAM: —busy, busy. So I fix good until they got some idea from some kind of—I don’t know. They want to make a group, four or five people, mechanics, to turn out the job and share. At that point, me and that guy, we say we don’t do that. We don’t want to do that. But the guy don’t want to do anything. He do bad, and then you have to fix for him, and sometimes they hire a lot of guys, you know, they go in to fix the job and do the job and he don’t know anything, he make the job very bad, and then you have to fix it. And you lose a lot of thing like that, you know, they do very bad manager at that time. So I don’t do that, I go to look at another job, another Buick, Inwood Buick. I go over there at Inwood Buick for another few years. And after that I open my own shop. BRODY: Did you? So what year was that that you opened your own shop? PHAM: ’89. BRODY: ’89. So—okay, so about ten years later. PHAM: About—after mechanic, like twelve years or ten years. I’ve been for—’79, ’78, I do mechanic until ’89. I know everything at that time. Mechanic, am very good, anything I can fix. BRODY: So you must have been really proud when you opened your own— PHAM: Yeah, I opened my own shop. I do mechanic, I sell car. I do everything. I sell car and I do—I can finance car, I do car, I do fix car, I do buy car, sell car, I do auction, I do everything. BRODY: You do it all? PHAM: I do pick up, you know, repossession car, me too. I do—I mean, everything. Do title work, I do— Pham describes his learning to be a mechanic and become a valued mechanic at a multitude of dealerships. Then, he describes how he opened his own automotive shop. ASA ; Automotive Service Association ; banking ; banks ; car mechanic ; car repair ; cars ; credit ; Don Snell ; employment ; entrepreneur ; friendship ; Inwood Buick ; jobs ; kindness ; loans ; master mechanic ; mechanic ; money ; owner ; small business ; toolbox ; tools ; trust ; welding 6781 Discrimination as a mechanic BRODY: So earlier, you were talking about—when you were working at the Buick place that you felt some discrimination because people, maybe, didn’t know you as well, can you— PHAM: No, that guy, the discrimination there, that two other men there, very good mechanic, they do ___(??) one of them brother, and they discrimination me. I don’t think because I am Vietnamese or anything. He discriminates me, looked like he discriminate the guy, friend of mine too, he American, Terry Bussing. They discriminate him too. BRODY: Really? PHAM: Sometime before, he think I am not good. So he discrimination. And after that, for a few years later, I am too good. He still discrimination, because I make money more than him. And that what—you know, because when you make money more you’re good, and then some customer they require what mechanic to do their job, and when I do work for Inwood Buick and on the wintertime, nobody got work and I’m only busy, because they want me to do the job. And all at one time, I can tell you __(??) this, because I don’t have __(??) fix the car, and they got out, they not get back because my fault. Not get back. And the guys that do the advisor, the guy can do, you know, between the customer and the mechanic, right? One time, he find one tiny thing, I don’t tie them good, and he— oh man, he happy, because I fire—you heard __(??) thing like that, you know, I’m that good a mechanic. BRODY: Okay, so it was a different kind of thing? PHAM: So I do everything, air conditioning, transmission, engine, all of that stuff, and I find a lot of thing to do. Fast, not because I do skip the job or anything, but I—example for you: when the car, 1981, ’82, they build a car with a four-wheel drive with the engine on the side. When something in the new car, they broke on the side, they broke, right, the transmission on the—sometimes you have to take the whole transmission out to go in there to fix it. And I can fix without take the thing out. So it got me at the time, a lot of time. So when the car got the flywheel, it bad, it’s sweeping, and you want to fix them and you have to replace flywheel, you have to take the transmission out, attach flywheel. I can make it out a little bit, and my hand can got in there to take the flywheel to fix, to lift flywheel to do it. So I save a lot of time on put—that car, they have a freeze plug leaking, and they own four, five ___(??), you know, people have to take a lot of things out to put it in. Sometimes I don’t take it out, and I put it in. I do a lot of shortcut and make them fix them very quick. Pham describes his experiences with people's reactions to his success within the mechanics industry. car mechanic ; car repair ; cars ; discrimination ; employment ; Inwood Buick ; jobs ; racism 6985 Continuing education in the United States BRODY: Right. What about learning English? Your English obviously improved a lot from the time that you were in Vietnam to here. PHAM: Well, I got my degree, associate degree, on 1981. I went in ’76, I said, “Well, I’m—in Vietnam, I got diploma for high school, I go to military for two, three years, so my education is very good. I do electronic, everything, math, all the math, everything, I am so good up to, you know, up to bachelor, everything like that.” So I said, well—and nobody knows, so I’d say, “Well, I have to take—I think I’m going to go be engineer and I’ll do mechanic.” So I go to Richland College. I do at night, I do night—every go to school after job, I go direct to there and I go to school. And I got my degree in engineering technology—they call it engineering technology, right? Yeah. I got— BRODY: What year was that? PHAM: Huh? BRODY: And what year was that? PHAM: ’81. BRODY: ’81. PHAM: Yeah. I ________(??) there, and I got my degree with high honors. I do math, I learn all my math over there. My math teacher—I tell you what, I can do it without—I can get A without the final. BRODY: Really? So you were really good at math? PHAM: Oh man, I’m real good at math. I think I go do better than when I’m—do math when in Vietnam at that time. And somehow, your mind, somehow it open, I do it very fast, I’m very fast. That’s why mechanic, nobody teach me. Mechanic, completely nobody teach me. I learned by myself and very fast. BRODY: So you were sitting in the classroom with American students and it was—I mean, was that hard for you? PHAM: No, no, they love me. All my friend American because I know all that stuff. Actually, the one night college, you know, I only think it’s something—that the thing I failed was the one, the English 101. BRODY: English 101 was hard? PHAM: Yeah, 101, the first one I thought, __________________(??) And then when I go in there, the first class, second, they tell me something I have to write something so I said, “Forgot it,” I cut that off, finally I have to get that 131. English 131. Kind of easy. Not easy, but it kind of—the 101 kind of writing, all that kind of stuff, and 131 kind of looked like something particular, more than. So anything, you know, particularly, I can see it, I can do better. Some thing, I don’t do good, but so I—I take me almost four years to get my degree. BRODY: To get your degree at Richland? PHAM: Yeah, and then I want to go back to UTD [University of Texas–Dallas], but then I say well at that time at my mechanic and my __(??) I look at a friend of mine— __(??) engineer, to make money like me. But at that time, 1978, ’81, ’82, ’83, I did make like eighty-thousand dollar a year, mechanic. BRODY: So it was a good—yeah. PHAM: Engineer only pay like forty-thousand or something. I make a very good money, that’s something I forgot about—engineer to mechanic. So that was what I do mechanics. So I open my own shop, so I do everything. And my shop, you know, I do—all my customer, they come in, you know, anything they—from their son, their father, they buy a car from me, you know, they want car, they’re going to buy it from me. Pham describes his taking English classes and pursuing further college education. Associates Degree ; car mechanic ; cars ; community college ; education ; English ; English 101 ; friendship ; language learning ; learning English ; mechanic ; night school ; Richland College ; school ; University of Texas at Dallas ; UTD 7228 The American Dream /Family's current state BRODY: That’s great. So you were a real success story. Do you—you know, some people would say that’s like the American dream, right? When you think about your–the concept of being American, did you change your citizenship? Did you become an American citizen? PHAM: Yeah, five years. I do that to ___(??) take me six years—it not five, but six years, because I’m busy or something, so that what takes me six years. But, you know __(??) citizenship. Me and my wife at the same time. BRODY: What year was that? PHAM: I think that ’82 or something, yeah—’81, ’82. BRODY: So what do you think it means to be American, to you? PHAM: Being American mean everything, because you cannot be—look like you are if you’re not American. That the truth. Right now, it not me, I’m not—all the Vietnamese, even in Vietnam. If they in Vietnam, even not communist, even like before that, if they work like a farmer, they do like a fishing man, they live like that, their kid like that, their grandkid like that, they never will be change, at all. I think another country is like a channel is ___(??). Come American, them kids right there. They are farmer. They can Ph.D. over there, they can be a doctor over here. They can be everything over here. In Vietnamese right now, you never know yet, but all of them that come here, they be success unless, you know, some crazy guy, don’t want to do anything or thing like that, or they got drunk or they got a—very few, but they got—it not, don’t have, but they got. But the rest, if they go to school, they improve everything. Their life, their family, everything, and even there. And even here, before you have ___(??) your family, you got on the DNA, right? You got this good, and your kid got good and you have that. But I think the Vietnamese blood, they good, they’re smart. Even they fisherman, they do fishing, they don’t—I talk with my niece, my one niece. She don’t know any in Vietnamese language at all. She only know how to write her name. And she come here, put her on for fifth grade, and she don’t know. She can’t like that _____(??) fifth grade. Vietnamese, she can maybe write her name only, something like maybe one day, because her family move around, everything, and she graduated from high school. Go to college, secretary, and she don’t want to secretary, don’t make money. She go to do the hair, and she got hair salon, and very success. If you’re in Vietnam, what she do? She don’t go to schools, she don’t go ___(??) maybe do something, you know, everything. My younger brother, my brother, my two young brother and my kid, they got lucky because they come here, they’re young enough, and all of them graduate from UT [University of Texas]. All of my two younger brother are from UT, one A&amp ; M [Texas A&amp ; M]. One of my—all my kid from UT, my younger kid, UT, all of that from UT. And all of my brother kid from UT and SMU [Southern Methodist University]. And even my brother, my younger brother come here, he seventeen years old. In Vietnam at that time, the war, he don’t go to school. My father move him place to place, he don’t do good in school. He come here, he only eleven grade. In twelfth grade he quit, he go to work for a company like Mostech over there, he go do a—the lower job, like they call a line, you know, call a— BRODY: Factory? PHAM: Factory, a line, everything, and he come up from there, up, up, up, up, up ; he up to almost president. BRODY: Wow. PHAM: Right now, he’s—now even big companies, he work for Cypress to go to __(??) channel, go to Philippine, everything. Now he only sixty years old, he retire, have enough money to retire. He retire already, this year. And even if retire, you know, some company open, they want the guy, you know, advisor, want him to come in to do advisor, and he’s up and up. His boss, everything, gone, he still up there and—another in June, when we go up to Minnesota and he go with me, he bring me to the company. He build that company for Cypress. And all the guy in there, even he left the company for two years. He come back, see them guy, all them guy in there. And all of them in there, at least about ten PSD. American guy, and the guy is a wrestler, all kind of guy, look him like— BRODY: With respect? PHAM: Respect and, you know, remember because he teach them guys how to work thing. And another two younger—my two young brother, twin, one of them is in California right now, and he have his kid. His daughter, she just graduated from Stanford, and they got ___(??) or whatever they got who arrived the first year. They got in. BRODY: That’s amazing. So the twins were also on the boat with you? PHAM: Yeah, that too. Only twelve year. I mean, the first—the first two week at Dobie school, they fight with another kid and all of my sponsor have to come in call, come in to tell them they don’t fight because they don’t speak English and they learn to get in the fighting with the high schooler, want to go to A&amp ; M, want to go to UT. UT go to California, ___(??), and then he got his ___(??), he got the rent-a-car company, he do— he take the best tax ___(??) right now. BRODY: That’s an amazing story. PHAM: Boy, he so fast on tax, you can see he do that very good and he do all of that for—he do that tax _____ (??) job for four, five months, but his job, his main job is he got the two rent-a-car company. But he do taxes, he do __(??) and he do everybody—he do all that stuff. And another guy in Minnesota—so he got his own company before, and, you know, one of my son work for his company before, and then the company kind of broke out and he throw company away. He open another in ___(??), he built a big, big house up there near the lake, anything. His wife got the restaurant company, everything, and he got three kid and all of them very success and they got one college—three of them almost college, all. So they do—only thing, my sister ; she not very lucky, because when she here and she only—she a very smart girl, but then she marry so soon, seventeen year old. She not have a high school done yet and she marry with a guy. And somehow their family not very good, she got divorced, and she don’t have the degree or anything like that. And my daughter, she come with me, my oldest daughter I’m talking about, __(??) ’89, we can BRODY: So, she was able to come in 1989? PHAM: Yeah, ’89, yeah, we kind of—she come like—they call her what kind of come back with the family. Should be ’84, but then, you know, at that time before she got able to go, paid for, everything, and then the companies, they cut off. No. BRODY: The government stopped it. PHAM: The government, they stopped it, they don’t let go until ’89, before they let go again, and she the first one. BRODY: So how old was she when she came? PHAM: She come here—before that, she don’t go to school, anything, she have to go back and forth, because at that time we try to send money for her so we try to get her out from different way, like I go to a boat or something, a lot of people—she do that many here, there, all that so she don’t go to school or anything. So when she come here, she ___(??) and said ___(??) high school, because she almost eighteen years old. Her put on same class in high school so she don’t have time to catch up, anything. So the only thing she can got to, the diploma or something like that, but that’s it, she go to college for a year but she cannot do anything. Then she marriage and marry a Vietnamese fellow, and she work now. She live in Arlington, got two kid, you know, older than almost like Dai kids, and both of them boys and they very smart, they do very good. They not make money, like the kids right here, but she do okay. Another boy of mine, Hui, her brother, you know, he’s—he got master’s degree of business. He got three kid now, and he do very good in Houston, so it’s okay, so all my family is okay. BRODY: Yeah, so it sounds like what you were saying earlier was that being American is sort of a ticket to being successful in the way that you want to choose to be successful, right? Pham explains his family's ability to be successful in the United States, contrasting that with the relative economic immobility of his time in Vietnam. American citizenship ; American Dream ; American identity ; assembly line ; businesses ; citizenship ; college ; daughter ; divorce ; education ; entrepreneur ; factory ; marriage ; opportunity ; small business ; social class ; social mobility ; Southern Methodist University ; sponsors ; Stanford University ; success ; taxes ; Texas A&amp ; M ; university ; University of Texas ; Vietnamese identity 7894 Vietnamese legacy BRODY: So when you think about the story of your family, from, you know, your parents all the way to your grandkids, what do you think the family’s identity is? When you think about your grandkids, when you think about your children, when you think about yourself? PHAM: I think the best American is the people, you know, you do what you want to do. You love what you want to do. You can do whatever you want to do, and you freely to do that. You don’t have to force to do that. And another criteria (??)—like Vietnamese right now, some of them right now, all of my brothers still over there, they still live over there. They still have five of my brother, sister in Vietnam right now. Their family, they got money too, because we help them before. We help them some so they can had rent out, they—I mean, they good to living. But the different people is different. They think different. They think of money different. They think about school different. They think about everything different. It not same group like I said, blood or anything, it different. BRODY: So your grandchildren are all born here and have grown up here. What aspects of Vietnamese culture do you hope that they carry on and— PHAM: Oh yeah, I am not very look like a lot of friend of mine or a lot of people. They have to be—they have to do this and that like you are—for me, easy, you can do whatever you want to do. You know, if like the kid right there, they want do English and they don’t want to learn Vietnamese, okay, you know, that’s what they want. And another two of my grandkid over there, they speak in Vietnamese very good, they different because their parent ___(??) to be Vietnamese guy. And over here their father is not the Vietnamese, you know, he’s different. And my—another kid over there, same thing. You know, he married with a Philippine girl, you know, and their parent, they different culture. They do whatever they—and I am not the Buddhist, I’m kind of worship the ancestor only, but I don’t require all my kid to do that. And I worship ancestor but I remember only two day, my mom and my dad, the day they die or whatever day, we ceremony that day and then all the kid will come in to remember— BRODY: To share that. PHAM: —to share that day. But that’s it. I still have another younger brother you don’t know. He only thirty-two years old now and he joined the navy. BRODY: In the United States? PHAM: The United States Navy, he’d been a lieutenant GG(??), but then he retire, right? (someone off-mic asks, “Who?”) Andy? (person responds, “Oh, you’re talking about your son. I thought you said your brother.”) Yeah, my son, my son, he’s thirty-two, yeah. Yeah, he joined the navy for five years. He serve in Japan and now he retire from navy. He work in San Antonio right now. And he not married yet. That the one thing, my younger—but actually, everybody’s doing well. Pham describes his wishes for his family, explaining that they he doesn't care whether they maintain his Vietnamese culture American identity ; ancestor worship ; Buddhism ; culture ; English language ; family ; freedom ; grandchildren ; language ; marriage ; money ; opportunity ; religion ; values ; Vietnamese identity ; Vietnamese language 8148 Vietnamese community BRODY: That’s great. I wanted to ask one more question that we didn’t really talk about. When during that period, you know, in the 1970’s to 80’s when you were—the kids were starting school and you were living in the apartment and you were trying different mechanic jobs and things like that, how much did you interact with other Vietnamese families? A lot or not very much? PHAM: Yeah, I have a lot of friends. Right now, you know, my class, I’m talking about navy class, 1966, we got a hundred people there, maybe twenty of them have been passed away. When we come to United States in 1975, only twenty of us come over here. The rest still in the prison. For some of them, five years, some of them up to twenty years on the prison camp, the communist prison camp. And after the camp, after they imprisoned, they come out, at least ten family, they—because their knowledge for the navy, so a lot of people hire them for guiding the boat, bring people come to different country and finally come to United States. The rest are from 1990 to 1995, they got the plan called H-O [Humanitarian Operation] for, they take all the people who stay on the prison like us, a officer, stay on companies for prison for three years or more, can come to United States with their family. That’s what Mr. McCain right here, that help a lot of that, John McCain, he help all of that stuff. And, you know, they come over here and all of them, all of my friend, I tell all of them, it’s not a set of any people, they very success. All of their kid, even they come in 1993, all their kids become to doctor, become to everything, become professional, all of them. BRODY: But your own family, yourselves, when you were here, were you mostly interacting with your sponsor families and other American families, or did you have a Vietnamese community here in Dallas? PHAM: They’ve got Vietnamese community here, you know, yeah. And we’ve been connect with them, you know. Every year they open, you go to the lake or something like that, or picnic or deal like that, or they got ___(??) right now. Right now I don’t do very much, but at that time, you know, a lot of families. Right now, they got a lot of Buddhist place—I don’t go, we don’t like them very much because some reason I don’t like them—I don’t go, but I have a certain group with me I can do. Go to dance, you know, all that stuff. BRODY: Yes, dancing. So you’re a dancer, I hear. PHAM: No, I am not a dancer but I like to dance. BRODY: You like to dance? PHAM: Yeah, because that’s what the dance come from her. When she marries she want me to do the father-daughter dance, and I don’t know how to dance the right kind of dance. We dance and you know, kind of, you know, drunken dancing (laughs), so I go to learn dance. I learn dance. BRODY: You and your wife learned—took some dancing lessons. PHAM: Me and my wife, yeah, and another, her sister, we go to learn dance. And when I go to learn dance I say, “Well, dance kind of enjoy,” so I’m in dance up to now. BRODY: You’re still doing it. PHAM: I still do it. Not like before, but I still doing it. At the time I come from ’75, when I come here, you know, it was very tough, I think. I worked—I go to school, I work two jobs. I do another job, I don’t tell you, I got a job, a side job is security for Pinkerton. BRODY: For Pinkerton? PHAM: Yes, security, yeah. They pay only two dollar and hour, and you go—I do every—I do at night, all that at night. So I work like seven days a week, and I go to school. And then my wife, she don’t have good health. My wife, she weak kind of health, and if you got pressure and she got sick, she cannot ___(??) pressure. If not pressure, she okay. If got pressure, she cannot handle very well. And that why, you know, when I have to work to take—help her more than let her got pressure. So that’s why I got my younger kid—when I got my younger kid and she stay home, she take care and she don’t go to work. She work before, she work at—like a technician at TI [Texas Instruments?] company for a few years, but then when I got the new baby and she stay home. Up to now she been a housewife. And now whatever we do, we do together. BRODY: Well, that’s really a nice story, and you have a lovely family. So thank you so much. Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you wanted to tell me about the subject? PHAM: No, I don’t think—I mean, we talk a lot already, right? Maybe two hour already, right? Three hour? Oh yeah, three hour. BRODY: Yeah, I appreciate your time and thank you so much. PHAM: I know, you can—some you don’t hear very good or something, you can clear whatever you want to do— BRODY: This was a wonderful interview and thank you, I learned a lot. PHAM: I don’t know if you can hear my voice or not, if they can understand or not. BRODY: I think so. I think it was an interesting story. Thank you so much for sharing. Pham describes his interactions with the Vietnamese community within the United States before the interview concludes. Buddhism ; Dallas ; dancing ; father-daughter dance ; friendship ; Humanitarian Operation ; illness ; McCain ; Pinkerton ; prison ; prison camp ; reeducation camps ; Texas Instruments ; Vietnamese community Baylor University Institute for Oral History Kha Pham Oral History Memoir Interview Number 1 Interviewed by Betsy T. Brody August 31, 2018 Addison, Texas Project -- Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans: The Making of the Vietnamese Community in North Texas BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is August 31, 2018. I&#039 ; m interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Kha Pham. This interview is taking place at the home of Mr. Pham&#039 ; s daughter in Addison, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. All right. Good afternoon, Mr. Pham. Thank you for meeting me. So just to start out with, let&#039 ; s talk about how--what your life was like in Vietnam, just as the war was ending. What was your-- |00:00:34| PHAM: Well, before the war, luckily, I&#039 ; m not in the fighting zone. I&#039 ; m at the naval base in the island called Phu Quoc Island, very far south and kind of east of Vietnam. At that point I am a--my name is--I am a lieutenant in the navy, and I am a executive officer at the base, naval base. So my job is to keep the security, work on the base like every naval base, and I have a small boat, you know, around to do patrol, to-- BRODY: Because it was an island. PHAM: --around the island. And on the land we have a small group, you know, keep post security around the base. And that&#039 ; s it. And my wife at that time, you know, at that time I lived with my wife and two kids. And my younger kid at that time, only two and three years old. And another kid, the oldest, one year older, she about four years old, and she lived with her grandparents, my wife&#039 ; s parents, very far north. BRODY: Okay. What town did they live in? PHAM: They lived in Danang. BRODY: Danang, okay. PHAM: Yeah, because we have two kids together, three kids, you know, three years apart, so that&#039 ; s why, you know, they take care of my older kid. |00:02:19| BRODY: So your in-laws were taking care of your older child because you had two younger children at home? PHAM: Yeah, and we did not help them. My wife, she was a teacher at an elementary school very close to the base, and that&#039 ; s it. And we worked like normally. You know, in land, I don&#039 ; t go to fighting or anything the last two or three years. Before that, I am on another unit on land and have a--you know, we have a lot of small boats, we go on the river, we know to patrol and keep security, keep between the Cambodian land and the Vietnamese border. BRODY: Okay, on the border there. PHAM: About--I believe about forty miles. BRODY: So that was a few years earlier? PHAM: About two, three years earlier, yes. And at that time, you know, I go to a patrol, like two or three days and go back, and keep working at the base in a few days and keep doing like that for two, three years, at that time before I go to here, to the base and don&#039 ; t do anything. But my life before that, we have the navy, so I go to the ship, many ships before. But then you don&#039 ; t need to know that, right? |00:03:47| BRODY: No, it&#039 ; s interesting. So how much did you have contact with the Americans and (both talking) before the war? PHAM: Oh, okay. Yeah, the American--I go to the Vietnamese academy of 1966, and get out in 1968. And then I go to the landing ship, one of the Vietnamese biggest ships, you know, LST--they call it a LST-502. BRODY: That was the name of the ship? PHAM: Yeah, the name of the ship. The name was Vietnamese too, but you know, that&#039 ; s the number of the ship, LST-502. Vietnamese at that time, they have only three ships like that, the bigger ones. For landing, they transport, you know, from north to south along the coastal. And I&#039 ; m in there, like training an officer and I do a lot of stuff there from-- exactly the first year and half I&#039 ; m there, we took--I took--do, like, training from one part to another part, to know the ship. And after that, they trade me to another small boat--not boat but a ship but it&#039 ; s small. They call it the PGM-617 [PGM-81, or RVN Phú Qúy (HQ 617)]. They&#039 ; re brand new. They transferred from America to Vietnam and we receive the ship. And we&#039 ; re training with--they have American [advisor] in there to training us, to learn the ship from everything, and then I--on this ship, we go to--I go to patrol the coastal. BRODY: The coast. PHAM: The coast--I got--in the ship, they have one American advisor. He&#039 ; s a lieutenant. I don&#039 ; t remember his name. And the Vietnamese, the captain is a lieutenant also. And at that point, I am--I might as well mention--in a school for the first two years. My rank is ensign. BRODY: Ensign? |00:06:19| PHAM: Yeah. And there for, for a year, I mean, almost a year and a half, and then they change me to another place very far north, you know. This right here, they call the coastal zone unit, close to the communists. BRODY: Okay. Yes, up north. PHAM: Right on that seventeenth, almost seventeenth-- BRODY: Parallel. PHAM: Parallel, yeah. They call coastal--the 11th [South Vietnamese 11th Artillery Battalion] was at the far base, the far, far north. BRODY: So you were far north. PHAM: Far north. You know, they transfer me to there in 1968. And that--the coastal zone, they have a small, very small old boat, no ship, the boat. They&#039 ; ve got wood, they&#039 ; ve got their own kind of-- BRODY: It&#039 ; s really old. PHAM: Very old, like a fishing boat almost, so, you know-- BRODY: So that&#039 ; s what you had to work with there. (laughs) |00:07:23| PHAM: I have to work in there with the boat. And, you know, in that base we have about, I think, two or three advisors. BRODY: American advisors. PHAM: American advisors. You know, they rank from lieutenant to petty officer. They got two officers, petty officers, in there. And they take care of the communication more than they do anything. You know, they&#039 ; ve got the base there. They communicate with the big ship out there from their seventh fleet. They have a very big ship, you know, patrolling outside there. In there, if we have any problem or with the friend unit have a problem, we can call them. They can do the--they can cover us by shooting to help. At that point, that&#039 ; s right between the Tet--they call it Mau Than Tet--you know, that very big event at that time. The communists, they arrange Tet, you know, they say, &quot ; Well, we take four or five days, don&#039 ; t do anything,&quot ; [during the cease-fire] and then shortly they open fire, everything, and they capture (??). And my base also. They don&#039 ; t attack our base, but when we go to patrol, land in some place and then they can ambush, they should not have there, but they come--from the north they come in, they dig holes and then they ambush. And the day we come up there and they ambush us, we have, like, thirty people, we come with the villagers there. They ambush and a lot of fight, and at that time, I&#039 ; m not--know everything, you know. The ammunition goes through, I don&#039 ; t know what is here, what is here. Who&#039 ; s shooting and where shooting or everything. I can&#039 ; t-- |00:09:31| BRODY: Right, because it was a surprise. PHAM: Surprise, complete surprise, everything. We got up there and we go to--and we got out to the place, you know a lot of sand out there, dunes of sand, all that big, and a lot of shooting, and we fight back and forth. And we have one unit of us out there, like, ten people before they--and then they got trapped out there on the cemetery. They were stranded there, and I have two or three of them got wounded or killed in there, we don&#039 ; t know. And then we have to try to get them out, pull them back, everything, and after we got in a shooting, somebody got fell. But we don&#039 ; t see anything. BRODY: This is after you got the wounded people back? PHAM: We got some back, but some still there and I can&#039 ; t--if we come out, we had more that had retreat and they shoot. And then at that time we no look like we hit the people, the small unit, so very big out there, and we don&#039 ; t know--very big place. And then Americans come in. They&#039 ; re next to our base, big base of Americans, because at that time the Americans, they bring in, looks like at that point, there&#039 ; s a high point in the period of time because they&#039 ; re going to have a lot of units. You know, they have a mountain and they&#039 ; ve got the river, they go in and they have a large supply and they have a lot of other help, at least two--I remember, at least two battalions of Americans--what is the--the Marines--next to my base. BRODY: So the Marines were there next to you. PHAM: Yeah, there are two, only two companies, two battalions. I don&#039 ; t know, I don&#039 ; t remember. But they move in. They move in to help. They move in far north, they do a round, they come back, and they got stuck too. BRODY: They got stuck? |00:11:44| PHAM: Yeah, they stuck because they fired back. You know, it&#039 ; s not before we think that it is small but then, you know, the Americans, our advisors, they call the Americans and then they move in around so they tried to help to keep out there so we can--but then we cannot go through. And even us, they cannot even go through. We stuck there, we cannot get out to--you&#039 ; ve got the people there. BRODY: So how did it end? PHAM: And then we got the--oh man, at that we fired by very close. They threw a grenade at us, and we threw-- BRODY: So they were that close to you? PHAM: Yeah, they&#039 ; re close, they dig a hole we don&#039 ; t see and then finally, you know, I got some--they throw the grenade, but the grenade, it&#039 ; s not very good grenade. [Pham note: It was made in Hanoi.] BRODY: Okay, a bad grenade. |00:12:35| PHAM: It&#039 ; s not--it explodes, but it not--I got hit on my butt. BRODY: Oh my gosh. PHAM: Yeah. (laughs) But they throw the grenade, you know, because if I&#039 ; d been--if it goes high right here, if it goes higher, maybe it should do that, right? But you go low and then (??) hit my man behind. I got two Americans behind me, side by side me too. And then I got hit, and he--I don&#039 ; t remember, he got hit or he don&#039 ; t get hit, but-- and then I tried to help him or something and finally after that they give me a Bronze Star. BRODY: They gave you a Bronze Star? PHAM: Yeah, American base, they gave me--I still have the document here, and I&#039 ; ve got the Bronze Star here. BRODY: Oh, that&#039 ; s amazing. Let&#039 ; s take a look. PHAM: They gave me a Bronze Star, on 1968 on the Tet, they gave me the Bronze Star. BRODY: Whoa, look at this. So we&#039 ; ve got the certificate, the Bronze Star medal. PHAM: Yeah. BRODY: Well, I will--if you don&#039 ; t mind, take a photo of that before we finish. Congratulations. PHAM: I got a Bronze Star. After that they gave me a Bronze Star. But when I got injured--and my men got a lot of them--I believe, four or five people got killed or something like that, but injuries are a lot of people, like twenty of them. BRODY: So it was a major event. PHAM: Yeah. And the American side, at that point, you know, they have at least twenty, you know, had been killed or wounded on the other side, and finally because after that we retreat all of my people. Everbody retreats ; they retreat too to go back in the camp. At least they have--finally, after we know it, they have at least almost a half division of the companies, military, there. BRODY: They were right there. |00:14:25| PHAM: Right there. They blend in. And then they--because the invasion of the whole country, everywhere. So they--at that point we know at least if I have a division over there, the whole far north of the zone there. BRODY: So you knew what was going on. PHAM: But then they don&#039 ; t attack. They just sit there at that point. And we retreat, we retreat, and after that I have to go to funerals of the kids, all my men, you know, a funeral of them, all that stuff. I have to go to American base with the medical over there, so they clean my wounded on my butt. (both laugh) They help. Because the Americans, they around us, man to man. Americans are there because they have a lot of American very west of us--they call Khe Sanh and Con Thien. Every American, they know that place. You know, they have a knot right there so they can stop the north coming in. But then they have many route to come in, so they cannot stop it. BRODY: Through the jungle. PHAM: Yeah, they go through and we cannot stop them. |00:15:43| BRODY: So you were pretty closely working with the Americans. So if we go forward to, you know, 1974, 1975, you were on the island doing patrols and things like that. Tell me about what was happening around the Fall of Saigon for you. PHAM: Oh yeah, not that--my story of that part right here, and then after that I got one of my best American friends, he&#039 ; s--they call me Partner. He gave me a Zippo, you know, the-- BRODY: Yeah, the lighter. PHAM: The lighter. I lost that but, you know, he called me a partner. He buys all that Zippo and I lost it, I said I&#039 ; m sorry. And--sorry he got killed. BRODY: Oh. What was his name? PHAM: That is one more I cannot remember, but I know, he told me his name at that point. He&#039 ; s from a very big family. The name of the family is a very big, not like McCain but, you know, it&#039 ; s very big. But I don&#039 ; t remember, and he, you know, he got ambushed on that--you know, this right here. It goes on the sixteenth zone, far, far south after I tried try and free--after the one, the Tet. And he got wounded, he got killed. He died when he wounded and they buried him on the sea. I don&#039 ; t know at that point, I got--I don&#039 ; t know what point, why I don&#039 ; t go to his funeral or anything. I don&#039 ; t know why, because I got something, a mission, I don&#039 ; t know. And I don&#039 ; t remember. BRODY: Something happened. |00:17:30| PHAM: Yeah. But then after that, I transferred to very far--in &#039 ; 70 I moved to very far south. BRODY: In 1970? PHAM: In 1970, I moved far south. Same zone [Pham note: Fourth Coastal Zone] but very far south. BRODY: So the coastal zone but further south. PHAM: The first one, the First Coastal Zone. This was the Fourth Coastal Zone, very far south, and then I said we--we have American every time--every time we go to battle, I have four or five small boat went with us and have at least one American. BRODY: An advisor? PHAM: Advisor, yeah. |00:18:11| BRODY: Okay. So they were always with you. PHAM: Always with me, up to before they retreat. But they go with me, and every time we go to patrol, they&#039 ; re very helpful. When they call for a helicopter or something like that, or supplies or thing. And they do very helpful, you know, and very badly is I&#039 ; m not very good English at that point, so I don&#039 ; t have a lot of communication or know their family if we talked about it. BRODY: Right, but you worked together. PHAM: Yeah, we worked together, but we talked by writing or something because I&#039 ; m learn the English from the Vietnamese teacher. He don&#039 ; t know anything English and he teach, you know, (Brody laughs) and he cannot even speak English. (laughs) BRODY: That&#039 ; s pretty funny. PHAM: Yeah. That&#039 ; s why we don&#039 ; t--at that point. And then we were very friendly with all of my advisor, you know? We drink together. Most of us, you know, we drink beer and something on the trip. We go, and he eat our food, everything. And my people, they cook very good when we go travel like that, they cook very good, and they fishing and whatever there, and they cook. BRODY: So you get to cook and share and have some good times? PHAM: Everything with them, yeah. BRODY: So then as the war was winding down-- PHAM: The war was not winding down. The war-- BRODY: --well, still on. |00:19:54| PHAM: But then when they got to take(??), you know, the Americans retreat. On, like, &#039 ; 72, &#039 ; 73, all Americans--that&#039 ; s why--that&#039 ; s what the war going more, because the south--the north communists, they bring a lot more power, more people, more tanks, more weapons, more everything. BRODY: Coming further south? PHAM: Yeah, from north, they come in everywhere. On our side, you know, American retreat after the (??), they call it, the north, the one they call the war, like, the communists, Vietnamese communists, but they cannot, they work inside. They call that day from the south, and the American led them(??) to north. And on our side, our Vietnamese and then American. And then the agreement in Paris on 1972, and they said, &quot ; Well, right now, this side, you there, and American can retreat,&quot ; so Americans retreat. And they agreed to supply anything they need to survive and before that they transfer a lot of equipment, a lot of boat before--on the south side, on our side, you know. Even on the river, we have Vietnamese unit there. But beside that, have American unit also, and they have very fast boat, they have a lot of unit--like John Kerry, he on the PCF [fast patrol craft] right here on the south. And then they retreated and they train us to take over their unit. So at that point, our navy, they need more personnel, they need more military, they need more officers, so they&#039 ; re training us very quick, very quick. You know, like a Vietnamese, they don&#039 ; t have a place, like maybe before that every year, only training a hundred people, a hundred officer. And now they&#039 ; re training two or three hundred officer, and then-- BRODY: You were training two or three hundred officers? PHAM: No. [Pham note: I wasn&#039 ; t. The navy did.] At my point when I go to school, only a hundred people a year. But after that, on that point, they were training like more. BRODY: Two or three times as much. PHAM: Two, three time, and then the time to training is shorter. A lot of them training, they went to America to the OCS to train and bring back, and they had a lot more people so they can take care of all the-- |00:22:52| BRODY: Sure. So they take over all of the duties. So if we fast-forward to 1975, what was going on in your life in 1975? PHAM: On 1975, at that point when the north--they take over a lot of--they take over the very far north, like Huế, and then my father-in-law, my parents, you know, lives in Danang. That--I&#039 ; m talking about on April or March. BRODY: March. And your daughter was there too? PHAM: March 30 or something. My daughter over there. So my wife said we&#039 ; ll have to bring her, come back there. I have to fly there to bring my daughter back with us because we know the war very, very, very, very big now. So I got permission from my commander and I fly to Saigon, and from there I fly to Danang to get my daughter. But I cannot land in Danang. |00:23:52| BRODY: Oh, the plane couldn&#039 ; t land. PHAM: Because at the time they have to return it, we cannot land, because a lot of people from there around the airport and they tried to--any airplane land now, they (??) I mean, they stand everywhere around airplane, so airplane cannot fly, you know. Very (??), you know, very bad. So I cannot go there, I cannot land, and I stay there in Saigon and I try to get to the sea, you know, on the sea is okay. We control on the sea completely, all our ship, everything go north to there and I think, Well, we--I can get out there, tried to go get my daughter. But then that night--I had a friend, he commanded the communication unit--I leave with him that night, and I hear all that out there and look like they lose, so everybody retreat. So they all--everybody go to the boat and get out to the ship, everything, you know, go south. BRODY: Everybody&#039 ; s retreating. PHAM: So when then all of that happened and then all of the navy--the navy have to help to transfer all the people that can, but then another meeting, like the army or air, all of that stuff, they don&#039 ; t have place to go and they depend on, you know, us to pick them up. But then, you know, we don&#039 ; t have enough, don&#039 ; t have the boat to pick them up, and a lot of my friend on the ship, they say, you know--our whole people there, whole battalion of people, they got out. And even, you know, the boat anchor far from the shore, but they swim out there and they--a lot of people got killed and everything. And beside that, the communist unit, they shooting in and I mean, it looked like World War II. BRODY: Yeah, that&#039 ; s very dangerous. |00:26:25| PHAM: That whole area like that. And that night, I hear the commanding officer of the whole force over there, the general right there, he yell out to the boat. I said, &quot ; Well, that&#039 ; s that.&quot ; So a friend of mine told me, &quot ; Now you have to go back to your family. If not, you stuck here and every&quot ; --you know. So I say, &quot ; I cannot go and get my daughter,&quot ; so we-- BRODY: That must have been hard for you. PHAM: Yeah, I come back to my family and there. [Pham note: I returned to my past.] But then when that lose, that won one(??) before Saigon lose, that on March. And then a lot of people, I mean, at least a hundred thousand people, all of them, they got out to sea. And a lot of American boat or ship, big ship, they look like they know before that-- American, they know before that. I don&#039 ; t know anything, but they look like they know that. And they send a lot of cargo ship, or merchandise ship, and also they&#039 ; re on the shore, on the sea, but like two or three miles out there. And these people got out, they pick them up. If you got out, they pick them up. So a lot of people pick up because after that at my base, seven days later, they bring all their people to the island where I live because that is a very-- BRODY: Safe. PHAM: --safe, very safe place, and we have a--they&#039 ; ve got a big base, everything. They can fit, like forty, fifty [thousand] people there. |00:28:18| BRODY: So they brought the people who they rescued at the sea and brought them to the island. PHAM: And then bring to the island there, the island where I live at that point. BRODY: And so by then were you back at the island? PHAM: Who? BRODY: Where you back in the island? PHAM: I&#039 ; m back over there, that day I&#039 ; m back. I come back the same day the base at the low coastal zone--a number--first--they call it first army--lose, I come back. So I am there. BRODY: You&#039 ; re with your family and then-- PHAM: My family there, yeah. But then at that point--so my mission at that time right now is just to take care of that forty thousand people, you know, keep coming to the base, keep coming. And then now, you know, the base--my base need, you know, keep safety--all of those safety and they keep water for them--food coming, everything. Take care of the people there. And then the airport, opened the airport more so they bring food, everything, you know, to take care of the forty people there. BRODY: So you&#039 ; re in charge of taking care of these forty thousand people? PHAM: I&#039 ; m in charge of some parts. You know, everybody take care--I&#039 ; m not have that rank to do everything, but my rank at that point, you know, I still do my job on the base, but also I have to keep the road from the seas supplied to the place--like about three or four miles--safe. BRODY: Keeping it safe. PHAM: Yeah. |00:29:50| BRODY: So then after that, what happened with your family&#039 ; s decision? How did you end up here in the United States? PHAM: My family were with me. Dai only about two years old. BRODY: She was two years old. PHAM: And Huy, her brother, only three years old. BRODY: So you had two little babies. PHAM: Two little babies there, and my wife still teach every day. And then the north, you know, I hear the news. You know, we don&#039 ; t have like a CNN or whatever. (both laugh) Whoever. We don&#039 ; t have--a lot of--friend of my daughter(??), we even don&#039 ; t know anything, you know? And then I hear something, like my father very bad sick. My father family from north [Pham note: Quảng Ngãi], where the communists moved to, and then they keep retreat, retreat. Finally, they move to the place kind of a hundred mile north of Saigon and live there. My father and my brother, young brother, lived there. And in Saigon I have one--my younger brother in Saigon. And he have a family--they don&#039 ; t have a kid yet--but a family, and my sister, younger sister, live there. And when I hear my father sick, almost died, that was on ten days before the Saigon lose, only ten days. |00:31:33| BRODY: Wow. So you found out ten days before that your father was sick. PHAM: Before Saigon lose, yeah--sick, very badly sick. So I think, Well--at that point, somehow when all that came, all of that, I have one American. He&#039 ; s a reverend, and he&#039 ; s a friend of my friend. He come to see me and somehow I go to coffee with him, he say something, look like the American, they want to get out. And they got the code. So you got something when you hear on the radio, they&#039 ; ve got the sign, look like the song--a Christmas song or some kind like that, that&#039 ; s what the point they all of them had to get out. Before, they get out already, but you know, still a lot of units still in Saigon, some advisor or something were in Saigon, but all unit, no American at all. I don&#039 ; t know how many thousand were still there, but very last. And he told me that. So I know that, but I don&#039 ; t know when, you know, it will be that day. And the ten day before the Fall, thirty of April, and my father kind of sick. So I said, &quot ; Well, I have to go to Saigon to see what happened and bring him here,&quot ; because Saigon carries--a lot of people come to my place, like forty, fifty thousand people. No place to live, so they come to my place. But in Saigon, a lot of people everywhere around, they stuck in there. It&#039 ; s a--the city is like fish in there, you know, fifteen (??). BRODY: People are everywhere. |00:33:27| PHAM: Everywhere, everything there. So I come there, and my father, he don&#039 ; t have a house in Saigon, so the place where my brother live--a very small, like this area right here. And, you know, all of my brother, my father, my mother, all of them live there. So I say, &quot ; Well, I don&#039 ; t think he can live there.&quot ; So I say, &quot ; Well, come with us to my place.&quot ; At least my place--it not that big area, but we live in the camp, you know, but I&#039 ; ve got the place to live, I&#039 ; ve got food, I&#039 ; ve got everything. So I think it&#039 ; s better than live with my brother, so I bring them in. I don&#039 ; t think when we can leave or not, we don&#039 ; t know when or where and when we leave, but at least we&#039 ; ve go to my place better. So I bring them, that is and my father and my mother, my three young brother--the older one is seventeen years old, the younger one like eleven, two younger one is eleven years old, and my sister is like fourteen, fifteen years old. BRODY: So you brought them all with you back to your-- PHAM: And my sister--brother, he--at school he&#039 ; s like at last place on school. But then he say, well, he&#039 ; s twenty years old, he&#039 ; s number four on the school, you know, I don&#039 ; t remember that is a bachelor, he had like that. So he follow with my mother too, and one of my wife niece, so come to my place. So we come, you know, we have to go by, and no place to go, we go by land. We go take about a day from Saigon to another place and then from there at night we got the--you know, boat, we go to my place. So when they come to my place and my place very small, we have to build a lot of decks so they can live in there. And the very next day, that road we go--they cut off, can&#039 ; t go back and forth, everything, you know? [Pham note: The road from Saigon to my place had been blocked.] BRODY: So you were lucky you all made it. PHAM: We&#039 ; re lucky to go the first there today, but after that day, yeah, I cannot bring them in. So we are only on the--I remember that day on April 23rd, they got out to my place. So when they got to my place, everything is, you know, it&#039 ; s just normal, everything, my kids go to--my brothers go to play, you know, beer all that stuff, and we&#039 ; re normal, nobody think anything, because while there, my place, it&#039 ; s kind of safety, you know, no--everything, only thing is that a lot of people now. And then that is very cool for a little bit. And then to today--you want to know before that, you want to know something else or not? BRODY: Yes. |00:36:45| PHAM: And then before that--and then we retreat before that, and we lose every part on the south. Every part. BRODY: Every port? PHAM: Every land, you know? Everybody lose and keep coming-- BRODY: Coming south. PHAM: Coming to the south. On the land, we keep lose, lose, a lot of--they lose up to-- on the thirtieth, that night. And I still don&#039 ; t know anything until I still go to patrol through the area outside there, and very--and a very nice day, a very night. The night is very-- the moon very nice. And I have the Honda, you know, with one of my officer-- BRODY: Motorcycle? PHAM: Yeah, motorcycle, it&#039 ; s a very small motorcycle. We got that--I don&#039 ; t have that, but that from one of the people, they bring from the north to the boat everything, so when they bring it up here and somehow I got that. (laughs) BRODY: You got the motorcycle. That was lucky. |00:37:52| PHAM: Yeah, I got lucky. I ride around on that(??) with them. And I hear something, look like a--I see from outside the sea--got one big ship, you know, merchandise ship, you know, big, out there, and got light, very light. And somehow on my--not my base, another base, supply base there that saved a lot of (??), they bring people in the base, land to the ship. I don&#039 ; t know what--I don&#039 ; t have and nobody say anything, and nobody have any order or anything, you know? But I know where--we lose up there already, somehow we have to get out. BRODY: Right. PHAM: But I&#039 ; m still in the unit here, I can&#039 ; t even get out. If nobody get out, I can&#039 ; t get out. I can&#039 ; t--you know, things like that. You know, we can&#039 ; t go, I don&#039 ; t know where to go or anything. We don&#039 ; t have any idea, no anything. BRODY: No information. |00:38:54| PHAM: But I see that. So I come in and look at what happened. And I see--it looked like they bring some of the unit, the Vietnamese unit, looked like--you know, it not military, kind of like a radio station or some kind of people, some kind of people work for the American or something. So they bring it out to the ship. So the ship wait out there to take people. BRODY: Taking people away. PHAM: Away. And that people, you know, some kind of connection with the American. BRODY: Americans, right. PHAM: But my unit, all of my friend, to take all of the four hundred, four, fifty, forty thousand people up there, nobody know--up there, nobody know, in our unit nobody know anything. But then I see that, so I come back. So I come to the radio station. You know, we have this--the coastal zone, we have very big communication. In the coastal zone, they can connect with Saigon, with all the navy. And I got in there, and it look different, only one officer in there! And I asked him what happened. And he say, well-- he told me, he says, well--he told me, he said, &quot ; Saigon, all the navy got the order: &#039 ; All the navy ship get out. Get out of Saigon. Get out.&#039 ; &quot ; At that point, all the navy ship got out. That night, the twenty-ninth--the night is twenty-nine-- BRODY: April twenty-ninth. PHAM: About twelve at night, you know, and he told me all the ship got ordered to get out. And over here, we don&#039 ; t know anything, you know, all the ship, all--they change the frequency, everything, so nobody know and get out. And they go and get out to order somewhere on the island--another island outside the border. And I said, &quot ; Well, what happened?&quot ; And they get out. So, I said &quot ; Well, what do we do now?&quot ; And I ask him, you know, where the commanding officer of our base--he&#039 ; s the captain named--his name is Captain Tien. He&#039 ; s commander of a whole area in our base. I ask him where. He say he don&#039 ; t know. |00:41:34| BRODY: He didn&#039 ; t know? PHAM: He don&#039 ; t know where that captain go, where the commanding officer go. And I see, well, I have a--he have a two Swift boat, you know, for him. And all of my base give him another boat up there, you know, and park it right on that pier, right there. And I go see there, I don&#039 ; t see no boat, no Swift boat. So he had to go somewhere. And I go and I think maybe he go out to the American boat and maybe he-- BRODY: He escaped-- PHAM: --he escape already! BRODY: Wow. PHAM: And I think--I asked, you know--because I am the command--executive officer of the base, so I know everything, and I drive around at night and I see something. I don&#039 ; t know, nobody say anything, and I go there and I go to the pier. I see his jeep in there. BRODY: Really? PHAM: He&#039 ; s got his jeep-- BRODY: Yeah, his jeep is there at the pier. |00:42:37| PHAM: --in the pier. But no boat, no nothing, and I think, He gone. And I ask my guard--you know, they secure the gate--you know, the guard see something, he say the commanding officer or family look like been leaving already and that was before. BRODY: So he left with his family before-- PHAM: That what they say, you know. I think he don&#039 ; t say something. They don&#039 ; t go at same time, but they took pickup they do. They go with the--the people I&#039 ; m talking about, they pick up with them and then go to there(??). BRODY: Yeah, they just escaped with them. PHAM: And I say, well--I take the jeep. BRODY: You took the jeep? PHAM: I picked up my family. (laughs) BRODY: You picked up your family? |00:43:21| PHAM: I pick up my family, whole family. I pick the whole family, my family. Took the jeep. And on the--the lucky one for me is that at that time I got five ship at that time for the zone, you know. We got five ship out there. But two ship are parking on the pier, you know, next to my base. And one of them in there is my commanding officer of that ship, he&#039 ; s my friend, same class of me. So I go, well, why is--you know, he don&#039 ; t know anything! He&#039 ; s still sleep in there. So I go to bring my family and I ride through the base and I go to his place, a lot of officer, a lot of family that followed me because they don&#039 ; t know anything but see me going, they think I know something. BRODY: Right. They followed you out. PHAM: Because the thing is, before the north win, they got a lot of people, got killed, got &quot ; stambled&quot ; because, you know, when they got to the ship a lot of people--they could sink your ship. I mean, they can go on-- BRODY: Because too many people. PHAM: --there&#039 ; s too many people, that&#039 ; s why. But at my place, I think, at that point is very calm. Nobody know, nobody anything so I am kind of--I got through that. (laughs) I got in the ship, I got to his sleeping bed, you know, to his room. He&#039 ; s still sleep. |00:44:50| BRODY: He had no idea. PHAM: He had no idea. I kick him up. I say &quot ; Wake up man, all of Saigon,&quot ; I said, &quot ; All of the navy leave, gone. We have to leave too.&quot ; He said, &quot ; What?&quot ; He say he don&#039 ; t know anything. But anyway, he let my family in his ship. BRODY: So your family was able to go from the jeep into the ship. (laughs) PHAM: And then that&#039 ; s that. The rest, nobody got in there. I know the ship next to him, they don&#039 ; t let nobody got in. They got gun, everything. They don&#039 ; t let nobody else, because he&#039 ; s my friend so I got a favor from him, you know? He had all my family, you know, eleven people including me got in there. We got in. I said, &quot ; Out, get out. Open gate, go out,&quot ; because, you know, why stay here for? So he say--I commanded him: &quot ; Go!&quot ; |00:45:49| BRODY: So where did you go? PHAM: So at that point, we don&#039 ; t go yet. It&#039 ; s still, the story is still my story. Nobody know this but only me. We--and a few people--and he got out. He tell the guy everything, you know, open the-- BRODY: Open the gates. PHAM: What--opened the cable, everything, you know, so they got out. And another ship get out too. And the only thing on that ship is my family and another family--he&#039 ; s commanding officer--my commanding officer, you know, base commander, he&#039 ; s a friend of mine too, you know--family. BRODY: So about, maybe, twenty-five people on the ship? PHAM: Maybe only--not twenty-five, maybe my family about ten, he&#039 ; s about seven- something, you know? That much. But we got out, got out. We got out about an hour. And he don&#039 ; t have anything, he don&#039 ; t know what to do, because he don&#039 ; t hear from Saigon, from the commanding office. The navy don&#039 ; t say anything, he don&#039 ; t know anything. On this base, here that, you know, the captain don&#039 ; t say anything, no say anything, so he don&#039 ; t know. So he got out. And a lot of ship, you know, come back. They patrol--you know, outside they left, they come back in. A friend of mine too, another friend of mine, commanding officer of that ship got me in and then somehow he hear the voice of the commanding officer of his base unit, the big one. You know, he&#039 ; s the number one, big one there, you know? He calling everybody, &quot ; Come back!&quot ; Calling, &quot ; No go nowhere.&quot ; He come back somehow, he don&#039 ; t get out. I believe he got refuse, the refuse him to get in the ship or somehow. So he got back. BRODY: He got sent back. PHAM: So we have to move back in. But I don&#039 ; t know, I say (??), but this commanding officer at that time, he&#039 ; s very tough and he--you know, when a lot of people from the north come in, they move in everything, a lot of people got--a lot of people, very bad people in the boat, in the ship, they go American ship. With them in there, a lot of bad people in there. They kill a lot of people, they take--they--chaos, you know. They kill people, they take people money, they do a lot of bad stuff. |00:48:32| BRODY: On the ship? PHAM: On the ship from--on twenty days, you know, from the north, they move into my place. It not easy, they got in there and all of them got gun, got force so they can-- people don&#039 ; t have anything, they know they got money so they could kill them, they could be because when the people come the tell you people rob them, people rape them, they do all that stuff like that. So that what we do very security, very tight. So we can investigate everything. They investigate, so they try to good people got in. The bad people, they-- BRODY: Right. Keep people safe. PHAM: They keep people safe. And the northern people, they captain, you know, and he killed two, three people because very bad. So somehow they have to keep come, so this time, this guy, you know, he think I could move, now he could kill me or something, so I say, &quot ; Oh,&quot ; and my--the ship captain, my friend, he don&#039 ; t know what to do, so he anchor out there. BRODY: He anchored out at sea? PHAM: At the sea, he anchor. So I said--because he wouldn&#039 ; t come in, you know had to hold it. So I got in. I call, you know, some fishing boat that come in, so I got the fishing boat, got back in the land. BRODY: Just you? PHAM: Just me. |00:50:02| BRODY: And so you left the family on-- PHAM: The family out there. And I came back in and everything like normal. And the next morning, all the ship come back to the pier, all my family come back to the house. BRODY: Oh, they came back. PHAM: Come back, because he said that nobody go! So I have to go back, everybody come back, go to house. (laughs) So I don&#039 ; t know what happened, but I know Saigon is lose, everything else. And this guy, I know he don&#039 ; t--he can&#039 ; t go or he don&#039 ; t know and we don&#039 ; t--nothing we can do, we cannot fight anymore and that look like have to leave somewhere. My point at that time, I don&#039 ; t know where to go. We keep go and we try to go to some place on my mind or my friend might go, you know, got out there, find some island somewhere out in the Pacific, go to Australia or somewhere, you know, to live. We don&#039 ; t know. BRODY: Just to get out. PHAM: Just to get out. Because, you know, people don&#039 ; t know communists. You don&#039 ; t know the communists. I know the communists. My mom know the communists. A lot of people don&#039 ; t know them. But the communists, they&#039 ; re different, they&#039 ; re different people. Even if--even your brother or sister, whatever, but they turn out to communists, and they the communists. You cannot change their mind, you know? They could kill you--your brother, your sister. They can put it the communists, it&#039 ; s a bad one. So they look like a demon or some kind of when there&#039 ; s too many, you know(??), the people got broke(??) or something. This is so bad. BRODY: So you knew you wanted to get out. PHAM: Get out. You know, I don&#039 ; t know how, maybe die outside on the sea? I don&#039 ; t have any money on my hand, I don&#039 ; t know nothing, know nothing. |00:51:52| BRODY: And your father is sick, and you&#039 ; ve got two little kids. PHAM: Yeah. My kid, I know my brother there, you know, we got to--that just on my mind, that, Oh, you have to find out--get out. And at that point before I left my--(phone rings) and before we got to go to my friend ship right there, we can get bigger ship. But now, out there we&#039 ; ve got two--that thing I said, the big ship, American ship there, you know, merchandise ship? They have another one on another side of the island also, so we&#039 ; ve got two of them there, big one. One of them like eighty tons, very big ship, a hundred ton or something, a hundred thousand ton, big one like that. So out there somehow we try to get out of that ship. But have to be do without some, you know, control out there, the commanding officer, whatever they all find someplace. You know, I got all my small ship of mine can bring us to there, we planning, we just sit in there trying to plan that, we know Saigon is lose already, everything. But then luckily at that point, the Vietnamese--the government of the Vietnamese, the president, General Minh, he talk on the radio and say he--everybody can go. We lose. Everybody can go. BRODY: So then you didn&#039 ; t have to worry about orders. PHAM: About, you know, who can order or anything, he said everybody can go and all of that. At that point when we know that, everybody can go, and then-- |00:53:43| BRODY: You had a plan? PHAM: I have a plan to go. So, you know, my friend&#039 ; s ship out there, he take out, he out there. So I got my family, I call my family on the--they just got in, they just got in only an hour ago. And now I said, &quot ; Let go.&quot ; BRODY: We&#039 ; re going again. PHAM: Go again. So they--now we don&#039 ; t go by jeep, but we walk, everybody only have a sack or something like that, whole family go to a small boat from my--actually, my people, you know, my--all of my--it&#039 ; s just men, you know, only thing anybody want to go, and they looked like not a lot of people to go on my unit. Nobody want to go. BRODY: So your family-- PHAM: So they got--so, they make the route for me, they got the boat for me, everything, so I bring my family to the ship. And the base still--you know, they still stand there, people, lot of people at that time, and then I don&#039 ; t know what they do after that but then I go to the ship. BRODY: So did you make it to the big merchandise ship? PHAM: No, we go to my friend ship because, you know--so a lot of people outside the base, everything they know that a lot of people go in, a lot of family, they go on his ship. So, it&#039 ; s like, about two hundred people. BRODY: Two hundred people were on your friend&#039 ; s ship? PHAM: --were on my friend&#039 ; s ship. |00:55:09| BRODY: And then where did it go from there, once you got-- PHAM: And then when he got in there, we&#039 ; re still wait the commanding office somehow, you know, and we have to four or five ship, you know, and all the--oh, let&#039 ; s see--two ship--four ship at that point. And every ship got like a hundred or two hundred, my friend&#039 ; s ship will have a lot more than that. And then we there, we wait. At that point--or like twelve o&#039 ; clock until four o&#039 ; clock and then the commanding officer and family go to another ship and we get out. And a lot of people--I mean, they got our boat, small boat, everything, they&#039 ; re all around the water, see all kind of ship around the water. Some of them got in my--this ship, some got into the big ship-- BRODY: So there were just boats everywhere. PHAM: --a lot of them when they got up there, they can fall off and they killed--I mean everything would be chaos. And until that afternoon--that&#039 ; s on the thirtieth--and that time the sea very bad. I mean, you know, very rough. Very rough sea. Wind, no rain, but a lot of wind, a lot of dark sky and kind of very bad. And we move. We move the route ; they try to plan to go to Australia. |00:56:41| BRODY: The plan was to go to Australia. PHAM: Yeah, the plan where they go. So they--but still they go, you know, past Singapore and past something to go to Singapore to Australia. And then between--you know, the two to go there and then every two, three hour, a lot of people, they want to get back. They don&#039 ; t want to go. So lots more ship, they go pass through and they can put people who-- BRODY: They took people off when you were on and onto the small-- PHAM: --people when they got on, go in or back, whatever they do that with the rough sea, everything that until the next morning. And then at that point, somehow, you know, the wind died down and the sea, complete calm. I mean, you never see at that point, the sea, it calm for twenty days. No even waves. I can&#039 ; t believe it, it&#039 ; s just like on the lake. The whole twenty days. And take two, three days later, we--our ship, you know, because the ship we in only have--they had eight engine. Only two engine work. Six of them no work. BRODY: Were dead. PHAM: Were dead. So we have another ship pull our ship. BRODY: So you got towed. PHAM: So we got tow, only have two engine still that--so we go like maybe two, three miles, you know, they call--it not miles, they call what-- PHAM&#039 ; S DAUGHTER: Knots. PHAM: Knot. PHAM&#039 ; S DAUGHTER: Per minute or something? Knots per minute? PHAM: (laughs) No, only two or three knots [Pham note: per hour]. BRODY: Wow, so not very fast. PHAM: So we&#039 ; re not very fast, but the sea somehow, it&#039 ; s very, very, very calm, very cool. And then we had to feed that many people there. The ship people has to ship people and they don&#039 ; t have family there. They--all of them, they go to patrol. They know--you know, my friend, he&#039 ; s a fellow officer, a petty officer, only in (??). Nobody got family there. Like about hundred people in there and they don&#039 ; t have-- BRODY: No family. |00:59:04| PHAM: No family. And they have to feed all of these family. BRODY: Wow. (laughs) PHAM: Yeah. They have to feed all these family they have there. Luckily--and somehow they got that--at that time--by that time they wanted to go back to Saigon already, so they buy a lot of food, you know, like Nuoc Mam, all that thing, you know, store on the ship. So they have food. So they feed everybody, you know, they feed. And somehow we go to that route and before we pass Singapore, somehow--because the American, they&#039 ; ve got a very big operation, so they--up there, they have a lot of airplane, they follow a lot of ship around, everything. So before we go with the later one--four ship, we&#039 ; re with the later one. Before that, like almost fifty ship or something, they go to Subic Bay or they go to Guam. They got ordered to go there and they go that way, and with the guy from American ship or from airplane, everything. Before us, by one day before. We later. (phone rings) They have been buzzing all day long. And then somehow before we pass Singapore --and we got communication, they say, well, we have to go to Singapore. BRODY: So you ended up-- PHAM: We ended up, a whole four ship, we go to Singapore. We go to Singapore, stay there for two, three day and night because the officer, they go up there and see what happened, and then Singapore don&#039 ; t take us. But they say, &quot ; Americans, they got the base at Philippine, they call Subic Bay.&quot ; They say what they&#039 ; re planning, they got the camp there. &quot ; If you go to Subic Bay, they can take you.&quot ; |01:01:07| BRODY: So you left Singapore? PHAM: So the next two days after that, we left Singapore and we go to Philippine on Subic Bay. But before we got four, right? Four ship. But then when we go to the next day, next morning, we see only three ship. We lost another ship. BRODY: What happened to the other one? PHAM: Somehow one of them in there, some of the people in there, they want to go back and go back, and-- BRODY: To Vietnam? PHAM: Yeah. The captain don&#039 ; t want to go back or something. You know, the captain is my friend, same class as me ; good friend, too. And then they killed him and they took-- BRODY: And they took the ship? PHAM: --they took the ship. We look the morning--the next morning, we don&#039 ; t see that ship. And we turn around, you know, few hour, can&#039 ; t find no more, so we have to go. So finally, after--now we know he got killed. And his body put to sea, they kill him, and then they took the ship back. We don&#039 ; t know exactly-- BRODY: Why? PHAM: Why--the &quot ; why&quot ; we know: they wanted to go back and, you know, don&#039 ; t have any transportation for them to go back. They want--they turn violent and somehow, they killed him. So after seventeen days, or eighteen days, because we only have two knot or three knot--(laughs) BRODY: Right, took a long drive. PHAM: Yeah, we went to Subic Bay. |01:02:52| BRODY: So there, there was a camp? PHAM: They got a camp. And everybody live in there for seventeen days, at least fifteen days. The camp, they got food, they got everything--very nice there. And we&#039 ; re the new people come in, like almost a thousand people at that point. We got in and they planned already! They got all new tent, they got new bed, everything, they got planned everything. So we got in there and they set up us to the camp very nicely, everything. BRODY: All eleven of you? PHAM: All eleven of us. And at that point, and then we&#039 ; re in there, they normally, they do all that stuff and they trained us how to do this and that. They teach us for tax, how to pay tax, (laughs) all that stuff. |01:03:42| BRODY: So at that point, did you know you would be heading to the United States? PHAM: Yeah. At that point when we got up the base, we know we go to the United States and everything there. We don&#039 ; t worry anything anymore because they got food-- plenty of food and plenty of supply. I mean, everything--they got everything there, better than we&#039 ; d have. So even--you know, that good. And then we look like we--if I know that we don&#039 ; t worry after that, I could be enjoying like a real vacation, (Brody laughs) but at that time we wanted everything, for my kid. Like my young one, the older one, Huy, he got a lot of--his skin, you know, got--(speaks to someone in Vietnamese). PHAM&#039 ; S DAUGHTER: Hives. PHAM: Yeah, it&#039 ; s very bad, you know, he hurt. So I carry him, have to take care of that stuff, and he hurt so I got that. But now he&#039 ; s very good, see, don&#039 ; t have a problem or anything. And we in there for, let&#039 ; s see, about fifteen days. So they got two choice: one is you can to Wake Island. First, we don&#039 ; t go direct to American yet, but go to--I think we go Wake. Another group could go to Guam. |01:05:15| BRODY: Okay. So there were two choices. PHAM: Yeah, two choice. And from Guam, they could be go direct to American, or they go to Hawaii(??). And then my parent and all--you know, his three son and daughter, they go to Guam, because he said he&#039 ; s going to wait, maybe another brother of mine somehow, they get to Guam or not. So they want to go to Guam. And my family, that mean me, my wife, and my two kid and then my niece, my wife niece, and then my younger brother, my wife young brother, we go to Wake, because I have to--you know, my kid too young. We go to Wake, easy one, you know, so we don&#039 ; t have to be Guam. A lot of people like Guam so everything, so I choose Wake, so I choose very good time, and we go to Wake Island. We stay at Wake Island, and Wake Island look like that place, look like the place for American retreat or something, military retreat. They have a house, they have very nice house, you know? They got house, they built look like this. They got garage, they got, you know--and they got the very comfortable living there. They got all the tennis court, they got the TV, they got all kind of stuff, you know, on that island. Wake Island, a very, very good island. Look like they say, &quot ; Well, that place for American family,&quot ; they live there, they&#039 ; re on the--whatever the base, you know, in there. |01:06:50| BRODY: So it was nice? PHAM: Only thing is we cannot go to fish. A lot of fish are there--I mean fish, very good fish. There, cannot go to fish. BRODY: Why couldn&#039 ; t you fish? PHAM: They say the fish had contamination or some kind of--you know, not good to eat or something. But we Vietnamese, we don&#039 ; t care about it. (Brody laughs) They can sneak out there, you know, trying to catch them-- BRODY: Catch the fish. PHAM: --catch some fish. Then we cannot farm out there but, you know, somehow we still (laughs)--I can still eat two or three time at that. We got a guy that live with us in the same house. We have a lot of people that live in the same house, you know, like maybe like a house like this, you know, like twenty, thirty people living together. We&#039 ; re very close. But then eating three meals a day. You have to go in line, you eat every food, a lot of food. But they--American, I don&#039 ; t know why, but they have a lot of food. After we head out here, we know expensive. But in there, they gave us the food, and we don&#039 ; t like them very much. BRODY: (laughs) That&#039 ; s funny. PHAM: Yeah. The one that--what they call--what, what kind of food they leave us and we don&#039 ; t like very much, and then--(talking in Vietnamese to his daughter) PHAM&#039 ; S DAUGHTER: Ham? PHAM: Ham, ham. Yeah. Expensive, right? BRODY: So they gave it to you-- PHAM: Every day, and a lot. I mean it&#039 ; s like--and we like fried chicken--that&#039 ; s what we like--they give you one or two. That&#039 ; s all. BRODY: Oh, but so much ham. PHAM: Yeah, whole bunch ham. (Brody laughs) And the thing we like, chicken. Chicken, fried chicken or thing like that, we love very much, and they don&#039 ; t have that very much. And a lot of food, you know, they don&#039 ; t have. Like, we need jalapenos or very hot spice ; they don&#039 ; t have that, and we love that. And they don&#039 ; t have--and then give a lot of food, but a lot of them, you know-- BRODY: Not your taste. PHAM: --we don&#039 ; t really like to taste. That the problem. But we had food morning, lunch, afternoon, and at night they got open TV out there until twelve o&#039 ; clock at night. (laughs) So we get--you like a vacation. Very nice. And then they have the open a lot of play. They give you clothes--old clothes, they not new, but people donation. And they got up there and they gave us clothes and everything, you know. And the thing they give us a lot is a cigarette. BRODY: A lot of cigarettes. PHAM: Yeah. Every two packs-- BRODY: Did you smoke? PHAM: At that time I smoked, yeah. I smoke a lot at that time. (both laugh) I smoked maybe one or two pack cigarette a day, you know. We smoked--everybody smoked! BRODY: Right. And they gave you a lot. PHAM: They give us a lot of smoke. So we got good games, we played poker by cigarette, you know? (Brody laughs) We don&#039 ; t have money to play but we play-- BRODY: But you trade cigarettes. (laughs) PHAM: We play cigarette. |01:10:19| BRODY: So how long were you there? PHAM: I live in there at least for a month. BRODY: For one month. Okay, so then--so the family then after that, they brought you-- PHAM: My parents&#039 ; family, after two, three weeks in Guam and then they moved to Wake-- BRODY: To Waco? PHAM: They come back to Wake, they don&#039 ; t wait to go to here, they come back. BRODY: From Guam to-- PHAM: From Guam to Wake. So they live at the place close to us and maybe can walk, like, a hundred yards. BRODY: So during that month they came? PHAM: Yeah, they came in with us. They don&#039 ; t live together, but they live in another house-- BRODY: Nearby. PHAM: --nearby. And we go to learn, we go to everything there. And everybody, you know, it very good fitting, everything, but everybody wanted for everything else, you know, a lot of thing, I don&#039 ; t know how much and what it--a lot of them. We keep communication with the people. We know, they coming or not, here or there. We stay in there for like, say, a month or two, and then the whole family of us, now we don&#039 ; t separate. BRODY: Right. Now you&#039 ; re all together. |01:11:34| PHAM: We are together. And we go to Fort Smith, Arkansas. BRODY: So you get to Arkansas. PHAM: Yeah. They got three place--we don&#039 ; t have a choice. At that time, they want us to where--we go to there. So they bring us to Arkansas, Fort Smith, Arkansas. BRODY: So you all flew together? PHAM: We all flew together to Fort Smith, Arkansas. BRODY: All right. So you&#039 ; re in Arkansas, you&#039 ; re all together. PHAM: And then at that point, we have to training to a lot of stuff, life in the United States. We have to do--you know, the training to do--more like them they training us more, you know, English, you can do, and then they train us to do the tax. Mostly, it&#039 ; s the tax. Taxes, the more they added them, because we don&#039 ; t pay tax before. In Vietnam, we don&#039 ; t pay tax. BRODY: So they&#039 ; re just letting you know. PHAM: The house, we don&#039 ; t pay tax. We bought the house, and then once we have the house and then we don&#039 ; t have to do anything on that house. That&#039 ; s our house and we don&#039 ; t have to do. And here, you have to do all that property tax, all that stuff that. (laughs) But over there we don&#039 ; t. |01:12:46| BRODY: So they trained you on all those details. PHAM: They trained us on detail there. Actually, my family, you know, only me speak English and all the kid small. My parent, he kind of that thing--oh, my parent at that time, he&#039 ; s sixty-five years old. My mom like fifty-five, but she don&#039 ; t speak any English. My father speaks French but then--and then on the camp, that what we do. And we eat, and when we go to movie and then kind of, you know, prepare to get out. But then the men work to prepare to get out. So a lot of people, they know people outside already, or they know people in another country, like Canada, or they got--most of them in France, a lot of Vietnamese, they&#039 ; re connect with France, you know? So they want to go there. So they go very fast. Sponsor over there, and they go very fast. The people who want to American, want to get out American or another country, a lot of people, they want to go to a different country, they go to Brazil, they go everywhere. They got people in there to go. So they go faster. Go to American for me is kind of harder because we eleven people. Who can sponsor eleven people to get out? |01:14:06| BRODY: Right. So how did you come to find your sponsors? PHAM: And then we have to--my only request, I want to go to warm country, a warm, warm place. I don&#039 ; t want to go north, cold, anything. I want to go warm. So somehow they--so what I--I waited in delay until September. Got the church from a Presbyterian church with a member of the church, they sponsored us to go to here, Richardson. BRODY: To come to Richardson. So the First Presbyterian Church of Richardson-- PHAM: Yeah. The whole family-- BRODY: --sponsored the whole family? PHAM: The whole family, eleven people, all of us, as a full family. We live at the place very close to my house right now. When I got the place I don&#039 ; t move too far. I got the apartment there. I got four bedroom apartment, and they got up there. We come out on the Labor Day ; September second, Labor Day, yeah. BRODY: So your anniversary is coming up. PHAM: Yeah. |01:15:15| BRODY: So what was the apartment like? Four bedroom-- PHAM: Four bedroom, yeah. We got very--you know, I come up here, we got bedroom, we got--what, carpet on the floor. We never live on a carpet floor. We never had a carpet floor, now we got carpet floor, everything. And the first meal have that much people, so that was-- BRODY: So, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine families sponsored, so-- PHAM: (laughs) So they come in. So at least half of that, you know, that come in, themself. So they got us fried chicken. BRODY: They got you fried chicken. (laughs) Finally. You got the fried chicken. PHAM: Yeah, I got fried chicken. They--oh man, you know, that night, fried chicken on the second, yeah, and the family. And then they explain it to us, what Sunday I go to the church, I have to go to speech, something, and then, you know, prepare kid because school. BRODY: It was starting, yes. PHAM: It started. So kid go to school. So I got four or five kid go to school. Two of these right here cannot go to the school yet because they still small, so they have to pass preschool or something. Another, my two young brother, twin, my sister, a little bit older, she like twelve, thirteen years old, and then another girl, you know, like, my niece, my wife niece--but four of them go to school. |01:16:52| BRODY: So they&#039 ; re all--yeah, they all had to be signed up for school and get ready for school. PHAM: For school, the Dobie close to my house, everything. And then, you know, they go to school. BRODY: So what school did they go to? PHAM: Dobie Elementary School. BRODY: Dobie Elementary. PHAM: Yeah, right on that--you know, that recent border of Dallas, but Dobie at that time, very good school. You know, somehow lucky, good school. BRODY: Were there other Vietnamese families at the school? PHAM: They got--at that time they live there very close. A lot of Vietnamese live there at that area. At that point, you know, a lot of Vietnamese live in that apartment. But now nobody live there no more, only me. The rest of them move everywhere, but only me live there. But Dobie school. And my kid, later on, they go to--the church got the preschool somewhere very close, and so my kid go to that school and the lady here, you know, bring them to go to school. My kid go to Dobie school, and we can walk, they can walk to school. |01:18:03| BRODY: So the sponsors really helped you and your family adjust. What kinds of things did the sponsors do? PHAM: The sponsor, they--I believe before I got out the camp, looked like (??). They gave us--every person got ten dollar or something--a hundred dollar, I believe, you know, something to. So when I got out of that, I gave that money to the sponsor people here, you know, [gave] the people the money. But they plan already. They rent the apartment for one month. They paid for. BRODY: They took care of that. PHAM: The food, they paid for the food a whole month or something. And every day they&#039 ; d come in to bring us to go to grocery to buy food. And we eat a lot of rice at that time, and they--the grocery at that time, they close the market, got the Safeway, and we got in there to buy rice. And see, you have two, three bag of rice ; the whole section, they have three bag of rice, like a five pound or something like that, and we grab all five pound but five pound, we maybe eat only one or two days. You know, and then they--we have to buy food, they teach us how to buy food cheaper. You know, each season you don&#039 ; t like to this fruit, you don&#039 ; t buy them right now because it may be expensive, right? Another month may be cheaper, so they help us how to buy them, good priced food. And what cheap so that one is--I still remember is right here. I think they buy cheap, so they go to buy chicken. So at that time they buy--they sell chicken neck. You know, a lot of that is cheapest. |01:20:07| BRODY: It&#039 ; s cheap. PHAM: Yeah. So I think that one because it&#039 ; s cheap, so I buy a lot of chicken necks. BRODY: Oh boy. (laughs) PHAM: But after that, for, I mean years after that and some of the lady in here, they bring to me a lot of chicken neck because they think I love it. (laughs) They bring them to give us, you know, they think because I like it, we like it. But actually, you know, we eat because it cheap. BRODY: It was cheap. (laughs) That&#039 ; s pretty funny. But they thought you loved chicken necks. (laughs) PHAM: Yeah, love the necks, so they bought it. But that what they teach us. That, and then find out I said, &quot ; Well, I have to find some place where we buy a lot of rice.&quot ; You know, more rice, that is not enough. We cannot go to buy rice every day and everywhere, so finally somehow they--one lady at this apartment, she find a place in downtown that sells rice. We bought a hundred pound. BRODY: A hundred pounds of rice. PHAM: A hundred kilo, that&#039 ; d be two hundred pound, right? Yeah. We could buy the whole bag like that. BRODY: That lasted longer? PHAM: Yeah, and then we go there and they--all of them, they no very good drive to downtown and they got lost out there. But they got the courage to go there to buy rice. And then one family, they help us to go to every--we go to farmer&#039 ; s market down there to buy fruit, vegetable, something like that, to do that for us. And my wife, and my mom, she very good cook. So she cook something they like very much, like they want a eggroll. We eat it now. At that time, you know, nobody know eggroll look like and how eat them. My mom, she cook eggroll. |01:21:55| BRODY: She cooked eggrolls for all the sponsors? PHAM: Yeah. And a lot of family right here. Mrs. Farrell [Brody note: his sponsor], she love it, and she asked, &quot ; What in there?&quot ; (laughs) And when my wife tell what in there and she no eat no more. BRODY: Oh no. (laughs) PHAM: Yeah. Because the way we cook eggroll out there in Vietnam, the best part on the chicken look like a liver, the gizzard, thing like that. BRODY: Goes into the eggroll. PHAM: We get it, we put in there. It make it crunchy, everything good. But American, you know, a lot of people, they don&#039 ; t ever eat the gizzard. [They thought,] That thing is no good at all. Now they eat a lot. But before that time, nobody know how to eat that! BRODY: So she was shocked when she found out? PHAM: She was shocked when she know we don&#039 ; t--she eat the (??), she didn&#039 ; t say anything! But then my wife, she show her how to cook, she got the gizzard in there. From there, she no eat them no more. I say, &quot ; Well, next time tell her we don&#039 ; t put that in there, we put meat. We don&#039 ; t put that stuff in there.&quot ; (laughs) |01:23:07| BRODY: Yes. She was sorry she asked, I&#039 ; m sure. (laughs) So were you working at this time? PHAM: Okay. And then they find us to go to looking for job. BRODY: So the sponsors helped you find jobs too? PHAM: And I don&#039 ; t have a job, I don&#039 ; t know what skill I got, so I say, &quot ; Well, anything I can do.&quot ; So first one they see me go to do the place what they do--what, do yardwork, you know, to do--cut grass or something. But they look at us, I&#039 ; m not--you know, I&#039 ; m only a hundred and fifty pound, and my father is same size, you know. Then they say, &quot ; Well, these guys, you know, don&#039 ; t look like they have strong enough to do work,&quot ; or something. And they don&#039 ; t take us. (laughs) BRODY: So they didn&#039 ; t take you for the yard work? PHAM: No, they don&#039 ; t take us for that. So I said, &quot ; What kind of job we do?&quot ; I&#039 ; m thinking, Well, here they have a lot of cars, so I say, &quot ; Well, let&#039 ; s do car.&quot ; |01:24:10| BRODY: Cars. PHAM: Yeah, let&#039 ; s do car. So I go to look for a car at the Sear[s], Roebuck. They got the place, the guy worked out there. Somehow, he got that they know they&#039 ; re looking for a car mechanic, do helper or something. So they bring me over there. So they take me for car mechanic, and I don&#039 ; t know anything for car, mechanic, or anything, you know? I don&#039 ; t know, and I worked with the guy, his name is Tommy DeComb, he&#039 ; s younger than me. He&#039 ; s certainly same year, same old--same age my kid, and he a very nice guy. He take care of the shop, he take care of the garage. He don&#039 ; t fix for people, they take care of the fleet. So I&#039 ; m the helper. I come and help, I say, &quot ; Well, you can teach--you have to teach me, because I don&#039 ; t know anything. But I&#039 ; ll tell you, I can learn very fast.&quot ; So he say, &quot ; Okay.&quot ; He&#039 ; s a very nice guy. And every time he under the car, right, he want a spare part. So I stand on the toolbox, I put it up, this spare part? This spare part? So when he says, &quot ; Yes,&quot ; so I got--&quot ; Oh, this screwdriver, Phillips screwdriver or what?&quot ; BRODY: So you learned a lot of words quickly. PHAM: So I learned a lot of words, but I don&#039 ; t know what all of that was, you know? So I help him. And I learn very fast, you know. Even the driver--the tow truck--even I never drived a tow truck, you know, and I--you know, he says go to pick up. I, at that time, am not drive a tow truck yet, and the tow truck at that time, is not that good like a tow truck right now. And I, over in Vietnam, we never have a moisture or anything. At that time, very close to the winter, right? I come in December and I walk on the job. The next few weeks and then the winter come in, and I drive the truck and something circling (makes sound effect) don&#039 ; t see anything, all of that moisture, it collect, and I don&#039 ; t know what the, how to open the defroster, anything. Because I got defrost, you know, it clear, but I never know that. |01:26:38| BRODY: You didn&#039 ; t have that experience? PHAM: But the nice time--now, it&#039 ; s bad, but that time, you know, the road a lot clearer than now. You know, forty-five years old, it be a lot of clear. Like on the [Interstate] 635 just opened, and it--you drive the car, you know, you can see the car in front, like, a mile ahead, you know, nobody come so no have traffic that much. BRODY: Right, it&#039 ; s not as much traffic. PHAM: I remember I drive the tow truck, pick up--very bad tow truck, pick up the van--big van, cargo van, you know--they go to work and that van broke down right on Downtown [Interstate] 30 and I drived out there and I pick up that, drive the middle of the lane and pick up that, and when I walk I how scary it is. And you go under there--it not truck like now, you know, just hang in there and pick up--you have to crawl under there to hook all the cable and crawl all around. I not going to scare anything. I don&#039 ; t know. And I pulled that big and go home. I had no problem at all. I do it. And then--I think before that, before I worked for the Sear--I mean, I know before I worked Sear?-- no, no, no, yeah, that first, yeah. And then he build--oh, change the oil--I tell you change the oil. They got the truck, right? The six-cylinder Ford. So they got the air filter there and then they got the pipe go down. To take the oil out is easy. I got down there to go get the screw and take oil out and filter seal there--easy. But when put oil in, I don&#039 ; t know where to put. You see, the one on the heater, raiser go from the heat there to the manifold got in, you know. I put oil in there. (laughs) I put in there. So I said, wow, I kind of--very, very, you know, kind of-- BRODY: You&#039 ; re learning on the job. PHAM: I&#039 ; m learning. But that time you don&#039 ; t see people--if they see you do anything like that, he kind of--shoddy kind of thing like that, you know? And you a mechanic? You do that? (laughs) But then I learn that, and he--that guy, he build racecar, he race cars, a lot of, you know, racecar. He do fast racecar, you know, and every week he go to race. And he build--he got the Barracuda or whatever his car, you know. And this guy, he said every time--he put on that car, he&#039 ; d only put one dollar. Drive to his house, only one dollar. He write a check, one dollar. Every time he put only one dollar. I guess, at that time, like thirty-five cent a gallon, but, you know, the one dollar to put car there and that gas in there, and he build--he fix his car all the time at night. So I say, well, I volunteer to go to his place to help him to learn--I don&#039 ; t know what the transmission is or what is that, so I go in there every night, you know? I go home--my house here, his house--he&#039 ; s live in Mesquite. And I have to go to his place, and at ten o&#039 ; clock I go home. And I learn from him, you know, how what do it, and he don&#039 ; t teach me. He said do what, you do that, and then when he do--I saw what he did, he did the valve job and put there--lift there, you know, lift there, everything, so I--you know, I--after he done and I follow, I do it. You know, somehow I do there--but that guy, he&#039 ; s younger than me, but he made me lose the job. |01:30:36| BRODY: Oh no. How did that happen? PHAM: Yeah. He go to pick up a car, you know, a van, stuck on somewhere. So I go with him. And he drive, he talk, somehow he almost hit people, he got to the ditch, so then we got in there to put the truck out, everything, somehow then now, they got somehow, they report, whatever there, so he say, &quot ; Well, it look like my fault or something.&quot ; So I think that&#039 ; s why they fired me, or something. One time--at that time we ran out, we live easy. I tell you what--how it&#039 ; s hard at that time. The life easy, but I have to choose right here people from here. They give me all the house, they give furniture, they give everything. A lot of, you know, dish I still have here now. And they give a television, the old television, we&#039 ; ve got black and white, and they just hold up. So when the Sear--I work for Sear, right? So I go to Sear store, I sold--I got the 19--I think 19 television--that&#039 ; s a better new one at that time--television, Sony. Cost about five hundred dollar. So I have fifty dollar. That time I saved fifty dollar. So I want to buy-- fifty dollar--I buy a TV. I say I work for Sear for almost a year, right? So I think, Well, they give me buy the TV, I borrow. And application, everything, you know? I make--at that time, I work for Sear, pay three dollars and fifty cents an hour. And I said--fifty dollars--so I said, &quot ; Well, I give fifty dollar and borrow one hundred fifty dollar.&quot ; And wait for two--three weeks, way, way, way, way after the manager said (??) my TV. And he say, &quot ; Wait, wait, they don&#039 ; t have that.&quot ; Finally they give me authorized to buy. They give me the credit. But the credit you pay for it, that fifty dollar, they give me fifty dollar finance. (laughs) BRODY: That&#039 ; s not a very good deal. (laughs) PHAM: No, it--so I cannot buy the TV, okay? That the one. Another one, they don&#039 ; t give me that, and then after I--but I called Sear. They give you a lot of class, you know, like a different kind of mechanics, small lawnmower or something, (??) gasoline or air conditioning, all kind of stuff, a small class, and I&#039 ; m very good at that, you know? Every class I make, you know, everything, and yet all is sort of just there. And after they fire me--I work for a year, and they fire me and I go looking mechanic job. You know, mechanic job, I look, go to downtown, they got the place, you know, very bad, don&#039 ; t look very good, everything, but I go in. Look like they don&#039 ; t give me a job. And then somehow friend of mine, they work for--at that time in here, maybe a thousand American Vietnamese only, right? You don&#039 ; t have Vietnamese restaurant, you don&#039 ; t have nothing. You have only one place where we buy Vietnamese food or anything. You got the downtown, very downtown, we&#039 ; ve got a Chinese place--big, like this house--they sell Nouc Mam or all that food, that&#039 ; s it. But we don&#039 ; t have anything. |01:34:17| BRODY: Right. PHAM: And then they--all that they&#039 ; re doing the outside work, but when I do a second job and I--they give me--they got a friend of mine, he worked like a machinist. And he a real machinist. In Vietnam, he&#039 ; s a mechanic. So--he not mechanic--but he an officer, but he did engineering, you know? So he know all of that, all that stuff. So he got the job in there, and he very--they love him. Everybody love him in there. He very good. You know, precision, worked fast, so everybody he recommend, they took it. So I say I know him, so he said, &quot ; Wow. Want to go apply job.&quot ; And I never know how machinist do, and you know, I don&#039 ; t know how to cut, and how to-- |01:35:12| BRODY: That wasn&#039 ; t your experience. PHAM: I never know! I say even they do the mechanic here, I don&#039 ; t have enough experience, and he said, &quot ; Well, okay.&quot ; So I go apply. They ask me, I say that&#039 ; s a friend of mine there. He recommend here. So they ask me what tool and what I got. I have one tool, you know, like micrometer? They have a lot of micrometer, every distance you have the different micrometer. But all I know is micrometer, same thing, you know? When they ask me in there, what you got, a five micrometer, ten micrometer? I [say] even though I have only one. (both laugh) I have one caliber, one micrometer, that&#039 ; s all I got. But they ask me and I told them same thing. I answer (??), but I&#039 ; m truly very good, so they hire me right away. That job paid $5.50 [an hour], so it&#039 ; s a lot better than $3.50 or so, right? So I got in there, finally I got in there, they don&#039 ; t give me--I say, &quot ; Well, I&#039 ; m not doing that again.&quot ; They don&#039 ; t open that, they got to open the place--cut-- saw machine cut. And I got in there, got the supervisor, got in there, they ask me to cut. I see the machine, I already got the machine, only the cut, and he gave me the paper, the diagram, to cut angle and that stuff ; &quot ; Oh man, how to cut this?&quot ; (laughs) BRODY: You didn&#039 ; t know how to do it? PHAM: I don&#039 ; t know how to do it. I ask him, &quot ; You cut one to let me see how to cut it.&quot ; So he cut it. He got all that--he bring all the tuner there, tried to set up, so he cut angle, right? And so I went, &quot ; Okay.&quot ; So I cut. And then the next day, I cut it, and all of them from now, anything that hard cut, I cut, because all the big people there, they cannot cut good, because they know how to cut, but they don&#039 ; t cut to precision, they don&#039 ; t cut bad or anything. Like I do the sheer machine--the guy do the machine, I see the guy, he do the--American guy, he do sheer and he do the big machine, and he cut a lot. And it look like he bought a brand-new car, everything. And so man, I think he really good. Next week he got fire, because he cut a lot, but he cut wrong. He cut wrong dimension, you know? But because, you know, for me I look on that diagram there when I cut, I could only cut short, because short better than cut long. It&#039 ; s different if right there, you can see it, you know. Cut short, you can make work. But you cut long, you cannot make it work, you cannot weld. Like this way, short, you can make it open right here. It long, you know, in the wall, you cannot do it. That machine, that piece of potato, throw them away. But I do cut for two more months, but anything I come in there, anything harder, that me to cut. |01:38:29| BRODY: So you learned quickly. PHAM: Oh, I&#039 ; m learn--you cannot believe how learn I am learned fast. I got skilled mechanic, very skilled. And then after two, three months, I got the guy, he worked for Don Snell Buick car, he&#039 ; s a air force guy, officer. He got a job in there. He go--somehow he had. But then he got the job in Austin--or Houston, sorry, Houston--and he tell me job, he got applied okay for mechanic at Don Snell. If I wanted, I can go to see what. So I go to--I see mechanic, that&#039 ; s what I want to do-- BRODY: That&#039 ; s what you wanted to do, yeah. PHAM: --car mechanic. So I go to apply for his job. Somehow they took me. I say I do all of that, engine. The guy took me on that big dealership, that Don Snell Buick, only four dealership at that time, you know, like a Buick, Ford, Chevrolet, two, three, four. It&#039 ; s not like now, where you don&#039 ; t have a Honda mechanic or anything like that, just only Ford, Buick, like five, six Chevrolet, and Pontiac, maybe one or two, and they took me and I go be helper mechanic for the guy. And he got the big toolbox, everything, you know, I think he&#039 ; s--but basically that guy, not very good mechanic, you know? He do--I think he can do it first he would give me, but he do everything. He do, I look like--after I do work for him for three, four months. Every car, if I have to pay him, he have to pay me to fix my car. That&#039 ; s why I&#039 ; m say how good he is. He have to pay me to fix my car. And everything he do it, he hide from me, because I don&#039 ; t know how to do, like, the random valves, you have to do the valve job. You have the machine, you go in there to set up a machine to do the valve job, everything. And then if you show me one time--I can see he do one time, and I can do it. BRODY: You can learn it. PHAM: I can learn it. I can do it right away. I can learn it, but he hide, he do it. I say, &quot ; Well, this valve, it look very bad, it certainly come out very clean and nice.&quot ; I say, &quot ; Well, how you do that?&quot ; He don&#039 ; t say anything. |01:40:54| BRODY: So he wasn&#039 ; t sharing? PHAM: He don&#039 ; t--he should be. I am the helper, I make money for him. But somehow he don&#039 ; t show me. He&#039 ; s a very nice guy, but somehow he don&#039 ; t do that. And he do something I see very bad ; like people, they bring in the car, and all the car he fix, at that time he do an Opel car from Germany, you know, Opel. And it little bit different precision car, an American, whatever there. But car at that time, they don&#039 ; t pay deal very good, or right now. They broken every--even brand-new car, like five, six thousand mile, they broke already. And he do the car, he do the valve job or whatever, he do the rim job. And the guy drive and then I stuck all the spark plug and it don&#039 ; t run good, bring what he do. He clean them up, put them back, and ship away again. BRODY: So he wasn&#039 ; t really fixing anything. PHAM: He never fix! And at one time he do it--and I let the car run, see how it work, and he got mad at me(??), &quot ; Why you let him run?&quot ; I said, &quot ; You have to run to see how it work.&quot ; Because if I run it, the oil foul up the spark plug. And when the guy pick up the car it don&#039 ; t run good, so that&#039 ; s what--you know. And everything he fix, it broke. You know, the stake he had is not very good. He got in there, he didn&#039 ; t fix up and he make something more wrong then bad because that Opel is very small. Opel GT, you know, it&#039 ; s small. It&#039 ; s a very tiny, look like a--and he got in there and he don&#039 ; t know how to fix. And I tell the manager, I say, no, I don&#039 ; t want to work with him no more. I want to do it by myself. |01:42:48| BRODY: Did the manager say yes? PHAM: Yeah, he said yes, because he know me. You know, he know me. I can do the job. They see that guy with me because they in there--before, he would not--I know him(??). And I don&#039 ; t know very experienced with cars or anything, but he take. I do it by myself. But when I do by myself I have to have a tool, and I have only the box this big for tool. So how we do that? So I have to go to buy toolbox. And Snap-On, they don&#039 ; t sell tool--not like now, they sell [to] a lot of people--but at that time, they don&#039 ; t sell. And I have to go to the bank to borrow money. At that time, I have a fifteen hundred dollar-- no, I have eight hundred dollar-- BRODY: In the bank? PHAM: On the bank. It not--it not fifty dollar, eight hundred dollar. So I go to borrow money, and they told me--how much I want to borrow? I say fifteen hundred dollar, because that thing enough for me to do it, fifteen hundred dollar. They say, &quot ; Oh, well, you have fifteen hundred dollar borrow?&quot ; I say yeah. They say I have eight hundred dollar. So what they do for me, let me borrow eight hundred dollar, because I have to put eight hundred dollar in there for creditor, whatever there. Only let me borrow eight hundred dollar. So I say, &quot ; Oh no, it not&quot ; --I want to pay fifteen, so I have to borrow seven, eight dollars or whatever, and I ended up--so I told my son(??), &quot ; They don&#039 ; t let me borrow!&quot ; BRODY: Why do you think they didn&#039 ; t let you borrow? PHAM: Because I don&#039 ; t have any credit. No credit. At that time, nobody got credit card. No, they don&#039 ; t--you have eight hundred dollar, only thing I have to borrow is eight hundred dollar. You have to keep eight hundred dollar in there, for me, for sure, (laughs) right? They don&#039 ; t let me borrow seven dollar. |01:44:35| BRODY: So you couldn&#039 ; t get the tools? PHAM: I don&#039 ; t get the tools from that, but I go to talk to my--the owner, Don Snell owner, he&#039 ; s a World War II--he&#039 ; s an aviator. You know, somehow he know me, so I say--he tell the toolbox to sell to him for me. BRODY: Oh, that&#039 ; s great. PHAM: So he lent me and buy tool, high dollar. Exceptional. Nobody, you know, they give to--because I can buy tools and I took tools only one. So he trust me very good. BRODY: So he trusted you and he actually gave you tools to-- PHAM: --to do that, so I buy--get toolbox for fifteen hundred dollars. I buy toolbox, I work by myself. And luckily, I found the guy next to me. Now he&#039 ; s best friend up to now for me, you know, he&#039 ; s my teacher, he&#039 ; s Terry Bussing(??). He a mechanic ; a good, good mechanic. He can fix everything. He can build a house from bottom-up, he do everything. And he from up north. Somehow, he still got to Dallas a year ago, and he work next to me. So when I do my job with anything I don&#039 ; t know, I ask him and he tell me. BRODY: He helps you. So it was different-- PHAM: A lot of guys there don&#039 ; t tell you. They look at you like very-- discommunication. A lot of guys, you know, an older guy, only thing I have to--I&#039 ; m a very good tae kwon do man, I show him, so they respect me because I got power, fast, everything. But mechanic, I am not very good. English, am not very good. But this guy, you know, he like me. So he&#039 ; s my partner. So from there up to later on, whatever, I make any outside money, I share with him. He do outside money, he give me half. And I learned a lot from him, something. He can weld, like, a gas tank with a lot of gas in it, full gas. One of the time he got crack ; you had to fix it, right? You have to pull this gas tank out, you drain all the water in the tank out, and then you send to somebody else. Or you can put water in there to clean it very good, and then you weld them, and then it be done, right? This guy, he weld together tank with gas, full gas in there. And a lot of people, they worry, they run away. All of the mechanics, there big smoke coming, everything. They ran away. But because they don&#039 ; t understand, because, you know, the gas--explosion--the gas explosion, it not the gas itself, it vibration. Because it not--it can vibrate the gas, if you put the fire in there, it burn, but you don&#039 ; t use the gas that-- you don&#039 ; t use the--what--the flame. So you hit another thing, you know, make that red- hot and then you solder them and you weld them or whatever there, even, you know, the red go down to the gas, you can hear the sh-sh. There&#039 ; s no explosion. |01:48:07| BRODY: There&#039 ; s no explosion? So you learned that from him. PHAM: Yeah. I learned a lot of stuff from him, you know? I learned all that stuff. And all, whatever do the fix the car, fix for (??)--only take one year. I think it take one year, &#039 ; 81, &#039 ; 82, &#039 ; 83, and I am become the best mechanic in town. BRODY: You did? PHAM: Yeah, I am the master mechanic. I got all the certification for the ASE [Automotive Service Excellence]. They call it the highest, you know, mechanic. And every mechanic, I am the best mechanic and I make money beside that guy. The second guy make more money then, because we make by--the faster we make, they do commission. It not by the hour, like, the weld, you making five dollar, but I make--one day, like, I work eight hours. I make fifteen hour, twenty hour, I make a lot more time, and then anybody else. That&#039 ; s why I make money like that guy. And besides that, you know, a lot of car, you know, people outside we can do the job at his house and we should have the money, everything, and I make good money at Don Snell with him. I work with him until &#039 ; 85 or almost ten year there. I am the best mechanic and I do-- |01:49:42| BRODY: That&#039 ; s quite a journey, from 1975 to 1985. PHAM: Oh yeah, until &#039 ; 85, I am very good at--and then that owner and the manager, everybody, the mechanics, they love me after, you know, a few years. Anything broke, I can fix anything. Even they got the computer, the telephone broke, want me to fix. The door on the main gate broke, they want me to fix. The one machine to--pull machine to pull all the--for the bay. You see where did you put that thing it went around(??), broke, they want me to fix. The boat, he got the fast boat, (??) they want to fix. Only me could fix the roller machine to do all floor clean. (laughs) [Pham note: I can fix everything.] BRODY: They call you for everything. PHAM: They want me to fix, because they don&#039 ; t call me, I will fix because it cost a lot of money to outside the fix. I fix and they pay me by--they give me a job, a car, and I fix them, and the side car. But at that time, you know, a lot of car broken. A lot of cars go into the dealership, you work all day long. |01:51:03| BRODY: You&#039 ; re busy. PHAM: Busy, busy. So I fix good until they got some idea from some kind of--I don&#039 ; t know. They want to make a group, four or five people, mechanics, to turn out the job and share. At that point, me and that guy, we say we don&#039 ; t do that. We don&#039 ; t want to do that. But the guy don&#039 ; t want to do anything. He do bad, and then you have to fix for him, and sometimes they hire a lot of guys, you know, they go in to fix the job and do the job and he don&#039 ; t know anything, he make the job very bad, and then you have to fix it. And you lose a lot of thing like that, you know, they do very bad manager at that time. So I don&#039 ; t do that, I go to look at another job, another Buick, Inwood Buick. I go over there at Inwood Buick for another few years. And after that I open my own shop. |01:52:09| BRODY: Did you? So what year was that that you opened your own shop? PHAM: Eighty-nine. BRODY: Eighty-nine. So--okay, so about ten years later. PHAM: About--after mechanic, like twelve years or ten years. I&#039 ; ve been for--&#039 ; 79, &#039 ; 78, I do mechanic until &#039 ; 89. I know everything at that time. Mechanic, am very good, anything I can fix. BRODY: So you must have been really proud when you opened your own-- PHAM: Yeah, I opened my own shop. I do mechanic, I sell car. I do everything. I sell car and I do--I can finance car, I do car, I do fix car, I do buy car, sell car, I do auction, I do everything. BRODY: You do it all? PHAM: I do pick up, you know, repossession car, me too. I do--I mean, everything. Do title work, I do-- |01:53:05| BRODY: So earlier, you were talking about--when you were working at the Buick place that you felt some discrimination because people, maybe, didn&#039 ; t know you as well, can you-- PHAM: No, that guy, the discrimination there, that two other men there, very good mechanic, they do air-conditioning one of them brother, and they discrimination me. I don&#039 ; t think because I am Vietnamese or anything. He discriminates me, looked like he discriminate the guy, friend of mine too, he American, Terry Bussing. They discriminate him too. BRODY: Really? PHAM: Sometime before, he think I am not good. So he discrimination. And after that, for a few years later, I am too good. He still discrimination, because I make money more than him. And that what--you know, because when you make money more you&#039 ; re good, and then some customer they require what mechanic to do their job, and when I do work for Inwood Buick and on the wintertime, nobody got work and I&#039 ; m only busy, because they want me to do the job. And all at one time, I can tell you I&#039 ; m do good this, because I don&#039 ; t have to fix the car, and they got out, they not get back because my fault. Not get back. And the guys that do the advisor, the guy can do, you know, between the customer and the mechanic, right? One time, he find one tiny thing, I don&#039 ; t tie them good, and he-- oh man, he happy [Pham note: that he found something I&#039 ; d made a mistake on], because I fire you. Huh?(??) I cut the thing like that, you know. I&#039 ; m that good a mechanic. |01:54:53| BRODY: Okay, so it was a different kind of a thing. PHAM: So I do everything--air conditioning, transmission, engine, all that stuff--and I find a lot of thing to do. Fast, not because I do skip the job or anything, but like I-- example for you: when the car, 1981, &#039 ; 82, they build a car with a four-wheel drive with the engine on the side. When something in a new car, they broke on the side, they broke, right, the transmission on the--sometimes you have to take the whole transmission out to go in there to fix it. And I can fix without take the thing out. So it got me the time, a lot of time. So when the car got the flywheel, it bad, it&#039 ; s sweeping, and you want to fix them and you have to replace flywheel, you have to take the transmission out, attach flywheel. I can make it out a little bit, and my hand can got in there to take the flywheel to fix, to lift flywheel to do it. So I save a lot of time on--put the whole--on that car, time with the car, they have a freeze plug leaking, and they own(??) four, five freeze plugs they put in, you know, people have to take a lot of things out to put it in. Sometimes I don&#039 ; t take it out and I put it in. I do a lot of shortcut and we can fix them very quick. |01:56:22| BRODY: Right. What about learning English? Your English obviously improved a lot from the time that you were in Vietnam to here. PHAM: Well, I got my degree, associate degree, on 1981. I went in &#039 ; 76, I said, &quot ; Well, I&#039 ; m--in Vietnam, I got diploma for high school, I go to military for two, three years, so my education is very good. I do--I know electronic, everything, math, all the math, everything. I am so good up to, you know, up to bachelor, everything like that.&quot ; So I said, well--and nobody knows, so I&#039 ; d say, &quot ; Well, I have to take--I think I&#039 ; m going to go be engineer and I&#039 ; ll do mechanic.&quot ; So I go to Richland College. I do at night, I do night-- every go to school after job. I go direct to there and go to school. And then I got my degree in engineering technology. They call it engineering technology, right? Yeah. I got-- BRODY: What year was that? PHAM: Huh? BRODY: And what year was that? PHAM: Eighty-one. BRODY: Eighty-one. PHAM: Yeah. I ended up(??) there, and I got my degree with high honors. I do math, I learn all my math over there. My math teacher--I tell you what, I can do it without--I can get A without the final. BRODY: Really? So you were really good at math. PHAM: Oh man, I&#039 ; m real good at math. I think I go do better than when I&#039 ; m--do math when in Vietnam at that time. And somehow, your mind, somehow it open. I do very fast, I&#039 ; m very fast. That&#039 ; s why mechanic, nobody teach me. Mechanic, completely nobody teach me. BRODY: (speaking at same time) You learned by yourself. PHAM: I learned by myself and very fast. |01:58:20| BRODY: So you were sitting in the classroom with American students and it was--I mean, was that hard for you? PHAM: No, no, they love me. All my friend American because I know all that stuff. Actually, the one at college, you know, I know only thing something--that the thing I failed was the one, the English 101. BRODY: English 101 was hard. PHAM: Yeah, 101, the first one I thought. My English was not--I had to go to English 101. And then when I go in there, the first class, second, they tell me something--I have to write something so I said, &quot ; Forgot it,&quot ; I cut that off, finally I have to get that 131. English 131. It was kind of easy. Not easy, but it kind of--the 101 kind of writing, all that stuff, and 131 kind of looked like something particular, more than. So anything, you know, particularly, I can see it, I can do better. Some thing, I don&#039 ; t do good, so I--take me almost four years to get my degree. BRODY: To get your degree at Richland? PHAM: Yeah, and then I want to go start at UTD [University of Texas--Dallas], but then I say well at that time I&#039 ; m a mechanic and my (??). I look up a friend of mine--twice engineer, to make money like me. But at that time, 1978, &#039 ; 81, &#039 ; 82, &#039 ; 83, I did make like eighty thousand dollar a year, mechanic. |01:59:52| BRODY: So it was a good--yeah. PHAM: Engineer only pay like forty-thousand or something. I make a very good money, that&#039 ; s something I forgot about--engineer to mechanic. So that was what I do mechanics. So I open my own shop, so I do everything. And my shop, you know, I do--all my customer, they come in, you know, anything they--from their son, their father, they buy a car from me, you know, they want car, they&#039 ; re going to buy it from me. |02:00:29| BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. So you were a real success story. Do you--you know, some people would say that&#039 ; s like the American dream, right? When you think about your--the concept of being American, did you change your citizenship? Did you become an American citizen? PHAM: Yeah, five years. I do that to (??). Take me six years--it not five, but six years, because I&#039 ; m busy or something, so that what takes me six years. But, you know, American citizenship. Me and my wife at the same time. BRODY: What year was that? PHAM: I think that &#039 ; 82 or something, yeah--&#039 ; 81, &#039 ; 82. BRODY: So what do you think it means to be American, to you? PHAM: Being American mean everything, because you cannot be--look like you are if you&#039 ; re not American. That the truth. Right now, it not me, I&#039 ; m not--all the Vietnamese, even in Vietnam. If they in Vietnam, even not communist, even like before that, if they work like a farmer, they do like a fishing man, they live like that, their kid like that, their grandkid like that, they never will be change, at all. I think another country is like a channel is almost same. Come American, them kids right there. They are farmer. They can PhD over there, they can be a doctor over here. They can be everything over here. In Vietnamese right now, you never know yet, but all of them that come here, they be success unless, you know, some crazy guy, don&#039 ; t want to do anything or thing like that, or they got drunk or they got a--very few, but they got--it not, don&#039 ; t have, but they got. But the rest, if they go to school, they improve everything. Their life, their family, everything, and even there. And even here, before you have to your family, you got on the DNA, right? You got this good, and your kid got good and you have that. But I think the Vietnamese blood, they good, they&#039 ; re smart. Even they fisherman, they do fishing, they don&#039 ; t--I talk with my niece, my one niece. She don&#039 ; t know any in Vietnamese language at all. She only know how to write her name. And she come here, put her on for fifth grade, and she don&#039 ; t know. She can&#039 ; t like that till fifth grade. Vietnamese, she can maybe write her name only, something like maybe one day, because her family move around, everything, and she graduated from high school. Go to college, secretary, and she don&#039 ; t want to secretary, don&#039 ; t make money. She go to do the hair, and she got hair salon, and very success. If you&#039 ; re in Vietnam, what she do? She don&#039 ; t go to schools, she don&#039 ; t go anything, maybe do something, you know, everything. My younger brother, my brother, my two young brother and my kid, they got lucky because they come here, they&#039 ; re young enough, and all of them graduate from UT [University of Texas]. All of my two younger brother are from UT, one A&amp ; M [Texas A&amp ; M]. One of my--all my kid from UT, my younger kid, UT, all of that from UT. And all of my brother kid from UT and SMU [Southern Methodist University]. And even my brother, my younger brother come here, he seventeen years old. In Vietnam at that time, the war, he don&#039 ; t go to school. My father move him place to place, he don&#039 ; t do good in school. He come here, he only eleven grade. In twelfth grade he quit, he go to work for a company like Mostech over there, he go do a--the lower job, like they call a line, you know, call a-- |02:05:03| BRODY: Factory? PHAM: Factory, a line, everything, and he come up from there, up, up, up, up, up ; he up to almost president. BRODY: Wow. PHAM: Right now, he&#039 ; s--now even big companies, he work for Cypress to go to every channel, go to Philippine, everything. Now he only sixty years old, he retire, have enough money to retire. He retire already, this year. And even if retire, you know, some company open, they want the guy, you know, advisor, want him to come in to do advisor, and he&#039 ; s up and up. His boss, everything, gone, he still up there and--another in June, when we go up to Minnesota and he go with me, he bring me to the company. He build that company for Cypress. And all the guy in there, even he left the company for two years. He come back, see them guy, all them guy in there. And all of them in there, at least about ten PhD. American guy, and the guy is a wrestler, all kind of guy, good in the--look him like-- BRODY: With respect? PHAM: Respect and, you know, remember because he teach them guys how to work thing. And another two younger--my two young brother, twin, one of them is in California right now, and he have his kid. His daughter, she&#039 ; s just graduated from Stanford, and they got McKinsey or whatever they got who arrived the first year. They got in. |02:06:55| BRODY: That&#039 ; s amazing. So the twins were also on the boat with you? PHAM: Yeah, that too. Only twelve year. I mean, the first week--the first two week at Dobie school, they fight with another kid and all of my sponsor have to come in call, come in to tell them they don&#039 ; t fight because they don&#039 ; t speak English and they learn to get in the fighting with the high-schooler, one go to A&amp ; M and one go to UT. UT go to California, (??), and then he got his (??), he got a rent-a-car company, he do--he take the best tax bracket right now. BRODY: That&#039 ; s an amazing story. PHAM: Boy, he so fast on tax, you can see he do that very good and he do all of that for--he do tax (??) job for four, five months, but his job, his main job is he got the two rent-a-car company. But he do taxes, he do (??) and he do everybody--he do all that stuff. And another guy in Minnesota--so he got his own company before, and, you know, one of my son work for his company before, and then the company kind of broke out and he throw company away. He open another in online, he built a big, big house up there near the lake, anything. His wife got the restaurant company, everything, and he got three kid and all of them very success and they got one college--three of them almost college, all. So they do--only thing, my sister ; she not very lucky, because when she here and she only--she a very smart girl, but then she marry so soon, seventeen year old. She not have a high school done yet and she marry with a guy. And somehow their family not very good, she got divorced, and she don&#039 ; t have the degree or anything like that. And my daughter, she come with me, my oldest daughter I&#039 ; m talking about, in &#039 ; 89, we can-- |02:09:19| BRODY: So, she was able to come in 1989. PHAM: Yeah, &#039 ; 89, yeah, we kind of--she come like--they call her what kind of come back with the family. Should be &#039 ; 84, but then, you know, at that time before she got able to go, paid for everything, and then the companies, they cut off. No. |02:09:45| BRODY: The government stopped it. PHAM: The government, they stopped it, they don&#039 ; t let go until &#039 ; 89, before they let go again, and she the first one. BRODY: So how old was she when she came? PHAM: She come here--before that, over there she don&#039 ; t go to school, anything. She have to go back and forth, because at that time we try to send money for her so we try to get her out from different way, like I go to a boat or something, a lot of people--she do that many here, there, and all that so she don&#039 ; t go to school or anything. So when she come here, she (??) and said (??) high school, because she almost eighteen years old. Her put on same class in high school so she don&#039 ; t have time to catch up, anything. So the only thing she can got to, the diploma or something like that, but that&#039 ; s it, she go to college for a year but she cannot do anything. Then she marriage and marry a Vietnamese fellow, and she work now. She live in Arlington, got two kid, you know, older than almost like Dai kids, and both of them boys and they very smart, they do very good. They not make money, like the kids right here, but she do okay. Another boy of mine, Huy, her brother, you know, he&#039 ; s--he got master&#039 ; s degree of business. He got three kid now, and he do very good in Houston, so it&#039 ; s okay, so all my family is okay. |02:11:18| BRODY: Yeah, so it sounds like what you were saying earlier was that being American is sort of a ticket to being successful in the way that you want to choose to be successful, right? So when you think about the story of your family, from, you know, your parents all the way to your grandkids, what do you think the family&#039 ; s identity is? When you think about your grandkids, when you think about your children, when you think about yourself? PHAM: I think the best American is the people, you know, you do what you want to do. You love what you want to do. You can do whatever you want to do, and you&#039 ; re free to do that. You don&#039 ; t have to force to do that. And another criteria(??)--like Vietnamese right now, some of them right now, all of my brothers still over there, they still live over there. They still have five of my brother, sister in Vietnam right now. Their family, they got money too, because we help them before. We help them some so they can had rent out, they--I mean, they good to living. But the different people is different. They think different. They think of money different. They think about school different. They think about everything different. It not same group like I said, blood or anything, it different. |02:13:00| BRODY: So your grandchildren are all born here and have grown up here. What aspects of Vietnamese culture do you hope that they carry on and-- PHAM: Oh yeah, I am not very look like a lot of friend of mine or a lot of people. They have to be--they have to do this and that like you are--for me, easy, you can do whatever you want to do. You know, if like the kid right there, they want do English and they don&#039 ; t want to learn Vietnamese, okay, you know, that&#039 ; s what they want. And another two of my grandkid over there, they speak in Vietnamese very good, they different because their parent is to be Vietnamese guy. And over here their father is not the Vietnamese, you know, he&#039 ; s different. And my--another kid over there, same thing. You know, he married with a Philippine girl, you know, and their parent, they different culture. They do whatever they--and I am not the Buddhist, I&#039 ; m kind of worship the ancestor only, but I don&#039 ; t require all my kid to do that. And I worship ancestor but I remember only two day, my mom and my dad, the day they die or whatever day, we ceremony that day and then all the kid will come in to remember-- BRODY: To share that. PHAM: --to share that day. But that&#039 ; s it. I still have another younger brother [Pham note: I meant my younger son] you don&#039 ; t know. He only thirty-two years old now and he joined the navy. BRODY: In the United States? PHAM: The United States Navy. He&#039 ; d been a lieutenant JG [junior grade], but then he retire, right? PHAM&#039 ; S DAUGHTER: Who? PHAM: Andy? PHAM&#039 ; S DAUGHTER: Oh, you&#039 ; re talking about your son. I thought you said your brother. I thought you said your brother. PHAM: Yeah, my son, my son. He&#039 ; s thirty-two, yeah. Yeah, he joined the navy for five years. He serve in Japan and now he retire from navy. He work in San Antonio right now. And he not married yet. That the one thing, my younger--but actually, everybody&#039 ; s doing well. |02:15:47| BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. I wanted to ask one more question that we didn&#039 ; t really talk about. When during that period, you know, in the 1970s to eighties when you were--the kids were starting school and you were living in the apartment and you were trying different mechanic jobs and things like that, how much did you interact with other Vietnamese families? A lot or not very much? PHAM: Yeah, I have a lot of friends. Right now, you know, my class, I&#039 ; m talking about navy class, 1966, we got a hundred people there, maybe twenty of them have been passed away. When we come to United States in 1975, only twenty of us come over here. The rest still in the prison. For some of them, five years, some of them up to twenty years on the prison camp, the communist prison camp. And after the camp, after they imprisoned, they come out, at least ten family, they--because their knowledge for the navy, so a lot of people hire them for guiding the boat, bring people come to different country and finally come to United States. The rest are from 1990 to 1995, they got the plan called H-O [Humanitarian Operation] for, they take all the people who stay on the prison like us, a officer, stay on companies for prison for three years or more, can come to United States with their family. That&#039 ; s what Mr. McCain right here, that help a lot of that, John McCain, he help all of that stuff. And, you know, they come over here and all of them, all of my friend, I tell all of them, it&#039 ; s not a set of any people, they very success. All of their kid, even they come in 1993, all their kids become to doctor, become to everything, become professional, all of them. |02:18:04| BRODY: But your own family, yourselves, when you were here, were you mostly interacting with your sponsor families and other American families, or did you have a Vietnamese community here in Dallas? PHAM: They&#039 ; ve got Vietnamese community here, you know, yeah. And we&#039 ; ve been connect with them, you know. Every year they open, you go to the lake or something like that, or picnic or deal like that, or they got more temples right now. Right now I don&#039 ; t do very much, but at that time, you know, a lot of families. Right now, they got a lot of Buddhist place--I don&#039 ; t go, we don&#039 ; t like them very much because some reason I don&#039 ; t like them--I don&#039 ; t go, but I have a certain group with me I can do. Go to dance, you know, all that stuff. BRODY: Yes, dancing. So you&#039 ; re a dancer, I hear. PHAM: No, I am not a dancer but I like to dance. BRODY: You like to dance? PHAM: Yeah, because that&#039 ; s what the dance come from her. When she marries she want me to do the father-daughter dance, and I don&#039 ; t know how to dance the right kind of dance. We dance and you know, kind of, you know, drunken dancing, (laughs) so I go to learn dance. I learn dance. BRODY: You and your wife learned--took some dancing lessons. PHAM: Me and my wife, yeah, and another, her sister, we go to learn dance. And when I go to learn dance I say, &quot ; Well, dance kind of enjoy,&quot ; so I&#039 ; m in dance up to now. BRODY: You&#039 ; re still doing it. PHAM: I still do it. Not like before, but I still doing it. At the time I come from &#039 ; 75, when I come here, you know, it was very tough, I think. I worked--I go to school, I work two jobs. I do another job, I don&#039 ; t tell you, I got a job, a side job is security for Pinkerton. |02:19:55| BRODY: For Pinkerton? PHAM: Yes, security, yeah. They pay only two dollar an hour, and you go--I do every-- I do at night, all that at night. So I work like seven days a week, and I go to school. And then my wife, she don&#039 ; t have good health. My wife, she weak kind of health, and if you got pressure and she got sick, she cannot--she got pressure. If not pressure, she okay. If got pressure, she cannot handle very well. And that why, you know, when I have to work to take--help her more than let her got pressure. So that&#039 ; s why I got my younger kid-- when I got my younger kid and she stay home, she take care and she don&#039 ; t go to work. She work before, she work at--like a technician at TI [Texas Instruments?] company for a few years, but then when I got the new baby and she stay home. Up to now she been a housewife. And now whatever we do, we do together. BRODY: Well, that&#039 ; s really a nice story, and you have a lovely family. So thank you so much. Is there anything that we didn&#039 ; t talk about that you wanted to tell me about the subject? PHAM: No, I don&#039 ; t think--I mean, we talk a lot already, right? Maybe two hour already, right? Three hour? Oh yeah, three hour. BRODY: Yeah, I appreciate your time and thank you so much. PHAM: I know, you can--some you don&#039 ; t hear very good or something, you can clear whatever you want to do-- BRODY: This was a wonderful interview and thank you, I learned a lot. PHAM: I don&#039 ; t know if you can hear my voice or not, if they can understand or not. BRODY: I think so. I think it was an interesting story. Thank you so much for sharing. end of interview All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2018oh004_btba_002.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Kha Pham Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2018oh004_btba_002 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-08-31 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/d5dd9e3ec26802626b733cf13a93a634.jpg 675be6b66b7f05df76728fdf5bc7facb Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Chi Nguyen OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Chi Nguyen, October 26, 2018 2018oh005_btba_003 46:31 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Vietnamese in North Texas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Chi Nguyen Betsy Brody mp3 oh-audio-dig-nguyec_20181026.mp3 1:|22(5)|38(13)|66(2)|83(10)|102(14)|124(14)|149(2)|171(8)|194(1)|217(14)|226(7)|262(4)|281(9)|311(13)|336(12)|360(4)|379(15)|398(6)|426(7)|446(6)|460(1)|482(11)|512(12)|524(6)|541(5)|559(5)|582(4)|608(3)|625(12)|647(13)|667(2)|694(8)|721(5)|740(2)|760(2)|780(2)|798(2)|815(7)|831(2)|855(7)|882(6)|898(7)|907(6)|920(4)|934(14)|948(7) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/117544 Aviary audio 0 Interview Introduction 22 Father put in reeducation camp after Fall of Saigon/Mother raised seven children alone BRODY: Can you tell me a little bit about your life in Vietnam before you came to Texas? NGUYEN: Yes. So we—I came from a big family. So we had about seven of us. So after ’75, the Fall of Saigon in 1975—so, my father was put in the, you know, reeducation camp. So my mom said—so we had to move from, you know, Danang. That’s where we grew up, and we moved to Saigon, you know, before the Fall. Then after my dad gets in the camp, my mom is single, by herself, raised seven of us. BRODY: Wow. NGUYEN: So we all head to, you know, she worked all by herself, all she wanted us to do, you know, go to school and try to learn and work hard on the learning. BRODY: Yes. Had you dad been involved in the military? NGUYEN: Yes, he was in the army, and he was a captain, you know, he vowed to promote up, but you know with the Fall of Saigon, so we had to—think about the future, you know, I mean, you cannot stay in Danang. It’s a smaller city, it’s a lot more under control. If you’re in the bigger city, so that’s the (unintelligible), you know, they want to move to Saigon. BRODY: Yes. So you got to the city and your mom worked really hard to raise you guys. NGUYEN: Yep. She worked all by herself. Looking back, I can’t imagine, you know, that she can raise all six of us—six—seven of us all by herself. BRODY: Strong lady, strong lady. NGUYEN: Yes, yes. Danang ; education ; Fall of Saigon ; family ; military ; prison ; reeducation camp ; Saigon ; single mom 139 Nguyen's mother's efforts to make a living in Saigon BRODY: So she emphasized education. How old were you at this time? NGUYEN: So, in ’75 I was about seven years old. BRODY: Seven. So you were in grade school? NGUYEN: Yes. So I was in first grade. We all had to go to school every day. Going home, you know, my older sister and brother helped the younger ones with the homework, all of that, we all have to do that by ourself, you know? And we helped mom a little bit, but you know the main thing, you know, she’s the worker in the family. BRODY: Yeah. What did she do? NGUYEN: Everything. Whatever that she can make money ; you know, sell stuff. So when we moved to Saigon, you know, they wanted move(??) to us. A neighbor that was selling stuff via the markets in our neighborhood, so she can sell different things. You know, she’d make anything to sell, from cookies to bún thịt nướng cha gio, bún riêu, you know, those stuff like that. So she’d make anything just to make a daily living. BRODY: That’s amazing, and she must have been a very strong lady to handle all that. cooking ; employment ; food ; markets ; Saigon ; survival ; work 208 Decision to leave Vietnam for safety reasons/Brother's immigration to the United States BRODY: So then the Fall of Saigon happened, you guys were—what precipitated you leaving Vietnam? NGUYEN: So, we went to school and you know, back then, Vietnam and China had some kind of war, you know? So everybody had to be enlisted in the military. So when you come of age, you know, like seventeen, eighteen, you had to go to the military. And when you go there, the chance for you to die is very high because they’re sending you to Cambodia, at the front end of the war. So my mom thought about this—we had to go. So me and my brother, you know, eventually that’s—you know, we had to leave. BRODY: So you were—I’m sorry—you were seventeen? NGUYEN: Seventeen. BRODY: Okay. And so you and your brother, she decided that it was safer for you to— NGUYEN: Yes, and have better future, that we had to go. Because, you know, if you’re under the former military, you don’t get a lot of chance, you know? BRODY: How did you feel about the decision? Were you a part of the decision-making process? NGUYEN: No, not really. (both laugh) But, you know, I knew that she wanted us to go, and we had brothers who came here first. BRODY: Oh, okay. When did your brothers, your older— NGUYEN: He came in ’78. BRODY: Okay. NGUYEN: Yeah. So he came all by himself. My uncle and my—so on my mom’s side, you know, most of them came in ’75. So my brother came first, and he went to school, same thing, you know? The focus, you had to go get your school and get a degree and find a job. So he came first. BRODY: Where was he? Did he go to a resettlement? NGUYEN: No, he came—so he came in ’78. So he stayed with my uncle in Arkansas. It’s a small city, you know. It’s not a lot of—you want to be something, you want to move to a bigger city. So that’s why he decided to move by himself to Dallas. Yeah, and went to school in Dallas after high school. BRODY: Okay. Where did he go to school? NGUYEN: He went to DeVry. BRODY: Okay. To DeVry, yes. And so then afterwards he got a job, and— NGUYEN: Yeah. He got an engineering job, then we came right afterward. BRODY: So, you were in communication with him and knew where he was— Arkansas ; Cambodia ; China ; conscription ; Dallas ; Devry ; education ; family ; immigration ; military ; refugees ; Vietnam War ; war 375 Escaping Vietnam by boat in 1986/Arriving in Pulau Bidong, Malaysia refugee camp BRODY: So you and your brother, tell me the story of how you got here. NGUYEN: So, it’s—the new year, from 1986, you know, I think it’s January fifth—so me and my brother went to our uncle’s house, you know, where we stayed for the night. Then the day after, you know, all of us went together, came—you know, escaped together. So my uncle had—I think he had—let me try to remember, he had three children. They were all very young. You know, like one, two, or three years old, yeah. And his wife. So early in the morning, we went to the small sea city where you can escape by boat. So we went to the smaller city and stayed there. And you’re kept stay in the safe house until the time is right, then they send you to the boat. BRODY: So you had already made arrangements, your uncle had already made arrangements with someone, and paid? NGUYEN: Yes. So you had to pay, I think it cost—I don’t know how much it cost, but you pay by gold. You don’t pay by money. BRODY: Right, gold. NGUYEN: Yeah. So we went to the small city, you know, it’s a seaside city. I don’t remember the name now, (laughs) you know? BRODY: That’s okay. NGUYEN: But, you know, somewhere in the south of the seaside. So we escaped early in the morning, we went to the small boat. Then from the smaller boat, you know, they take you to the bigger boat. Then— BRODY: And this was all prearranged, the bigger boat was already prearranged? NGUYEN: Yes. So that’s about a hundred—I think 101 people on the boat, small boat. It’s about maybe—I don’t know how long, but it’s not that long, the body about the size of that fence right there. BRODY: Okay. So not a very big boat at all. NGUYEN: Yeah. People were packed together, we had no room to move, just like you see on TV now when people are trying to move from Cuba. People pack in the boat. That’s how we are, like tuna, all packed together. BRODY: Wow. So that must have been pretty scary. NGUYEN: Eh, actually, I guess—I was so young and back then, you know, we didn’t think much. We just wanted to get out, and that’s all I thought about, you know? So I didn’t think much, wasn’t scared ; scare was not a factor at all. BRODY: Oh, okay. So you were just doing it. NGUYEN: You just said you had to go, you had to go, you know? You had to make the difference, you know, we had to go first and we can have the family later. So that’s why we just—you had to do it. So yeah, we were on the boat in the ocean for about five days. Most of the time we had no water, you know, because the main thing you can bring with you— BRODY: The clothes on your back. NGUYEN: Actually, just nothing at all, just one set of clothes. Whatever you wear, that’s all. My mom gave me a little bit of gold, so we put it in the pocket, you know? So we’re on the boat for about five days. Lucky that we did not get robbed by the pirates or anything at all. BRODY: Yeah, that is lucky. NGUYEN: Very lucky. I mean, a lot of people died. You know, you heard the stories of a lot of people dying on the sea. Yeah. So you’re on the boat for five days, and I think we went to—we came to Malaysia, we stayed there for a few months, you know, go through the screening process—no, we came to Pulau Bidong, then we stayed there for about three or four months with the screening process, since, you know, the US had our paperwork already, since my brother came first and my father’s in the military so we get the—they had the number to look up everything, match. So we got a fast track, you know, since we had the record already. So after four months, me and my brother went first. So me and my brother moved to Philippines, you know, for six months, learning period. Then after almost a year I came to the US. boat ; escape ; family ; gold ; leaving Vietnam ; Malaysia ; Phillippines ; pirates ; Pulau Bidong ; refugee camps ; sponsors ; tuna ; United States 652 Arriving in Irving, Texas BRODY: Okay, and so was the first place that you came Texas? NGUYEN: Yes, Irving! Irving, and we stayed in Irving the whole time. Didn’t move at all. (laughs) BRODY: That’s amazing. NGUYEN: So my uncle had to stay since he didn’t have the—you know, they had the screen for political purpose or economic purpose. So he got screening, he didn’t pass, even though his uncle and the rest of the family here. BRODY: Oh boy. NGUYEN: Yeah. So he had to provide some kind of documentation. So luckily, my mom got some kind of documentation to send it to him, and he’d be able to—came to the US much later. BRODY: So how much later? NGUYEN: He came in—I think at least five months or six months after, yeah. BRODY: Okay. And he joined you in Irving? NGUYEN: No, he joined his brother in Arkansas. BRODY: Oh, in Arkansas, okay. NGUYEN: He came to—they came to Arkansas, then after a few months he moved to Dallas, then moved to California. BRODY: Oh, okay, so he ended up in California. Tell me about your first days in Irving. NGUYEN: Oh, wow. BRODY: So your brother was here. What do you remember from that time? NGUYEN: It’s beautiful, you know? We came—it’s cold, you know, November cold. So we landed in Seattle, then from Seattle we landed to Dallas. So I think we came here around eleven o’clock, midnight? Eleven at night? Yeah. The city was beautiful with the lights and the bridge, the one thing that amazed me about—the way that the road and the structure is so amazing, you know? You can go in and out, up and down, go everywhere. So easy to go, not like Vietnam. So it’s beautiful. It’s cold, you know, it’s about Thanksgiving, you know, with the holiday. You see a lot of holiday spirit, and my brother took us to the mall, and it’s beautiful. It’s so scary though. (laughs) BRODY: Which mall, do you remember which mall? NGUYEN: We went to Irving Mall. BRODY: Irving Mall, okay. So it was big. (laughs) NGUYEN: Big. Huge, you know? I think the first night we came we had pho, which is totally different from the way we ate it in Vietnam. (laughs) BRODY: That’s really interesting. What was different about it? NGUYEN: It had to do with the—so in Vietnam you eat, you know, not ready-to-cook pho. You know, pho, you boil— BRODY: It takes all day. NGUYEN: Yeah. But in Vietnam, you had pho too, you know, like they make it the right way. The noodles, they make it—not the instant noodles. BRODY: Right, so that was different. NGUYEN: Yeah, very different than, you know—but it tastes good. You know, I remember, it tastes good. So, my brother stayed at the apartment by himself, so we stayed at the apartment for—I think almost a year. Then my brother saved enough money, he bought the house. He bought the first house. BRODY: Wow. So what was his job? NGUYEN: He was an engineer. BRODY: Engineer. So he’d gone to DeVry, become an engineer. So he was— NGUYEN: You know, back then he’d got a good job, compared to—salary, you know? So he got a good job. So he’s saved enough money, so he bought the house in Irving. So we moved to that house and we went to school. My brother—so I finished high school, then I went to college. My brothers go to high school. apratments ; Arkansas ; California ; Christmas ; cooking ; Dallas ; employment ; food ; holidays ; housing ; Irving ; Irving Mall ; jobs ; lights ; malls ; noodles ; pho ; roads ; screening ; Texas ; weather 861 Attending MacArthur High School and University of Dallas in Irving Texas BRODY: So when you got here, you were already finished with high school. Or you just finished it out here? NGUYEN: No. So when we came—so when we came my brother wanted me to go— even though I’m eighteen already, he said, you know, I need to go to high school at least a year so that way I can learn English. So he wanted me to go there, and so I went to MacArthur High School with my brother. My mom sent us some documentation, like we’d been in school, and these are the credits that we learned in school. So, yeah. So it took me one year to finish the high school here. BRODY: Yeah. Tell me about going to high school at MacArthur High School. So obviously, you didn’t know anybody when you got there. NGUYEN: No, we still don’t. I still don’t have any friends, we didn’t have any friends back then. (laughs) BRODY: (laughs) That’s really funny. NGUYEN: So, the main thing you learn, you know, in high school and the goal is to learn English, so I was in the ESL class. The teacher was very nice, she was very nice. I don’t remember her name now. I can picture her face, you know, yeah. My English wasn’t that good, so I don’t even remember the teacher’s name. (laughs) BRODY: That’s okay, but she taught you English and she was a good teacher. NGUYEN: Yes. She taught me English, good teacher, I took all the classes, like the other American student class. So we had to learn more, you know, at night. You had to go to a dictionary, try to read and— BRODY: Right. Because you were taking the regular classes in English, but having to learn— NGUYEN: Yes. So we took math, history and government, and all of that class, yeah. And so I took about—yeah, so—then when I finished high school I took the SAT, then I applied for—I went to University of Dallas. BRODY: University of Dallas, okay. Fantastic. NGUYEN: Yeah. So then after that, four years, I got my BS. I always wanted to be a doctor, but with the English, you know, I didn’t do good on my MCAT. I got the interview but, you know, I guess I didn’t do well in the interview either. Yeah, so I ended up—then I thought about—so for two years I thought about what should I do with my life, you know? I tried getting in medical school, I didn’t get in. Then I said, “Okay, I need to do something else, I cannot do this.” You know? Working minimum hours, you know? So I decided to—I went to pharmacy school. education ; English ; English language ; ESL ; friendships ; high school ; language learning ; MacArthur High School ; MCAT ; medical school ; pharmacy school ; SAT ; schools ; University of Dallas 1021 Memories of bullying in high school/Challenges with communication BRODY: So tell me about—just to go back a little bit, during that period where you’re living with your brother and your other brother was also living with you and you were in high school, did you interact very much with other people, neighbors, or the community? NGUYEN: Not at all. So the neighbor, later on I interacted with the neighbor when I went to university, then I learned more English, then we interacted with the neighbor, she was very nice, yeah. She’s passed away now. She was a retiree, teaching piano every day. She went to church and was teaching piano. In high school we didn’t know any friends. You know, we had a few Vietnamese friends. But I didn’t hang out with any students at all ; you know, went to school—we walked to school, and we walked home every day. You know. We got bullying by other student, one time. BRODY: Really? What did—like, what kind of bullying? NGUYEN: So, I guess me and my brother were just walking home, and minding our own business, and people just come and say—I don’t remember what they said, but they wanted to fight us and pushed us around and all of that stuff. And me and my brother keep walking and we just mind our business and go home. BRODY: That must have been scary. Did it happen often? NGUYEN: No, just one time. Yeah. But, you know, we just mind your business and go home. BRODY: Were they kids from the school? NGUYEN: I think they came from school. BRODY: Yeah, but they just were messing around with you? Wow. So it sounds like learning English was the biggest initial hurdle, right? So had you— NGUYEN: Yes. I think it’s very difficult, you know, every word that you learn—you know, I took French in Vietnam in high school, so when I came—my brother and my mom helped get us to learn English at home, you know, with a tutor, but you know, it’s not much what you learn. And you learn mainly how to read— BRODY: Yes, speaking— NGUYEN: —but we don’t learn how to speak at all. So very difficult to communicate. Even though you’d read it, you can’t understand sometimes. But we cannot say it, you know? It’s hard to say. BRODY: Yeah, it is difficult. NGUYEN: It’s a different practice, yeah. BRODY: So what was the most helpful thing to you in building your confidence in English? NGUYEN: I think, you know—so I guess my brother kept saying, “You’re going to have to go to school. That’s the only way that you can make it here. If you don’t go to school, you cannot make it here.” So that’s why we had to, every day, we just had to study and try to learn the vocabulary, you know, read and do good in school. So even though it took longer for us to finish the homework, but you know, think about the family that you still have in Vietnam and you know what my brother went through already, so he knew the system that, you know, we had to go to school, and that’s why we had to do it. bullying ; education ; English ; friendships ; isolation ; language learning ; learning English ; reading ; school ; speaking ; sucess 1228 Pharmacy School at the University of Texas at Austin So pharmacy school at UT ; did you know other people down in Austin when you went there? NGUYEN: Still, (laughs) you know, I didn’t hang out with a lot of Americans, so I did hang out with my Vietnamese friend. So I knew Dai back in UT, but I didn’t say much with her. You know, she didn’t speak Vietnamese, so I did hang out with the other students who spoke Vietnamese. BRODY: So that’s interesting, yeah. So you had a level of comfort that was higher with other students who spoke Vietnamese, so the language is really key to the— NGUYEN: Yes, yes. So I only hang out with the Vietnamese. Sometimes I don’t feel— we don’t share the same thing, that’s why—with the background, you know? So it’s hard to talk about, and back then people—I don’t know. I just hang out with the Vietnamese students. BRODY: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s— NGUYEN: More comfort. BRODY: —comfortable and easy to communicate, and, you know, so much of friendship is communication, right? So that makes sense. What was Austin like? |00:21:33| NGUYEN: Austin is beautiful, you know? So the—so when I went to Austin, you know, we stayed with—I stayed with others. First I went, I stayed with a friend’s family for the first semester. Then after that, I find a few more friends, so we all move out to the apartment. So there’s seven of us in a two bedroom apartment, you know, close to school, and we all had the same, you know, goal is go to school. And we had fun together but, you know, they all learn different subjects ; some of them are engineering students, some of them are medical students, premed. BRODY: Right. And pharmacy, of course, in your case. NGUYEN: Yes. apartment ; Austin ; communication ; culture ; English language ; friendships ; graduate school ; housing ; language ; pharmacy school ; values ; Vietnamese language 1342 Working at Parkland Hospital in Dallas/Observations about Vietnamese community in Dallas BRODY: So, school—after pharmacy school, what happened? NGUYEN: So after pharmacy school I did my rotation here in Dallas, then I did my rotation at Parkland and I got the job at Parkland. BRODY: Great! NGUYEN: I’ve worked at Parkland since then. BRODY: Oh, wow. So you have been at Parkland for a very long time. (laughs) NGUYEN: For a long time. (laughs) |00:22:42| BRODY: Being in the workforce, so now you’re a professional, you’re a pharmacist, and you’re back in the community that you initially settled in, what are some changes that you’ve noticed, as you’ve been here for such a long time, in that community? NGUYEN: For the Vietnamese community, it’s gotten a lot bigger. You know, people— there’s a lot of stores that you see, the Vietnamese people. I see the Vietnamese people expanding to a different career path. So back then when my brother came, you know, all of them are engineers. You know, it’s quick, it’s fast, all the people that I know from his generation is an engineer. So fast, you go to school, the math and the physics, those are easy with numbers, so you don’t need to know a lot of English, you know? I mean, you can do it. Now, I see the Vietnamese community expand to a lot of different—you have doctors, we have lawyers, we have all kinds of careers that I see that’s a Vietnamese. There’s a big Vietnamese health professional in Dallas, you know. I was a member back then, so we did a lot of things for the community. We do a health fair for the community every year, twice a year. BRODY: That’s great, that’s great. So it’s a community that is—it sounds like, still very focused on education. careers ; Dallas ; education ; engineering ; health professionals ; Parkland Hospital ; Vietnamese community 1471 Role of Catholic Church in settlement experience BRODY: Yeah, everybody has moved on to different places. So your first job was at Parkland, you’re still working at Parkland, and—let’s see, so we’ve already talked about that. When you came first, you said you were mostly with your family, with your brother. Did you—were members of a church or a temple at that time? but in downtown Dallas. He was very nice. I don’t think it was the Guadalupe Church, but he was very nice, he helped us a lot. BRODY: Were you Catholic? NGUYEN: No, no. No, I was Buddhist, but, you know, there’s no temple back then. Now we have so many temples, but there’s only one temple initially then, now it’s so many. Yeah, with the help of the Catholics, you know, so that’s why I went to the Catholic school. BRODY: Yeah, at the University of Dallas. So it sounds like you went to the diocese, or was it Catholic Charities [USA]? And they gave you some clothes and maybe money as well. NGUYEN: Yeah. So we got the help, I think six months you got some money. Then after that, you’re on your own. |00:26:06| BRODY: Yeah. Were they able to give you advice or guidance? NGUYEN: No, mainly, you know, mainly my brother, you know? He encouraged us to remain in school and just focus. BRODY: Fantastic. That’s good advice. NGUYEN: Yeah. But my brother, eventually he moved to California. He just wanted to stay with the uncle. |00:24:49| NGUYEN: Yes. So when we came from—I think with the help of the Catholic diocese in Dallas. So that’s where we came every week to get the money, or every month—I don’t remember now. We’d get some benefits. So, some clothes. There’s a priest’s name—I think he’s at Dallas—stayed in one of the Dallas churches, I don’t remember the church, Buddhism ; Catholic Charities ; Catholic Church ; churches ; religion ; temples ; University of Dallas 1595 Reflections on social class BRODY: So, back in Vietnam, your dad was involved with the military, and it sounds like your mom had resources to sort of make sure that you guys stayed in school. Did you feel like when you came—I mean, what were your experiences with social class when you came here? Did you feel like you were in the same sort of level that you had been in Vietnam, or was there a change? NGUYEN: I mean, I didn’t pay much to the social class. I know that, you know, we were on the lower level, but, you know, it’s not that you think about it, you know? You think about the future. Regardless of where you’re at, there’s a future there that you—and you want to get to that future. BRODY: And the key to that, sounds like for you, it was education, right? NGUYEN: Yes. I mean, for all of us, all of my brothers and sisters, came much later, and they all went to school. education ; family ; social class ; social mobility 1653 Arrival and education of the remainder of his siblings in 2004 BRODY: Yeah. Tell me about the rest of your family coming. When did they come? NGUYEN: So my brother came with us, then he went to California to stay with my uncle, then he went to University of San Jose, he’s an engineer. BRODY: The brother that came with you? NGUYEN: Yeah. All of my brothers and sisters came much later, and they’re much older than I was when I came, you know? They all had a job back in Vietnam already, so my sister’s an engineer. The other brothers and sisters, you know, were teachers, and another sister just stayed at home. But when they came, they all went to school again. Like they went to community college, then they all went to university and got a job, yeah. BRODY: So they came maybe in the eighties, then? NGUYEN: So—no. I came in ’86, they came in 2004. BRODY: Oh, okay. Yeah, recently. More recently. NGUYEN: Yeah. They came in 2004. So most of them stayed in Dallas. My mom, after we came—so when we came, everybody stayed in Dallas. You know, the rest of them, my mom wanted to move to California with my uncle. So he moved. When they moved, my brother and sister moved with them, except—so two of my sisters moved. One brother and one sister stayed in Dallas with me, but they all went to school. So the brother and sister who stayed with me went to UTA. My brother—my two sisters in California went to Santa Cruz University. BRODY: Okay, fantastic. NGUYEN: And even here, you know, my father and my mom worked hard and tell my sister and brother, you know, you guys need to go to school. So they still supported us, you know, after they came. BRODY: Yeah. Tell me about the rest of your family coming. When did they come? NGUYEN: So my brother came with us, then he went to California to stay with my uncle, then he went to University of San Jose, he’s an engineer. BRODY: The brother that came with you? NGUYEN: Yeah. All of my brothers and sisters came much later, and they’re much older than I was when I came, you know? They all had a job back in Vietnam already, so my sister’s an engineer. The other brothers and sisters, you know, were teachers, and another sister just stayed at home. But when they came, they all went to school again. Like they went to community college, then they all went to university and got a job, yeah. BRODY: So they came maybe in the eighties, then? NGUYEN: So—no. I came in ’86, they came in 2004. BRODY: Oh, okay. Yeah, recently. More recently. NGUYEN: Yeah. They came in 2004. So most of them stayed in Dallas. My mom, after we came—so when we came, everybody stayed in Dallas. You know, the rest of them, my mom wanted to move to California with my uncle. So he moved. When they moved, my brother and sister moved with them, except—so two of my sisters moved. One brother and one sister stayed in Dallas with me, but they all went to school. So the brother and sister who stayed with me went to UTA. My brother—my two sisters in California went to Santa Cruz University. BRODY: Okay, fantastic. NGUYEN: And even here, you know, my father and my mom worked hard and tell my sister and brother, you know, you guys need to go to school. So they still supported us, you know, after they came. Arlington ; California ; Dallas ; education ; family ; immigration ; Santa Cruz ; siblings ; university ; UTA 1774 Nguyen's parents' immigration to the U.S. through the Orderly Departure Program BRODY: So your mom and dad both came too. NGUYEN: Yes. BRODY: Where are they? NGUYEN: They’re in California. They work. My mom—my dad works for more like, you know, golf, you know, cleaning, minimum hour job. My mom works for some seafood packaging company. BRODY: So now the whole family is in the US? NGUYEN: Yes. So they work minimum hour job, and they save money and support us. My sister and brother didn’t have the work, they just had to go to school. Then after that they help out, you know, get a part-time job. But still, my parents’ goal is the same. You know, regardless of your age, you need to go to school. If you don’t get a job, don’t get a degree, you can’t find a job. So they all went to school, and they all get a degree and get a job. BRODY: That’s a big accomplishment for your parents. NGUYEN: Yes, even though they work minimum hours, they still can save money. That’s amazing. It’s a small house where they stay in California. It’s like, it has two rooms, this room and the other room. Maybe three rooms. It’s about four hundred square feet or something. So I remember, every year, I came to California to visit, we stay in one family room, we all lie on the floor. (laughs) BRODY: Right. A lot of people. NGUYEN: A lot of people. Yeah, but they manage. It’s amazing that, you know, my parents sacrifice for all of us. BRODY: They really did. And your dad—since your mom had been raising all of you as a single mom, when did your dad return to the family? NGUYEN: So he came—he returned after seven years, or seven and a half years, in the camp. Yeah. Then after that he couldn’t find a job, you know, with the background. Then they processed, my brother sponsored them— BRODY: Your brother that came first? Okay, so then that’s— NGUYEN: So that’s how they came with—and they came with their—what do you call the one if you work in the South government, you came under the ODP? BRODY: Oh, the ODP program. NGUYEN: Yeah, ODP program. And they were sponsored by I think Senator McCain. BRODY: Oh, by Senator McCain. NGUYEN: And John Kerry. BRODY: Oh, okay. Did they ever interact with Senator McCain and Kerry? NGUYEN: No, but you know, that program is sponsored by the— BRODY: Oh I see, yes, that program was sponsored by them. California ; education ; employment ; housing ; minimum wage jobs ; money ; ODP ; Orderly Departure Program ; parents ; prison ; reeducation camp ; sacrifice ; sponsorship ; work 1925 Attitudes about and engagement with American politics Yes. Okay, well that is— one of my other questions is, in terms of speaking of the Senators and the law, did your family or yourself have any engagement with politics once you came here? Are you interested or engaged? NGUYEN: I mean, it’s very—the US government is very interesting. I love the government, I think it’s a very good government model. But at the same time, it has some flaws to it. BRODY: Yes, what do you think some of those flaws are? NGUYEN: I mean, that’s why we get ourselves in the current situation, you know? It’s a democratic society, it’s very hard to get things done, you know? It takes forever to get one thing done, because everybody wants to do this and that and too many voices, you know? In Saigon it had to do with, you know, the term limits, but there’s no term limit. So, it becomes their job, you know? So then they’re protecting themselves, so that’s what I don’t like. BRODY: Yeah. So are you politically engaged, or anybody in your family? NGUYEN: I’m not. I vote, you know— BRODY: Well, that’s engaged. NGUYEN: I do my right, I exercise my right to vote, but I’m not engaged in, you know, in the (unintelligible). American government ; democracy ; government ; politics ; term limits ; voting 2022 Differences between earlier and later arrivals from Vietnam BRODY: Okay. Now, you mentioned that you had two kids. How did you meet your wife? Is she also Vietnamese? NGUYEN: Yes, she’s Vietnamese. I met my wife through another friend. So we just went to go out and just met at the, you know, at the restaurant and I get her number and talk to her. BRODY: Did she grow up here as well? NGUYEN: No. She grew up in Vietnam and they came much later. I think they came in—she came in 2004. BRODY: Are there differences—I’m curious—in, you know, what we talked about earlier, how when you were in Austin at UT, you gravitated towards students who also had shared your kind of experience of being Vietnamese and coming to this country. Is there a different perspective from people who, like your wife, came later on, or is it kind of a shared experience still? NGUYEN: I think it’s still shared. When she came, you know, I mean, English is the main thing, you know, communication. So she—by the time she came, you know, there’s a bigger Vietnamese community already, so she had a lot more friends than I did in college. When I went to University of Dallas, there were maybe three or four Vietnamese students, you know, at University of Dallas, and none of them speak Vietnamese. So I didn’t hang out with any of them, you know? BRODY: Right. And you were focused on your studies, too. NGUYEN: Yeah. And when my wife came, you know, there’s a bigger community and everybody speaks Vietnamese already. BRODY: Yeah, there is a—it’s a different experience. NGUYEN: And she has a lot more friends, yeah. Austin ; English language ; friendship ; marriage ; Universityof Dallas ; Vietnamese community ; Vietnamese language ; wife 2131 Growth in the Vietnamese community BRODY: That’s interesting. That community really has grown, and you’ve been here with a front row seat for watching the growth of the community. There’s the restaurants and the temples and so on. Do you think that—if you could think of a few words to describe the Vietnamese community in this area, what words would choose? NGUYEN: Strong, but they’re not unified. BRODY: Not unified. What are some different sort of pieces of that community? NGUYEN: I think it’s that there’s a gap between the old generation and the young generation leadership. I think the old generations still think with the memory back then, they’re not ready to let go. BRODY: So they’re still thinking about Vietnam and about the war, the older generation. NGUYEN: Yeah. So the new generation think differently, like, openness with Vietnam, all of that, you know? So there’s a difference. But we’re not unified, you know? We want the freedom of Vietnam, but so many things that you’re not unified to do the same thing. generational differences ; memories ; Vietnam ; Vietnam War ; Vietnamese community 2218 Relationship with Vietnam BRODY: Yeah, what do you think about that, about a relationship with Vietnam for the United States? NGUYEN: For me, it’s a good thing that you need to open up, you know, that’s how you can let the people know what it’s like to be free. If people don’t know what it means to be free, then how do you know to fight for their freedom? So it’s good that we need to open up and let them know. Now with the open internet, you know, Vietnamese don’t have— not like China. I think they have a lot more open communication, internet. So you see with all the protests in Vietnam nowadays, that people start to learn, people know there’s a freedom that you can fight for, you know? So it makes the difference. BRODY: And so do you think that the Vietnamese Americans and especially the younger generation are a factor in helping open up that thinking about freedom in Vietnam? NGUYEN: I think it has to do with Vietnam—I think they’ll open up first with the US and the Vietnam, I think they had the open relationship, you know, back in maybe 1986 or 1987. So with that openness, you know, it brings a lot more openness to Vietnam. And if people here start to share stories on the internet and when they went back to Vietnam and visit, you know, they share stories, so yeah. BRODY: About their lives here in— NGUYEN: Yeah, their life here and, you know, what it means to be free and all of that. Back then, you know, in Vietnam, you cannot say anything to the leadership, you know, if you say anything bad then, you know, you go to jail. People are more opened up now, they can say more things. BRODY: Right. It’s less risky. NGUYEN: Yeah. China ; freedom ; internet ; openness ; politics ; protests ; Vietnam ; Vietnamese politics 2338 Meaning of freedom BRODY: Well, tell me, since you used that phrase—I’m interested—to you, what does it mean to be free? NGUYEN: You know, free is a—free, you can do things that you want to do, you can say anything that you want to do, but at the same time, people here sometimes take it so lightly, they don’t take their responsibility. So free doesn’t mean you can do anything you want. You know, free has limitations to what you can do. BRODY: Yeah, freedom and responsibility. NGUYEN: And that always has to go together, and sometimes people here take it for granted, they don’t have that responsibility, you know? freedom ; limits ; responsibility 2385 Vietnamese American identity BRODY: Yeah, that makes sense. So, you’re kind of bridging—your experience bridges the—you know, you’re not really the old generation in that you’re not old, but you’re not a new arrival either, and, you know, you have kids of your own. How do you think of yourself, your identity as an American, as a Vietnamese American? NGUYEN: I think of myself as Vietnamese American, you know? I still have a lot of culture since I grew up in Vietnam, I still have a lot of thinking like the Vietnamese. My kids are totally different now, you know, they don’t think like that already. (laughs) BRODY: What are the differences that you’ve noticed? NGUYEN: They’re telling me that, you know, Americans, they don’t need to learn Vietnamese. BRODY: Oh, interesting. So did you want them to learn Vietnamese? NGUYEN: Well yes, they go to school, they go to Vietnamese school. BRODY: They do, okay. But they’re saying they’re— NGUYEN: But for me, I think I still identify myself as more, like, Vietnamese American, you know, more Vietnamese than American, even though I’ve stayed here longer than I grew up in Vietnam, you know? I’m fifty years old now, yes, but I still have a lot of culture, you know, what you read and what you write, what you feel. I still feel like I’m Vietnamese. BRODY: Yeah. Tell me about the pieces of the culture that are meaningful to you that still resonate. NGUYEN: I think it’s family, you know? Family is the root of everything. Helping your family, helping each other, the love of your country, that feeling that you still feel, you know? When you feel warm, you feel right here that you’ll be at home. American identity ; children ; culture ; family ; language ; Vietnamese Americans ; Vietnamese language 2495 What it means to be American BRODY: So, the United States has been your home for a long time now. What does it mean to you to be American? To not just yourself, but when people say, you know, “this is what it means to be American,” what does it mean to you? NGUYEN: Okay. It means that, you know—to be American, you know, you have a lot of opportunity, you have the—you want to be productive in the society, to help the people. So that’s the—I lost my thought, let me see. (laughs) BRODY: That’s okay. NGUYEN: To make America strong, you know? Because I want America to be strong, there’s a lot of nations out there, the communist system, you know, to us is still the evil. So that’s why I want America to be—to be the star that people look at and see—to compare, you know, between the regime, the communists, and the free society, what it feels like, looks like, to be able to walk freely, talk freely, without being afraid. That’s really being an American, you know, you can say things that you feel you want to say. BRODY: What things do you think make America strong? NGUYEN: Diversity. I think we came all from different backgrounds. But when we came here, we really want to vote for America, you know? To make it strong, because wherever we came from, we know that, you know, you can make America strong because of your background. And we all want America to be strong, from maybe you talk to different people from different ethnic—they all from where they came, you know, this is their home now, even though they still have a lot of cultural background. But this is their home, you know, they want to make it strong. America ; American ; American identity ; Communism ; culture ; diversity ; ethnicity ; freedom ; opportunity ; productivity ; strength 2655 Nguyen's hopes and dreams for his children BRODY: That’s true. And just tying back to thinking about your kids and, you know, they’re growing up here in the United States as Americans without having the immigration experience. When you think about their future as Americans, as Vietnamese Americans, what are your hopes and dreams for their future? NGUYEN: I want them to be successful. But, be what you want to be. The main thing, you know, I want you to be happy, you know? So I read a story to them every night, tried to teach them character, you know, like what it feels like to be courageous, like give them stories and tell them examples, what it is to be honest, what it is to be determination, what does it mean to be a failure, you know, so all of that stuff. And so I had the book that I read to them every night, it’s the book about the diary of the boy who goes to school, and different days he experiences different things, and he writes it down. So I read that to them every night and just tell them how you feel to be like this or like that. BRODY: Right, that’s nice. NGUYEN: But the main thing, you know, I want them to be happy. There’s a lot of opportunity here that you can be. You know, you can be from an entrepreneur to anything. You know? You want to be a lawyer, you can be a lawyer. You want to be a teacher, you can be a teacher. But you have to be happy. BRODY: That’s good advice, that’s good advice. Well, is there anything else that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to talk about? Or something that I forgot to ask you that— NGUYEN: Not really. BRODY: Not really. Well, thank you very much. This has been such a great conversation and I really appreciate your time and your willingness to share your story. Thank you. NGUYEN: No problem. I mean, if you have more questions, I don’t mind to come back and answer your questions. BRODY: Excellent. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. NGUYEN: Good. careers ; character ; courage ; determination ; employment ; entrepreneurs ; faliure ; happiness ; happy ; honesty ; jobs ; opportunity ; parenting ; success Baylor University Institute for Oral History Chi Nguyen Oral History Memoir Interview Number 1 Interviewed by Betsy T. Brody October 27, 2018 Richardson, Texas Project -- Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans: The Making of the Vietnamese Community in North Texas BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is October 27, 2018. I am interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Chi Nguyen. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. All right, good morning. Thank you joining me here. Can you tell me a little bit about your life in Vietnam before you came to Texas? |00:00:34| NGUYEN: Yes. So we--I came from a big family. So we had about seven of us. So after &#039 ; 75, the Fall of Saigon in 1975--so, my father was put in the, you know, reeducation camp. So my mom said--so we had to move from, you know, Danang. That&#039 ; s where we grew up, and we moved to Saigon, you know, before the Fall. Then after my dad gets in the camp, my mom is single, by herself, raised seven of us. BRODY: Wow. NGUYEN: So we all head to, you know, she worked all by herself, all she wanted us to do, you know, go to school and try to learn and work hard on the learning. |00:01:24| BRODY: Yes. Had you dad been involved in the military? NGUYEN: Yes, he was in the army, and he was a captain, you know, he vowed to promote up, but you know with the Fall of Saigon, so we had to--think about the future, you know, I mean, you cannot stay in Danang. It&#039 ; s a smaller city, it&#039 ; s a lot more under control. If you&#039 ; re in the bigger city, so that&#039 ; s the (unintelligible), you know, they want to move to Saigon. BRODY: Yes. So you got to the city and your mom worked really hard to raise you guys. NGUYEN: Yep. She worked all by herself. Looking back, I can&#039 ; t imagine, you know, that she can raise all six of us--six--seven of us all by herself. BRODY: Strong lady, strong lady. NGUYEN: Yes, yes. |00:02:15| BRODY: So she emphasized education. How old were you at this time? NGUYEN: So, in &#039 ; 75 I was about seven years old. BRODY: Seven. So you were in grade school? NGUYEN: Yes. So I was in first grade. We all had to go to school every day. Going home, you know, my older sister and brother helped the younger ones with the homework, all of that, we all have to do that by ourself, you know? And we helped mom a little bit, but you know the main thing, you know, she&#039 ; s the worker in the family. BRODY: Yeah. What did she do? NGUYEN:Everything. Whatever that she can make money ; you know, sell stuff. So when we moved to Saigon, you know, they wanted move(??) to us. A neighbor that was selling stuff via the markets in our neighborhood, so she can sell different things. You know, she&#039 ; d make anything to sell, from cookies to bún thịt nướng cha gio, bún riêu, you know, those stuff like that. So she&#039 ; d make anything just to make a daily living. |00:03:20| BRODY: That&#039 ; s amazing, and she must have been a very strong lady to handle all that. So then the Fall of Saigon happened, you guys were--what precipitated you leaving Vietnam? NGUYEN: So, we went to school and you know, back then, Vietnam and China had some kind of war, you know? So everybody had to be enlisted in the military. So when you come of age, you know, like seventeen, eighteen, you had to go to the military. And when you go there, the chance for you to die is very high because they&#039 ; re sending you to Cambodia, at the front end of the war. So my mom thought about this--we had to go. So me and my brother, you know, eventually that&#039 ; s--you know, we had to leave. BRODY: So you were--I&#039 ; m sorry--you were seventeen? NGUYEN: Seventeen. BRODY: Okay. And so you and your brother, she decided that it was safer for you to-- NGUYEN: Yes, and have better future, that we had to go. Because, you know, if you&#039 ; re under the former military, you don&#039 ; t get a lot of chance, you know? |00:04:44| BRODY: How did you feel about the decision? Were you a part of the decision-making process? NGUYEN: No, not really. (both laugh) But, you know, I knew that she wanted us to go, and we had brothers who came here first. BRODY: Oh, okay. When did your brothers, your older-- NGUYEN: He came in &#039 ; 78. BRODY: Okay. NGUYEN: Yeah. So he came all by himself. My uncle and my--so on my mom&#039 ; s side, you know, most of them came in &#039 ; 75. So my brother came first, and he went to school, same thing, you know? The focus, you had to go get your school and get a degree and find a job. So he came first. |00:05:24| BRODY: Where was he? Did he go to a resettlement? NGUYEN: No, he came--so he came in &#039 ; 78. So he stayed with my uncle in Arkansas. It&#039 ; s a small city, you know. It&#039 ; s not a lot of--you want to be something, you want to move to a bigger city. So that&#039 ; s why he decided to move by himself to Dallas. Yeah, and went to school in Dallas after high school. BRODY: Okay. Where did he go to school? NGUYEN: He went to DeVry. BRODY: Okay. To DeVry, yes. And so then afterwards he got a job, and-- NGUYEN: Yeah. He got an engineering job, then we came right afterward. BRODY: So, you were in communication with him and knew where he was-- NGUYEN: Yes, yes. |00:06:12| BRODY: So you and your brother, tell me the story of how you got here. NGUYEN: So, it&#039 ; s--the new year, from 1986, you know, I think it&#039 ; s January fifth--so me and my brother went to our uncle&#039 ; s house, you know, where we stayed for the night. Then the day after, you know, all of us went together, came--you know, escaped together. So my uncle had--I think he had--let me try to remember, he had three children. They were all very young. You know, like one, two, or three years old, yeah. And his wife. So early in the morning, we went to the small sea city where you can escape by boat. So we went to the smaller city and stayed there. And you&#039 ; re kept stay in the safe house until the time is right, then they send you to the boat. BRODY: So you had already made arrangements, your uncle had already made arrangements with someone, and paid? NGUYEN: Yes. So you had to pay, I think it cost--I don&#039 ; t know how much it cost, but you pay by gold. You don&#039 ; t pay by money. BRODY: Right, gold. NGUYEN: Yeah. So we went to the small city, you know, it&#039 ; s a seaside city. I don&#039 ; t remember the name now, (laughs) you know? BRODY: That&#039 ; s okay. NGUYEN: But, you know, somewhere in the south of the seaside. So we escaped early in the morning, we went to the small boat. Then from the smaller boat, you know, they take you to the bigger boat. Then-- BRODY: And this was all prearranged, the bigger boat was already prearranged? NGUYEN: Yes. So that&#039 ; s about a hundred--I think 101 people on the boat, small boat. It&#039 ; s about maybe--I don&#039 ; t know how long, but it&#039 ; s not that long, the body about the size of that fence right there. BRODY: Okay. So not a very big boat at all. |00:08:16| NGUYEN: Yeah. People were packed together, we had no room to move, just like you see on TV now when people are trying to move from Cuba. People pack in the boat. That&#039 ; s how we are, like tuna, all packed together. |00:08:31| BRODY: Wow. So that must have been pretty scary. NGUYEN: Eh, actually, I guess--I was so young and back then, you know, we didn&#039 ; t think much. We just wanted to get out, and that&#039 ; s all I thought about, you know? So I didn&#039 ; t think much, wasn&#039 ; t scared ; scare was not a factor at all. BRODY: Oh, okay. So you were just doing it. NGUYEN: You just said you had to go, you had to go, you know? You had to make the difference, you know, we had to go first and we can have the family later. So that&#039 ; s why we just--you had to do it. So yeah, we were on the boat in the ocean for about five days. Most of the time we had no water, you know, because the main thing you can bring with you-- BRODY: The clothes on your back. NGUYEN: Actually, just nothing at all, just one set of clothes. Whatever you wear, that&#039 ; s all. My mom gave me a little bit of gold, so we put it in the pocket, you know? So we&#039 ; re on the boat for about five days. Lucky that we did not get robbed by the pirates or anything at all. BRODY: Yeah, that is lucky. NGUYEN: Very lucky. I mean, a lot of people died. You know, you heard the stories of a lot of people dying on the sea. Yeah. So you&#039 ; re on the boat for five days, and I think we went to--we came to Malaysia, we stayed there for a few months, you know, go through the screening process--no, we came to Pulau Bidong, then we stayed there for about three or four months with the screening process, since, you know, the US had our paperwork already, since my brother came first and my father&#039 ; s in the military so we get the--they had the number to look up everything, match. So we got a fast track, you know, since we had the record already. So after four months, me and my brother went first. So me and my brother moved to Philippines, you know, for six months, learning period. Then after almost a year I came to the US. |00:10:48| BRODY: Okay, and so was the first place that you came Texas? NGUYEN: Yes, Irving! Irving, and we stayed in Irving the whole time. Didn&#039 ; t move at all. (laughs) BRODY: That&#039 ; s amazing. NGUYEN: So my uncle had to stay since he didn&#039 ; t have the--you know, they had the screen for political purpose or economic purpose. So he got screening, he didn&#039 ; t pass, even though his uncle and the rest of the family here. BRODY: Oh boy. NGUYEN: Yeah. So he had to provide some kind of documentation. So luckily, my mom got some kind of documentation to send it to him, and he&#039 ; d be able to--came to the US much later. BRODY: So how much later? NGUYEN: He came in--I think at least five months or six months after, yeah. BRODY: Okay. And he joined you in Irving? NGUYEN: No, he joined his brother in Arkansas. BRODY: Oh, in Arkansas, okay. NGUYEN: He came to--they came to Arkansas, then after a few months he moved to Dallas, then moved to California. |00:11:51| BRODY: Oh, okay, so he ended up in California. Tell me about your first days in Irving. NGUYEN: Oh, wow. BRODY: So your brother was here. What do you remember from that time? NGUYEN: It&#039 ; s beautiful, you know? We came--it&#039 ; s cold, you know, November cold. So we landed in Seattle, then from Seattle we landed to Dallas. So I think we came here around eleven o&#039 ; clock, midnight? Eleven at night? Yeah. The city was beautiful with the lights and the bridge, the one thing that amazed me about--the way that the road and the structure is so amazing, you know? You can go in and out, up and down, go everywhere. So easy to go, not like Vietnam. So it&#039 ; s beautiful. It&#039 ; s cold, you know, it&#039 ; s about Thanksgiving, you know, with the holiday. You see a lot of holiday spirit, and my brother took us to the mall, and it&#039 ; s beautiful. It&#039 ; s so scary though. (laughs) BRODY: Which mall, do you remember which mall? NGUYEN: We went to Irving Mall. BRODY: Irving Mall, okay. So it was big. (laughs) |00:12:56| NGUYEN: Big. Huge, you know? I think the first night we came we had pho, which is totally different from the way we ate it in Vietnam. (laughs) BRODY: That&#039 ; s really interesting. What was different about it? NGUYEN: It had to do with the--so in Vietnam you eat, you know, not ready-to-cook pho. You know, pho, you boil-- BRODY: It takes all day. NGUYEN: Yeah. But in Vietnam, you had pho too, you know, like they make it the right way. The noodles, they make it--not the instant noodles. BRODY: Right, so that was different. NGUYEN: Yeah, very different than, you know--but it tastes good. You know, I remember, it tastes good. So, my brother stayed at the apartment by himself, so we stayed at the apartment for--I think almost a year. Then my brother saved enough money, he bought the house. He bought the first house. BRODY: Wow. So what was his job? NGUYEN: He was an engineer. BRODY: Engineer. So he&#039 ; d gone to DeVry, become an engineer. So he was-- |00:13:57| NGUYEN: You know, back then he&#039 ; d got a good job, compared to--salary, you know? So he got a good job. So he&#039 ; s saved enough money, so he bought the house in Irving. So we moved to that house and we went to school. My brother--so I finished high school, then I went to college. My brothers go to high school. BRODY: So when you got here, you were already finished with high school. Or you just finished it out here? NGUYEN: No. So when we came--so when we came my brother wanted me to go-- even though I&#039 ; m eighteen already, he said, you know, I need to go to high school at least a year so that way I can learn English. So he wanted me to go there, and so I went to MacArthur High School with my brother. My mom sent us some documentation, like we&#039 ; d been in school, and these are the credits that we learned in school. So, yeah. So it took me one year to finish the high school here. |00:14:54| BRODY: Yeah. Tell me about going to high school at MacArthur High School. So obviously, you didn&#039 ; t know anybody when you got there. NGUYEN: No, we still don&#039 ; t. I still don&#039 ; t have any friends, we didn&#039 ; t have any friends back then. (laughs) BRODY: (laughs) That&#039 ; s really funny. NGUYEN: So, the main thing you learn, you know, in high school and the goal is to learn English, so I was in the ESL class. The teacher was very nice, she was very nice. I don&#039 ; t remember her name now. I can picture her face, you know, yeah. My English wasn&#039 ; t that good, so I don&#039 ; t even remember the teacher&#039 ; s name. (laughs) BRODY: That&#039 ; s okay, but she taught you English and she was a good teacher. NGUYEN: Yes. She taught me English, good teacher, I took all the classes, like the other American student class. So we had to learn more, you know, at night. You had to go to a dictionary, try to read and-- BRODY: Right. Because you were taking the regular classes in English, but having to learn-- NGUYEN: Yes. So we took math, history and government, and all of that class, yeah. And so I took about--yeah, so--then when I finished high school I took the SAT, then I applied for--I went to University of Dallas. |00:16:11| BRODY: University of Dallas, okay. Fantastic. NGUYEN: Yeah. So then after that, four years, I got my BS. I always wanted to be a doctor, but with the English, you know, I didn&#039 ; t do good on my MCAT. I got the interview but, you know, I guess I didn&#039 ; t do well in the interview either. Yeah, so I ended up--then I thought about--so for two years I thought about what should I do with my life, you know? I tried getting in medical school, I didn&#039 ; t get in. Then I said, &quot ; Okay, I need to do something else, I cannot do this.&quot ; You know? Working minimum hours, you know? So I decided to--I went to pharmacy school. BRODY: Pharmacy school. Where did you go to pharmacy school? NGUYEN: UT. |00:16:56| BRODY: UT. Great, great. So tell me about--just to go back a little bit, during that period where you&#039 ; re living with your brother and your other brother was also living with you and you were in high school, did you interact very much with other people, neighbors, or the community? NGUYEN: Not at all. So the neighbor, later on I interacted with the neighbor when I went to university, then I learned more English, then we interacted with the neighbor, she was very nice, yeah. She&#039 ; s passed away now. She was a retiree, teaching piano every day. She went to church and was teaching piano. In high school we didn&#039 ; t know any friends. You know, we had a few Vietnamese friends. But I didn&#039 ; t hang out with any students at all ; you know, went to school--we walked to school, and we walked home every day. You know. We got bullying by other student, one time. |00:17:59| BRODY: Really? What did--like, what kind of bullying? NGUYEN: So, I guess me and my brother were just walking home, and minding our own business, and people just come and say--I don&#039 ; t remember what they said, but they wanted to fight us and pushed us around and all of that stuff. And me and my brother keep walking and we just mind our business and go home. BRODY: That must have been scary. Did it happen often? NGUYEN: No, just one time. Yeah. But, you know, we just mind your business and go home. BRODY: Were they kids from the school? NGUYEN: I think they came from school. |00:18:36| BRODY: Yeah, but they just were messing around with you? Wow. So it sounds like learning English was the biggest initial hurdle, right? So had you-- NGUYEN: Yes. I think it&#039 ; s very difficult, you know, every word that you learn--you know, I took French in Vietnam in high school, so when I came--my brother and my mom helped get us to learn English at home, you know, with a tutor, but you know, it&#039 ; s not much what you learn. And you learn mainly how to read-- BRODY: Yes, speaking-- NGUYEN: --but we don&#039 ; t learn how to speak at all. So very difficult to communicate. Even though you&#039 ; d read it, you can&#039 ; t understand sometimes. But we cannot say it, you know? It&#039 ; s hard to say. BRODY: Yeah, it is difficult. NGUYEN: It&#039 ; s a different practice, yeah. BRODY: So what was the most helpful thing to you in building your confidence in English? NGUYEN: I think, you know--so I guess my brother kept saying, &quot ; You&#039 ; re going to have to go to school. That&#039 ; s the only way that you can make it here. If you don&#039 ; t go to school, you cannot make it here.&quot ; So that&#039 ; s why we had to, every day, we just had to study and try to learn the vocabulary, you know, read and do good in school. So even though it took longer for us to finish the homework, but you know, think about the family that you still have in Vietnam and you know what my brother went through already, so he knew the system that, you know, we had to go to school, and that&#039 ; s why we had to do it. |00:20:20| BRODY: Yeah. So you were really motivated by wanting to succeed. So pharmacy school at UT ; did you know other people down in Austin when you went there? NGUYEN: Still, (laughs) you know, I didn&#039 ; t hang out with a lot of Americans, so I did hang out with my Vietnamese friend. So I knew Dai back in UT, but I didn&#039 ; t say much with her. You know, she didn&#039 ; t speak Vietnamese, so I did hang out with the other students who spoke Vietnamese. BRODY: So that&#039 ; s interesting, yeah. So you had a level of comfort that was higher with other students who spoke Vietnamese, so the language is really key to the-- NGUYEN: Yes, yes. So I only hang out with the Vietnamese. Sometimes I don&#039 ; t feel-- we don&#039 ; t share the same thing, that&#039 ; s why--with the background, you know? So it&#039 ; s hard to talk about, and back then people--I don&#039 ; t know. I just hang out with the Vietnamese students. BRODY: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it&#039 ; s-- NGUYEN: More comfort. BRODY: --comfortable and easy to communicate, and, you know, so much of friendship is communication, right? So that makes sense. What was Austin like? |00:21:33| NGUYEN: Austin is beautiful, you know? So the--so when I went to Austin, you know, we stayed with--I stayed with others. First I went, I stayed with a friend&#039 ; s family for the first semester. Then after that, I find a few more friends, so we all move out to the apartment. So there&#039 ; s seven of us in a two bedroom apartment, you know, close to school, and we all had the same, you know, goal is go to school. And we had fun together but, you know, they all learn different subjects ; some of them are engineering students, some of them are medical students, premed. BRODY: Right. And pharmacy, of course, in your case. NGUYEN: Yes. |00:22:20| BRODY: So, school--after pharmacy school, what happened? NGUYEN: So after pharmacy school I did my rotation here in Dallas, then I did my rotation at Parkland and I got the job at Parkland. BRODY: Great! NGUYEN: I&#039 ; ve worked at Parkland since then. BRODY: Oh, wow. So you have been at Parkland for a very long time. (laughs) NGUYEN: For a long time. (laughs) |00:22:42| BRODY: Being in the workforce, so now you&#039 ; re a professional, you&#039 ; re a pharmacist, and you&#039 ; re back in the community that you initially settled in, what are some changes that you&#039 ; ve noticed, as you&#039 ; ve been here for such a long time, in that community? NGUYEN: For the Vietnamese community, it&#039 ; s gotten a lot bigger. You know, people-- there&#039 ; s a lot of stores that you see, the Vietnamese people. I see the Vietnamese people expanding to a different career path. So back then when my brother came, you know, all of them are engineers. You know, it&#039 ; s quick, it&#039 ; s fast, all the people that I know from his generation is an engineer. So fast, you go to school, the math and the physics, those are easy with numbers, so you don&#039 ; t need to know a lot of English, you know? I mean, you can do it. Now, I see the Vietnamese community expand to a lot of different--you have doctors, we have lawyers, we have all kinds of careers that I see that&#039 ; s a Vietnamese. There&#039 ; s a big Vietnamese health professional in Dallas, you know. I was a member back then, so we did a lot of things for the community. We do a health fair for the community every year, twice a year. BRODY: That&#039 ; s great, that&#039 ; s great. So it&#039 ; s a community that is--it sounds like, still very focused on education. |00:24:16| NGUYEN: Yes, very focused. Back--Vietnamese can, you know, we don&#039 ; t stay together in one city. Everybody is somewhere. BRODY: Yeah, everybody has moved on to different places. So your first job was at Parkland, you&#039 ; re still working at Parkland, and--let&#039 ; s see, so we&#039 ; ve already talked about that. When you came first, you said you were mostly with your family, with your brother. Did you--were members of a church or a temple at that time? |00:24:49| NGUYEN: Yes. So when we came from--I think with the help of the Catholic diocese in Dallas. So that&#039 ; s where we came every week to get the money, or every month--I don&#039 ; t remember now. We&#039 ; d get some benefits. So, some clothes. There&#039 ; s a priest&#039 ; s name--I think he&#039 ; s at Dallas--stayed in one of the Dallas churches, I don&#039 ; t remember the church, but in downtown Dallas. He was very nice. I don&#039 ; t think it was the Guadalupe Church, but he was very nice, he helped us a lot. BRODY: Were you Catholic? NGUYEN: No, no. No, I was Buddhist, but, you know, there&#039 ; s no temple back then. Now we have so many temples, but there&#039 ; s only one temple initially then, now it&#039 ; s so many. Yeah, with the help of the Catholics, you know, so that&#039 ; s why I went to the Catholic school. BRODY: Yeah, at the University of Dallas. So it sounds like you went to the diocese, or was it Catholic Charities [USA]? And they gave you some clothes and maybe money as well. NGUYEN: Yeah. So we got the help, I think six months you got some money. Then after that, you&#039 ; re on your own. |00:26:06| BRODY: Yeah. Were they able to give you advice or guidance? NGUYEN: No, mainly, you know, mainly my brother, you know? He encouraged us to remain in school and just focus. BRODY: Fantastic. That&#039 ; s good advice. NGUYEN: Yeah. But my brother, eventually he moved to California. He just wanted to stay with the uncle. |00:26:26| BRODY: Oh, okay. So you and your other brother stayed here. So, back in Vietnam, your dad was involved with the military, and it sounds like your mom had resources to sort of make sure that you guys stayed in school. Did you feel like when you came--I mean, what were your experiences with social class when you came here? Did you feel like you were in the same sort of level that you had been in Vietnam, or was there a change? NGUYEN: I mean, I didn&#039 ; t pay much to the social class. I know that, you know, we were on the lower level, but, you know, it&#039 ; s not that you think about it, you know? You think about the future. Regardless of where you&#039 ; re at, there&#039 ; s a future there that you--and you want to get to that future. BRODY: And the key to that, sounds like for you, it was education, right? NGUYEN: Yes. I mean, for all of us, all of my brothers and sisters, came much later, and they all went to school. |00:27:30| BRODY: Yeah. Tell me about the rest of your family coming. When did they come? NGUYEN: So my brother came with us, then he went to California to stay with my uncle, then he went to University of San Jose, he&#039 ; s an engineer. BRODY: The brother that came with you? NGUYEN: Yeah. All of my brothers and sisters came much later, and they&#039 ; re much older than I was when I came, you know? They all had a job back in Vietnam already, so my sister&#039 ; s an engineer. The other brothers and sisters, you know, were teachers, and another sister just stayed at home. But when they came, they all went to school again. Like they went to community college, then they all went to university and got a job, yeah. |00:28:23| BRODY: So they came maybe in the eighties, then? NGUYEN: So--no. I came in &#039 ; 86, they came in 2004. BRODY: Oh, okay. Yeah, recently. More recently. NGUYEN: Yeah. They came in 2004. So most of them stayed in Dallas. My mom, after we came--so when we came, everybody stayed in Dallas. You know, the rest of them, my mom wanted to move to California with my uncle. So he moved. When they moved, my brother and sister moved with them, except--so two of my sisters moved. One brother and one sister stayed in Dallas with me, but they all went to school. So the brother and sister who stayed with me went to UTA. My brother--my two sisters in California went to Santa Cruz University. BRODY: Okay, fantastic. NGUYEN: And even here, you know, my father and my mom worked hard and tell my sister and brother, you know, you guys need to go to school. So they still supported us, you know, after they came. |00:29:31| BRODY: So your mom and dad both came too. NGUYEN: Yes. BRODY: Where are they? NGUYEN: They&#039 ; re in California. They work. My mom--my dad works for more like, you know, golf, you know, cleaning, minimum hour job. My mom works for some seafood packaging company. BRODY: So now the whole family is in the US? NGUYEN: Yes. So they work minimum hour job, and they save money and support us. My sister and brother didn&#039 ; t have the work, they just had to go to school. Then after that they help out, you know, get a part-time job. But still, my parents&#039 ; goal is the same. You know, regardless of your age, you need to go to school. If you don&#039 ; t get a job, don&#039 ; t get a degree, you can&#039 ; t find a job. So they all went to school, and they all get a degree and get a job. BRODY: That&#039 ; s a big accomplishment for your parents. |00:30:27| NGUYEN: Yes, even though they work minimum hours, they still can save money. That&#039 ; s amazing. It&#039 ; s a small house where they stay in California. It&#039 ; s like, it has two rooms, this room and the other room. Maybe three rooms. It&#039 ; s about four hundred square feet or something. So I remember, every year, I came to California to visit, we stay in one family room, we all lie on the floor. (laughs) BRODY: Right. A lot of people. NGUYEN: A lot of people. Yeah, but they manage. It&#039 ; s amazing that, you know, my parents sacrifice for all of us. |00:31:05| BRODY: They really did. And your dad--since your mom had been raising all of you as a single mom, when did your dad return to the family? NGUYEN: So he came--he returned after seven years, or seven and a half years, in the camp. Yeah. Then after that he couldn&#039 ; t find a job, you know, with the background. Then they processed, my brother sponsored them-- BRODY: Your brother that came first? Okay, so then that&#039 ; s-- NGUYEN: So that&#039 ; s how they came with--and they came with their--what do you call the one if you work in the South government, you came under the ODP? BRODY: Oh, the ODP program. NGUYEN: Yeah, ODP program. And they were sponsored by I think Senator McCain. BRODY: Oh, by Senator McCain. NGUYEN: And John Kerry. BRODY: Oh, okay. Did they ever interact with Senator McCain and Kerry? NGUYEN: No, but you know, that program is sponsored by the-- |00:32:02| BRODY: Oh I see, yes, that program was sponsored by them. Yes. Okay, well that is-- one of my other questions is, in terms of speaking of the Senators and the law, did your family or yourself have any engagement with politics once you came here? Are you interested or engaged? NGUYEN: I mean, it&#039 ; s very--the US government is very interesting. I love the government, I think it&#039 ; s a very good government model. But at the same time, it has some flaws to it. BRODY: Yes, what do you think some of those flaws are? NGUYEN: I mean, that&#039 ; s why we get ourselves in the current situation, you know? It&#039 ; s a democratic society, it&#039 ; s very hard to get things done, you know? It takes forever to get one thing done, because everybody wants to do this and that and too many voices, you know? In Saigon it had to do with, you know, the term limits, but there&#039 ; s no term limit. So, it becomes their job, you know? So then they&#039 ; re protecting themselves, so that&#039 ; s what I don&#039 ; t like. BRODY: Yeah. So are you politically engaged, or anybody in your family? NGUYEN: I&#039 ; m not. I vote, you know-- BRODY: Well, that&#039 ; s engaged. NGUYEN: I do my right, I exercise my right to vote, but I&#039 ; m not engaged in, you know, in the (unintelligible). |00:33:47| BRODY: Okay. Now, you mentioned that you had two kids. How did you meet your wife? Is she also Vietnamese? NGUYEN: Yes, she&#039 ; s Vietnamese. I met my wife through another friend. So we just went to go out and just met at the, you know, at the restaurant and I get her number and talk to her. BRODY: Did she grow up here as well? NGUYEN: No. She grew up in Vietnam and they came much later. I think they came in--she came in 2004. BRODY: Are there differences--I&#039 ; m curious--in, you know, what we talked about earlier, how when you were in Austin at UT, you gravitated towards students who also had shared your kind of experience of being Vietnamese and coming to this country. Is there a different perspective from people who, like your wife, came later on, or is it kind of a shared experience still? NGUYEN: I think it&#039 ; s still shared. When she came, you know, I mean, English is the main thing, you know, communication. So she--by the time she came, you know, there&#039 ; s a bigger Vietnamese community already, so she had a lot more friends than I did in college. When I went to University of Dallas, there were maybe three or four Vietnamese students, you know, at University of Dallas, and none of them speak Vietnamese. So I didn&#039 ; t hang out with any of them, you know? BRODY: Right. And you were focused on your studies, too. NGUYEN: Yeah. And when my wife came, you know, there&#039 ; s a bigger community and everybody speaks Vietnamese already. BRODY: Yeah, there is a--it&#039 ; s a different experience. NGUYEN: And she has a lot more friends, yeah. |00:35:28| BRODY: That&#039 ; s interesting. That community really has grown, and you&#039 ; ve been here with a front row seat for watching the growth of the community. There&#039 ; s the restaurants and the temples and so on. Do you think that--if you could think of a few words to describe the Vietnamese community in this area, what words would choose? NGUYEN: Strong, but they&#039 ; re not unified. BRODY: Not unified. What are some different sort of pieces of that community? NGUYEN: I think it&#039 ; s that there&#039 ; s a gap between the old generation and the young generation leadership. I think the old generations still think with the memory back then, they&#039 ; re not ready to let go. BRODY: So they&#039 ; re still thinking about Vietnam and about the war, the older generation. NGUYEN: Yeah. So the new generation think differently, like, openness with Vietnam, all of that, you know? So there&#039 ; s a difference. But we&#039 ; re not unified, you know? We want the freedom of Vietnam, but so many things that you&#039 ; re not unified to do the same thing. |00:36:55| BRODY: Yeah, what do you think about that, about a relationship with Vietnam for the United States? NGUYEN: For me, it&#039 ; s a good thing that you need to open up, you know, that&#039 ; s how you can let the people know what it&#039 ; s like to be free. If people don&#039 ; t know what it means to be free, then how do you know to fight for their freedom? So it&#039 ; s good that we need to open up and let them know. Now with the open internet, you know, Vietnamese don&#039 ; t have-- not like China. I think they have a lot more open communication, internet. So you see with all the protests in Vietnam nowadays, that people start to learn, people know there&#039 ; s a freedom that you can fight for, you know? So it makes the difference. BRODY: And so do you think that the Vietnamese Americans and especially the younger generation are a factor in helping open up that thinking about freedom in Vietnam? NGUYEN: I think it has to do with Vietnam--I think they&#039 ; ll open up first with the US and the Vietnam, I think they had the open relationship, you know, back in maybe 1986 or 1987. So with that openness, you know, it brings a lot more openness to Vietnam. And if people here start to share stories on the internet and when they went back to Vietnam and visit, you know, they share stories, so yeah. BRODY: About their lives here in-- NGUYEN: Yeah, their life here and, you know, what it means to be free and all of that. Back then, you know, in Vietnam, you cannot say anything to the leadership, you know, if you say anything bad then, you know, you go to jail. People are more opened up now, they can say more things. BRODY: Right. It&#039 ; s less risky. NGUYEN: Yeah. |00:38:54| BRODY: Well, tell me, since you used that phrase--I&#039 ; m interested--to you, what does it mean to be free? NGUYEN: You know, free is a--free, you can do things that you want to do, you can say anything that you want to do, but at the same time, people here sometimes take it so lightly, they don&#039 ; t take their responsibility. So free doesn&#039 ; t mean you can do anything you want. You know, free has limitations to what you can do. BRODY: Yeah, freedom and responsibility. NGUYEN: And that always has to go together, and sometimes people here take it for granted, they don&#039 ; t have that responsibility, you know? |00:39:43| BRODY: Yeah, that makes sense. So, you&#039 ; re kind of bridging--your experience bridges the--you know, you&#039 ; re not really the old generation in that you&#039 ; re not old, but you&#039 ; re not a new arrival either, and, you know, you have kids of your own. How do you think of yourself, your identity as an American, as a Vietnamese American? NGUYEN: I think of myself as Vietnamese American, you know? I still have a lot of culture since I grew up in Vietnam, I still have a lot of thinking like the Vietnamese. My kids are totally different now, you know, they don&#039 ; t think like that already. (laughs) |00:40:25| BRODY: What are the differences that you&#039 ; ve noticed? NGUYEN: They&#039 ; re telling me that, you know, Americans, they don&#039 ; t need to learn Vietnamese. BRODY: Oh, interesting. So did you want them to learn Vietnamese? NGUYEN: Well yes, they go to school, they go to Vietnamese school. BRODY: They do, okay. But they&#039 ; re saying they&#039 ; re-- NGUYEN: But for me, I think I still identify myself as more, like, Vietnamese American, you know, more Vietnamese than American, even though I&#039 ; ve stayed here longer than I grew up in Vietnam, you know? I&#039 ; m fifty years old now, yes, but I still have a lot of culture, you know, what you read and what you write, what you feel. I still feel like I&#039 ; m Vietnamese. |00:41:02| BRODY: Yeah. Tell me about the pieces of the culture that are meaningful to you that still resonate. NGUYEN: I think it&#039 ; s family, you know? Family is the root of everything. Helping your family, helping each other, the love of your country, that feeling that you still feel, you know? When you feel warm, you feel right here that you&#039 ; ll be at home. |00:41:33| BRODY: So, the United States has been your home for a long time now. What does it mean to you to be American? To not just yourself, but when people say, you know, &quot ; this is what it means to be American,&quot ; what does it mean to you? NGUYEN: Okay. It means that, you know--to be American, you know, you have a lot of opportunity, you have the--you want to be productive in the society, to help the people. So that&#039 ; s the--I lost my thought, let me see. (laughs) BRODY: That&#039 ; s okay. NGUYEN: To make America strong, you know? Because I want America to be strong, there&#039 ; s a lot of nations out there, the communist system, you know, to us is still the evil. So that&#039 ; s why I want America to be--to be the star that people look at and see--to compare, you know, between the regime, the communists, and the free society, what it feels like, looks like, to be able to walk freely, talk freely, without being afraid. That&#039 ; s really being an American, you know, you can say things that you feel you want to say. BRODY: What things do you think make America strong? NGUYEN: Diversity. I think we came all from different backgrounds. But when we came here, we really want to vote for America, you know? To make it strong, because wherever we came from, we know that, you know, you can make America strong because of your background. And we all want America to be strong, from maybe you talk to different people from different ethnic--they all from where they came, you know, this is their home now, even though they still have a lot of cultural background. But this is their home, you know, they want to make it strong. |00:44:14| BRODY: That&#039 ; s true. And just tying back to thinking about your kids and, you know, they&#039 ; re growing up here in the United States as Americans without having the immigration experience. When you think about their future as Americans, as Vietnamese Americans, what are your hopes and dreams for their future? NGUYEN: I want them to be successful. But, be what you want to be. The main thing, you know, I want you to be happy, you know? So I read a story to them every night, tried to teach them character, you know, like what it feels like to be courageous, like give them stories and tell them examples, what it is to be honest, what it is to be determination, what does it mean to be a failure, you know, so all of that stuff. And so I had the book that I read to them every night, it&#039 ; s the book about the diary of the boy who goes to school, and different days he experiences different things, and he writes it down. So I read that to them every night and just tell them how you feel to be like this or like that. BRODY: Right, that&#039 ; s nice. NGUYEN: But the main thing, you know, I want them to be happy. There&#039 ; s a lot of opportunity here that you can be. You know, you can be from an entrepreneur to anything. You know? You want to be a lawyer, you can be a lawyer. You want to be a teacher, you can be a teacher. But you have to be happy. BRODY: That&#039 ; s good advice, that&#039 ; s good advice. Well, is there anything else that we haven&#039 ; t talked about that you&#039 ; d like to talk about? Or something that I forgot to ask you that-- NGUYEN: Not really. BRODY: Not really. Well, thank you very much. This has been such a great conversation and I really appreciate your time and your willingness to share your story. Thank you. NGUYEN: No problem. I mean, if you have more questions, I don&#039 ; t mind to come back and answer your questions. BRODY: Excellent. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. NGUYEN: Good. end of interview All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2018oh005_btba_003.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Chi Nguyen Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2018oh005_btba_003 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-10-26 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/d5625ed0491902ddb1d4b68e4f1b5bd9.jpg 971e62b0fa579c9f1d61118185fd886f Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bac Tran OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Bac Tran, November 5, 2018 2018oh006_btba_005 1:23:45 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Vietnamese in North Texas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Bac Tran Betsy Brody mp3 oh-audio-dig-tran_b_20181105.mp3 1:|14(5)|21(11)|28(17)|36(13)|43(4)|52(2)|59(6)|68(12)|78(7)|83(9)|92(10)|98(11)|106(14)|115(1)|122(1)|129(7)|138(1)|148(6)|155(7)|162(11)|171(9)|180(6)|188(13)|195(2)|204(4)|212(2)|221(7)|231(6)|240(5)|247(8)|257(2)|262(10)|273(11)|280(11)|286(13)|293(6)|300(1)|308(10)|316(3)|324(3)|330(2)|337(1)|345(1)|353(2)|361(16)|370(1)|379(8)|388(8)|395(1)|403(12)|412(4)|419(3)|428(1)|433(12)|441(9)|449(8)|456(13)|465(6)|473(12)|481(8)|491(5)|497(7)|506(1)|514(4)|523(6)|532(1)|540(5)|547(7)|554(8)|562(6)|570(1)|576(12)|584(1)|592(13)|599(14)|608(1)|615(8)|623(3)|629(9)|637(1)|644(2)|650(1)|657(11)|657(12)|657(13)|657(14)|657(15) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/114142 Aviary audio 0 Introduction BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is November 5, 2018. I’m interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Bac Tran. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History, and is part of the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. All right, good morning, Mr. Tran. TRAN: Good morning. BRODY: I’m so excited to talk to you today. Brody begins the interview and introduces Mr. Bac Tran and the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. 26 Leaving Vietnam Let’s start out, just—if you could tell me a little bit about your life in Vietnam. TRAN: Yes. In Vietnam I was a high school teacher. I had been teaching the chemistry and biology. And then in April 1975 when the south of Vietnam was about to collapse and everybody was panicked, I was originated from the north. I was born as a Catholic and with anti-communists, so I had more reason to fear to live under the control of the communists. But it happened that my brother was working for US embassy at the time, and they allow every US embassy employee family to get out of the country, and I was a member of his family. That’s why I came over here. BRODY: So because of your brother’s connections and his work for the US embassy, his whole family—so how many members of the family were evacuated through that? TRAN: Yes, his family has four children, he and his wife. That’s six, and my mother, my two sisters, and me. The sisters and me, we’re all single, that’s why we were regarded as a member of his family. BRODY: Okay, so he was responsible for all of you as well as your mother and his own family. So were you living in Saigon at that time? TRAN: I was in the Saigon at the time. Actually, I was a high school teacher in the central of Vietnam, and by the time the communists almost took over that area, so I escaped and ran to the south, and I get on the Vietnam navy ship, and they took us to the south of Vietnam and put us in a refugee camp in Phú Quốc. It’s in the south of Vietnam. BRODY: Okay, so you came from central Vietnam, fleeing to south Vietnam and were in a refugee camp. TRAN: Yes, and then my brother went to Phú Quốc, went to that island, looked for me, and took me back to the capital of Vietnam. BRODY: Wow, what was that day like? Did you know he was coming for you? TRAN: No. That is in around April, April fifteenth. So we were living in Saigon for a couple of weeks, and then my brother is in charge for the evacuation of his employees out of the country. And so he stayed behind, but I and my—and his family and my sisters and my mother, we all got out of the country on April 25. BRODY: April 25, 1975. Mr. Bac Tran discuses his job and life in Vietnam as well as his family's evacuation out of Vietnam. Catholicism ; Communism ; escape from Vietnam ; Fall of Saigon ; religion ; US Embassy ; Vietnam ; Vietnam War 252 Journey to the United States started to be under intense artillery bombardment. And we reunited with my brother at Guam island a few days after that. And then we were flown to US and stayed in Camp Pendleton, a marine base, for more than a month. Then through the USCC, a voluntary agency, we were sponsored by the University of Plano, now a defunct university, and we came to Dallas in July 1975. BRODY: Okay, so the first place that you went was Guam, or the Philippines, then— TRAN: Philippines, then Guam. BRODY: Then Camp Pendleton. TRAN: Then Camp Pendleton, yeah. BRODY: And were you all together the whole time? TRAN: Yeah, we all together. We reunited with my brother in Guam. |00:05:39| BRODY: So tell me—I mean, how did you feel when you were in Guam and before he got there? What was the feeling in the family? TRAN: We was—when we came to the Philippines, staying in the navy base, I was so fearful because I don’t know if my brother will be able to reunite with us or not, because he was still in Saigon. BRODY: Right. It must have been scary. TRAN: Yeah, it is very scary. But we have no choice. After staying there for a few days, then they start to fly us to the Guam. But it’s just like a miracle. We were so tired and we slept in the camp in the tent, and then in the morning, I suddenly saw my brother walking in. He’s looking for us also, he walk around and walk around, and then he saw us and he walk in the camp. BRODY: Were you so surprised? TRAN: Yeah, we so surprised and so happy. |00:06:56| BRODY: So happy. And how was it with having four small children with your group? Was that difficult? TRAN: It was difficult because at that time when we were still in the Subic Bay, the US navy base, the youngest one, my youngest nephew, he was sick. And at the time, if any kids got sick severely, they have to take the kid out from us and they take him, put him into the hospital. BRODY: So you were separated from— TRAN: Yeah, and we were so scared, but fortunately my nephew got well after that— BRODY: And they were able to reunite you. TRAN: —and recovered after that, so that—yeah, he was not separated from us. BRODY: Good, that’s good. So Camp Pendleton, you were there for— TRAN: Yeah, Camp Pendleton. We was there from May until June, more than a month, about a month and twenty days or something like that, because we were big family. And you know that in the US, the Americans only have smaller family, they cannot afford to sponsor that big family. BRODY: So during your time in Camp Pendleton you were working to try to find a sponsor for the whole family? TRAN: The Department of Immigration together with the voluntary agency they called the VolAgs [Voluntary Agency], it’s nine voluntary agencies, including in that is USCC [United States Catholic Conference], for instance, and the HIAS [Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society] is a Jewish agency, et cetera. They work together and look for the sponsors. It’s strange, and we’re just like—suddenly we got into the United States, completely different environment for us, and Tran recounts his experiences and hardships from traveling to the United States from Guam and the Philippines. Camp Pendleton ; Dallas ; Guam ; Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society ; HIAS ; leaving Vietnam ; Phillippines ; refugee camp ; refugees ; Subic Bay ; Texas ; United States Catholic Conference ; University of Plano ; USCC ; VolAgs 553 Adjusting to life in the United States And we arrived to the Philippines and stay in the US navy base for several days. And my brother left Saigon on April twenty-seventh, and he was pretty lucky, because on April twenty-eighth the Tan Son Nhut, the only airport in the capital, BRODY: What was the most different thing for you? TRAN: The most different thing is the culture. We want—like, in Vietnam, we normally want to live together as community. And when we go over here, even one Vietnamese priest, he’s very well-educated, he graduated from German, he also—even that, he always ask us to pray so that we can stay together. Yeah, but over here, the—I think the—over here we really have the experience with the immigration, because through the course of history all the immigration from all over the world goes over here, so the department— immigration departments and the voluntary agencies, they’re very experienced about how to deal with the immigrants. So instead of put us together in one place, they distribute us throughout the country, okay. And that—secondly, when we come over here, the very first feeling that we have is: this is peaceful country. In our country is the war all the time. BRODY: It’s very different. TRAN: Yeah, the thirty, forty years, yeah. So this country—when we first got into the airport and they ship us to the base, we look through and we see, “Huh, the society is very peaceful.” BRODY: Right. No conflict that you could see. TRAN: No conflict yeah, yeah, you can see it. |00:11:19| BRODY: So how did that make you feel? TRAN: Me feel—we don’t—the first feeling we have is we really enjoy the environment, and people treat us very kindly. But also we just, as I said, we just kind of feel numb. We were not prepared to come over here. Yeah, we were not prepared. BRODY: You weren’t planning, or it wasn’t part of your plan. TRAN: Yeah. But we panic and we feel numb and we don’t—it’s just like we got—we don’t have maps, something like that. We’re disoriented. BRODY: Yeah, disoriented. TRAN: Yeah, completely. BRODY: And numb. Tran describes his initial reaction to the differences between living in the United States and Vietnam. 752 Finding a Sponsor But you wanted to have the one sponsor to take all of you, and that was challenging, but ultimately you found— TRAN: Yeah, it was challenging and we keep waiting. Every day, we keep waiting, we’re waiting, and finally they call us and let us know that we have a sponsor. But the sponsor we have over here is the University of Plano. They only sponsor for the transition time. |00:13:11| BRODY: Okay, so University of Plano transitioned your family for just the transition? TRAN: And then from there they will find out a permanent sponsor. We came to the—we are the first largest group who came to Dallas. BRODY: Right, your family. TRAN: Yeah, who came to Dallas. And we were living in Plano, but we must move out of the campus before the school year. BRODY: Oh I see, so this was happening in July? TRAN: The school year sometime by the August, and they start somewhere around by August, or something like that. Tran recalls the challenges of finding a sponsor for his entire family. Dallas ; Plano ; sponsor ; sponsorship ; Texas ; University of Plano 834 Finding Work In America Hunt Oil Company, they move their data centers to Dallas from Philadelphia and Tulsa. So they build a huge big data center over at the Empire Central [Drive] and Stemmons [Freeway], in north Dallas. So they need the helpers, and my brother and I, we got the job. Talking about jobs is funny thing, is when we were living in the campus, there are a couple employees from the human resource, from the Department of Human Resource. They help us to look for the job. But you know, most of the Vietnamese refugees, we couldn’t speak English or couldn’t speak English very well. So it’s fairly difficult to look for a job. BRODY: Yes. TRAN: I remember a man, his name is—I don’t remember his full name, but his name was Mr. Vano. He always look for a job for us and we only end up with the $2.10 an hour, that’s the minimum wage at the time. BRODY: So, minimum wage job. TRAN: And we jokingly call him as Mr. Two-Ten. (laughs) BRODY: Mr. Two-Ten. (laughs) That’s really funny. TRAN: Mr. Two-Ten because—but he’s very nice, he’s very nice. He even invite us to his home sometimes. BRODY: So was he an American? TRAN: Yeah, he’s an American. BRODY: And he was just interested in helping Vietnamese get jobs. TRAN: Yeah, look for us to get a job, yeah. But unfortunately we don’t speak—we didn’t speak English very well. We didn’t have skills that the company needed, so we had him as Two-Ten, and (laughs) we call him as Mr. Two-Ten. |00:16:32| BRODY: (laughs) That’s very funny. So that entry into the job market—you know, how did you get the job at Sun Oil Company? TRAN: Yeah, at Sun Oil—because at that time, as I said, the data center, the Sun Oil just build—Sun Oil just build their data center over the Stemmons in north Dallas. And they need some helpers with no previous experience required. BRODY: Oh, good. TRAN: Yeah. So all we do—even the name is as a computer operator—but we come over here, we got in and they have a huge room with all the tape drives. So the tape drive we would normally call them tape number. All we do is see one, two, three, four, five, six. So we go to the tape library and pick the tape and mount. That’s all they need us to do. BRODY: Right. So you didn’t need a lot of English? TRAN: Yeah, no need a lot of English. BRODY: Great. So did you enjoy that job? TRAN: Well, we so happy. We—I know that the job is at the entry level, but at least it give us an opportunity to go back to school and learn the new skills and learn English. And also, at least it give us something to move on with our lives. BRODY: Absolutely. |00:18:05| TRAN: And if you go back, about 1975 and, if I remember correctly, there’s somewhere around when they do the—maybe about 30, 36 percent of the Americans that in favor with the Vietnam immigration. BRODY: Right, so not a lot of— TRAN: Because at the time, the war is over, so they don’t feel very good about the war. So only 30 percent of the Americans favor it. But as we said, as I said, we just wanted to move on with our life. So we got the job, whatever job they give to us, and we tried to work very hard. We go back to the school, learn English, and learn the new skills so that we can live, so that we can become the independent in our life. |00:19:24| Tran describes his first job in the United States working as a computer operator. employment ; English ; Hunt Oil Company ; jobs ; Sun Oil Company 1166 Going back to school So I remember I—in August the third, I got the job as computer operator. |00:14:05| BRODY: Where were you working? TRAN: I start to work as—at the—for the Sun Oil Company. At that time, Sun Oil BRODY: Right. Tell me about going back to school. Where did you go back to school? TRAN: I—(unintelligible) and you know, as I go back with little bit but here, it’s only 36 percent of the Americans favor Vietnamese immigration. But after a while, the local people in Dallas were—through the newspaper and everything they published about our new groups, how we—and people started to like us more and more. They’re more friendly with us. And I think that’s because we started to work—we just work, we work hard, and we go back to school and study the new skill and ______ so that we move on with our life. In my case, I went back to the El Centro [College] first to learn English. BRODY: Right, to a community college. TRAN: Yeah, in community college. And then I go back to the UTD [University of Texas–Dallas] to study information systems, or the course, information system. Because I graduate in Vietnam with a BS degree, and I spend a couple more years in the oceanography institute to study about marine biology. But I came over here, I couldn’t find a job, so I work as a computer operator. So I had to start—at the time, we have to take whatever they offer us, and then we improve our skill by going back to school. So I have to learn data processing, information systems. BRODY: So that’s a big change from marine biology, but— TRAN: Yeah. It took me five years, and I became the programmer analyst in 1980. BRODY: Great. TRAN: Yeah, and 1990 I become the database administrator, and then until I retired in 2016. BRODY: Well, congratulations on your retirement. |00:21:42| TRAN: Yeah. So not only for the job but for us, the education is—we really emphasize on the education, it’s important for us. If we want to have a good future, we have to go back to the school. And that how in Vietnam, that how it’s going in Vietnam, and over here, the same thing. We came over here, we really pushed the kid through the school system. BRODY: Yes, and yourselves as well, it sounds like. TRAN: Yeah. And the school over here, I think it’s—I used to tell my children that okay, in Vietnam, it’s fairly difficult to go through successfully in the school. I think about 4 or 5 percent of these student can graduate from the school back—I’m talking about before 1975. But even when you graduate from the school, I don’t think the student know much as the student over here. Over here they learn more, they have more knowledge than us in Vietnam. But the reason because it’s fairly difficult in Vietnam because there is no regulations, no rules, no guidelines in school as we do over here. So we relied much on the teachers favor or tolerance, okay? Like for instance, if I got sick on the exam day, no makeup. I fail. That’s it. As over here, it’s different. It’s more tolerant. So we get over here, when we go back to school, we feel fairly easy. People want—I mean the teacher, professors, instructors just want us to pass the course. They don’t intend to give a problem, to create the obstacles for us. BRODY: So you worked hard and were able to succeed. TRAN: Yeah. So if you work hard, you have opportunities. Tran recalls his return to collage in the United States in order to gain new skills to have a better opportunity for better jobs. community college ; education ; El Centro Community College ; refugees ; University of Texas at Dallas ; UTD 1456 Sponsored Stay at the University of Plano BRODY: So, you mentioned earlier that when you first came, the University of Plano housed you for that transition period, and you mentioned—did you stay on campus? TRAN: Yeah, we are living in the campus, and a lot of volunteer— BRODY: Where was that campus? Do you remember where that campus was? TRAN: The campus is in northwest Dallas, I think—it’s—(turning pages) it’s in northwest Dallas, it’s somewhere around on the—I believe that is somewhere around in the farm road, they call Farm Road 544. BRODY: Okay. So, sort of in Plano? TRAN: Yeah, in Plano, and yeah, it’s close to—yeah, in Plano. Yeah. BRODY: Okay, so they sponsored you and you lived on their campus. What were the accommodations like during that time? Was it a dorm or— TRAN: It’s in the dorm, and then the people start to donate food, and the volunteers throughout the Richardson, Plano, they got in and tried to teach us English. BRODY: Okay. So were those volunteers from church groups or a city? TRAN: From a church group, and from—yeah, normally from the church group. BRODY: From the church group. So they taught you English and donated things? |00:25:54| TRAN: Yeah, and donate, all that. But talking about, why is it different, that societies are so different? I remember one days in our group—we had about three or four people—one American lady, one volunteer, she drove us around the city—I think it was for—I forgot the reason why, but we got in her car and she drove us somewhere. And at the stop sign the streets are completely quiet and no people around there, at the stop sign, she stops. That’s a rule, okay? But one of—(laughs) a man behind me is like, “Why don’t you go, why do you have to stop? Nobody over here.” (Brody laughs) So she turns around and she says, “You crazy.” (laughs) BRODY: That’s funny. So she was following the rules— TRAN: Yeah, she’s following the rules and the man, he doesn’t think that there’s a rule that we need to stop. BRODY: Right. So how would that have been in Vietnam? Is that— TRAN: In Vietnam, back through the old days, we don’t follow very—the rules very strictly, yeah. Tran explains the living conditions and accommodations of living on the University of Plano's campus. Including additional support from a church group. church ; cultural differences ; Dallas ; Plano ; Texas ; University of Plano ; volunteers 1638 Adjusting to American Culture and Cultural Misunderstandings BRODY: Cartoons? (laughs) |00:28:20| TRAN: I really like that, cartoons, even I was twenty-six years old, but I still like the cartoons. (Brody laughs) So I asked one of my—one of the coworkers, “Do you like to watch toon-car?” He doesn’t know what I mean a “toon-car.” But I mean, in English, we call it cartoon, but in Vietnamese language, sometimes kind of reversed ; like a blue horse, we call here—we translate into Vietnam, call it horse blue. BRODY: Okay, so it reverses. TRAN: So that language is fairly difficult for us. BRODY: Of course. TRAN: Yeah, so—and the culture also creates some misunderstanding or confusion also. It’s like, in Vietnam, if you want to hire your employee to work on in some special cases, time, like a weekend or something like that, normally they think that, okay, we ask the employees, “I would like you to work tomorrow, I request you” or “I would like you to work tomorrow.” Over here people are simple. Our coworkers just simply say, “Hey, you want overtime tomorrow?” We translate, we interpret that as the way they look down on us. Brody: Oh. TRAN: So it’s a different. It’s different. BRODY: Yeah, so that’s different. |00:30:02| TRAN: Okay, so in Vietnam, normally a manager or supervisor sit on the chair, call the employee in, and normally they talk it’s like really, you know, official ways. But over here, the supervisor, their legs, their feet on the table and talk. But we interpret as the way they look down on us. So it’s some kind of— BRODY: Oh, so it’s about respect kind of feeling? TRAN: Yeah, about respect. So it’s—the culture sometimes creates that very— BRODY: Yeah, some misunderstandings. TRAN: —kind of misunderstanding each other, yeah. BRODY: Do you remember any times where a misunderstanding caused trouble for you personally? |00:30:59| TRAN: No, I don’t think, but my—this is not relating to the refugees, Vietnamese refugees in Dallas, but I remember in my wife’s side, we have my wife’s uncle. He escaped from Vietnam and the way the—an officer over there, an Asian, I think an Asian, spoke to him and with the—with his foot on the table, on the dash, and my wife’s uncle interpret that look down at us, okay? So he get mad. So he didn’t want to go to the United States. Instead he end up going to the French. BRODY: He went to France. (laughs) TRAN: —with the French, and now he still staying in the French. BRODY: Really? Wow. TRAN: Because when he was living in the refugee camp, he has three sisters in the US. So he actually can request—can ask to get over here, yeah. BRODY: But instead he chose to go to France. TRAN: Yeah, so, you know, that sometime for us over here, we think that that’s a normal way to deal with the people. But in the different countries, they interpret it a different way. BRODY: They interpret it differently, that’s really interesting. Thank you for sharing that story. Tran explains the cultural differences he noticed after moving to the United States specifically in language, and he recalls the misunderstandings that the cultural differences caused. cartoons ; cultural differences ; English ; language differences ; misunderstandings ; refugees ; respect 1960 Sponsored Housing from St. Pius X So when the school year started for the University of Plano, you had to move off of campus. How did you— |00:32:48| TRAN: Yeah. We—I found a job in August the third, and one week later—no, no, I think—one week before that, one week before that we got sponsored by the St. Pius X. BRODY: Oh, St. Pius X, yes. TRAN: And we move out of the St. Pius X—we move out of the campus to this. And the St. Pius X—the pastor at the time was Monsignor Weinzapfel, he rent a three-bedroom house, and so he—nearby the church. BRODY: Near the church? TRAN: Near the church, and then— BRODY: East Dallas? TRAN: Yeah, in Dallas. And we moved to there. We have ten people living in a threebedroom house with only one bathroom. One bathroom. BRODY: Wow, so that’s pretty crowded. TRAN: Yeah, very crowded, especially very difficult in the morning. BRODY: Absolutely. TRAN: Kids need to go to school, and sometimes we need to go to work, and so fairly difficult. But we happy. I think Monsignor Weinzapfel and the president of the Men’s Club at the time, Mr. Harmon, they very helpful. They visit us very frequent and to make sure that we have all what we need. We really appreciate the St. Pius X, that they open their church for us to use. We—our Vietnamese Catholic group was—at that time, Father Peter Phan, he’s the chaplain, and he used—every Sunday we celebrate Mass, we say the Mass at the St. Pius X. BRODY: Right, they gave you the space. |00:35:24| TRAN: They use—we use the St. Pius X facility until 1996 when we bought our own church. So they are very generous to us. BRODY: Very generous. Was Father Peter a refugee as well? TRAN: Yes, Father Peter Phan is—I believe that Dallas Morning News or Dallas Times Herald, there is an article about him, long time ago and I forgot. Father Peter Phan, when we were living in the campus at the University of Plano, the Plano city has summer work, the program for us. And all the Vietnamese refugees who want to go to work for the city of Plano, it’s divided into two group—because Father Peter Phan, he speak English very well, he’s a professor now at Georgetown—and he’s a head of one group. And my brother is the head of another group. Every morning the bus stopped by and picked them up, picked people up and put out on the street, especially on the highway to collect the trash around the city. BRODY: Okay, so cleaning up the highway. TRAN: Yeah, clean up on the highway, you know, the trash. And Father Peter Phan, he’s our chaplain from 1975 to 1978, so he have to go to Rome to present his PhD. BRODY: In Rome? TRAN: Yeah, in Rome. He teaches in Rome, and he went back and he become the professor, then teaching UD [University of Dallas] for a while and go to Washington, and now he’s a professor. And when he got the second degree, second PhD degree in philosophy or something like that, and I think there was an article in Dallas Morning News or Dallas Time Herald, I forgot. And they said a guy who collect the trash now have two PhD degrees. BRODY: Wow, that’s amazing, that’s amazing. |00:38:02| Tran describes the housing and help provided by their new sponsor St. Pius X and he recalls his experiences with Father Peter Phan. Catholic Church ; church ; Father Peter Phan ; housing ; Monsignor Weinzapfel ; St. Pius X 2284 Building the Vietnamese Community in Texas TRAN: Yeah. But anyway, St. Pius X, go back, and St. Pius X is our spiritual foundation. So we really up to shape. Without them helping us, without Monsignor Weinzapfel as a pastor of St. Pius X support us, without Dallas Diocese support us, I don’t know how we are looking—how we look as a community, a Vietnamese community, today. With the support from them, I think, in 1993 we split into three different Vietnamese Catholic church. One is St. Peter in Dallas, and Mother of Perpetual Help in Garland, and St. Joseph in Carrollton. Especially Mother of Perpetual Help in Garland, right now we have 1,800 families. BRODY: Wow, that’s huge. TRAN: So we’re talking about somewhere around eight thousand people. BRODY: So the community has really grown. TRAN: Yeah. I think, but we start at the St. Pius X. Tran explains the growth of the Vietnamese community starting from St. Pius X. Dallas Diocese ; Monsignor Weinzapfel ; Mother of Perpetual Vietnamese Catholic Church ; refugees ; St. Joseph's Vietnamese Catholic Church ; St. Peter Vietnamese Catholic Church ; St. Pius X 2370 Support from Monsignor Weinzapfel BRODY: Yeah. Let me go back to that time. So at St. Pius X, Monsignor Weinzapfel, what kind of man was he and why was he so supportive, do you think, of the Vietnamese refugees? What was he like? |00:39:44| TRAN: I think—he’s originated from German, so his parents living in the rural area somewhere south of Dallas. So I believe that he really particularly have sympathy with the refugees, not only the Vietnamese but many people also. I think he sponsored many foreigners, including one of the Indians priests—at the time I was living over there he still a priest but later on he become a bishop. Monsignor Weinzapfel, he’s very good, he’s—and for the Vietnamese, he’s—I mean, he’s ready to help us. I remember once—he tried to do everything to make our life as easy—as smooth—as easy as possible—and I remember one time, my mother, of course, she couldn’t speak English, she came over here, she has no formal education. Monsignor Weinzapfel said, “Well, you can do confession with me. You just speak Vietnamese, and I speak English for the— BRODY: Confession? TRAN: Yeah, “for the confession. God will understand, don’t worry about that.” BRODY: That’s wonderful. TRAN: So he’s very easygoing. And I, at first, I tell you—I might misunderstand him, the way he treat us. Well, when he just sponsored us and we just arrived at the St. Pius X, living in that three-bedroom house. And he told a guy to stop by and show me how to drive the motorcycle, and he want to buy the motorcycle so that I can drive back and forth to work. And you know that from the St. Pius X, go to Stemmons, maybe about thirty minute, forty minute of driving on the highway. How can I drive the motorcycle? BRODY: (laughs) So that was his idea? TRAN: Yeah. I think that’s not good idea, so why you treat us that way? But, I mean, just only a little bit confusing the first time. So later on, when I understand him, he’s the guy who can go out and do the sport or fly airplane and everything. So to him— BRODY: That’s not a big deal. TRAN: —that’s not a big deal to him. And I keep good relationship with him until he die in 2016. I used to visit him, and I believe I don’t surprise when in 2016 when he pass away, the Dallas Morning News announced that the iconic priest just passed away. BRODY: Right, so he was recognized— TRAN: So everybody respect him. |00:43:39| BRODY: —in the community. So you’ve talked about your Catholic faith and that that was really important. TRAN: Yeah. It’s very important to us. Tran talks about his relationship with Monsignor Weinzapfel and the support he provided to the community. Catholic Church ; Catholicism ; faith ; kindness ; Monsignor Weinzapfel ; motorcycle ; refugees ; religion ; St. Pius X 2630 Mass at St. Pius X BRODY: Can you tell—take me back to those four o’clock masses that you had at the— that you were celebrating at St. Pius X. What was the environment, what did it feel like, what do you remember that experience every week being like? TRAN: Yeah, the—we really valued the Mass at four o’clock at St. Pius, especially the first several years. The Vietnamese Catholics from everywhere around the Dallas— sometimes Carollton, sometimes somewhere—they always tried to go to the four o’clock Mass. And some of the time when we go to four o’clock Mass—because I was living very close to the church so they stop by and visit or talk maybe at least about an hour before they go to the church. We, at the time, the St. Pius X and the Mass is a very good opportunity for us to meet each another. BRODY: To connect? TRAN: After a week of working—yeah, to keep connecting. So secondly, the four o’clock Mass always celebrate in Vietnamese, and that will help us a lot. Most of our people, we just don’t understand very well English, English very well. So we could go to the English Mass sometime—we don’t get lost throughout the Mass, but at the sermons we just don’t understand. BRODY: Was there a Vietnamese choir? TRAN: Yeah, there’s a Vietnamese choir. The funny thing is for Vietnamese, wherever they—the Vietnamese Catholic, whatever church, they always have a big choir or multiple choirs. You can imagine the Mother of Perpetual Help in Garland, they have four or five choirs. BRODY: Wow. TRAN: Each Mass, they have a different choir. And in St. Pius X at the time, the choir is maybe twenty, thirty people easily. BRODY: Were you in the choir? TRAN: I’m not in the choir. (Brody laughs) I don’t sing very well. (Brody laughs) But the Monsignor Weinzapfel, he’s very surprised, he said, “Wow, the Vietnamese love to sing.” BRODY: Love to sing. TRAN: Yeah. And I think that at one time the Vietnamese choir even go to cathedral or some place to sing also. BRODY: Do they sing in Vietnamese? TRAN: In Vietnamese, yeah. And that is—and secondly, at the same parish we have the Monsignor Weinzapfel allow us to use some classroom so that we can teach the Vietnamese. BRODY: Language class? TRAN: Wherever we go, we always try to teach the kid Vietnamese. And I believe—I think that at the time I was a teacher, I tried to teach kid the Vietnamese also. |00:47:13| Tran descries his experiences at the four o'clock Mass and its importance to the Vietnamese community in Dallas. Catholic Church ; Catholic mass ; choir ; community ; language ; language learning ; Mass ; Monsignor Weinzapfel ; St, Pius X ; Vietnamese choir ; Vietnamese language 2834 Maintaining the Vietnamese Culture BRODY: Well, on that subject of language, why was it important to the Vietnamese community to keep teaching the children Vietnamese? TRAN: Yeah, first of all, so that we can—we hope when the kids grow up they be able to read Vietnamese. If they can read the Vietnamese they understand us more, they understand the Vietnamese culture, custom, more, okay? Then also to us, we still have Vietnam, okay? So we think that with teaching our Vietnamese, our kids Vietnamese, one day they can communicate—for the reason of communication. And it turned out that I— here is my philosophy about the Vietnamese language: I think when the kid go back to— even they born over here, we’d rather teach them the Vietnamese because when they go to the school they speak English anyway. So for them, the English is still the primary language. And it turn out that, like, my daughter, we always speak—my children also, especially right now my daughter is a good example—they speak Vietnamese, they can read the Vietnamese. So my daughter right now, she’s a medical doctor, she’s a doctor. So she practice in Wylie. After two year, year or two, right now more and more of her clients are Vietnamese. BRODY: Oh, I see, serving the community. TRAN: Yeah, in Vietnamese, she helps answer. So even the practice, mainly owned by the American couple, but they have more clients. BRODY: That are Vietnamese. That’s interesting. TRAN: They start to go to see my daughter. Even right now she has the limit, the upper limit is two thousand patient. That’s the max, because each day one doctor should take about twenty, twenty-five patient. But lately, some Vietnamese ask her so she have to go back and ask the managers if she can receive more patient or not. And now my daughters and my children, they enjoy the Vietnamese music. The culture is the—that they have an opportunity to learn the culture. BRODY: Yeah, that’s interesting. So— TRAN: And to me, then you’ll—not only Vietnamese. If I know something in some other language, I would like to teach my kids because the more languages you know, the better off you are. |00:50:39| BRODY: Sure. Absolutely. It helps, it’s an asset, it sounds like, for your daughter. Tran explains his reasoning for teaching his children Vietnamese and its benefits in the community as well as carrying on the Vietnamese culture. children ; culture ; customs ; English ; language ; Vietnamese language 3047 Self Identity Well, thinking also about that, knowing the language, knowing English, knowing Vietnamese, how do you think of yourself in terms of—are you American, are you Vietnamese American, are you Vietnamese? How do you think of your own identity? TRAN: Oh. My—you know that—here’s the thing—I still believe that even—I still believe that I am a Vietnamese, yeah. Let’s put it this way: I read English more than I read in Vietnamese. Everything I read, most of the stuff I read is English. But when I pray, I pray in Vietnamese. BRODY: I see. TRAN: Because that is from the deepest level, it’s my— BRODY: Your soul. TRAN: It’s from my soul, my heart. So if you born as an American, you can speak French, you can speak German, you can speak anything, but whenever you hear—to go deep into your soul, you’re still thinking in English. Yeah, that’s in—yeah. |00:52:16| Tran describes how he sees himself and his own identity. American identity ; English ; faith ; identity ; language ; Vietnamese ; Vietnamese Americans 3137 Contributing to the Community BRODY: That’s an interesting perspective. So you’re still very religious and involved in the church still? TRAN: Now I’m retired, I’m not involved anymore, but I go to the church regularly and practice the faith. |00:52:37| BRODY: During those times, the Vietnamese communities that you said came together before and during that four o’clock Mass, were there other cultural things that you did or celebrations that were particular to the Vietnamese community in the St. Pius church? TRAN: At hindsight, the Mass and the Vietnamese class, that class, and that’s what my focus on the teaching Vietnamese. So my brother, he’s very active in the communities also. But I work in a different area. Like, I have contributed to the Vietnamese magazines, but not for the Catholic, for everybody. Yeah, something like that. BRODY: What kind of articles were you contributing? TRAN: Normally we go back with the—I specialize in Vietnamese poetry. BRODY: Poetry? TRAN: Yeah, most of my focus on—at the time, we didn’t have much books in Vietnamese. We left the country with empty hands. We didn’t have anything. Normally we relied on our memories. BRODY: To remember the stories. TRAN: Yeah, remember a story here and there and try to put together some magazine, and contribute and share with the people. BRODY: Yeah, that’s true, you did— TRAN: And my brother, he’s involved very much, in very deep in the Catholic communities. You might want to interview him, ask him, yeah. |00:54:52| BRODY: Yeah, I think I would love to. Tran discusses his involvement with the church and his contribution of poetry to the community. culture ; memory ; poetry ; Vietnamese community ; Vietnamese language 3293 Experiences as a Vietnamese Student When you were in El Centro Community College and UT–Dallas studying, what was it like to be a student and a newly arrived Vietnamese refugee at that time? TRAN: Yeah, that’s what I—first of all, when I go to the school, it’s fairly difficult for me to understand what teacher—because, yeah, he’s supposed to try to teach me. But secondly, I feel that over here instructors or the teacher, they want us to be success. And when I went to El Centro or UTD, I’m very good at the science and technology course. But in the liberal courses I’m not very good, because I couldn’t read English very well at the time. But over here the—I have to believe that the—we have very good education systems. Yeah, good education system. And the oriental people, when they came over here, we, as I said, we really emphasize about the education. So many of us, they make some progress, success. |00:56:30| BRODY: Did you interact very much with American students of different—other races? TRAN: Not very much, but we don’t isolate ourselves. We try to— BRODY: Try to interact. TRAN: Yeah, interact with them. BRODY: What were the main barriers to— TRAN: It’s still—the main barrier is still the language and the culture. So the reason we don’t interact very much is because, as I said, the culture is—even I’m living here more than forty years, okay? There’s some time I want to say something and I have to be aware about that because something we don’t think that is serious, but to the other people—like, for instance, to American, we say something, they think that it’s not good. BRODY: So it’s back to the misunderstanding. TRAN: Yeah, it’s not good. So creating more confusion. So I have—I mean, working for forty-one years, but in the last few years, I have the meeting all the time with people, with employee, but when I say something I make sure to say something that is very clear. So (laughs)— BRODY: Yeah, you don’t want any misunderstandings. TRAN: Yeah. |00:58:07| Tran explains his experience as a newly arrived immigrant student including his struggles and interactions with other students. community college ; culture ; education ; El Centro Community College ; English language ; friendships ; langauge ; misunderstandings ; professors ; school ; teachers 3484 Interaction with different races ...don’t know why, but when we came over here, people really were friendly to us. Like the folks—when we started to work for Sun Oil, about a month or so, this guy, his name is Bill Boucher, he specialized in the history. His major is history. But he was a marine, and he came to my country. And he said when he come back over here, he think about the Vietnam War and he cried so often and drink—get drunk all the time. So when he met us he talk to us and treat us very friendly, and he give us the—when me and my brother, after a while working together and then they split into the different shifts, so we need one more car. So he in the process of divorce his wife, but he still thinking very well— thinking about us very much. So he give us his car, his Volkswagen. BRODY: Wow. That’s generous. TRAN: So I don’t—if the people treat me that way, how can they say—yeah. And then I know another guy, he’s a black. He’s big—I forgot his name—he’s really big. And I’m a small guy, so at the time we monitor the tape drive, every night we pull all the tape that we don’t use anymore, then we clean it up, we call it the scratch tape. And my arm is just about four or five tapes, that’s big enough—that’s enough. But for him, ten or fifteen. (Brody laughs) He always help me to— BRODY: To carry. TRAN: Yeah, to carry all the tape. He’s really—I met many people that they treat us very well. And I met a guy when we’re still living in campus at the University of Plano, there was a salesman. He sells the compressor. So one day stopped by the campus and took me and my brother to his home for meals. BRODY: Oh, that’s nice. |01:00:58| TRAN: And then he give us $100. And he told us one thing: “I don’t require you to do anything for me, but if some day you have opportunity, you need to help other people.” And I have an experience when I was working at the Sun Oil as a data controller—that’s the next level from the computer operator. The next level is programmer analyst. There was a manager, she was a pilot, World War II pilot. And somehow, she really liked me and she fought with the other managers. “Oh, I like Bac,” she didn’t care when she get mad, she spoke loudly. She want me to—she want to move me up to the—to give me— BRODY: The promotion. TRAN: —to give me that position, yeah. And finally she got the position for me. BRODY: That’s great. TRAN: So, I mean, not only that, but many other examples. I only _______ about the good people. So that’s why I think including Monsignor Weinzapfel. So I think I met so many, many Good Samaritans. So I don’t know, I don’t have much experience about the discrimination. BRODY: Right. Well that’s good. TRAN: Yeah. Including not only the white, but the black, and everybody treat me real nice. And so I—the first Christmas, the people in the data centers of the Sun Oil company, they put together, give and donate a lot of food, a lot of stuff, and they give to my brother and me. But we stack up one Volkswagen, full of one Volkswagen. BRODY: Wow, you got full of donations. TRAN: Yeah. So I—all I have—of course I have some bad experience, but not very much, but that not because American or non-American, that’s a human being. Wherever you go on the world, you still run into the good people and the bad people, all the time. So I don’t regard as the discrimination. |01:03:50| BRODY: I understand, that’s great. Tran describes experiences of hospitality he encountered upon his immigration to the United States. car ; Christmas ; discrimination ; kindness ; Monsignor Weinzapfel ; Vietnam veterans ; Vietnam War ; Volswagen 3832 Housing Process After St. Pius X So in terms of after—initially you guys were all living in the house near St. Pius X. How did the process go, did you stay there for a long time? TRAN: We stayed there about a couple years. But, I mean, that first month Monsignor Weinzapfel, he got money from USCC, okay? So he paid the rent for us. BRODY: From Catholic Charities [USA]? TRAN: Yeah, Charities. Paid the rent for us. I think at that time fairly cheap rent, may not be very expensive, but he paid the rent for us until the fund was out. We have ten people, so they assigned for us about $3,000. So he paid until they ran out, so he assumed the financial responsibility. So we’re there, stay about two years, then we bought another house, bigger house, but nearby in the same zip code. BRODY: Did the whole family stay together? TRAN: Yeah, the whole family stay together. That’s our custom, we stay together until my sister got married, so she move out. Until I marry, move out, and then until—yeah. Everybody, we stay that way. Because we stay together so we save a lot of money, and that’s why we can afford the house. I don’t know the next wave of immigration, but the very first wave of immigration, we always want to live independently. And that’s why it surprise a lot to the local peoples in our areas. We don’t demand and we have a very minimal needs for our life. One funny thing is—or funny story is when they took us from Guam island, they flew to the US and they had to stop the airplane, had to stop at Hawaii airport for a few hours. My mother, at the time, she was about fifty-three years old. But when she stay at night, she stay in that airport, she lay down on the carpet on the floor. She said, “I can stay over here. I feel comfortable enough.” (Brody laughs) We don’t have a lot of demand when we came over here. We’re living together until we got marriage than we move out. Like I said, me, I got marriage in 1982, move out. |01:06:44| Tran discusses living conditions of their house after moving out of church provided housing. customs ; extended family ; family ; housing ; marriage ; Monsignor Weinzapfel ; St. Pius X 4004 Building a Family in the United States BRODY: How did you meet your wife? TRAN: I meet my wife at—my wife is actually—my friend actually working together with my wife in the Wichita, Kansas. They work in an airplane manufacturer. He got wedding, in his wedding, I attend his wedding party and I met my wife over there and so from there we make friend and we know each other and then— BRODY: Get married. That’s a nice story. |01:07:26| TRAN: We got marriage, and—as I go back, as I said, I really—we really emphasize on the education. Not only for ourselves, but for our children also, and that’s why we can sacrifice heavily, sacrifice everything for the education of the kids. And like—I send all my kids—I have two sons and two daughters—send them to Baylor. BRODY: They all went to Baylor? TRAN: The first one, my son, at the time in 2001, 2002, he started to go to the Baylor. It’s about $18,000 a year for room and board. And my youngest daughters started to go the Baylor in 2011. It’s about $50,000 a year. BRODY: Wow, that’s a dramatic— TRAN: Yeah. We sacrifice everything for the kids. So sometime some people in my company at the time—I was working with Hunt Oil. He said, “Bac Tran, he just helped the Baylor to build a building.” BRODY: (laughs) They should name a building after you. TRAN: (laughs) Yeah. They don’t realize that we really sacrifice for the education, and that’s why you can see many kids are very successful right now. That tradition is rooted in the Vietnamese culture. It’s a long time, and still going on right now, not only abroad but in Vietnam also. I normally go onto YouTube and watch some shows, you know, that some Vietnamese parents, they are farmers, they are fishermen, they have nothing, but they sacrifice everything for their daughter or for their son so that they can move up to become the actress, to become the singer or everything. They can spend almost most of their fortunes. BRODY: Right, so that the family and education— TRAN: Yeah, family, education. That’s the culture. It’s different from here also. Over here, they sacrifice for the kids, but not to that level. They have to save for themselves also, okay. It’s a different cultures. I’m not saying that who is better, but it’s just a different cultures. |01:10:33| Tran discusses how he started and raised a family in the United States, and the sacrifices he had to make. Baylor University ; children ; education ; Kansas ; Marriage ; values ; Vietnamese culture 4234 Future of the Vietnamese Culture in the United States BRODY: So tell me about the Vietnamese community here. Do you see that same culture transitioning and staying solid here in Texas, here in the United States? Those same traditions and values, are they being passed down and carried on in the younger generations? TRAN: The younger generation, of course, they’re more Americanized, and that’s why you have to believe in the education. Like, my children, we only speak in Vietnamese, and sometimes even right now I send them a Snapchat just, like, this morning with the text written in Vietnamese. They understand, but they feel more comfortable speaking English with each another. Even Yen is my niece, she feels more comfortable with the English, okay? Not only language but I think the culture or the way of thinking, lifestyle, learning, probably they feel more comfortable. And the change—we have to accept the changes. We cannot stop the changes, that’s the realities. And that’s why the Chinese, they very wise, they have a book written six thousand years ago, we call the Book of Changes. If you don’t change, we have to live and if we want to live, we want to survive, we have to change. But we have to keep our roots, and that’s why I want my children know how to speak Vietnamese, know how to enjoy the Vietnamese food, other Vietnamese cultures, yeah. But we have to change. BRODY: Yeah. How, in your family, have you cooked together, taught your children how to cook Vietnamese food? What role have those kind of traditions played in your family? TRAN: Yeah, my wife is very good about that. But my children, they know how to make some Vietnamese dishes but not as my wife expect. She’s a very good chef. |01:13:32| Tran explains what he believes to be the future of the Vietnamese culture in Dallas, and its inevitable changes. American identity ; Book of Changes ; cooking ; culture ; Englsh language ; food ; Vietnamese community ; Vietnamese language 4411 State of the Vietnamese community in Dallas today BRODY: Yes, that’s a good compliment. Are you very involved in the larger Vietnamese community in Dallas? TRAN: Not at this time— BRODY: Not right now? TRAN: Yeah, not right now. BRODY: What is your impression of that community? Is it a unified community, or are there a lot of differences, or is it just very big? TRAN: It’s—we still connect to each anothers, but it’s not solid, not cohesive like in the past. In the past we always find the opportunity to meet each another, but right now, we—yeah. BRODY: Why do you think that is? TRAN: That’s what I’m saying, it’s just change. Everything is changing, even in Vietnam. You know that we have a custom in the New Year, okay, we spend fifteen days to celebrate New Year, big festival. We go out and meet and visit each another. But now, in these—over here, we don’t do that anymore, but in Vietnam, they start to abandon that custom also. BRODY: Really? TRAN: Yeah. And things—I mean, in Vietnam we have the—back to the old days, very strictly, we don’t live together before we got marriage. We carry out that custom to over here, but now people over here, the young people, they don’t care about that. But we don’t criticize them because in Vietnam they’re doing the same thing. BRODY: Right, the same pattern. TRAN: Yeah, the same pattern. It’s everywhere in the world. BRODY: Just modern life. TRAN: Modern life. People used to blame on the—online or the communication here that is spreading. Sometime I think about that also, but I think back to the old days. Why— back to the old day, the science and technology was not very advanced, we don’t have that mass communication. Why, back to the old day, in the fifth century BC we start to have some kind of religious leaders, started to go out, you see the movement, like Buddha. And then you go back to the China, you will see the Confucius. It’s the same. They don’t communicate together, but that like, go—when the human being go through that point of the history, they start to see the similar things. The philosophy started to change. So I know it’s—everything is change. But if we can keep our roots, maybe better. |01:17:05| Tran contrasts the modern Vietnamese community to the past community. celebrations ; culture ; Dallas ; New Years ; Vietnamese community 4624 Involvement in Politics BRODY: Yeah, the roots. Are you involved in politics in either—or keep up with politics in either the United States or Vietnam? Are you interested in— TRAN: I’m interested in current events, but I mean—political events. I’ve been reading, but I don’t involve into it, because I—like, tomorrow, we go out and vote. I identify by myself as an independent voter. I don’t want to belong to either, but I just vote on the issues it depend on. BRODY: In what way do you think your life experiences—both before you came here, your refugee experience and then your life here as an American—inform your view on different—you know, in politics? TRAN: We left Vietnam, we are the first group of people who—first, 130,000 people who left Vietnam. Most of us left Vietnam for the political reason. So we don’t come over here for financial or economic reasons, because we didn’t accept the communists. As I said, I was originally from north of Vietnam. So all my father took us from north of Vietnam to south of Vietnam in 1954 when I was five years old. And I am a Catholic with a root of anti-communist, and I still believe that communist is not good as of today, as of this moment ; I still don’t believe the communist is good. So we came over here with a political reason. And we think in the United States we have democracy—even right now, of course, in any society you still have a lot of issue, you still have a lot of things to be improved. But this country have a very good systems, if people is aware about that and try to improve upon that. But in these days I can sometime (unintelligible)—everything Democrats say, then the Republicans say, “Not good, no good.” And everything Republicans say, Democrats say, “No good.” And that’s why you go back to the Gospel, many times Jesus Christ perform the miracles to cure the deaf. I think if we don’t listen to each other I don’t know how can we improve our societies. BRODY: That’s a really good point. TRAN: But we still have a very good system. I still believe in that. And when you believe through the systems you can do better things for our societies. In the last ten years, I work as a database administrator for Hunt Oil. I never request to have merit. I don’t demand much, but my manager—he retired three years before me—he know that. I still got a very good merit ; I don’t demand it. So I truly believe that when we trust the system and we do the work, we do the best we can, we can improve the system. The political system over here is still good. I still trust that and that’s why I came over here. If we are living under the communist, it’s terrible. And many well-educated Vietnamese people that came over here, they started to criticize the south government back before 1975. They write book, they write article, but they didn’t realize that they build up their education, they got their degree, they move up in the society in south of Vietnam. They didn’t move up and they don’t get the degree from the north of Vietnam. So, I mean, it’s the same thing over here. If we believe to our system, we can improve it. |01:22:40| Tran gives his opinion on the political system in the United States and how it contrasts politics in Vietnam. American politics ; Catholicism ; Communism ; Culture ; democracy ; politics ; Poltiics ; refugees ; religion ; Roots ; Vietnamese politics 4960 Being American BRODY: Thank you. My last question for you is one that, I’m curious—to you, what does it mean to be an American? Whether it’s yourself or your kids or grandkids, when someone says “I’m American,” in a few words, what does that mean to you? TRAN: I’m proud to be an American. Even deep into my heart, I still thinking I’m a Vietnamese, but I’m proud to be an American. American stands for freedom, independence, and that’s what I’m looking for. BRODY: That’s great. Well, thank you very much. Is there anything that I didn’t ask you that you’d like to comment on? TRAN: I think you asked me all—yeah, I think that’s all I can contribute. (laughs) BRODY: Oh, thank you, it’s been wonderful to talk to you, and thank you very much for sharing your story. It’s been a pleasure, thank you for having this conversation. TRAN: Thank you. Tran explains what being American means to him. American ; American identity ; freedom Baylor University Institute for Oral History Bac Tran Oral History Memoir Interview Number 1 Interviewed by Betsy T. Brody November 5, 2018 Richardson, Texas Project -- Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans: The Making of the Vietnamese Community in North Texas BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is November 5, 2018. I&#039 ; m interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Bac Tran. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History, and is part of the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. All right, good morning, Mr. Tran. TRAN: Good morning. BRODY: I&#039 ; m so excited to talk to you today. Let&#039 ; s start out, just--if you could tell me a little bit about your life in Vietnam. |00:00:27| TRAN: Yes. In Vietnam I was a high school teacher. I had been teaching the chemistry and biology. And then in April 1975 when the south of Vietnam was about to collapse and everybody was panicked, I was originated from the north. I was born as a Catholic and with anti-communists, so I had more reason to fear to live under the control of the communists. But it happened that my brother was working for US embassy at the time, and they allow every US embassy employee family to get out of the country, and I was a member of his family. That&#039 ; s why I came over here. BRODY: So because of your brother&#039 ; s connections and his work for the US embassy, his whole family--so how many members of the family were evacuated through that? TRAN: Yes, his family has four children, he and his wife. That&#039 ; s six, and my mother, my two sisters, and me. The sisters and me, we&#039 ; re all single, that&#039 ; s why we were regarded as a member of his family. BRODY: Okay, so he was responsible for all of you as well as your mother and his own family. So were you living in Saigon at that time? TRAN: I was in the Saigon at the time. Actually, I was a high school teacher in the central of Vietnam, and by the time the communists almost took over that area, so I escaped and ran to the south, and I get on the Vietnam navy ship, and they took us to the south of Vietnam and put us in a refugee camp in Phú Quốc. It&#039 ; s in the south of Vietnam. BRODY: Okay, so you came from central Vietnam, fleeing to south Vietnam and were in a refugee camp. TRAN: Yes, and then my brother went to Phú Quốc, went to that island, looked for me, and took me back to the capital of Vietnam. BRODY: Wow, what was that day like? Did you know he was coming for you? TRAN: No. That is in around April, April fifteenth. So we were living in Saigon for a couple of weeks, and then my brother is in charge for the evacuation of his employees out of the country. And so he stayed behind, but I and my--and his family and my sisters and my mother, we all got out of the country on April 25. BRODY: April 25, 1975. |00:04:08| TRAN: In 1975. And we arrived to the Philippines and stay in the US navy base for several days. And my brother left Saigon on April twenty-seventh, and he was pretty lucky, because on April twenty-eighth the Tan Son Nhut, the only airport in the capital, started to be under intense artillery bombardment. And we reunited with my brother at Guam island a few days after that. And then we were flown to US and stayed in Camp Pendleton, a marine base, for more than a month. Then through the USCC, a voluntary agency, we were sponsored by the University of Plano, now a defunct university, and we came to Dallas in July 1975. BRODY: Okay, so the first place that you went was Guam, or the Philippines, then-- TRAN: Philippines, then Guam. BRODY: Then Camp Pendleton. TRAN: Then Camp Pendleton, yeah. BRODY: And were you all together the whole time? TRAN: Yeah, we all together. We reunited with my brother in Guam. |00:05:39| BRODY: So tell me--I mean, how did you feel when you were in Guam and before he got there? What was the feeling in the family? TRAN: We was--when we came to the Philippines, staying in the navy base, I was so fearful because I don&#039 ; t know if my brother will be able to reunite with us or not, because he was still in Saigon. BRODY: Right. It must have been scary. TRAN: Yeah, it is very scary. But we have no choice. After staying there for a few days, then they start to fly us to the Guam. But it&#039 ; s just like a miracle. We were so tired and we slept in the camp in the tent, and then in the morning, I suddenly saw my brother walking in. He&#039 ; s looking for us also, he walk around and walk around, and then he saw us and he walk in the camp. BRODY: Were you so surprised? TRAN: Yeah, we so surprised and so happy. |00:06:56| BRODY: So happy. And how was it with having four small children with your group? Was that difficult? TRAN: It was difficult because at that time when we were still in the Subic Bay, the US navy base, the youngest one, my youngest nephew, he was sick. And at the time, if any kids got sick severely, they have to take the kid out from us and they take him, put him into the hospital. BRODY: So you were separated from-- TRAN: Yeah, and we were so scared, but fortunately my nephew got well after that-- BRODY: And they were able to reunite you. TRAN: --and recovered after that, so that--yeah, he was not separated from us. BRODY: Good, that&#039 ; s good. So Camp Pendleton, you were there for-- TRAN: Yeah, Camp Pendleton. We was there from May until June, more than a month, about a month and twenty days or something like that, because we were big family. And you know that in the US, the Americans only have smaller family, they cannot afford to sponsor that big family. BRODY: So during your time in Camp Pendleton you were working to try to find a sponsor for the whole family? TRAN: The Department of Immigration together with the voluntary agency they called the VolAgs [Voluntary Agency], it&#039 ; s nine voluntary agencies, including in that is USCC [United States Catholic Conference], for instance, and the HIAS [Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society] is a Jewish agency, et cetera. They work together and look for the sponsors. It&#039 ; s strange, and we&#039 ; re just like--suddenly we got into the United States, completely different environment for us, and-- |00:09:11| BRODY: What was the most different thing for you? TRAN: The most different thing is the culture. We want--like, in Vietnam, we normally want to live together as community. And when we go over here, even one Vietnamese priest, he&#039 ; s very well-educated, he graduated from German, he also--even that, he always ask us to pray so that we can stay together. Yeah, but over here, the--I think the--over here we really have the experience with the immigration, because through the course of history all the immigration from all over the world goes over here, so the department-- immigration departments and the voluntary agencies, they&#039 ; re very experienced about how to deal with the immigrants. So instead of put us together in one place, they distribute us throughout the country, okay. And that--secondly, when we come over here, the very first feeling that we have is: this is peaceful country. In our country is the war all the time. BRODY: It&#039 ; s very different. TRAN: Yeah, the thirty, forty years, yeah. So this country--when we first got into the airport and they ship us to the base, we look through and we see, &quot ; Huh, the society is very peaceful.&quot ; BRODY: Right. No conflict that you could see. TRAN: No conflict yeah, yeah, you can see it. |00:11:19| BRODY: So how did that make you feel? TRAN: Me feel--we don&#039 ; t--the first feeling we have is we really enjoy the environment, and people treat us very kindly. But also we just, as I said, we just kind of feel numb. We were not prepared to come over here. Yeah, we were not prepared. BRODY: You weren&#039 ; t planning, or it wasn&#039 ; t part of your plan. TRAN: Yeah. But we panic and we feel numb and we don&#039 ; t--it&#039 ; s just like we got--we don&#039 ; t have maps, something like that. We&#039 ; re disoriented. BRODY: Yeah, disoriented. TRAN: Yeah, completely. BRODY: And numb. But you wanted to have the one sponsor to take all of you, and that was challenging, but ultimately you found-- TRAN: Yeah, it was challenging and we keep waiting. Every day, we keep waiting, we&#039 ; re waiting, and finally they call us and let us know that we have a sponsor. But the sponsor we have over here is the University of Plano. They only sponsor for the transition time. |00:13:11| BRODY: Okay, so University of Plano transitioned your family for just the transition? TRAN: And then from there they will find out a permanent sponsor. We came to the--we are the first largest group who came to Dallas. BRODY: Right, your family. TRAN: Yeah, who came to Dallas. And we were living in Plano, but we must move out of the campus before the school year. BRODY: Oh I see, so this was happening in July? TRAN: The school year sometime by the August, and they start somewhere around by August, or something like that. So I remember I--in August the third, I got the job as computer operator. |00:14:05| BRODY: Where were you working? TRAN: I start to work as--at the--for the Sun Oil Company. At that time, Sun Oil Company, they move their data centers to Dallas from Philadelphia and Tulsa. So they build a huge big data center over at the Empire Central [Drive] and Stemmons [Freeway], in north Dallas. So they need the helpers, and my brother and I, we got the job. Talking about jobs is funny thing, is when we were living in the campus, there are a couple employees from the human resource, from the Department of Human Resource. They help us to look for the job. But you know, most of the Vietnamese refugees, we couldn&#039 ; t speak English or couldn&#039 ; t speak English very well. So it&#039 ; s fairly difficult to look for a job. BRODY: Yes. TRAN: I remember a man, his name is--I don&#039 ; t remember his full name, but his name was Mr. Vano. He always look for a job for us and we only end up with the $2.10 an hour, that&#039 ; s the minimum wage at the time. BRODY: So, minimum wage job. TRAN: And we jokingly call him as Mr. Two-Ten. (laughs) BRODY: Mr. Two-Ten. (laughs) That&#039 ; s really funny. TRAN: Mr. Two-Ten because--but he&#039 ; s very nice, he&#039 ; s very nice. He even invite us to his home sometimes. BRODY: So was he an American? TRAN: Yeah, he&#039 ; s an American. BRODY: And he was just interested in helping Vietnamese get jobs. TRAN: Yeah, look for us to get a job, yeah. But unfortunately we don&#039 ; t speak--we didn&#039 ; t speak English very well. We didn&#039 ; t have skills that the company needed, so we had him as Two-Ten, and (laughs) we call him as Mr. Two-Ten. |00:16:32| BRODY: (laughs) That&#039 ; s very funny. So that entry into the job market--you know, how did you get the job at Sun Oil Company? TRAN: Yeah, at Sun Oil--because at that time, as I said, the data center, the Sun Oil just build--Sun Oil just build their data center over the Stemmons in north Dallas. And they need some helpers with no previous experience required. BRODY: Oh, good. TRAN: Yeah. So all we do--even the name is as a computer operator--but we come over here, we got in and they have a huge room with all the tape drives. So the tape drive we would normally call them tape number. All we do is see one, two, three, four, five, six. So we go to the tape library and pick the tape and mount. That&#039 ; s all they need us to do. BRODY: Right. So you didn&#039 ; t need a lot of English? TRAN: Yeah, no need a lot of English. BRODY: Great. So did you enjoy that job? TRAN: Well, we so happy. We--I know that the job is at the entry level, but at least it give us an opportunity to go back to school and learn the new skills and learn English. And also, at least it give us something to move on with our lives. BRODY: Absolutely. |00:18:05| TRAN: And if you go back, about 1975 and, if I remember correctly, there&#039 ; s somewhere around when they do the--maybe about 30, 36 percent of the Americans that in favor with the Vietnam immigration. BRODY: Right, so not a lot of-- TRAN: Because at the time, the war is over, so they don&#039 ; t feel very good about the war. So only 30 percent of the Americans favor it. But as we said, as I said, we just wanted to move on with our life. So we got the job, whatever job they give to us, and we tried to work very hard. We go back to the school, learn English, and learn the new skills so that we can live, so that we can become the independent in our life. |00:19:24| BRODY: Right. Tell me about going back to school. Where did you go back to school? TRAN: I--(unintelligible) and you know, as I go back with little bit but here, it&#039 ; s only 36 percent of the Americans favor Vietnamese immigration. But after a while, the local people in Dallas were--through the newspaper and everything they published about our new groups, how we--and people started to like us more and more. They&#039 ; re more friendly with us. And I think that&#039 ; s because we started to work--we just work, we work hard, and we go back to school and study the new skill and so that we move on with our life. In my case, I went back to the El Centro [College] first to learn English. BRODY: Right, to a community college. TRAN: Yeah, in community college. And then I go back to the UTD [University of Texas--Dallas] to study information systems, or the course, information system. Because I graduate in Vietnam with a BS degree, and I spend a couple more years in the oceanography institute to study about marine biology. But I came over here, I couldn&#039 ; t find a job, so I work as a computer operator. So I had to start--at the time, we have to take whatever they offer us, and then we improve our skill by going back to school. So I have to learn data processing, information systems. BRODY: So that&#039 ; s a big change from marine biology, but-- TRAN: Yeah. It took me five years, and I became the programmer analyst in 1980. BRODY: Great. TRAN: Yeah, and 1990 I become the database administrator, and then until I retired in 2016. BRODY: Well, congratulations on your retirement. |00:21:42| TRAN: Yeah. So not only for the job but for us, the education is--we really emphasize on the education, it&#039 ; s important for us. If we want to have a good future, we have to go back to the school. And that how in Vietnam, that how it&#039 ; s going in Vietnam, and over here, the same thing. We came over here, we really pushed the kid through the school system. BRODY: Yes, and yourselves as well, it sounds like. TRAN: Yeah. And the school over here, I think it&#039 ; s--I used to tell my children that okay, in Vietnam, it&#039 ; s fairly difficult to go through successfully in the school. I think about 4 or 5 percent of these student can graduate from the school back--I&#039 ; m talking about before 1975. But even when you graduate from the school, I don&#039 ; t think the student know much as the student over here. Over here they learn more, they have more knowledge than us in Vietnam. But the reason because it&#039 ; s fairly difficult in Vietnam because there is no regulations, no rules, no guidelines in school as we do over here. So we relied much on the teachers favor or tolerance, okay? Like for instance, if I got sick on the exam day, no makeup. I fail. That&#039 ; s it. As over here, it&#039 ; s different. It&#039 ; s more tolerant. So we get over here, when we go back to school, we feel fairly easy. People want--I mean the teacher, professors, instructors just want us to pass the course. They don&#039 ; t intend to give a problem, to create the obstacles for us. BRODY: So you worked hard and were able to succeed. TRAN: Yeah. So if you work hard, you have opportunities. |00:24:17| BRODY: So, you mentioned earlier that when you first came, the University of Plano housed you for that transition period, and you mentioned--did you stay on campus? TRAN: Yeah, we are living in the campus, and a lot of volunteer-- BRODY: Where was that campus? Do you remember where that campus was? TRAN: The campus is in northwest Dallas, I think--it&#039 ; s--(turning pages) it&#039 ; s in northwest Dallas, it&#039 ; s somewhere around on the--I believe that is somewhere around in the farm road, they call Farm Road 544. BRODY: Okay. So, sort of in Plano? TRAN: Yeah, in Plano, and yeah, it&#039 ; s close to--yeah, in Plano. Yeah. BRODY: Okay, so they sponsored you and you lived on their campus. What were the accommodations like during that time? Was it a dorm or-- TRAN: It&#039 ; s in the dorm, and then the people start to donate food, and the volunteers throughout the Richardson, Plano, they got in and tried to teach us English. BRODY: Okay. So were those volunteers from church groups or a city? TRAN: From a church group, and from--yeah, normally from the church group. BRODY: From the church group. So they taught you English and donated things? |00:25:54| TRAN: Yeah, and donate, all that. But talking about, why is it different, that societies are so different? I remember one days in our group--we had about three or four people--one American lady, one volunteer, she drove us around the city--I think it was for--I forgot the reason why, but we got in her car and she drove us somewhere. And at the stop sign the streets are completely quiet and no people around there, at the stop sign, she stops. That&#039 ; s a rule, okay? But one of--(laughs) a man behind me is like, &quot ; Why don&#039 ; t you go, why do you have to stop? Nobody over here.&quot ; (Brody laughs) So she turns around and she says, &quot ; You crazy.&quot ; (laughs) BRODY: That&#039 ; s funny. So she was following the rules-- TRAN: Yeah, she&#039 ; s following the rules and the man, he doesn&#039 ; t think that there&#039 ; s a rule that we need to stop. BRODY: Right. So how would that have been in Vietnam? Is that-- TRAN: In Vietnam, back through the old days, we don&#039 ; t follow very--the rules very strictly, yeah. BRODY: So, are there--that&#039 ; s interesting. So the following of rules was a cultural difference that you noticed right away. TRAN: Yeah, yeah. BRODY: Did that--I mean, that&#039 ; s traffic, but were there other examples that you observed of differences in the culture? TRAN: Not only the culture, but also in language. It&#039 ; s fairly difficult. So when we got over here, in my family only my brother and I could speak English a little bit, not much at the time. So we both go out to do the shopping, do the grocery. And then the--talking about the language, one night when I was still working as a computer operator--at the time I really liked to watch the show about the cartoons. BRODY: Cartoons? (laughs) |00:28:20| TRAN: I really like that, cartoons, even I was twenty-six years old, but I still like the cartoons. (Brody laughs) So I asked one of my--one of the coworkers, &quot ; Do you like to watch toon-car?&quot ; He doesn&#039 ; t know what I mean a &quot ; toon-car.&quot ; But I mean, in English, we call it cartoon, but in Vietnamese language, sometimes kind of reversed ; like a blue horse, we call here--we translate into Vietnam, call it horse blue. BRODY: Okay, so it reverses. TRAN: So that language is fairly difficult for us. BRODY: Of course. TRAN: Yeah, so--and the culture also creates some misunderstanding or confusion also. It&#039 ; s like, in Vietnam, if you want to hire your employee to work on in some special cases, time, like a weekend or something like that, normally they think that, okay, we ask the employees, &quot ; I would like you to work tomorrow, I request you&quot ; or &quot ; I would like you to work tomorrow.&quot ; Over here people are simple. Our coworkers just simply say, &quot ; Hey, you want overtime tomorrow?&quot ; We translate, we interpret that as the way they look down on us. Brody: Oh. TRAN: So it&#039 ; s a different. It&#039 ; s different. BRODY: Yeah, so that&#039 ; s different. |00:30:02| TRAN: Okay, so in Vietnam, normally a manager or supervisor sit on the chair, call the employee in, and normally they talk it&#039 ; s like really, you know, official ways. But over here, the supervisor, their legs, their feet on the table and talk. But we interpret as the way they look down on us. So it&#039 ; s some kind of-- BRODY: Oh, so it&#039 ; s about respect kind of feeling? TRAN: Yeah, about respect. So it&#039 ; s--the culture sometimes creates that very-- BRODY: Yeah, some misunderstandings. TRAN: --kind of misunderstanding each other, yeah. BRODY: Do you remember any times where a misunderstanding caused trouble for you personally? |00:30:59| TRAN: No, I don&#039 ; t think, but my--this is not relating to the refugees, Vietnamese refugees in Dallas, but I remember in my wife&#039 ; s side, we have my wife&#039 ; s uncle. He escaped from Vietnam and the way the--an officer over there, an Asian, I think an Asian, spoke to him and with the--with his foot on the table, on the dash, and my wife&#039 ; s uncle interpret that look down at us, okay? So he get mad. So he didn&#039 ; t want to go to the United States. Instead he end up going to the French. BRODY: He went to France. (laughs) TRAN: --with the French, and now he still staying in the French. BRODY: Really? Wow. TRAN: Because when he was living in the refugee camp, he has three sisters in the US. So he actually can request--can ask to get over here, yeah. BRODY: But instead he chose to go to France. TRAN: Yeah, so, you know, that sometime for us over here, we think that that&#039 ; s a normal way to deal with the people. But in the different countries, they interpret it a different way. BRODY: They interpret it differently, that&#039 ; s really interesting. Thank you for sharing that story. So when the school year started for the University of Plano, you had to move off of campus. How did you-- |00:32:48| TRAN: Yeah. We--I found a job in August the third, and one week later--no, no, I think--one week before that, one week before that we got sponsored by the St. Pius X. BRODY: Oh, St. Pius X, yes. TRAN: And we move out of the St. Pius X--we move out of the campus to this. And the St. Pius X--the pastor at the time was Monsignor Weinzapfel, he rent a three-bedroom house, and so he--nearby the church. BRODY: Near the church? TRAN: Near the church, and then-- BRODY: East Dallas? TRAN: Yeah, in Dallas. And we moved to there. We have ten people living in a three- bedroom house with only one bathroom. One bathroom. BRODY: Wow, so that&#039 ; s pretty crowded. TRAN: Yeah, very crowded, especially very difficult in the morning. BRODY: Absolutely. TRAN: Kids need to go to school, and sometimes we need to go to work, and so fairly difficult. But we happy. I think Monsignor Weinzapfel and the president of the Men&#039 ; s Club at the time, Mr. Harmon, they very helpful. They visit us very frequent and to make sure that we have all what we need. We really appreciate the St. Pius X, that they open their church for us to use. We--our Vietnamese Catholic group was--at that time, Father Peter Phan, he&#039 ; s the chaplain, and he used--every Sunday we celebrate Mass, we say the Mass at the St. Pius X. BRODY: Right, they gave you the space. |00:35:24| TRAN: They use--we use the St. Pius X facility until 1996 when we bought our own church. So they are very generous to us. BRODY: Very generous. Was Father Peter a refugee as well? TRAN: Yes, Father Peter Phan is--I believe that Dallas Morning News or Dallas Times Herald, there is an article about him, long time ago and I forgot. Father Peter Phan, when we were living in the campus at the University of Plano, the Plano city has summer work, the program for us. And all the Vietnamese refugees who want to go to work for the city of Plano, it&#039 ; s divided into two group--because Father Peter Phan, he speak English very well, he&#039 ; s a professor now at Georgetown--and he&#039 ; s a head of one group. And my brother is the head of another group. Every morning the bus stopped by and picked them up, picked people up and put out on the street, especially on the highway to collect the trash around the city. BRODY: Okay, so cleaning up the highway. TRAN: Yeah, clean up on the highway, you know, the trash. And Father Peter Phan, he&#039 ; s our chaplain from 1975 to 1978, so he have to go to Rome to present his PhD. BRODY: In Rome? TRAN: Yeah, in Rome. He teaches in Rome, and he went back and he become the professor, then teaching UD [University of Dallas] for a while and go to Washington, and now he&#039 ; s a professor. And when he got the second degree, second PhD degree in philosophy or something like that, and I think there was an article in Dallas Morning News or Dallas Time Herald, I forgot. And they said a guy who collect the trash now have two PhD degrees. BRODY: Wow, that&#039 ; s amazing, that&#039 ; s amazing. |00:38:02| TRAN: Yeah. But anyway, St. Pius X, go back, and St. Pius X is our spiritual foundation. So we really up to shape. Without them helping us, without Monsignor Weinzapfel as a pastor of St. Pius X support us, without Dallas Diocese support us, I don&#039 ; t know how we are looking--how we look as a community, a Vietnamese community, today. With the support from them, I think, in 1993 we split into three different Vietnamese Catholic church. One is St. Peter in Dallas, and Mother of Perpetual Help in Garland, and St. Joseph in Carrollton. Especially Mother of Perpetual Help in Garland, right now we have 1,800 families. BRODY: Wow, that&#039 ; s huge. TRAN: So we&#039 ; re talking about somewhere around eight thousand people. BRODY: So the community has really grown. TRAN: Yeah. I think, but we start at the St. Pius X. BRODY: Yeah. Let me go back to that time. So at St. Pius X, Monsignor Weinzapfel, what kind of man was he and why was he so supportive, do you think, of the Vietnamese refugees? What was he like? |00:39:44| TRAN: I think--he&#039 ; s originated from German, so his parents living in the rural area somewhere south of Dallas. So I believe that he really particularly have sympathy with the refugees, not only the Vietnamese but many people also. I think he sponsored many foreigners, including one of the Indians priests--at the time I was living over there he still a priest but later on he become a bishop. Monsignor Weinzapfel, he&#039 ; s very good, he&#039 ; s--and for the Vietnamese, he&#039 ; s--I mean, he&#039 ; s ready to help us. I remember once--he tried to do everything to make our life as easy--as smooth--as easy as possible--and I remember one time, my mother, of course, she couldn&#039 ; t speak English, she came over here, she has no formal education. Monsignor Weinzapfel said, &quot ; Well, you can do confession with me. You just speak Vietnamese, and I speak English for the-- BRODY: Confession? TRAN: Yeah, &quot ; for the confession. God will understand, don&#039 ; t worry about that.&quot ; BRODY: That&#039 ; s wonderful. TRAN: So he&#039 ; s very easygoing. And I, at first, I tell you--I might misunderstand him, the way he treat us. Well, when he just sponsored us and we just arrived at the St. Pius X, living in that three-bedroom house. And he told a guy to stop by and show me how to drive the motorcycle, and he want to buy the motorcycle so that I can drive back and forth to work. And you know that from the St. Pius X, go to Stemmons, maybe about thirty minute, forty minute of driving on the highway. How can I drive the motorcycle? BRODY: (laughs) So that was his idea? TRAN: Yeah. I think that&#039 ; s not good idea, so why you treat us that way? But, I mean, just only a little bit confusing the first time. So later on, when I understand him, he&#039 ; s the guy who can go out and do the sport or fly airplane and everything. So to him-- BRODY: That&#039 ; s not a big deal. TRAN: --that&#039 ; s not a big deal to him. And I keep good relationship with him until he die in 2016. I used to visit him, and I believe I don&#039 ; t surprise when in 2016 when he pass away, the Dallas Morning News announced that the iconic priest just passed away. BRODY: Right, so he was recognized-- TRAN: So everybody respect him. |00:43:39| BRODY: --in the community. So you&#039 ; ve talked about your Catholic faith and that that was really important. TRAN: Yeah. It&#039 ; s very important to us. BRODY: Can you tell--take me back to those four o&#039 ; clock masses that you had at the-- that you were celebrating at St. Pius X. What was the environment, what did it feel like, what do you remember that experience every week being like? TRAN: Yeah, the--we really valued the Mass at four o&#039 ; clock at St. Pius, especially the first several years. The Vietnamese Catholics from everywhere around the Dallas-- sometimes Carollton, sometimes somewhere--they always tried to go to the four o&#039 ; clock Mass. And some of the time when we go to four o&#039 ; clock Mass--because I was living very close to the church so they stop by and visit or talk maybe at least about an hour before they go to the church. We, at the time, the St. Pius X and the Mass is a very good opportunity for us to meet each another. BRODY: To connect? TRAN: After a week of working--yeah, to keep connecting. So secondly, the four o&#039 ; clock Mass always celebrate in Vietnamese, and that will help us a lot. Most of our people, we just don&#039 ; t understand very well English, English very well. So we could go to the English Mass sometime--we don&#039 ; t get lost throughout the Mass, but at the sermons we just don&#039 ; t understand. BRODY: Was there a Vietnamese choir? TRAN: Yeah, there&#039 ; s a Vietnamese choir. The funny thing is for Vietnamese, wherever they--the Vietnamese Catholic, whatever church, they always have a big choir or multiple choirs. You can imagine the Mother of Perpetual Help in Garland, they have four or five choirs. BRODY: Wow. TRAN: Each Mass, they have a different choir. And in St. Pius X at the time, the choir is maybe twenty, thirty people easily. BRODY: Were you in the choir? TRAN: I&#039 ; m not in the choir. (Brody laughs) I don&#039 ; t sing very well. (Brody laughs) But the Monsignor Weinzapfel, he&#039 ; s very surprised, he said, &quot ; Wow, the Vietnamese love to sing.&quot ; BRODY: Love to sing. TRAN: Yeah. And I think that at one time the Vietnamese choir even go to cathedral or some place to sing also. BRODY: Do they sing in Vietnamese? TRAN: In Vietnamese, yeah. And that is--and secondly, at the same parish we have the Monsignor Weinzapfel allow us to use some classroom so that we can teach the Vietnamese. BRODY: Language class? TRAN: Wherever we go, we always try to teach the kid Vietnamese. And I believe--I think that at the time I was a teacher, I tried to teach kid the Vietnamese also. |00:47:13| BRODY: Well, on that subject of language, why was it important to the Vietnamese community to keep teaching the children Vietnamese? TRAN: Yeah, first of all, so that we can--we hope when the kids grow up they be able to read Vietnamese. If they can read the Vietnamese they understand us more, they understand the Vietnamese culture, custom, more, okay? Then also to us, we still have Vietnam, okay? So we think that with teaching our Vietnamese, our kids Vietnamese, one day they can communicate--for the reason of communication. And it turned out that I-- here is my philosophy about the Vietnamese language: I think when the kid go back to-- even they born over here, we&#039 ; d rather teach them the Vietnamese because when they go to the school they speak English anyway. So for them, the English is still the primary language. And it turn out that, like, my daughter, we always speak--my children also, especially right now my daughter is a good example--they speak Vietnamese, they can read the Vietnamese. So my daughter right now, she&#039 ; s a medical doctor, she&#039 ; s a doctor. So she practice in Wylie. After two year, year or two, right now more and more of her clients are Vietnamese. BRODY: Oh, I see, serving the community. TRAN: Yeah, in Vietnamese, she helps answer. So even the practice, mainly owned by the American couple, but they have more clients. BRODY: That are Vietnamese. That&#039 ; s interesting. TRAN: They start to go to see my daughter. Even right now she has the limit, the upper limit is two thousand patient. That&#039 ; s the max, because each day one doctor should take about twenty, twenty-five patient. But lately, some Vietnamese ask her so she have to go back and ask the managers if she can receive more patient or not. And now my daughters and my children, they enjoy the Vietnamese music. The culture is the--that they have an opportunity to learn the culture. BRODY: Yeah, that&#039 ; s interesting. So-- TRAN: And to me, then you&#039 ; ll--not only Vietnamese. If I know something in some other language, I would like to teach my kids because the more languages you know, the better off you are. |00:50:39| BRODY: Sure. Absolutely. It helps, it&#039 ; s an asset, it sounds like, for your daughter. Well, thinking also about that, knowing the language, knowing English, knowing Vietnamese, how do you think of yourself in terms of--are you American, are you Vietnamese American, are you Vietnamese? How do you think of your own identity? TRAN: Oh. My--you know that--here&#039 ; s the thing--I still believe that even--I still believe that I am a Vietnamese, yeah. Let&#039 ; s put it this way: I read English more than I read in Vietnamese. Everything I read, most of the stuff I read is English. But when I pray, I pray in Vietnamese. BRODY: I see. TRAN: Because that is from the deepest level, it&#039 ; s my-- BRODY: Your soul. TRAN: It&#039 ; s from my soul, my heart. So if you born as an American, you can speak French, you can speak German, you can speak anything, but whenever you hear--to go deep into your soul, you&#039 ; re still thinking in English. Yeah, that&#039 ; s in--yeah. |00:52:16| BRODY: That&#039 ; s an interesting perspective. So you&#039 ; re still very religious and involved in the church still? TRAN: Now I&#039 ; m retired, I&#039 ; m not involved anymore, but I go to the church regularly and practice the faith. |00:52:37| BRODY: During those times, the Vietnamese communities that you said came together before and during that four o&#039 ; clock Mass, were there other cultural things that you did or celebrations that were particular to the Vietnamese community in the St. Pius church? TRAN: At hindsight, the Mass and the Vietnamese class, that class, and that&#039 ; s what my focus on the teaching Vietnamese. So my brother, he&#039 ; s very active in the communities also. But I work in a different area. Like, I have contributed to the Vietnamese magazines, but not for the Catholic, for everybody. Yeah, something like that. BRODY: What kind of articles were you contributing? TRAN: Normally we go back with the--I specialize in Vietnamese poetry. BRODY: Poetry? TRAN: Yeah, most of my focus on--at the time, we didn&#039 ; t have much books in Vietnamese. We left the country with empty hands. We didn&#039 ; t have anything. Normally we relied on our memories. BRODY: To remember the stories. TRAN: Yeah, remember a story here and there and try to put together some magazine, and contribute and share with the people. BRODY: Yeah, that&#039 ; s true, you did-- TRAN: And my brother, he&#039 ; s involved very much, in very deep in the Catholic communities. You might want to interview him, ask him, yeah. |00:54:52| BRODY: Yeah, I think I would love to. When you were in El Centro Community College and UT--Dallas studying, what was it like to be a student and a newly arrived Vietnamese refugee at that time? TRAN: Yeah, that&#039 ; s what I--first of all, when I go to the school, it&#039 ; s fairly difficult for me to understand what teacher--because, yeah, he&#039 ; s supposed to try to teach me. But secondly, I feel that over here instructors or the teacher, they want us to be success. And when I went to El Centro or UTD, I&#039 ; m very good at the science and technology course. But in the liberal courses I&#039 ; m not very good, because I couldn&#039 ; t read English very well at the time. But over here the--I have to believe that the--we have very good education systems. Yeah, good education system. And the oriental people, when they came over here, we, as I said, we really emphasize about the education. So many of us, they make some progress, success. |00:56:30| BRODY: Did you interact very much with American students of different--other races? TRAN: Not very much, but we don&#039 ; t isolate ourselves. We try to-- BRODY: Try to interact. TRAN: Yeah, interact with them. BRODY: What were the main barriers to-- TRAN: It&#039 ; s still--the main barrier is still the language and the culture. So the reason we don&#039 ; t interact very much is because, as I said, the culture is--even I&#039 ; m living here more than forty years, okay? There&#039 ; s some time I want to say something and I have to be aware about that because something we don&#039 ; t think that is serious, but to the other people--like, for instance, to American, we say something, they think that it&#039 ; s not good. BRODY: So it&#039 ; s back to the misunderstanding. TRAN: Yeah, it&#039 ; s not good. So creating more confusion. So I have--I mean, working for forty-one years, but in the last few years, I have the meeting all the time with people, with employee, but when I say something I make sure to say something that is very clear. So (laughs)-- BRODY: Yeah, you don&#039 ; t want any misunderstandings. TRAN: Yeah. |00:58:07| BRODY: Kind of on a related subject in terms of misunderstanding, have you experienced much in the way of discrimination? Some people say there was some discrimination during those times. Did you experience anything like that? TRAN: I don&#039 ; t have that much experience, probably because the working environment. I don&#039 ; t know why, but when we came over here, people really were friendly to us. Like the folks--when we started to work for Sun Oil, about a month or so, this guy, his name is Bill Boucher, he specialized in the history. His major is history. But he was a marine, and he came to my country. And he said when he come back over here, he think about the Vietnam War and he cried so often and drink--get drunk all the time. So when he met us he talk to us and treat us very friendly, and he give us the--when me and my brother, after a while working together and then they split into the different shifts, so we need one more car. So he in the process of divorce his wife, but he still thinking very well-- thinking about us very much. So he give us his car, his Volkswagen. BRODY: Wow. That&#039 ; s generous. TRAN: So I don&#039 ; t--if the people treat me that way, how can they say--yeah. And then I know another guy, he&#039 ; s a black. He&#039 ; s big--I forgot his name--he&#039 ; s really big. And I&#039 ; m a small guy, so at the time we monitor the tape drive, every night we pull all the tape that we don&#039 ; t use anymore, then we clean it up, we call it the scratch tape. And my arm is just about four or five tapes, that&#039 ; s big enough--that&#039 ; s enough. But for him, ten or fifteen. (Brody laughs) He always help me to-- BRODY: To carry. TRAN: Yeah, to carry all the tape. He&#039 ; s really--I met many people that they treat us very well. And I met a guy when we&#039 ; re still living in campus at the University of Plano, there was a salesman. He sells the compressor. So one day stopped by the campus and took me and my brother to his home for meals. BRODY: Oh, that&#039 ; s nice. |01:00:58| TRAN: And then he give us $100. And he told us one thing: &quot ; I don&#039 ; t require you to do anything for me, but if some day you have opportunity, you need to help other people.&quot ; And I have an experience when I was working at the Sun Oil as a data controller--that&#039 ; s the next level from the computer operator. The next level is programmer analyst. There was a manager, she was a pilot, World War II pilot. And somehow, she really liked me and she fought with the other managers. &quot ; Oh, I like Bac,&quot ; she didn&#039 ; t care when she get mad, she spoke loudly. She want me to--she want to move me up to the--to give me-- BRODY: The promotion. TRAN: --to give me that position, yeah. And finally she got the position for me. BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. TRAN: So, I mean, not only that, but many other examples. I only about the good people. So that&#039 ; s why I think including Monsignor Weinzapfel. So I think I met so many, many Good Samaritans. So I don&#039 ; t know, I don&#039 ; t have much experience about the discrimination. BRODY: Right. Well that&#039 ; s good. TRAN: Yeah. Including not only the white, but the black, and everybody treat me real nice. And so I--the first Christmas, the people in the data centers of the Sun Oil company, they put together, give and donate a lot of food, a lot of stuff, and they give to my brother and me. But we stack up one Volkswagen, full of one Volkswagen. BRODY: Wow, you got full of donations. TRAN: Yeah. So I--all I have--of course I have some bad experience, but not very much, but that not because American or non-American, that&#039 ; s a human being. Wherever you go on the world, you still run into the good people and the bad people, all the time. So I don&#039 ; t regard as the discrimination. |01:03:50| BRODY: I understand, that&#039 ; s great. So in terms of after--initially you guys were all living in the house near St. Pius X. How did the process go, did you stay there for a long time? TRAN: We stayed there about a couple years. But, I mean, that first month Monsignor Weinzapfel, he got money from USCC, okay? So he paid the rent for us. BRODY: From Catholic Charities [USA]? TRAN: Yeah, Charities. Paid the rent for us. I think at that time fairly cheap rent, may not be very expensive, but he paid the rent for us until the fund was out. We have ten people, so they assigned for us about $3,000. So he paid until they ran out, so he assumed the financial responsibility. So we&#039 ; re there, stay about two years, then we bought another house, bigger house, but nearby in the same zip code. BRODY: Did the whole family stay together? TRAN: Yeah, the whole family stay together. That&#039 ; s our custom, we stay together until my sister got married, so she move out. Until I marry, move out, and then until--yeah. Everybody, we stay that way. Because we stay together so we save a lot of money, and that&#039 ; s why we can afford the house. I don&#039 ; t know the next wave of immigration, but the very first wave of immigration, we always want to live independently. And that&#039 ; s why it surprise a lot to the local peoples in our areas. We don&#039 ; t demand and we have a very minimal needs for our life. One funny thing is--or funny story is when they took us from Guam island, they flew to the US and they had to stop the airplane, had to stop at Hawaii airport for a few hours. My mother, at the time, she was about fifty-three years old. But when she stay at night, she stay in that airport, she lay down on the carpet on the floor. She said, &quot ; I can stay over here. I feel comfortable enough.&quot ; (Brody laughs) We don&#039 ; t have a lot of demand when we came over here. We&#039 ; re living together until we got marriage than we move out. Like I said, me, I got marriage in 1982, move out. |01:06:44| BRODY: How did you meet your wife? TRAN: I meet my wife at--my wife is actually--my friend actually working together with my wife in the Wichita, Kansas. They work in an airplane manufacturer. He got wedding, in his wedding, I attend his wedding party and I met my wife over there and so from there we make friend and we know each other and then-- BRODY: Get married. That&#039 ; s a nice story. |01:07:26| TRAN: We got marriage, and--as I go back, as I said, I really--we really emphasize on the education. Not only for ourselves, but for our children also, and that&#039 ; s why we can sacrifice heavily, sacrifice everything for the education of the kids. And like--I send all my kids--I have two sons and two daughters--send them to Baylor. BRODY: They all went to Baylor? TRAN: The first one, my son, at the time in 2001, 2002, he started to go to the Baylor. It&#039 ; s about $18,000 a year for room and board. And my youngest daughters started to go the Baylor in 2011. It&#039 ; s about $50,000 a year. BRODY: Wow, that&#039 ; s a dramatic-- TRAN: Yeah. We sacrifice everything for the kids. So sometime some people in my company at the time--I was working with Hunt Oil. He said, &quot ; Bac Tran, he just helped the Baylor to build a building.&quot ; BRODY: (laughs) They should name a building after you. TRAN: (laughs) Yeah. They don&#039 ; t realize that we really sacrifice for the education, and that&#039 ; s why you can see many kids are very successful right now. That tradition is rooted in the Vietnamese culture. It&#039 ; s a long time, and still going on right now, not only abroad but in Vietnam also. I normally go onto YouTube and watch some shows, you know, that some Vietnamese parents, they are farmers, they are fishermen, they have nothing, but they sacrifice everything for their daughter or for their son so that they can move up to become the actress, to become the singer or everything. They can spend almost most of their fortunes. BRODY: Right, so that the family and education-- TRAN: Yeah, family, education. That&#039 ; s the culture. It&#039 ; s different from here also. Over here, they sacrifice for the kids, but not to that level. They have to save for themselves also, okay. It&#039 ; s a different cultures. I&#039 ; m not saying that who is better, but it&#039 ; s just a different cultures. |01:10:33| BRODY: So tell me about the Vietnamese community here. Do you see that same culture transitioning and staying solid here in Texas, here in the United States? Those same traditions and values, are they being passed down and carried on in the younger generations? TRAN: The younger generation, of course, they&#039 ; re more Americanized, and that&#039 ; s why you have to believe in the education. Like, my children, we only speak in Vietnamese, and sometimes even right now I send them a Snapchat just, like, this morning with the text written in Vietnamese. They understand, but they feel more comfortable speaking English with each another. Even Yen is my niece, she feels more comfortable with the English, okay? Not only language but I think the culture or the way of thinking, lifestyle, learning, probably they feel more comfortable. And the change--we have to accept the changes. We cannot stop the changes, that&#039 ; s the realities. And that&#039 ; s why the Chinese, they very wise, they have a book written six thousand years ago, we call the Book of Changes. If you don&#039 ; t change, we have to live and if we want to live, we want to survive, we have to change. But we have to keep our roots, and that&#039 ; s why I want my children know how to speak Vietnamese, know how to enjoy the Vietnamese food, other Vietnamese cultures, yeah. But we have to change. BRODY: Yeah. How, in your family, have you cooked together, taught your children how to cook Vietnamese food? What role have those kind of traditions played in your family? TRAN: Yeah, my wife is very good about that. But my children, they know how to make some Vietnamese dishes but not as my wife expect. She&#039 ; s a very good chef. |01:13:32| BRODY: Yes, that&#039 ; s a good compliment. Are you very involved in the larger Vietnamese community in Dallas? TRAN: Not at this time-- BRODY: Not right now? TRAN: Yeah, not right now. BRODY: What is your impression of that community? Is it a unified community, or are there a lot of differences, or is it just very big? TRAN: It&#039 ; s--we still connect to each anothers, but it&#039 ; s not solid, not cohesive like in the past. In the past we always find the opportunity to meet each another, but right now, we--yeah. BRODY: Why do you think that is? TRAN: That&#039 ; s what I&#039 ; m saying, it&#039 ; s just change. Everything is changing, even in Vietnam. You know that we have a custom in the New Year, okay, we spend fifteen days to celebrate New Year, big festival. We go out and meet and visit each another. But now, in these--over here, we don&#039 ; t do that anymore, but in Vietnam, they start to abandon that custom also. BRODY: Really? TRAN: Yeah. And things--I mean, in Vietnam we have the--back to the old days, very strictly, we don&#039 ; t live together before we got marriage. We carry out that custom to over here, but now people over here, the young people, they don&#039 ; t care about that. But we don&#039 ; t criticize them because in Vietnam they&#039 ; re doing the same thing. BRODY: Right, the same pattern. TRAN: Yeah, the same pattern. It&#039 ; s everywhere in the world. BRODY: Just modern life. TRAN: Modern life. People used to blame on the--online or the communication here that is spreading. Sometime I think about that also, but I think back to the old days. Why-- back to the old day, the science and technology was not very advanced, we don&#039 ; t have that mass communication. Why, back to the old day, in the fifth century BC we start to have some kind of religious leaders, started to go out, you see the movement, like Buddha. And then you go back to the China, you will see the Confucius. It&#039 ; s the same. They don&#039 ; t communicate together, but that like, go--when the human being go through that point of the history, they start to see the similar things. The philosophy started to change. So I know it&#039 ; s--everything is change. But if we can keep our roots, maybe better. |01:17:05| BRODY: Yeah, the roots. Are you involved in politics in either--or keep up with politics in either the United States or Vietnam? Are you interested in-- TRAN: I&#039 ; m interested in current events, but I mean--political events. I&#039 ; ve been reading, but I don&#039 ; t involve into it, because I--like, tomorrow, we go out and vote. I identify by myself as an independent voter. I don&#039 ; t want to belong to either, but I just vote on the issues it depend on. BRODY: In what way do you think your life experiences--both before you came here, your refugee experience and then your life here as an American--inform your view on different--you know, in politics? TRAN: We left Vietnam, we are the first group of people who--first, 130,000 people who left Vietnam. Most of us left Vietnam for the political reason. So we don&#039 ; t come over here for financial or economic reasons, because we didn&#039 ; t accept the communists. As I said, I was originally from north of Vietnam. So all my father took us from north of Vietnam to south of Vietnam in 1954 when I was five years old. And I am a Catholic with a root of anti-communist, and I still believe that communist is not good as of today, as of this moment ; I still don&#039 ; t believe the communist is good. So we came over here with a political reason. And we think in the United States we have democracy--even right now, of course, in any society you still have a lot of issue, you still have a lot of things to be improved. But this country have a very good systems, if people is aware about that and try to improve upon that. But in these days I can sometime (unintelligible)--everything Democrats say, then the Republicans say, &quot ; Not good, no good.&quot ; And everything Republicans say, Democrats say, &quot ; No good.&quot ; And that&#039 ; s why you go back to the Gospel, many times Jesus Christ perform the miracles to cure the deaf. I think if we don&#039 ; t listen to each other I don&#039 ; t know how can we improve our societies. BRODY: That&#039 ; s a really good point. TRAN: But we still have a very good system. I still believe in that. And when you believe through the systems you can do better things for our societies. In the last ten years, I work as a database administrator for Hunt Oil. I never request to have merit. I don&#039 ; t demand much, but my manager--he retired three years before me--he know that. I still got a very good merit ; I don&#039 ; t demand it. So I truly believe that when we trust the system and we do the work, we do the best we can, we can improve the system. The political system over here is still good. I still trust that and that&#039 ; s why I came over here. If we are living under the communist, it&#039 ; s terrible. And many well-educated Vietnamese people that came over here, they started to criticize the south government back before 1975. They write book, they write article, but they didn&#039 ; t realize that they build up their education, they got their degree, they move up in the society in south of Vietnam. They didn&#039 ; t move up and they don&#039 ; t get the degree from the north of Vietnam. So, I mean, it&#039 ; s the same thing over here. If we believe to our system, we can improve it. |01:22:40| BRODY: Thank you. My last question for you is one that, I&#039 ; m curious--to you, what does it mean to be an American? Whether it&#039 ; s yourself or your kids or grandkids, when someone says &quot ; I&#039 ; m American,&quot ; in a few words, what does that mean to you? TRAN: I&#039 ; m proud to be an American. Even deep into my heart, I still thinking I&#039 ; m a Vietnamese, but I&#039 ; m proud to be an American. American stands for freedom, independence, and that&#039 ; s what I&#039 ; m looking for. BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. Well, thank you very much. Is there anything that I didn&#039 ; t ask you that you&#039 ; d like to comment on? TRAN: I think you asked me all--yeah, I think that&#039 ; s all I can contribute. (laughs) BRODY: Oh, thank you, it&#039 ; s been wonderful to talk to you, and thank you very much for sharing your story. It&#039 ; s been a pleasure, thank you for having this conversation. TRAN: Thank you. end of interview All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2018oh006_btba_005.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bac Tran Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2018oh006_btba_005 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-11-05 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/ea0c088b20a7db6289dd5dc161bd1b9b.jpg 7c8578a509709da63be1ee2f5b483bbd Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bang Dang OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Bang Dang, January 8, 2019 2019oh001_btba_007 00:58:50 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Vietnamese in North Texas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Bang Dang Betsy Brody mp3 oh-audio-dig-dang_b_20190108(1).mp3 1:|22(14)|51(8)|87(8)|134(7)|170(4)|195(13)|236(14)|270(11)|317(11)|350(2)|390(2)|440(7)|474(11)|514(1)|556(2)|576(3)|617(3)|656(10)|685(3)|731(2)|780(2)|813(9)|849(10)|884(8)|913(9)|978(10)|1008(1)|1036(2)|1074(16)|1104(17)|1139(10)|1161(6)|1192(10)|1218(13)|1260(1)|1298(4)|1321(9)|1348(11)|1385(5)|1412(2)|1455(8)|1491(7)|1518(1)|1539(16)|1568(5)|1604(5)|1635(8)|1664(13)|1699(10)|1735(9)|1772(8)|1798(9)|1833(5)|1854(13)|1881(11)|1903(7)|1933(11) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/114000 Aviary audio 1 Interview Introduction &quot ; Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans&quot ; 21 Early childhood in Saigon Let’s—to start out, just tell me a little bit about your background and about yourself and what you remember of your life in Vietnam. Mr. Dang describes his family's Chinese-Vietnamese heritage and how his parents met at a Catholic school in Saigon. Atheism ; Buddhism ; Catholic school ; Religion ; Vietnamese countryside ; Vietnamese-Chinese Sai Gon (Vietnam)--History. 10.8231, 106.6297 17 Saigon, Vietnam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_City Wikipedia entry for Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) 167 Leaving Vietnam by boat So, during—do you remember much of what was going on in your family during the war? boat ; escape ; famiy ; Hong Kong ; money ; refugees ; United States ; Vietnam War 306 Boat crashes on Hainan Island A side note is we—our boat crashed and landed near a little island in China called Hainan, and that was—so our boat was—you know, water was coming into the boat, and at night the tides rise. A lot of the people didn’t know how to swim, so we didn’t know what to do. I remember these two soldiers at the time came to the boat, and they said, you know, we couldn’t get on land. They would have to send the message to their supervisors, which would take days, right, at the time. But luckily my dad, being Chinese, he was from that province. Boats ; China ; Chinese language ; crash ; gold ; Hainan Island Boat people ; Refugees--Vietnam 18.7594480, 109.46530220 17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan Wikipedia entry for Hainan Island 492 Leaving Hainan Island and traveling to Hong Kong DANG: Yeah. So in Hong Kong, I believe—I’m trying to remember chronologically— then we were put in these refugee camps at first. So if you have family, then they do the paperwork, and then they come—they can take you out of the camps and you go live with them. So, of course, my uncle came. And then I believe my aunts and uncles on a separate boat—so my grandmom had two boats. It was, you know, my immediate family with my two uncles from my mom’s— BRODY: On your mom’s side. DANG: And then the other boat was, you know, all my other uncles and aunts and my grandparents. And I believe somehow we got separated, of course, and I believe that my grandmom and grandad and my aunts and uncles came later. Hong Kong ; refugee camps Refugees--Vietnam 114.109497, 22.396428 17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong Wikipedia page for Hong Kong 651 Temporary stay in Hong Kong, sponsorship and arrival in Texas DANG: Well, it’s funny because starting kindergarten wasn’t a problem, because, you know, we were pretty well-off when we were in Saigon, so I went to a preschool there that taught English. So I could read, like, Dr. Seuss stuff by the time— Dallas ; English ; English language ; housing ; kindergarten ; preschool ; refugee camps ; sponsors ; sponsorship Refugees--Vietnam 32.7767, 96.7970 17 764 Early years in Dallas, adults' employment, and language challenges DANG: So, I think a lot of my aunts worked at this place called Handbag, and—I mean, that was literally the name, and it was off of—as I remember, it stuck around for a long time—it was off of basically [US Highway] 75 and Forest [Lane], right before you turn—right before you can exit in the [Interstate] 635. So where all the medical buildings are right now? There was a place called Handbag. BRODY: Handbag. And what did they do? DANG: So they— BRODY: They were sewing. DANG: You know, sewing, and it was like an assembly line, making handbags. And then my uncles, they worked at, like, 7-Eleven. You know, convenience stores. So my dad did that. BRODY: Was everyone as good at English as you were? DANG: No. No, I think my parents were probably—my dad especially was probably the best at it, but even he was—you know, it was pretty rough English, you know? And then my—at the time my grandparents were still relatively young. They worked at Presby [Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas??], you know, like, doing laundry or pushing cart, you know, the stretchers and stuff. Yeah, that was about it. I think it was convenience stores, Handbag, and Presby. And then, of course, by the time you get—you know, you meet whatever other Chinese or Vietnamese really quickly because there weren’t many at the time, and then wherever they worked, right, that’s where you’re going to work. assembly lines ; convenience stores ; Dallas ; employment ; English ; Handbag ; hospitals ; jobs ; language learning ; seamstresses 862 Residential patterns and formation of of Vietnamese community in Dallas in the 1980s At the very beginning we all—everyone just lived separately. It was odd. Like, I don’t know how that happened, like, if they placed people. And obviously, they were usually the lower-income housing. But then as people started working—you know, for instance, my parents had me, and then I have another aunt who had a husband and two children at the time—they had to move out, right, at some point so that they get more space. And then that’s the same thing because it’s such a small community, whoever moved found the place, like an apartment complex that was, you know, affordable, and that’s who—you know, that’s where you would move, so pretty soon— BRODY: (speaking at same time) Right, the next move. DANG: Yeah. And then pretty soon everyone’s—it’s kind of a herd mentality, you know? So then everyone moved. And then those communities really started to form. housing ; Vietnamese community -96.6388833, 32.912624 17 1035 American customs And so she met some Americans that lived here all their—Texans who lived here all their lives, so sometimes we would hang out with them. And I just would remember that—you know, my parents mentioning certain things. Like, for instance, they said that, like, Americans seem to have this ability to really relax and let loose and have fun, you know? BRODY: And that felt different to them? DANG: You know, like they have a good laugh, and they have a good smile. Like, they seem to really enjoy life, you know? They’re not always serious all the time. I think that’s changed since then. American customs ; culture shock ; shoes Immigrants--Cultural assimilation 1191 Attending elementary at L.L.Hotchkiss Elementary School in Dallas I don’t ever—you know, I mean, to be completely honest, I mean, I had never met an African American person till I came here, but it didn’t shock me or anything, you know? Like, I wasn’t—you know, it wasn’t weird, I just hung out with whoever. You know, like, I remember my birthday parties. We had little birthday—we would get a little cake and I was allowed to invite eight people, and I would mostly invite kids from my apartment. It was mostly Hispanic children and African American children, and that was about it, you know? birthday parties ; L.L. Hotchkiss Elementary ; school ; teasing 1407 Home ownership and the American Dream DANG: In Richardson. And then from there, we were still in the apartments that fed into Liberty [Junior High School], and then that’s when my parents saved up enough money and they bought a house in Garland. And so I finished eighth grade at Liberty and then started high school, which was ninth through twelfth at North Garland [High School]. BRODY: Got it. So that was a big accomplishment for your parents— DANG: Yeah, huge accomplishment. BRODY: —to accomplish that goal of owning a house. DANG: Yeah. It was truly for them, I mean, literally the American dream. That’s for them, to own a house. BRODY: Do they ever talk about that moment, that feeling? DANG: I’m sure they were very proud, and I think my mom just wanted a house, you know, that they owned, and it was bigger and you didn’t share walls with—you know, that kind of stuff. But I think, you know, that generation, for me, they were never—it was never outwardly celebratory, you know? It was always kept inside. BRODY: Quiet accomplishment, I guess. DANG: Yeah, that kind of stuff. So you didn’t notice it. Like, there wasn’t a party or anything, but yeah, I’m sure they were happy. BRODY: Absolutely. Well, just looking at it from the outside, having come as a refugee, you know— DANG: Absolutely. And it was such a big purchase—right?—for them. You know, for anyone, but for them especially at the time. So it was—you know, it was exciting, stressful, that kind of stuff. apartments ; busing ; Garland ; home ownership ; middle school ; Richardson American Dream ; Home ownership 1558 Growing up in Dallas and forming childhood friendships I think one reason I acclimated really well was because, you know, one, I was an only child growing up, and my mom kept me pretty secluded because, you know, she was one of those that worried a lot. I had friends when I was in Saigon but very limited, you know. They would have to come over and I wasn’t allowed to go out on my own. Obviously I was young. But also because I came so young. You know, like, I know friends who came when they were in junior high or even high school, and I think they had a harder time adjusting because, you know, by then you’ve left some good friends, you don’t speak the language as well, you’re having—you’re probably too busy trying to catch up in school and, you know—and then, you know, as you get older there’s more of the cliques and all that kind of—so I didn’t have to deal with that. I was in kindergarten, you know? Kids just—I don’t even know how kids get along. You know, how they decide who to play with or who not to. They just played with everyone. So I was lucky in that sense. But by the time—you know, I made friends pretty easily. acclimation ; friendships ; Garland 1687 Reflections on discrimination, racism, diversity, and social class DANG: I just think I understand people better. I really do, and it’s a great—it really was—it’s a huge advantage because, you know, I can talk to anybody, and I just—I just, within five minutes, I kind of understand where people are coming from a little better, you know? Like if I was to use the extreme, what if I went to this very exclusive private school, say, right, and I never worked, and I went to a private college and then I just went straight to finance or something, you know, where it’s just—you know, you don’t see—but I got the total opposite. You know, like when I went to UT [University of Texas] architecture school, it was tiny, but it also had the highest SAT average in all of— at the time, in ’93. And it seemed like when I went there—because North Garland wasn’t that great of a school. I would’ve preferred to go to Berkner [High School], but you know—you probably know, you go to Richardson, you get the same house and it’s like $10,000 more, you know, because of the schools. And so when I got to UT, for instance, in the architecture program, it was mostly Caucasian, a lot of them were from Houston and really good private schools, and I remember they had all been to Europe. You know what I mean? And then like, a couple of friends, their parents were in the oil business, but they had a house in Malaysia, they had a house—and so they had been everywhere. And when they talked about current events, like, their high school, they were writing about very serious current events, and my high school we were just—you know, we were doing the—you know, like reading To Kill A Mockingbird, that kind of stuff, just normal. But BRODY: A different level. DANG: —way ahead, yeah. But I still—I adapted well, so I was all over the place. Like, I remember my first-grade teacher, she saw how well I drew and colored. So she collected it all, and then she sent it off to this program—and I think it still exists—called the Young Artists Program. It was a private art school that you went to after school on weekends or in the summer, but it was in the YMCA at Highland Park and you had to pay a lot of money. But she talked the director there into letting me go free. So when I went there I met—I remember going to arts class and there was a kid named Jed. And I went there all the way up to junior high. BRODY: Oh, really? DANG: Yeah. So my dad and my mom would take me there after school or on the weekend, their summer camp. And he would always have, like, a limo driver drop him off. So I went from—and we were still—you know, I started in first grade. So I was still living in the apartments that have been torn down, you know? So I was hanging out with, you know, just kids. BRODY: The kids, yeah. DANG: Yeah, kids that lived in apartments and low-income apartments, and then here I am in Highland Park taking art class with—you know, I just remember the things they talked about, you know? Like, we went to a movie like, two times a year, and that was a huge deal. And I remember this kid saying, “Well, my mom’s off to Europe for two weeks with her friends, so my dad said that every night he’s going to take me to a different movie.” And then he would come in and tell us about all the movies that he saw, you know? BRODY: Wow. DANG: Yeah, and then like one kid went to Disney[land] and somehow his parents hooked it up where he got to meet Michael Jackson. Like, it was just ridiculous, right? art ; discrimination ; racism ; social class ; stereotypes ; teasing ; YMCA ; Young Artists Program 2141 Impact of refugee experience on worldview and career as an architect You know, I think that—I think depending on what you want to focus on, I think a lot of refugees, you know, they risk their lives to come here. And they come here because they usually want—usually, the primary reason is always a better life for their kids. That’s always their main goal, and I think that—and I think—so my mom has fourteen brothers and sisters, and my dad has three brothers and three sisters. So I have a lot of cousins. And I was the first to go to college, because I was the oldest. But it’s kind of funny if you compare the—if you purely look at—and it’s a bad way to look at it, but for the sake of discussion—if you look at purely academics, what type of degrees you have and where you went to school and how you’re doing in your career, it’s me and the older cousins that have done the best, especially the ones that came over that were not born here. So it can’t be an accident, I think. I think it’s because—you know, I think when you’re a refugee, you understand how hard it is to even get here, you know? BRODY: And you’ve lived it. DANG: Yeah, and you’ve lived it. So sometimes, as hard as, like, running a business is, the stress and liability and all that, I mean it doesn’t compare to getting on a little boat. BRODY: And knowing that you already did that and survived. DANG: Yeah, and trying to survive that and having your boat crash. You know what I mean? So I just think that it’s a shame that maybe people don’t look at that side of it, right? architecture ; flexibility ; worldview 2334 Impressions of the Vietnamese community in North Texas DANG: It’s a really tight community. It’s still the same kind of herd mentality. Like, you’ll see—you know, like people joke about Koreans having donut shops or dry cleaners, Vietnamese doing nails. It’s just because they trust that the success of their own people in a certain field will mean success for them, you know? So that’s why they do that. It’s very tight-knit, everyone knows everybody. I think they’re really good entrepreneurs. You know, like if you think about the Korean community, for instance, it’s rare to see—you know, in my parents’ type of work, which is non-white collar, it’s rare to see a Korean person, because they either do white-collar work or they open their own shop, whatever it happens to be. You rarely see them at Handbag or—you know. entrepreneurs ; generational differences ; herd mentality ; Koreans ; Vietnamese ; Vietnamese community 2527 What it means to be American and what it means to be Vietnamese DANG: I think, you know, the house was a symbol, right? But I think it’s a symbol for, “Hey, look, I can do whatever I want in my backyard now,” you know? And the apartments you don’t really have a yard or you can’t just put whatever you want, you know? So I think it’s the freedom to choose things and to do what you want, and I think that’s ultimately for me, it’s the same, you know? To be able to open my own business. American Dream ; assimlation ; freedom ; home ownership 3016 Differences in family attitudes toward visiting Vietnam BRODY: Have you been back to Vietnam? DANG: No, I haven’t ; nor China. I’d love to go to both and see. I’d love to. Yeah, everyone who’s been back tell[s] me it’s great. I think a lot of people I know that have been back, though, didn’t come on a boat, so it’s a little traumatic. Like, my mom won’t ever go back because it just reminds her of—you know, and then there were things where, you know, when we left and when my grandparents left they just confiscated their houses and just—you know what I mean? Like it’s hard for them to go see that. So I think they don’t have as much interest. But then my aunts—my mom, you know, who had a big family, her siblings that were younger that her didn’t come until, gosh, what year? I was in junior high, so maybe mideighties or something? So they came on a plane. China ; loss of property ; return to Vietnam ; trauma 3179 Thoughts about identity and immigrant acclimation DANG: I think I’m Vietnamese Chinese American. Yeah. I think as I get older I see a lot of things I do that’s very similar to how my parents did it, and then I see some thing[s], those are very opposite, you know? BRODY: Right, right. I mean, the question of identity is really what—you know, what we’re trying to get at. DANG: Okay. BRODY: There was thinking about—you know, just in our conversation we’ve kind of learned a lot about the things that were important to you that kind of shaped your worldview, so, again, I was curious of how you thought of yourself. DANG: Yeah, and I think—you know, in the American sense I really believe in individuals. Like I just think—you know, with this country, and I know there’s people behind the scenes that we don’t give credit to, but for the most part when times are tough or even when they’re not, there’s always individuals that make huge, huge impacts. But when it comes to friends and family and people at my office, there’s this—I always think of this sort of group dynamic, you know? I never forget that I’m just a tiny little speck in the universe, you know? But then when you think about in specifically your career and what you want to do, I do believe that individuals can do immense things. identity ; individualism ; worldview Asian Americans--Ethnic identity ; Individualism 3307 Differences between Asian Americans and Asians DANG: I think the interesting for me now is looking back. Like I feel like, you know, like lately, especially in an academic setting, there’s a lot of students, exchange students, from mainland China, which, you know, my parents always raised us really as Chinese. So a lot of things people find difficult is they always think—see, with the Asians, if you’re Korean, it doesn’t matter if you’re born in Paris, you still call yourself Korean. BRODY: You’re Korean, yes. DANG: Same with the Chinese, same with the Vietnamese, you know? So they raised us as Chinese, but when I see now actual, you know, Chinese people born in mainland here, it’s really odd. Like, they seem really foreign to me because I have nothing in common with them. They have certain things that are really odd to me, you know? And my parents have visited China a few times and my dad’s very proud, and even he had a hard time. Like, for instance, at the subways, there’s no line ever, or anywhere. There’s no line. You just go. So he found that very rude, you know? Because he’s so used to having an orderly line and who’s in front of you goes first. So I find the same thing. Like, I’ve had students who were from mainland, and when I went to UT there were a couple of—and it was really difficult to interact with them sometimes because their culture is so different. BRODY: Even though you personally identify—right. (laughs) DANG: Was raised somewhat Chinese, right? Yeah, it’s just really weird, you know? BRODY: I understand that. (laughs) DANG: Yeah, so I think that’s interesting. But it’s fun to look at it that way now because I’m trying to process it and, you know, think how was I when I got here? How different did I appear to other people in my actions and all that? But it’s interesting. It’s fun to see it that way because I feel like—seeing them makes me feel more American even, you know? Because, like, I wouldn’t do that that way, you know? BRODY: Right. That’s—it really brings to light some of the differences between culture and values and norms that you’ve grown accustomed to that aren’t necessarily cultural. DANG: Right. BRODY: That’s another interesting point that you’ve raised there. DANG: And then sometimes they come here and it’s only temporary. They know that in their head, so maybe they don’t acclimate as well? BRODY: Yeah, that’s a good point too. DANG: We came here ; this is our home. Period. We’re not moving again. But they’re coming here just for college or for business a few years and then they go home, you know? They just want a degree from here or they want to say, “I worked on Wall Street for five years,” you know? So maybe they’re not as interested in acclimating, you know? BRODY: Right, the mindset. DANG: Right. So it’s totally—it’s very interesting to watch. BRODY: Do you have children? DANG: No. BRODY: No. So, sort of, that’s the next stuff, right? Thinking about what values are the values that are the ones you would want to transmit from your own parents to your children. American identity ; Asian Americans ; Asians Asian Americans--Ethnic identity BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is January 8, 2019. I&#039 ; m interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Bang Dang. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History, and is part of the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. All right, thank you so much for joining me. DANG: You&#039 ; re welcome. Thanks for having me. BRODY: Let&#039 ; s--to start out, just tell me a little bit about your background and about yourself and what you remember of your life in Vietnam. |00:00:35| DANG: Okay. If I tell you too much, just let me know if you already know, (both laugh) but I was born in Saigon in 1974. My family is actually Chinese. A lot of people don&#039 ; t know that back in the seventies, Saigon was mostly Cantonese speaking, and mostly ©Baylor University 2 Chinese folks had immigrated there. So I grew up learning Cantonese and a little bit of Vietnamese because my dad&#039 ; s side of the family lived in the countryside, which is-- BRODY: In Vietnam still. DANG: --in Vietnam. Well, they&#039 ; re here now, but at the time. So they spoke mostly Vietnamese because the countryside was mostly Vietnamese and Vietnamese-speaking people. And then my mom&#039 ; s side of the family, a huge family, was always in Saigon. And my mom was actually raised by nuns in a sort of missionary Catholic school. |00:01:34| BRODY: Okay. Did you grow up Catholic, then? DANG: No, because my dad wasn&#039 ; t--my dad was basically atheist, you know? Closest thing would be Buddhist, but really atheist. And so that&#039 ; s how my parents met, because my dad lived in the country, but for better secondary school experience my grandmother sent him to Saigon to go to the same Catholic school that my mom had grown up in. That&#039 ; s how they met. And so that&#039 ; s where I was born. BRODY: Okay, great. And then you lived in the city. DANG: Yeah, lived in the city. We lived in a little high-rise condo, you know, tiny little thing, and it was mostly just my parents and me at the time because all the family lived separately. But we would visit my mom&#039 ; s side of the family quite a bit because they were in Saigon. And if I remember correctly, I think my mom&#039 ; s side of the family ran a sort of ©Baylor University 3 plumbing business, you know, with pipes and--plumbing parts business, and so yeah, that&#039 ; s how I grew up. BRODY: And did you go to the countryside very much? DANG: Yeah. I would go, if I remember, I&#039 ; d say at least five, six times a year. BRODY: Wow. DANG: And then that was always fun. We&#039 ; d stay, you know, a couple of weeks. |00:02:48| BRODY: So, during--do you remember much of what was going on in your family during the war? DANG: No. I believe by the time I was born that was pretty much over. BRODY: It was over, okay. DANG: Yeah, that was over, so I didn&#039 ; t have to deal much with that. |00:03:01| BRODY: So when you came to the United States, what were the circumstances of your migration here? DANG: So we came on a boat ; we were refugees. We actually landed in Hong Kong when I was about four, and my grandmom on my dad&#039 ; s side had planned it all, so she had sent one of my uncles--my dad was the oldest ; he was maybe the second oldest-- ©Baylor University 4 because he didn&#039 ; t have family. Then so she had sent him to Hong Kong knowing that there&#039 ; s a fair chance we may land there. BRODY: How much earlier had she sent him? DANG: I want to say five, six years. BRODY: Okay, so she was pretty forward-thinking, then. DANG: Right, so that he would be settled and then she kept sending him money to save for us when we got there. BRODY: From the plumbing business? DANG: Well, this was my dad&#039 ; s side. BRODY: (speaking at same time) Oh, your dad&#039 ; s side, and the farm--yeah, okay. |00:03:48| DANG: I&#039 ; m sorry, yeah, it&#039 ; s confusing. So she was in all kinds of different--I always say she&#039 ; s kind of like the--like, if she was here she would be like, Warren Buffet, you know? (Brody laughs) She was really--she was seriously the--is still the smartest family member we have and just very--you know, not averse to risk-taking, and she just always found ways to run different businesses and take care of everyone. BRODY: And she was thinking far ahead if she sent him to Hong Kong. DANG: Right, right. She sent him to Hong Kong and she had set up all the boats for us to--you know, for us to go. ©Baylor University 5 BRODY: How many of you were going on the boats? DANG: Well, my dad has three brothers and three sisters, and then my grandparents. And then she also took two of my uncles from my mom&#039 ; s side, and then, of course, us four. So, you know, whatever that added up to be. |00:04:40| BRODY: Right. And so you went on the boats directly to Hong Kong? DANG: Yeah. Well, we really--you know, these weren&#039 ; t really--one, it was illegal, right? And then two, it wasn&#039 ; t--these sailors were not the best, so that&#039 ; s just from stories we had heard, that that&#039 ; s kind of where people landed. Sometimes you landed in Malaysia or sometimes you got captured by pirates and you never make it, or sometimes-- |00:05:06| BRODY: What was it like for you as a small child on that boat? Do you remember much? DANG: I just remember it being really crowded. I remember just always seeing ocean, right? Just endless ocean. And I think we were on there for about a month and a half, total. A side note is we--our boat crashed and landed near a little island in China called Hainan, and that was--so our boat was--you know, water was coming into the boat, and at night the tides rise. A lot of the people didn&#039 ; t know how to swim, so we didn&#039 ; t know what to do. I remember these two soldiers at the time came to the boat, and they said, you know, we couldn&#039 ; t get on land. They would have to send the message to their supervisors, ©Baylor University 6 which would take days, right, at the time. But luckily my dad, being Chinese, he was from that province. BRODY: Oh! DANG: So he spoke their language, you know? BRODY: That&#039 ; s convenient. That worked out. DANG: Yeah. BRODY: So was he able to interpret, then? DANG: Yeah. He was able to talk to them. And so we followed them on land, and when we--when a lot of refugees from Vietnam get on these boats they bring, like, gold and jewelry, watches, because they don&#039 ; t know if the cash would do anything wherever they landed. So they made a trade with us, that they would take that, and then they would feed us, and then they would fix our boat. |00:06:36| BRODY: Wow, so at this point, you&#039 ; re on land, on this little island. DANG: Yeah. We&#039 ; re on land. They put us in a big warehouse. BRODY: Do you remember your feelings at that time? DANG: Yeah, I remember. I remember, you know, we always got really simple rice soup every day. I remember the locals being really nice, because our warehouse had these little ©Baylor University 7 clear story that the window--you know, the glass was gone and they would throw potatoes through at night for us, you know? Just--they would cook-- BRODY: Just to help. DANG: --the potatoes and then threw them in there for us. And I remember everyone were on bikes. So that little island, I don&#039 ; t know if you know, is a sort of tourist--it&#039 ; s like Vegas now. BRODY: Now. |00:07:19| DANG: Yeah. But back then it was all fishermen and--you know. So I remember, like-- I remember events like, you know, one time they had two chairs in the warehouse and the whole village would get in line for a haircut, you know? I remember things like that, you know? Or these trucks would come in and unload, you know, like foods and dry goods, and then based on how many were in your family, you got tickets to go-- BRODY: To go take everything. DANG: Yeah. So we watched that, and I mean, obviously we didn&#039 ; t participate. We were just getting what we were getting. So I remember--and just I remember when we left on the boat that the whole village was on the banks, and they waved goodbye to us-- BRODY: Waving goodbye. DANG: Yeah, just really nice people, you know? ©Baylor University 8 BRODY: And you&#039 ; d stayed for a month and been welcomed there. DANG: Yeah. BRODY: So did you know the end--the timing of how long you&#039 ; d be there when you got there? Or was it just sort of-- |00:08:19| DANG: I didn&#039 ; t know, but I&#039 ; m sure they told us maybe-- BRODY: (speaking at same time) They had a sense of the month or so, um-hm. DANG: --you know, three weeks or whatever it took to fix the boat. And then from there we got to Hong Kong, and I remember that with the Coast Guard, you know, really loud saying, you know, get your boats to here and dock here, and don&#039 ; t jump in the water. There&#039 ; s sharks. BRODY: (speaking at same time) So it was a--right, there was a procedure. DANG: Yeah. And then I don&#039 ; t remember a lot of the paperwork and all that, you know? I just don&#039 ; t remember that. BRODY: Well, you were a kid. DANG: Yeah. I don&#039 ; t remember that. I just remember the big events like coming to land or something like that. BRODY: Did your parents seem calm? Were they worried? ©Baylor University 9 DANG: I think at some point you&#039 ; ve been out to sea so long and, you know, you always know it&#039 ; s a risk to do this. I think they were just--they were just happy to be on land, you know? BRODY: Finally, right, being there. Then, so from Hong Kong, how did you end up in Texas? |00:09:16| DANG: Yeah. So in Hong Kong, I believe--I&#039 ; m trying to remember chronologically-- then we were put in these refugee camps at first. So if you have family, then they do the paperwork, and then they come--they can take you out of the camps and you go live with them. So, of course, my uncle came. And then I believe my aunts and uncles on a separate boat--so my grandmom had two boats. It was, you know, my immediate family with my two uncles from my mom&#039 ; s-- BRODY: On your mom&#039 ; s side. DANG: And then the other boat was, you know, all my other uncles and aunts and my grandparents. And I believe somehow we got separated, of course, and I believe that my grandmom and grandad and my aunts and uncles came later. BRODY: Okay. Came here. DANG: Came to Hong Kong later. BRODY: To Hong Kong later, okay. |00:10:14| ©Baylor University 10 DANG: Yeah. And then--but somehow they got to go to the US before we did. And then I think at that time--California, by that time, had taken a lot of refugees. So I think they were starting to encourage--when you get to the point where you have to decide, they were encouraging, you know, other states. BRODY: Other states, sure. DANG: And Texas was a big one. So I think my grandmom and grandad and uncles and aunts went to Texas, Dallas. And so obviously, naturally, then, that&#039 ; s-- BRODY: You would follow. DANG: --since we came after them, that&#039 ; s where we ended up. BRODY: So did you make that decision in Hong Kong, in the camp there? DANG: Yes, um-hm. BRODY: Okay, so you&#039 ; d decide where you-- |00:10:58| DANG: Well, we came out and lived for a year, actually, and my parents got a job and-- you know? BRODY: And then you just decide, make decisions. DANG: I went to preschool and stuff like that. BRODY: Oh, did you? ©Baylor University 11 DANG: Yeah. And so--because it takes time. Because my grandparents had to settle here first, get everything, you know, settled, and then they had to sponsor us, so they-- BRODY: They sponsored--so they were your sponsors, not an outside voluntary agency. DANG: Exactly. That&#039 ; s right, that&#039 ; s right. Yeah. So that took a while. |00:11:23| BRODY: So that answers that. So when you initially got to Texas, did you just move in with your grandparents then? DANG: Yeah, (laughs) there was a lot of people in one small place. BRODY: Yeah. Do you remember how many? What was that like? DANG: It was everyone. So three uncles, three aunts, my grandparents, my mom, my dad, and me. BRODY: Where was that house? DANG: Shady Brook? BRODY: Okay, in Dallas. DANG: So yeah. It&#039 ; s kind of near--it&#039 ; s kind of off of Walnut Hill at the time--I mean, all these places are gone now--and on the west side--yeah, on the west side. |00:12:05| ©Baylor University 12 BRODY: Over there. So at this point you were--so, preschool, or maybe kindergarten- aged? DANG: I hadn&#039 ; t started kindergarten because my birthday was late, you know? So I was going to start the year after that. BRODY: The year after. And how was your language at this point? You&#039 ; ve been around the block, (laughs) language-wise. DANG: Well, it&#039 ; s funny because starting kindergarten wasn&#039 ; t a problem, because, you know, we were pretty well-off when we were in Saigon, so I went to a preschool there that taught English. So I could read, like, Dr. Seuss stuff by the time-- BRODY: By the time you got here. DANG: Yeah. So it wasn&#039 ; t really that big of a deal. |00:12:39| BRODY: So that&#039 ; s--I mean, that was fortunate for you, as that makes the transition easier. So you&#039 ; re all living there off Walnut Hill, and what were your parents--what were the adults--in your recollection, what were they doing in terms of work or getting-- DANG: Yeah. So, I think a lot of my aunts worked at this place called Handbag, and--I mean, that was literally the name, and it was off of--as I remember, it stuck around for a long time--it was off of basically [US Highway] 75 and Forest [Lane], right before you turn--right before you can exit in the [Interstate] 635. So where all the medical buildings are right now? There was a place called Handbag. ©Baylor University 13 BRODY: Handbag. And what did they do? DANG: So they-- BRODY: They were sewing. DANG: You know, sewing, and it was like an assembly line, making handbags. And then my uncles, they worked at, like, 7-Eleven. You know, convenience stores. So my dad did that. BRODY: Was everyone as good at English as you were? DANG: No. No, I think my parents were probably--my dad especially was probably the best at it, but even he was--you know, it was pretty rough English, you know? And then my--at the time my grandparents were still relatively young. They worked at Presby [Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas??], you know, like, doing laundry or pushing cart, you know, the stretchers and stuff. Yeah, that was about it. I think it was convenience stores, Handbag, and Presby. And then, of course, by the time you get--you know, you meet whatever other Chinese or Vietnamese really quickly because there weren&#039 ; t many at the time, and then wherever they worked, right, that&#039 ; s where you&#039 ; re going to work. BRODY: Right, word of mouth. DANG: Yeah. (laughs) BRODY: Right. So that was what I was going to ask you. I mean, you may not know because you were young, but, you know, some people, their experience was that they ©Baylor University 14 were matched up with jobs through the agencies and the like, but it sounds like your family story is more word of mouth and-- DANG: Right. Right, right. |00:14:38| BRODY: And speaking of the community, it sounds like, you know, obviously it was relatively small-- DANG: Yeah, very small. BRODY: --at the time that you came. What do you remember about that community? Are there--you know, were there get-togethers? DANG: At the very beginning we all--everyone just lived separately. It was odd. Like, I don&#039 ; t know how that happened, like, if they placed people. And obviously, they were usually the lower-income housing. But then as people started working--you know, for instance, my parents had me, and then I have another aunt who had a husband and two children at the time--they had to move out, right, at some point so that they get more space. And then that&#039 ; s the same thing because it&#039 ; s such a small community, whoever moved found the place, like an apartment complex that was, you know, affordable, and that&#039 ; s who--you know, that&#039 ; s where you would move, so pretty soon-- BRODY: (speaking at same time) Right, the next move. DANG: Yeah. And then pretty soon everyone&#039 ; s--it&#039 ; s kind of a herd mentality, you know? So then everyone moved. And then those communities really started to form. ©Baylor University 15 Because at first, I think when everyone got here, for one reason or another, everyone was really spread out. But then pretty soon in different--you know, there&#039 ; d be like three apartment complexes between Garland and Richardson where everyone was--you know, everyone knew each other. BRODY: Right and probably is comforting, especially for those who didn&#039 ; t know English as well and to be able to get some advice. DANG: Right. And then as soon as, you know, if they have a big family, they started sponsoring their siblings and they moved there, you know, and then pretty soon you have this little community. |00:16:17| BRODY: Did you enjoy being part of that community? Was there-- DANG: Yeah. I mean, obviously I went to school and I had other friends, you know? But, yeah, I did, because I think that--that was a really, you know, good time for my parents because they were--you know, they were young and they were working. No one had much money, but, you know, it was a totally different world, right? So like, going downtown or going to NorthPark Mall [NorthPark Center] back in the day was a big deal, you know? And that&#039 ; s how it worked, right? Like, if your tooth ached, whoever had gone to the dentist first, that&#039 ; s who you asked, and you would go to that dentist, right? (Brody laughs) So that&#039 ; s kind of how, you know-- BRODY: Was a network, yeah. ©Baylor University 16 DANG: Yeah. If you never bought a car, then the person [who] had bought a car would go with you, you know, to show you how you do the title and everything, and that&#039 ; s just kind of how it worked. |00:17:10| BRODY: Built-in advice and learning. Yeah, people remember, you know, being surprised by some customs or sort of how things are done. It sounds like the community kind of helped with that. Do you remember any American customs that surprised you, or Texan customs that surprised you? DANG: I&#039 ; m sure it surprised my parents, but I was so young, you know? Like my--you know, something very stereotypical, but they were surprised when my friends came over that they didn&#039 ; t take their shoes off, you know? That they would just trek through the place. BRODY: Yeah. Did your family continue to maintain the custom of taking shoes off? DANG: Now--yeah, they have a separate pair they wear in the house, but, yeah, so all my friends had to take their shoes off. (both laugh) What else? Customs? No, I would just--I remember hearing my parents, you know, like, the few times they would meet my friends&#039 ; parents or see them or--you know, my mom worked at a little restaurant at NorthPark that was called The Magic Pan. BRODY: Oh yeah. (laughs) ©Baylor University 17 DANG: I don&#039 ; t know ____??____. (laughs) And so she met some Americans that lived here all their--Texans who lived here all their lives, so sometimes we would hang out with them. And I just would remember that--you know, my parents mentioning certain things. Like, for instance, they said that, like, Americans seem to have this ability to really relax and let loose and have fun, you know? BRODY: And that felt different to them? DANG: You know, like they have a good laugh, and they have a good smile. Like, they seem to really enjoy life, you know? They&#039 ; re not always serious all the time. I think that&#039 ; s changed since then. (both laugh) BRODY: Little bit. |00:19:04| DANG: Yeah. And--what else, customs. Oh, like--this is a weird one, that they thought was weird. Like, the Chinese--like, they&#039 ; re always fighting over the bill, you know, usually. BRODY: Yes, yes. DANG: You know, when y&#039 ; all go out. But they were like, it&#039 ; s odd, these people can be really good friends, but it&#039 ; s just a custom, you know everyone pays for their own meal. There&#039 ; s no reason to say, &quot ; Oh, I&#039 ; m going to get you this time. You get me--&quot ; It&#039 ; s just not as often, right? BRODY: (speaking at same time) Right. It&#039 ; s not part of the-- ©Baylor University 18 DANG: I mean, we do that sometimes, but not as often as they do. Like, you&#039 ; re always fighting for the bill back in the day. So little things like that. BRODY: Little things like that that you noticed. DANG: Yeah. I don&#039 ; t remember anything that really shocked them. |00:19:50| BRODY: Right. In your own experience of going to school--you know, so English, you were reading and you could speak, and so that part of the transition was fine, but what school did you go to? DANG: L. L. Hotchkiss [Elementary School]. BRODY: Okay. And you started there in kindergarten? DANG: Yeah, kindergarten. BRODY: And do you remember, were there a lot of other Vietnamese in your class, or not at all? DANG: No, zero. BRODY: So where you were living there really--at that point-- DANG: Yeah. So mostly I had white and black and some Mexican friends. That was it. No Asians. BRODY: So tell me what you remember about kindergarten and that experience. ©Baylor University 19 |00:20:28| DANG: And quickly about that, because a lot of my parents&#039 ; friends were slightly younger than them, so they didn&#039 ; t have kids. BRODY: (speaking at same time) They didn&#039 ; t have kids yet. DANG: Some of them were not even married. BRODY: Okay, so you were the pioneer. (laughs) DANG: So they either had--yeah. They either had kids that were in junior high or high school, or no kids. So it was fine because, you know, as kids you don&#039 ; t know, right? Now, my name was made fun of a lot, obviously. BRODY: Oh, was it? (laughs) DANG: That was about it. But as kids we just all played together, you know? BRODY: Right. And so you were really not aware of differences or-- DANG: No. I wasn&#039 ; t really aware. I don&#039 ; t ever--you know, I mean, to be completely honest, I mean, I had never met an African American person till I came here, but it didn&#039 ; t shock me or anything, you know? Like, I wasn&#039 ; t--you know, it wasn&#039 ; t weird, I just hung out with whoever. You know, like, I remember my birthday parties. We had little birthday--we would get a little cake and I was allowed to invite eight people, and I would mostly invite kids from my apartment. It was mostly Hispanic children and African American children, and that was about it, you know? ©Baylor University 20 BRODY: How about school, schoolwork itself? Was it--you just didn&#039 ; t know anything different, it sounds like. DANG: Yeah, it was--you know, it was easy at the time. (Brody laughs) |00:21:42| BRODY: And would--for your parents, being--you know, having gone to school in Vietnam and then now being parents in a whole different school system and culture, were there any challenges there that you remember? DANG: I think they were just in survival mode, you know? So I was actually left alone a lot because they had to--you know, I would wear a little necklace with my key, and I was pretty much left alone. And then sometime[s] my aunts and uncles would come and bring us food or something, you know, knowing that my parents weren&#039 ; t there. Yeah. So I was pretty self-sufficient. I would, you know, do my own homework and just--and I would be--I could--you know, by first grade I could cook ramen noodles or something, you know? BRODY: (laughs) That&#039 ; s pretty amazing(??). DANG: But they usually left me food, obviously. You know, leftovers or something. And I was allowed to go out and play because I had my key, and, you know, yeah. I think they were in total survival mode. You know, my mom worked at different places like a sandwich shop. She didn&#039 ; t know how to drive yet and we couldn&#039 ; t afford two cars, so she would have to walk to work, you know, so it had to be places that were close. And then if my dad was home from work and the timing worked out, he would drive her. So ©Baylor University 21 eventually they worked it out where my dad worked a night/graveyard shift at 7-Eleven so that, you know, there would be someone home during the day, but he slept obviously, and so I pretty much tended to myself a lot of times. BRODY: Did you have siblings? DANG: I do, but-- BRODY: Not at that time? DANG: Not at the time, and they planned it that way. They wanted to get a house and all that before they had another kid. |00:23:25| BRODY: Makes sense. So going forward, you know, in your schooling, where did you go next, in terms of middle school and-- DANG: Oh, middle school. Okay, so we lived in--you know, when we were in L. L. Hotchkiss, and that&#039 ; s another reason most of my friends that I hung out with were not Caucasian because the way it worked was that apartment bused to L. L. Hotchkiss, but then all the Caucasian kids mostly lived in single-family houses, so it was harder to, like, schedule people to drive over for birthday parties or sleepovers or anything like that. So when I was in third grade--before third grade, we moved to this apartment on Plano Road, because that was another sort of herd mentality, right? Like, these--a lot of people moved so we moved with them, and that was starting Forest Ridge Elementary [School]. That fed into-- ©Baylor University 22 BRODY: In Richardson? DANG: In Richardson. And then from there, we were still in the apartments that fed into Liberty [Junior High School], and then that&#039 ; s when my parents saved up enough money and they bought a house in Garland. And so I finished eighth grade at Liberty and then started high school, which was ninth through twelfth at North Garland [High School]. |00:24:51| BRODY: Got it. So that was a big accomplishment for your parents-- DANG: Yeah, huge accomplishment. BRODY: --to accomplish that goal of owning a house. DANG: Yeah. It was truly for them, I mean, literally the American dream. That&#039 ; s for them, to own a house. BRODY: Do they ever talk about that moment, that feeling? DANG: I&#039 ; m sure they were very proud, and I think my mom just wanted a house, you know, that they owned, and it was bigger and you didn&#039 ; t share walls with--you know, that kind of stuff. But I think, you know, that generation, for me, they were never--it was never outwardly celebratory, you know? It was always kept inside. BRODY: Quiet accomplishment, I guess. DANG: Yeah, that kind of stuff. So you didn&#039 ; t notice it. Like, there wasn&#039 ; t a party or anything, but yeah, I&#039 ; m sure they were happy. ©Baylor University 23 BRODY: Absolutely. Well, just looking at it from the outside, having come as a refugee, you know-- DANG: Absolutely. And it was such a big purchase--right?--for them. You know, for anyone, but for them especially at the time. So it was--you know, it was exciting, stressful, that kind of stuff. |00:25:57| BRODY: So Garland, of course, has a very large Vietnamese population. At the point that you guys moved to Garland, was that already pretty established? DANG: No. It still wasn&#039 ; t, and I think it was--that must&#039 ; ve been &#039 ; 88. So when I was there--by the time I graduated, absolutely. Now, absolutely. But even then, I always kind of got in at the beginning, you know? So there were a few, but not really. |00:26:27| BRODY: I mean, what is that like for you, then? I mean, it&#039 ; s a whole different experience when you come and you are, you know, everybody&#039 ; s one friend who&#039 ; s come as a refugee from Vietnam. What are your recollections of your own, you know, feelings around going through childhood and adolescence in this part of Dallas and Texas, being different? DANG: Sure. And I think one reason I acclimated really well was because, you know, one, I was an only child growing up, and my mom kept me pretty secluded because, you know, she was one of those that worried a lot. I had friends when I was in Saigon but ©Baylor University 24 very limited, you know. They would have to come over and I wasn&#039 ; t allowed to go out on my own. Obviously I was young. But also because I came so young. You know, like, I know friends who came when they were in junior high or even high school, and I think they had a harder time adjusting because, you know, by then you&#039 ; ve left some good friends, you don&#039 ; t speak the language as well, you&#039 ; re having--you&#039 ; re probably too busy trying to catch up in school and, you know--and then, you know, as you get older there&#039 ; s more of the cliques and all that kind of--so I didn&#039 ; t have to deal with that. I was in kindergarten, you know? Kids just--I don&#039 ; t even know how kids get along. You know, how they decide who to play with or who not to. They just played with everyone. So I was lucky in that sense. But by the time--you know, I made friends pretty easily. |00:28:05| BRODY: So it was just a nonissue. And what about discrimination or racism or anything like that? Was that something you were aware of, or-- DANG: I think it was more of the silly kid stuff. Like, my name and--I remember when I--you know, when I was younger, like, first through third grade, people would always want to have a fight with me because they thought I knew martial arts. (Brody laughs) You know, it was this total stereotype, but I can honestly say I--besides, like, just the teasing once in a while or, you know, you walk across the street and you meet someone who&#039 ; s just blatantly racist or something, I don&#039 ; t--I&#039 ; ve told someone this--I&#039 ; ve never felt like I didn&#039 ; t get something because of my race since I&#039 ; ve been here. And maybe I&#039 ; m blind to it, I&#039 ; m lucky. I just never--you know, whether it was a scholarship or a job position, I just never--that has never happened. ©Baylor University 25 BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. DANG: In fact, I think because my name is so odd, people remember, you know? And-- yeah, I just never--honestly never felt that. |00:29:10| BRODY: That is good news. You mentioned earlier that back in Vietnam your family was pretty well off, and then upon coming here, you know, again, being in survival mode-- DANG: Just starting over. BRODY: --and having--starting over. Was that sort of shift in social class or circumstance, was that something that was discussed in your family, or do you recall any challenges that were posed by that particular shift? DANG: Yeah, I think--you know, my mom never worked a day in her life until she came here. BRODY: Really. DANG: You know, she never had to. And so that was tough on her, but they were so sort of--my parents are so determined. You know, they suffer well, right? (Brody laughs) But I know that must&#039 ; ve been hard because she&#039 ; s never worked her entire life, and my dad worked but it was kind of like--you know, he worked in, like, helping build ships, but it wasn&#039 ; t like a hard, stressful--like, he didn&#039 ; t work because he needed the money to make a living. I mean, my grandmom had it taken care of. So I think that was a huge change for ©Baylor University 26 them. And then--but once again, like, I didn&#039 ; t know any better, because, you know, I lived in the apartments where all the other kids&#039 ; parents were probably at work too, and they were left alone a lot. So it wasn&#039 ; t like I experienced this amazing life and remembered all of that, and then we had to move to a tiny little place, you know? BRODY: Right, you just--it was what you knew. DANG: Yeah. I remember we lived well in Saigon, but I was so young, you know? It wasn&#039 ; t like I was already spoiled or anything, so I didn&#039 ; t really--you know, I didn&#039 ; t know, you know? BRODY: Yeah. And for them it was just they were surviving and happy to be here. DANG: Yeah. I just remember not having them both together a lot, because they had to take turns being at the--working at different times so someone would watch over me. So I remember that. I remember missing that, like, why are we not all hanging out, you know? |00:31:16| BRODY: Yeah, that&#039 ; s--but how it had to be until-- DANG: Yeah, right. BRODY: --later. Your friends growing up in the apartment were--it was a diverse group. How has that childhood that you had and that experience of being in a pretty multiracial and multicultural environment in your formative years here in Texas, how has that shaped your ideas about what it means to be an American? ©Baylor University 27 DANG: I think--I just think I understand people better. I really do, and it&#039 ; s a great--it really was--it&#039 ; s a huge advantage because, you know, I can talk to anybody, and I just--I just, within five minutes, I kind of understand where people are coming from a little better, you know? Like if I was to use the extreme, what if I went to this very exclusive private school, say, right, and I never worked, and I went to a private college and then I just went straight to finance or something, you know, where it&#039 ; s just--you know, you don&#039 ; t see--but I got the total opposite. You know, like when I went to UT [University of Texas] architecture school, it was tiny, but it also had the highest SAT average in all of-- at the time, in &#039 ; 93. And it seemed like when I went there--because North Garland wasn&#039 ; t that great of a school. I would&#039 ; ve preferred to go to Berkner [High School], but you know--you probably know, you go to Richardson, you get the same house and it&#039 ; s like $10,000 more, you know, because of the schools. And so when I got to UT, for instance, in the architecture program, it was mostly Caucasian, a lot of them were from Houston and really good private schools, and I remember they had all been to Europe. You know what I mean? And then like, a couple of friends, their parents were in the oil business, but they had a house in Malaysia, they had a house--and so they had been everywhere. And when they talked about current events, like, their high school, they were writing about very serious current events, and my high school we were just--you know, we were doing the--you know, like reading To Kill A Mockingbird, that kind of stuff, just normal. But they were obviously-- |00:33:44| BRODY: A different level. ©Baylor University 28 DANG: --way ahead, yeah. But I still--I adapted well, so I was all over the place. Like, I remember my first-grade teacher, she saw how well I drew and colored. So she collected it all, and then she sent it off to this program--and I think it still exists--called the Young Artists Program. It was a private art school that you went to after school on weekends or in the summer, but it was in the YMCA at Highland Park and you had to pay a lot of money. But she talked the director there into letting me go free. So when I went there I met--I remember going to arts class and there was a kid named Jed. And I went there all the way up to junior high. BRODY: Oh, really? DANG: Yeah. So my dad and my mom would take me there after school or on the weekend, their summer camp. And he would always have, like, a limo driver drop him off. So I went from--and we were still--you know, I started in first grade. So I was still living in the apartments that have been torn down, you know? So I was hanging out with, you know, just kids. BRODY: The kids, yeah. |00:35:00| DANG: Yeah, kids that lived in apartments and low-income apartments, and then here I am in Highland Park taking art class with--you know, I just remember the things they talked about, you know? Like, we went to a movie like, two times a year, and that was a huge deal. And I remember this kid saying, &quot ; Well, my mom&#039 ; s off to Europe for two weeks with her friends, so my dad said that every night he&#039 ; s going to take me to a ©Baylor University 29 different movie.&quot ; And then he would come in and tell us about all the movies that he saw, you know? BRODY: Wow. DANG: Yeah, and then like one kid went to Disney[land] and somehow his parents hooked it up where he got to meet Michael Jackson. Like, it was just ridiculous, right? BRODY: Right. DANG: And so I&#039 ; ve always been in those situations, and I--so, from a very young age, I interacted with people from all ranges of life, and I think that&#039 ; s huge for me-- BRODY: You&#039 ; re flexible. DANG: --right now, huge. Like, in my business I deal with people from all parts of life. |00:36:01| BRODY: What do you do now? Are you working as an architect? DANG: Yeah. So me and my business partner, we own an architecture firm. BRODY: What kind of buildings do you design? DANG: We mostly do residential multifamily, but we do some commercial. We&#039 ; re starting to get some commercial. So, you know, we work for just a couple who wants an addition to, you know, to a person who owns a golf course. You know? So-- BRODY: So that flexibility goes-- ©Baylor University 30 DANG: Yeah, knowing how people work and how they see the world. You know, and then of course we&#039 ; re on job sites, you know, looking over work from contractors and subcontractors. So you meet people, and I just think growing up like that really-- BRODY: Was an asset. DANG: --was immense. |00:36:47| BRODY: And in particular the refugee experience, how has that informed your worldview? Just having come that particular way? DANG: Especially these days, right? Dang. You know, I think that--I think depending on what you want to focus on, I think a lot of refugees, you know, they risk their lives to come here. And they come here because they usually want--usually, the primary reason is always a better life for their kids. That&#039 ; s always their main goal, and I think that--and I think--so my mom has fourteen brothers and sisters, and my dad has three brothers and three sisters. So I have a lot of cousins. And I was the first to go to college, because I was the oldest. But it&#039 ; s kind of funny if you compare the--if you purely look at--and it&#039 ; s a bad way to look at it, but for the sake of discussion--if you look at purely academics, what type of degrees you have and where you went to school and how you&#039 ; re doing in your career, it&#039 ; s me and the older cousins that have done the best, especially the ones that came over that were not born here. So it can&#039 ; t be an accident, I think. I think it&#039 ; s because--you know, I think when you&#039 ; re a refugee, you understand how hard it is to even get here, you know? ©Baylor University 31 BRODY: And you&#039 ; ve lived it. DANG: Yeah, and you&#039 ; ve lived it. So sometimes, as hard as, like, running a business is, the stress and liability and all that, I mean it doesn&#039 ; t compare to getting on a little boat. BRODY: And knowing that you already did that and survived. DANG: Yeah, and trying to survive that and having your boat crash. You know what I mean? So I just think that it&#039 ; s a shame that maybe people don&#039 ; t look at that side of it, right? |00:38:53| BRODY: Right, right. Well, that makes me think about just some generational differences within the community. Are you still involved and active in the Vietnamese community in Dallas? DANG: I&#039 ; m not as much, actually. I&#039 ; m pretty active in the architectural community, and I&#039 ; m very active within UT--Arlington because I taught there for five years. BRODAY: Oh, did you? DANG: So, you know, I&#039 ; m pretty--so that kind of takes a lot of my time. |00:39:24| BRODY: Right. Just looking then from the outside, what are your perceptions of the Vietnamese community in Dallas or North Texas right now? I mean, it&#039 ; s now been, you ©Baylor University 32 know, forty-something years since the first people came. What kind of a community is it, from your perspective? DANG: It&#039 ; s a really tight community. It&#039 ; s still the same kind of herd mentality. Like, you&#039 ; ll see--you know, like people joke about Koreans having donut shops or dry cleaners, Vietnamese doing nails. It&#039 ; s just because they trust that the success of their own people in a certain field will mean success for them, you know? So that&#039 ; s why they do that. It&#039 ; s very tight-knit, everyone knows everybody. I think they&#039 ; re really good entrepreneurs. You know, like if you think about the Korean community, for instance, it&#039 ; s rare to see--you know, in my parents&#039 ; type of work, which is non-white collar, it&#039 ; s rare to see a Korean person, because they either do white-collar work or they open their own shop, whatever it happens to be. You rarely see them at Handbag or--you know. BRODY: Whereas the Vietnamese community--maybe, do you think that has something to do with language when they got here, or-- |00:40:50| DANG: I think--if I had to guess, I think the Korean community is the most tight-knit. Like if you open a barbershop, the Koreans will go to you, because it&#039 ; s a Korean barbershop, you know? BRODY: Right. DANG: Like, even at Chinese restaurants, you rarely see Koreans. But you&#039 ; ll see Chinese at Korean restaurants. They support each other&#039 ; s business. They buy insurance from each other, you know, and I think that&#039 ; s why they&#039 ; re able to start their own business more. ©Baylor University 33 BRODY: Right, right, whereas the Vietnamese community, you think, is maybe different? DANG: They&#039 ; ll just go where the prices are good, just like anyone else, I think, you know? BRODY: Yeah, okay, I see what you mean. DANG: So whereas Koreans are very--you know, like you go into any Korean bakery, it&#039 ; s mostly Koreans. BRODY: That&#039 ; s an interesting observation, yeah. DANG: Like, yeah--like, you go to an Indian restaurant and you&#039 ; ll see Chinese and every--but you don&#039 ; t hardly see Koreans. |00:41:43| BRODY: Yeah. I know that--I don&#039 ; t know if you&#039 ; re involved in any of the churches or the-- DANG: No, I think I kind of took my dad&#039 ; s side where I&#039 ; m kind of atheist. (laughs) BRODY: (laughs) I hear you. DANG: And my mom is very lightweight Catholic, you know? She&#039 ; ll go a couple of times a year. BRODY: Right. So it&#039 ; s not--that was not a factor at all-- ©Baylor University 34 DANG: No, that has not been much of a factor. |00:42:02| BRODY: --in the integration process. So, just trying to think about, you know, some of the things that we&#039 ; ve discussed today. You know, in your own experience it seems that your parents as well as yourself really assimilated very smoothly into life here, and when you think, though--when you think back and look back at your life and your family&#039 ; s experience, you know, you talked about the American dream. What does it mean, to you, to say, you know, your family has lived the American dream or that you have? What does that mean to you? DANG: I think, you know, the house was a symbol, right? But I think it&#039 ; s a symbol for, &quot ; Hey, look, I can do whatever I want in my backyard now,&quot ; you know? And the apartments you don&#039 ; t really have a yard or you can&#039 ; t just put whatever you want, you know? So I think it&#039 ; s the freedom to choose things and to do what you want, and I think that&#039 ; s ultimately for me, it&#039 ; s the same, you know? To be able to open my own business. BRODY: Right. To have that kind of freedom. |00:43:12| DANG: Yeah. The freedom to open my own business. And before I forget, one thing I wonder, actually, when you talk to all these refugees and immigrants and especially the Vietnamese immigrants, I&#039 ; ve always wondered this myself is: there is someone who had a very similar experience than me, if for some reason they--at least on the surface, they kept more of the culture. Like, you can see. You know? Like, maybe they know how to ©Baylor University 35 cook Vietnamese better than I do. Maybe they--some reason or another, their friends are mostly Vietnamese, whereas mine are all over the place, even though they went to college. I would be really curious. I&#039 ; ve always wondered that, because I have Vietnamese friends that are like that. They&#039 ; re friends with me, but most of their friends are Vietnamese. And I always wonder why--how--we lived a very similar life, you know? And I&#039 ; m curious, have you found that? BRODY: Yeah. I mean, some people say that the culture and that sort of the age that they were at when they came and how many family members they lived with and all of that shapes the passing on of the values. I would--you know, just to kind of go on that theme, want to kind of explore with you--I mean, what values or cultural, I don&#039 ; t know, identity would you ascribe to Vietnamese themselves? |00:44:54| DANG: I think very family-oriented--and this is some Chinese, too--very willing to take care of the parents when they&#039 ; re old. Usually pretty frugal, always thinking of their kids instead of themselves. And I have to say, it&#039 ; s changed since. BRODY: How so? DANG: I think we&#039 ; re all becoming more Americanized, whatever that means. BRODY: Yeah, that&#039 ; s what I was wondering. What do you think that means? DANG: Yeah, my parents&#039 ; generation, it&#039 ; s almost embarrassing if you don&#039 ; t take care of your elders. But then the newer generation, it&#039 ; s like, &quot ; Oh, we can&#039 ; t live with them,&quot ; right? ©Baylor University 36 Like, we can take care of them but we&#039 ; re not living together in the same house, you know? (laughs) That&#039 ; s just not--that&#039 ; s--I think that&#039 ; s more how I feel-- BRODY: Getting Americanized? DANG: Yeah, Americanized. BRODY: More individual. DANG: Yeah, individual. Oh, like I still see my parents once a week, at least. That&#039 ; s really important. BRODY: So that&#039 ; s a key part of the being Vietnamese and maintaining that contact with the family. DANG: Yeah, yeah. Right. So, you know--what else? |00:46:20| BRODY: The language? Do you still speak the language? DANG: Yes. I speak very little Vietnamese, I speak some Cantonese. BRODY: I assume with your parents, then, it&#039 ; s Cantonese primarily? DANG: Um-hm, yeah. But then if I see my aunts and uncles and my grandmom, we&#039 ; d speak in Vietnamese. Yeah. Hardworking. Education always being super important. BRODY: Right. Did your parents really encourage you to keep going? ©Baylor University 37 DANG: Oh yeah. Yeah, very much so. Very much so. And then there&#039 ; s always these, like, stereotypes, right? Like Ivy League schools being really important, you know. And I&#039 ; m still talking about their generation. I think it&#039 ; s changed now where sports were not really that encouraged, you know, but musical instruments and art was really encouraged. You know? Like that kind of stuff, I mean, that was to T. Like even my sister who&#039 ; s ten years younger, all her and her friends were forced to play piano (laughs) even though they had no interest in that, you know? BRODY: (laughs) I think many of us were. DANG: Yeah, I know. It&#039 ; s very similar. But, yeah, I think family is a huge value, and not to say that Americans in general are not, but it&#039 ; s just a really high priority. BRODY: Yeah. It&#039 ; s an interesting question that you posed, though: the differences between different people with similar experiences. |00:47:40| DANG: Right. But one thing I&#039 ; ll tell you that&#039 ; s interesting is--so I&#039 ; m very similar in that, you know, I see my parents and try to take care of the elderly. But when it came to them making decisions for my life, I totally went against the grain. BRODY: Oh really? DANG: Yeah. BRODY: What did they want you to do? ©Baylor University 38 DANG: They probably wanted me to do--you know, be a doctor or lawyer or something like that, and I just wasn&#039 ; t interested in terms of my social life, and I just never-- somehow I never-- BRODY: But they were supportive of that art-- DANG: Yes, they were, but they--you know, you could--you know, it was definitely not how they would choose, and that&#039 ; s the same thing as when I talked about earlier where some kids would just do that, right? Okay, I&#039 ; ll go do that. But I was completely against the grain on that. And, you know, I don&#039 ; t know why that was. I just--I don&#039 ; t know how that worked out, why me. You would think my younger cousins would be like that, but I--yeah, I just never in any--pretty much any part of my life, like--you know, like Vietnamese parents are very--they&#039 ; re very supportive, but they&#039 ; re--you know, like most middle-class Vietnamese, if their kids can get into any college, they can pay for it. That&#039 ; s usually what their goal is, right? Or their goal. BRODY: College. |00:49:15| DANG: Yeah. They&#039 ; re supportive, but they&#039 ; re also kind of controlling, you know? Like, okay, you&#039 ; re going to play the piano and then you&#039 ; re going to do this. You&#039 ; re going to go become a doctor. You&#039 ; re going to go--you know? You&#039 ; re going to live in the dorm for-- you know. So they&#039 ; re very--but, one, my parents couldn&#039 ; t afford to do that, so maybe they had to let me choose myself, or where you&#039 ; re going to buy a house and all that. I made all those decisions-- ©Baylor University 39 BRODY: Yourself? DANG: --myself. And I didn&#039 ; t really--I didn&#039 ; t really take advice very seriously, I guess? I don&#039 ; t know why. Maybe that&#039 ; s just a personality trait. I don&#039 ; t know if it-- BRODY: Right. Well, and having had the freedom as you were growing up to make those decisions. DANG: Right. But that&#039 ; s different, I think, from most, especially ones that came here very early and were born in Vietnam. I think it was, &quot ; Okay, Mom and Dad wants me to do this. I&#039 ; m going to do it.&quot ; |00:50:12| BRODY: Yeah, that it&#039 ; s like another cultural difference. Have you been back to Vietnam? DANG: No, I haven&#039 ; t ; nor China. I&#039 ; d love to go to both and see. I&#039 ; d love to. Yeah, everyone who&#039 ; s been back tell[s] me it&#039 ; s great. I think a lot of people I know that have been back, though, didn&#039 ; t come on a boat, so it&#039 ; s a little traumatic. Like, my mom won&#039 ; t ever go back because it just reminds her of--you know, and then there were things where, you know, when we left and when my grandparents left they just confiscated their houses and just--you know what I mean? Like it&#039 ; s hard for them to go see that. So I think they don&#039 ; t have as much interest. But then my aunts--my mom, you know, who had a big family, her siblings that were younger that her didn&#039 ; t come until, gosh, what year? I was in junior high, so maybe mideighties or something? So they came on a plane. ©Baylor University 40 BRODY: They came--yeah, much later. DANG: So they go back all the time, you know? They love it, you know, to go back and see their friends and all that. But most of my parents&#039 ; friends are here, you know, because they were the same age, they went on a boat, and so my parents don&#039 ; t have as much of an urge to go back. BRODY: And a tie? DANG: Yeah, but they--my aunts and uncles go back all the time. BRODY: Yeah, so, I mean, like we were talking about before, the timing matters a lot. DANG: Yeah, absolutely. And they probably feel more acclimated there than here, even today. |00:51:39| BRODY: So is your whole family--is everyone still in this area? DANG: Well, my mom&#039 ; s side&#039 ; s all over the place, yeah, (laughs) because there&#039 ; s so many of them. But my dad&#039 ; s side? Yes, they&#039 ; re all here. All of them. BRODY: Do you get together as a family? DANG: Yeah, yeah. I&#039 ; d say--I see my immediate family more, but maybe three, four times a year, absolutely. And now I see my cousins more, yeah. |00:52:06| ©Baylor University 41 BRODY: Okay. Well, that&#039 ; s good. Is there--I&#039 ; m just trying to make sure that we covered everything. Oh, thinking about politics. Is that something that you&#039 ; re kind of on top of in terms of either here or in Vietnam? DANG: Well, my dad is very--he&#039 ; s very sort of China-centric, so, you know, I got him all these Chinese channels, so he watches this and he&#039 ; ll tell me all that, so I hear a lot about that. I don&#039 ; t know much about the politics in Vietnam. I know a little bit about politics and where I stand here, but no, not in Vietnam. I don&#039 ; t keep up very much. BRODY: Yeah, because you didn&#039 ; t really live there. DANG: Yeah, I didn&#039 ; t really live there, so, you know-- |00:52:58| BRODY: Do you think of yourself as Vietnamese American, American, or some other label? DANG: I think I&#039 ; m Vietnamese Chinese American. Yeah. I think as I get older I see a lot of things I do that&#039 ; s very similar to how my parents did it, and then I see some thing[s], those are very opposite, you know? BRODY: Right, right. I mean, the question of identity is really what--you know, what we&#039 ; re trying to get at. DANG: Okay. ©Baylor University 42 BRODY: There was thinking about--you know, just in our conversation we&#039 ; ve kind of learned a lot about the things that were important to you that kind of shaped your worldview, so, again, I was curious of how you thought of yourself. DANG: Yeah, and I think--you know, in the American sense I really believe in individuals. Like I just think--you know, with this country, and I know there&#039 ; s people behind the scenes that we don&#039 ; t give credit to, but for the most part when times are tough or even when they&#039 ; re not, there&#039 ; s always individuals that make huge, huge impacts. But when it comes to friends and family and people at my office, there&#039 ; s this--I always think of this sort of group dynamic, you know? I never forget that I&#039 ; m just a tiny little speck in the universe, you know? But then when you think about in specifically your career and what you want to do, I do believe that individuals can do immense things. |00:54:45| BRODY: I agree, I agree, and I think your family story and your story is a testament to that. Well, those are about all the questions I have, but is there anything else or any other stories that you would like to share or that I&#039 ; ve forgotten to ask? DANG: I think the interesting for me now is looking back. Like I feel like, you know, like lately, especially in an academic setting, there&#039 ; s a lot of students, exchange students, from Mainland China, which, you know, my parents always raised us really as Chinese. So a lot of things people find difficult is they always think--see, with the Asians, if you&#039 ; re Korean, it doesn&#039 ; t matter if you&#039 ; re born in Paris, you still call yourself Korean. BRODY: You&#039 ; re Korean, yes. ©Baylor University 43 DANG: Same with the Chinese, same with the Vietnamese, you know? So they raised us as Chinese, but when I see now actual, you know, Chinese people born in mainland here, it&#039 ; s really odd. Like, they seem really foreign to me because I have nothing in common with them. They have certain things that are really odd to me, you know? And my parents have visited China a few times and my dad&#039 ; s very proud, and even he had a hard time. Like, for instance, at the subways, there&#039 ; s no line ever, or anywhere. There&#039 ; s no line. You just go. So he found that very rude, you know? Because he&#039 ; s so used to having an orderly line and who&#039 ; s in front of you goes first. So I find the same thing. Like, I&#039 ; ve had students who were from mainland, and when I went to UT there were a couple of--and it was really difficult to interact with them sometimes because their culture is so different. BRODY: Even though you personally identify--right. (laughs) DANG: Was raised somewhat Chinese, right? Yeah, it&#039 ; s just really weird, you know? BRODY: I understand that. (laughs) |00:56:56| DANG: Yeah, so I think that&#039 ; s interesting. But it&#039 ; s fun to look at it that way now because I&#039 ; m trying to process it and, you know, think how was I when I got here? How different did I appear to other people in my actions and all that? But it&#039 ; s interesting. It&#039 ; s fun to see it that way because I feel like--seeing them makes me feel more American even, you know? Because, like, I wouldn&#039 ; t do that that way, you know? BRODY: Right. That&#039 ; s--it really brings to light some of the differences between culture and values and norms that you&#039 ; ve grown accustomed to that aren&#039 ; t necessarily cultural. ©Baylor University 44 DANG: Right. BRODY: That&#039 ; s another interesting point that you&#039 ; ve raised there. |00:57:45| DANG: And then sometimes they come here and it&#039 ; s only temporary. They know that in their head, so maybe they don&#039 ; t acclimate as well? BRODY: Yeah, that&#039 ; s a good point too. DANG: We came here ; this is our home. Period. We&#039 ; re not moving again. But they&#039 ; re coming here just for college or for business a few years and then they go home, you know? They just want a degree from here or they want to say, &quot ; I worked on Wall Street for five years,&quot ; you know? So maybe they&#039 ; re not as interested in acclimating, you know? BRODY: Right, the mindset. DANG: Right. So it&#039 ; s totally--it&#039 ; s very interesting to watch. |00:58:20| BRODY: Do you have children? DANG: No. BRODY: No. So, sort of, that&#039 ; s the next stuff, right? Thinking about what values are the values that are the ones you would want to transmit from your own parents to your children. ©Baylor University 45 DANG: Right, right. BRODY: Well, thank you so much for your time and-- DANG: You&#039 ; re welcome, I hope I was able to give you some stuff to work with. BRODY: No, this was amazing. I really appreciate your time and sharing your memories. It&#039 ; s an important story and I&#039 ; m glad that we can record your part of it. Thank you. DANG: Okay. Well, thanks for having me. end of interview All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2019oh001_btba_007.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Bang Dang Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2019oh001_btba_007 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-01-08 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/8725bf7426e723d3ce567802c554ca1d.jpg ecacbe8ed860d0ed49fcc5dfefd06bb5 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sao Tran OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Sao Tran, January 7, 2019 2019oh007_btba_006 1:04:02 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Vietnamese in North Texas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Sao Tran Betsy Brody mp3 oh-audio-dig-tran_S_20190107.mp3 1:|15(1)|22(1)|31(2)|41(5)|49(13)|56(11)|66(3)|88(10)|98(12)|109(8)|121(9)|132(8)|140(12)|151(10)|159(10)|172(10)|182(9)|194(3)|205(1)|215(11)|225(10)|236(7)|249(10)|261(13)|270(2)|280(10)|291(6)|301(12)|310(6)|321(4)|332(11)|351(5)|361(6)|373(9)|383(1)|394(4)|406(3)|415(12)|422(5)|436(7)|444(8)|453(11)|462(9)|472(2)|481(13)|491(10)|501(13)|513(7)|525(2)|535(8)|545(9)|552(12)|563(9)|570(9)|592(9)|601(6)|611(2)|619(8)|629(11)|639(10)|649(10) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/114143 Aviary audio 1 Introduction/Overview of Tran's story BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is January 7, 2019. I am interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Sao Tran. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History, and is part of the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. Alright, Mr. Tran, I’m so happy that you could join me here today and we could record this interview. To start with, could you tell me a little bit about your life in Vietnam, what you your work was and what you were doing as the Vietnam War wound down? |00:00:36| TRAN: Well, when I become the working, I do school teacher for one year and, as you know, teacher didn’t pay that much back home. And then I left the teaching job, I go work for the US consulate general office, but the branch office in the Hội An. That’s part of the historical city now, Hội An, Quảng Nam. I worked there as a interpreter and translator, and then I become office manager and then I got transferred to Danang in—well, this in 1972. So I start in Hội An, 1967, and transfer to Danang, 1972 as the position of admin specialist. Then I stay there until ’75, the company—my country fall to the communist side, so we got evacuated. But before we got evacuated outside of Vietnam we go through Saigon, it one of the most north of Vietnam, and from there we flew to Guam and to Camp Pendleton, and then sponsored by St. Pius X [Catholic Parish] in East Texas. So we came here— BRODY: In Texas. So when you finally made it to Texas— TRAN: —I believe, June, 1975. Camp Pendleton ; Danang ; Guam ; Hoi An ; Quang Nam ; Saigon ; St. Pius X ; U.S. Consulate General 135 Evacuation from Vietnam/Separation from and reunion with family BRODY: So the evacuation itself—so you had to make your way to Saigon first? TRAN: Yes, that’s right. The thing and what happened is it—I think in March, should be in early March, I send my family to Saigon, and then I stay there about a couple of weeks, because I had to stay behind to help with the local employee. I told you that I was administration specialist, I had to help my local employee for evacuation. So I stayed there until most of them left, and then I have take the last flight, flew out from Danang to Saigon, and from Saigon I stayed one month, and then again I involve the evacuation, so I send my family out two day ahead. I stayed back to help all the local employee evacuation with their family. Then I flew out—American officer said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ll locate your family.” However, that what they say, but not exactly happen. Two days later, after my family left the Vietnam, I flew out, and, like, we flew through Guam, which is naval base. Meanwhile, I don’t know where my family by that time. BRODY: Oh my gosh. You must have been so worried. TRAN: Yeah. I was very worried. BRODY: How many people were—how many of your family members had you sent ahead? TRAN: Yeah, the—in total, my family is ten, including me. We have four kid, one brother, two sister, and mother. So ten people. BRODY: Okay. And your wife, of course? TRAN: And my wife. Really, I was confused and worried when I was in Guam, and I look all over, I talk with all kind of US official to try and locate my family, but nobody knew. So two day later, somehow because the Subic Bay’s refugee camp is full, because most of Vietnamese go out through Philippine, it closer. So it’s full, they had—so what they do from in that island(??), they send my family to the Guam from Philippine. So where I was, Sunday morning I wake up and walk around the camp, I catch my oldest son lie on the cot in military tent. That is where we get reunited. evacuation ; Guam ; naval base ; Saigon ; separation from family 299 Flying to Camp Pendleton/Sponsorship in Texas And then later, about two days later, we process paperwork and flew to Camp Pendleton in California. And we stay there about thirty day or so, and then we find a sponsor, I think somewhere in June 1975, we found—original sponsor was the University of Plano. And I think the president of the Plano University by that time, Dorothy Morris. That’s very little university, Plano, and I think a few years later they phase out, it’s sold. I stay in Plano University for group—with other people, maybe sixty people. That only temp advisor. They had to go out and look for permanent—I’m sorry, temporary sponsor. They had to go out and look for permanent sponsor. So there, the St. Pius X jump in and sponsor our family, because the family is so big, ten people, and nobody can sign with that big, because so big for them to carry that responsibility. So finally, St. Pius X took over and then we move from Plano to east Dallas, which where the St. Pius X church located BRODY: Yes. So what was that—how did that feel for you, when you got that news that St. Pius church was going to sponsor your family? TRAN: A matter of fact, it’s very happy that we sponsored by the church because nobody really want to carry that big responsibility except the church, because they’re a group of people. They have manpower, they have resource to help us. So they go out and look for house, put our need to live, they find familiar food for us to eat, and then I find a job. (laughs) Camp Pendleton ; Dorothy Morris ; East Dallas ; food ; housing ; sponsorship ; St. Pius X ; University of Plano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_New_Arrivals Operation New Arrivals Wikipedia page 435 Initial employment in Dallas BRODY: Oh, what was your job? What job did you find? TRAN: The first job I found is the—they call computer operator, but that was the—in those days it’s mainframe, not PC [personal computer] nowadays. And the main job is to work in the tape library. BRODY: The tape library? TRAN: Library, yeah, and the big twenty-four-hundred feet—the big one, big tape. When they call the number on the drive, you go into a library, you get the number, hang it on, and when it dismount, you take it up, put it back in the library. It is simple, but it’s basically the heavy, physical work, because you walk all day long with heavy tape, a lot of that big, heavy tape. (laughs) BRODY: So that’s pretty different than what you were doing in Vietnam. TRAN: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Having office with people. BRODY: Yeah, you were working in an office and administration in Vietnam. How did that—how was the transition for you, or what were you—what did you feel in finding that job? Were you happy when you found the computer job? TRAN: Well, I can’t feel(??) happy or not ; I had to have something to eat for the kid, you know, the family. So I think it’s fine at the beginning. It’s hard, but it’s okay. BRODY: Yeah. You survived and provided for your family, right? TRAN: Yeah, it’s—I think they pay about three dollar and quarter an hour. BRODY: Right. This is still 1975? TRAN: Yeah. computer operator ; employment ; jobs ; tape library 526 Details about being reunited with family in Guam BRODY: Yes. So I want to go back real quick. I mean, the story that you told about finding your family by accident in Guam is pretty astonishing. What was the moment like? Did you see them, or did they see you? TRAN: The thing, by that time the Red Cross, they give you a tent, I think only a single-person tent. If you have family they give you a big tent. I had a little tent. And then I wake up real early in the morning, probably about five, six o’clock, and I keep walking around the area, just don’t know what to do. And I walk by a big tent, military, it’s canvas, and I saw my son lying on the couch, military couch. He slept— BRODY: He was sleeping. He was just sleeping. TRAN: Yeah, and suddenly I found them, family, yeah. Basically, like miracle, you know? BRODY: Sounds like it, and they must have been so relieved as well. TRAN: Yeah, they do. Yeah, and they said—well, two days later we process the paper through the immigration service and we flew to— BRODY: Camp Pendleton. TRAN: —to San Diego. Is that San Diego? Camp Pendleton, yeah. BRODY: Yes, yes, near San Diego. Camp Pendleton ; Guam ; Red Cross ; reunion with family ; San Diego ; separation from family 603 Sponsorship by St. Pius X/Experiences with shopping and cooking BRODY: So—okay, so back to east Dallas, then. So the sponsor was the church that sponsored your family. Were there any specific people that were sponsoring you, or just the church in general? TRAN: I think that by that time they passed aside our family to what they call Men’s Club, the Men’s Club. And they had the Men’s Club work closely with us to try to help us through the—find food, find house, and thing like that, get try to settle in the area, get familiar with the custom and try to help. Some of my family didn’t—most of my—all of my family don’t speak English except me, and so they helped teaching English and do a health check, whatever. And it really hard for me by that time because, like I said, nobody speak English except me. So I had to buy groceries, I had—everything, I had to do it ; everything. BRODY: It’s all on your shoulders there. TRAN: Except cooking. They do cooking. BRODY: They did the cooking. What were some of the most challenging things about, for example, buying groceries? Obviously, time, but was it—what were some of the biggest surprises that you experienced when you were shopping for your family? TRAN: Well the thing that surprising because they didn’t—back in Vietnam, they don’t price stuff like we do here. So easy, very easy to do shopping here rather than back home. Back home, they don’t know price and they can tell you price, you have to keep negotiate, negotiate, and that’s when you buy ten item, take about two or three hour before you get through ten item (Brody laughs) because you keep barking back and forth. (both laugh) Over here, you see price, whether you like or not, that’s all—they don’t change the price. BRODY: It seems straightforward, yes. TRAN: Yes. Ten dollar is ten dollar. It’s easier. BRODY: Yes. So the Men’s Club, the people in the Men’s Club ; were there particular leaders in that group that kind of took you along and showed you how to do the things? TRAN: Yeah, the Men’s Club, I think the president of Men’s Club by that time, Mr. Travis Harmon. Travis Harmon, he’s president, he worked very closely with us—of course, you have other members helping with, but he the main guy. We need anything, we call him, he help. But we try to limit how have had to call because anything we can do, we try to do ourselves, because the big family like that, you can call and you don’t want to bother them. food ; housing ; Men's Club ; shopping ; sponsors ; sponsorship ; St. Pius X 769 Schooling for the children BRODY: Right. So the household, you were the only one who spoke English, and yet you had all the kids. How did you navigate getting them into school and having them enrolled and working on their schoolwork? TRAN: Yeah, at first at the early—I think a couple of lady in the parish help us through process to register kid in school. And then after that, we had the walk from our home to the school because it not too far away. I want to say about mile and a half. BRODY: Okay. Not too far at all. TRAN: Yeah. However, we came from hot weather country, and in the morning here, even in, let’s say, spring, it still very cold. So my wife had to bring the kid to walk to school and come back. And that’s cold for her. BRODY: That’s cold—it’s cold for her, for sure. The kids get used to it, I guess. TRAN: Yeah, but they got used very quickly. BRODY: Yes. Is it different having kids in school in Vietnam versus in the United States? What were some of the key differences? TRAN: Oh yeah, it different. Much different. We come from the country not quite wealthy a lot, and the wealthy in our country, so the life of the school is different, the class different. Over here, school feed kid. They supply everything in public school, book and everything. We didn’t have to buy anything. And we make low income, we fill out application, ask for the lunch exempt, reducing, whatever, but they have to do something back home. Back home they have to walk home and eat lunch and come back. education ; educational systems ; English ; language ; school ; weather 894 Experiences at work at Sun Oil/Friendship with American coworkers BRODY: Right, it’s very different, yes. When you were working, did you experience any—did you interact very much with other Americans, or were you primarily with other Vietnamese refugees? What was your work experience like? TRAN: The working—I work strictly with all American, no Vietnamese around at all because that really an oil company, what they call Sun Oil Company, and their headquarter is in—I want to say in Philadelphia, Northeast. But they have the data center in Oklahoma—Tulsa, Oklahoma. They relocate data center from Tulsa to Dallas, and I think on Empire Central [Drive] and I-30 [Interstate 30], right. Because they just relocate, they need manpower. A lot of low, low-class employees. (laughs) They don’t want to come here, they want to fool around with. So they had vacant. That’s why they hired me tape, pick the tape, put on tape right and dismount and put it back in. That’s all we had to do. BRODY: That’s all you had to do, yes. TRAN: Sometimes we have the time to clean the tape drive, we put the tape back in the library by the number. Make sure you put in proper number so next time you can locate. BRODY: Right, easily. TRAN: Sometimes it’s part of misfound, take a half day to look for it. (both laugh) BRODY: That must be frustrating. So your other coworkers were mostly Americans, other than your brother? TRAN: Yeah, that’s right. Only my brother. But we in different shift. |00:16:40| BRODY: Right, so—oh right, different shifts. So what was it—were you friendly with the other Americans? TRAN: Oh yeah, they were good, it’s fine. BRODY: So tell me about your—what that was like, your work environment and your relationships. TRAN: It very good, because the thing is, the—I think the first year we came to that data center, one of the tape hanger, he’s a senior in the group. And he was actually a marine who come from—return from Vietnam. And he said, “Sao, I want to give you something.” I said, “What do you want me give?” “I give you a car.” BRODY: He gave you a car? TRAN: Yeah, he had Volkswagen, you know, the old Beetle? He gave me the Beetle Volkswagen. And by that time, he lived in Lewisville. So we go out to Lewisville, pick up the Volkswagen, and I drive for about two or three years. It’s a very good car. And by the time me and my family get bigger, so I had to buy some station wagon. Then I gave that Volkswagen to somebody else. I didn’t sell, you know? BRODY: Wow. So that’s very generous— TRAN: Yeah, it is. BRODY: —he just—why do you think he gave you the Volkswagen? TRAN: He said he’d love to help us, because he came from Vietnam. He had returned from Vietnam, rather. And he’d love to help us. And not only that, but the first Christmas, the data center, I think they collect money to help us buy the—for a TV set, black and white, and buy a whole bunch of food for us and feed one of the lunch before Christmas. So I brought the TV home for the kids and look at—they watch it. BRODY: Oh wow, they must have been thrilled. TRAN: Yeah, it’s small, about twelve inch, but it’s good. BRODY: Yes, that’s great. So that sounds like it was a very welcoming experience, your whole experience. TRAN: Yeah, it was, it was. BRODY: Were you worried that—as you were coming, you know, making your way to Texas with the different stops that you made, were you—what were some of your thoughts as you were coming over here? Were you worried that it wasn’t going to be welcoming or that it might be hard? TRAN: At first I do, I did. But after I contact with people around me, I feel very comfortable with and they like, I ask for help if I need to, and they were ready to help us anytime we need. But like I said, I tried not to ask so much. I chose to limit myself. car ; Christmas ; data center ; employment ; friendships ; generosity ; gifts ; jobs ; kindness ; Sun Oil ; Sun Oil Company ; tape library ; television ; TV ; Volkswagon 1167 Relationships at St. Pius X Catholic Church BRODY: That’s good, that’s good. So the—your main interaction was with the workplace and the church, it sounds like. TRAN: Church, main thing, you’re right. BRODY: So tell me more about your relationships at St. Pius X. TRAN: Well, with St. Pius X, I had made contact with the pastor of that church and everything related to the Vietnamese, he’d call upon me, because I’m the guy who would speak English, the rest of them speak somewhat, not very well. BRODY: That’s Monsignor? TRAN: Yeah. So any problem with the Vietnamese or they need some help and they talk with this pastor or whoever in the parish office and they don’t understand, they call me. They always call me. (laughs) BRODY: So you knew what was going on in the community because you were helping— TRAN: Yeah, it’s like I could relay back to them easier. I think the original group who came to St. Pius X by that time is ten family. But I’m the guy who come first. The first family. BRODY: You were the first family. TRAN: And they had rented house for us, it’s $175 a month. Three bedroom, only one bath for ten people. (laughs) BRODY: Wow. (laughs) That must’ve been crowded. TRAN: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, we stayed there a couple of year. Or course, the first few months, they pay the rent but after that we had to pick up the bill. BRODY: But by then you’ve got your job and— TRAN: Yeah, I’ve got that job. Then I go to school, came to school and then advance. English ; housing ; language ; Monsignor Weinzapel ; St. Pius X http://www.texascatholic.com/2016/01/04/obituary-msgr-thomas-w-weinzapfel/ Obituary for Monsignor Thomas Weinzapfel 1266 Going back to school while working full-time BRODY: So while you were still working you went back to school? TRAN: Yeah, I have to go full time, full-time school and full-time job. BRODY: Where did you go to school? TRAN: First school is because I work on computer, that’s what I told you, at the library. I went to the school by, at that time called the Texas Institute. They trained data processor, trained data processor. And I went—let me think—about a year and graduate, still couldn’t find any job other than the same job. Then I went to El Centro Community College. I graduated in three semester. (laughs) BRODY: Wow, that’s fast. You must’ve been studying fast. TRAN: Yeah, three semester. I go for—remember, I work full time too. Then by that time, it improve. However, I continue to go the other school, really not intend to get degree, but intend to learn more stuff so I can improve my skill, not only in technology but also in social activity, things like that. So I went to, let’s see, East Texas [Baptist University] and also go to Dallas University—no, no, it’s at Dallas Baptist University. BRODY: Dallas Baptist? TRAN: Dallas Baptist University. That was very close to—I think it was Grand Prairie, somewhere in there. BRODY: What did you study? TRAN: Oh, studied—let’s see, I forgot what it is. It’s a long time, don’t remember, but the main thing is more or less just little social study. I remember, I took one course with the teacher, communication course, they called it Looking In and Looking Out, I could remember that. (laughs) But just the main thing, but I already have the associate degree from El Centro, so I think that all I need. BRODY: Right, right. But you wanted to learn more and to socialize more. Were your classmates—did you interact very much with your classmates, or were you— TRAN: Oh yeah, same thing you and I here. Of course, I still have accent, but at least I communicated. BRODY: Yes, absolutely. So you had some friends that you knew there. TRAN: Yeah, uh-hm. Sure. BRODY: Are you still in touch with any of those friends? TRAN: Say again? BRODY: Are you still in touch with any of those friends from that time? TRAN: No. It’s been a long time, you’re talking. BRODY: It was a long time ago, yes. TRAN: About forty years now. Associates Degree ; communication ; Dallas Baptist University ; data processing ; education ; El Centro Community College ; employment ; school ; Texas Institute ; work 1424 Tran's leadership in the establishment of St. Peter's Vietnamese Catholic Church in Dallas BRODY: Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to go back. About the church, were you very involved with the Catholic Church when you were still in Vietnam, or was that something that developed once you got here? TRAN: No. I was a Catholic in Vietnam, but I didn’t really involve to church activity until 1975 when I move here. BRODY: Right, when you got here. TRAN: And not only that, I’m the guy who bought the church for Vietnamese, now the Vietnamese—St. Peter Vietnamese Catholic Church. BRODY: Wait, so you built the church—you helped— TRAN: No. We bought it from— BRODY: You bought the church? TRAN: Yeah. We bought it from Reinhardt Bible Church, which [St. Peter Vietnamese Catholic Church] is located on Garland Road and Fuller [Drive]—Garland Road and, I think, Fuller? Oh, [North] Buckner [Boulevard]. Rather easier is, Buckner and Garland Road. And now they still have it. They still meet there in that church. BRODY: Yeah, it’s still there. So the Vietnamese community at St. Pius X in the 1970s, it was growing. So you were the first families, but—first family, and then there came ten more—many more families? TRAN: And it grew quickly because like I said previously, ten families original. Then after that, just go up, and jump up, because I can sponsor somebody else, somebody else sponsor for somebody else, so it’s changing and exponent. BRODY: Right, it grew fast. TRAN: And then we used St. Pius X four PM Sunday Mass. Only one mass. We also used the school for Sunday School in the afternoon. BRODY: In Vietnamese? TRAN: In Vietnamese, yes. And then, I think, in 1995, the community decided to buy their own church. And by that time, we turned from Washington, D.C. after we attend my grandson graduation, and the group of Vietnamese from the community come over to our home and said, “You need to be leader to look for church for us.” And I asked them, “How much money you guys have?” They said “Ninety thousand.” I said, “Ninety thousand, tell me buy a church?” (both laugh) But I think it over and said, “Okay, I’ll buy it. I’ll do it.” And we have—I form a sixteen-member committee to go out and look for church, fundraising, everything else. We bought the church in eighteen months Catholic Church ; Catholicism ; fundraising ; Reinhardt Baptist Church ; religion ; St. Peter's Vietnamese Catholic Church ; St. Pius X https://www.stpetervndal.org/ Website of St. Peter Vietnamese Catholic Church in Dallas 1583 Traditions and activities of Vietnamese Catholic community in Dallas BRODY: So that community had a lot of cohesion and a desire to stick together, then, and to form their own church. Earlier, as that community was forming, what types of activities and—you know, you mentioned the Mass at four PM and the Sunday School—did you do any—do you remember any other types of traditions and things that happened within that community? TRAN: Well, you mean talking about St. Pius X, right? BRODY: Yes. TRAN: Yeah. The thing beside that, not that much except that maybe when we have the Vietnamese festival in mid-autumn or the Vietnamese new year, they use the facility for the celebrate. And also, I think in May, normally, it’s the month of Mother Mary. So we have the procession, all kind of thing, you know. But when we move to the new church, which is located on Garland Road and near the Buckner, we can have more activity then. BRODY: Yeah, tell me about those activities. What do you remember? TRAN: The—I stay a member of that church, but because I’m living too far away, so I go to church here in Richardson. Once in a while I went out there. My name is still there. (laughs) Then when we moved to have a new church we have a new pastor, we have all kind of activity: teaching Sunday school, all the activity, a woman club, a man club, and Boy Scout and all kinds of stuff. It’s a regular—same with American church. BRODY: Yes, but you replicated everything for the Vietnamese community. TRAN: Yeah, that’s right. Um-hm. Buckner ; Catholic Church ; celebrations ; festivals ; Garland Road ; Mass ; processions ; Sunday School ; traditions ; Vietnamese festival ; Vietnamese New Year 1696 Thoughts about &quot ; Americanization&quot ; /Role of language and culture BRODY: So, like the children that grew up in the Vietnamese Catholic church there, what are you impressions of them? Some people say when the second generation is being raised in another country that they may lose some of their culture. What are your observations about that? BRODY: Right, right. So what do you think are the challenges for the grandkids, for example, having grown, you know, been born here and raised in English? So in trying to preserve the culture and to think about the religion, culture, those types of things, what are the biggest challenges for people who come as refugees, who are immigrants, to try to find that balance? TRAN: Well, it really hard to balance, because the kid born and raised in here, they go to school here, they spend most of their daytime at the school, they’re communicating with the local people here, American kids. So it’s very hard to pull them back, you know? Just some, but basically to me, exception ; not normal, exception. All my grandkid, they speak very little Vietnamese. They just Americanized almost hundred percent. They eat American food, very few, sometimes they eat some Vietnamese food, but only certain items they eat, not like us, we eat everything. BRODY: Right. That’s a common challenge for (both talking). TRAN: Yeah, that’s right. It’s very hard to maintain that—that what we call the tapestry here. You know, people coming in, blending into society, and that’s it. No exception. TRAN: Well, I agree with that, because seeing here, thing that I’d like to mention to you that—when I buy that church for them, I think we probably used about max thirty years. So you have all the age, people phase out and kids kept growing up, they adapt to a new culture and they can blend into society complete, but it’s really not that—that not true anymore. BRODY: That’s not what happened? TRAN: No, it’s not. Of course, it Americanized somewhat, but it still continue to work with the church, come to the church and enjoy all kind of activity, except it not a hundred percent. It phase out somewhat, but I see it still going. BRODY: That’s great. Are there new families coming in still? TRAN: Oh yeah, sure, yeah. They tend to go to the church every Sunday, and they also involve to other activity, but the Sundays are the main thing. Like you said, some Vietnamese kids don’t even speak Vietnamese anymore. BRODY: That’s true. So how do you feel— TRAN: Because the problem with the parent, they don’t speak Vietnamese at home. Some of them, they’re afraid the kid don’t speak English, so they try to work with the kid at home, and soon the kid forget the Vietnamese. My family, all my kids speak English and also Vietnamese. But they cannot write Vietnamese, they cannot read. But they speak very well. I speak Vietnamese at home with my wife, my mother, so they get along with it. But I don’t know about next generation, about my grandkid. That’s different story. BRODY: Right, right. So what do you think are the challenges for the grandkids, for example, having grown, you know, been born here and raised in English? So in trying to preserve the culture and to think about the religion, culture, those types of things, what are the biggest challenges for people who come as refugees, who are immigrants, to try to find that balance? TRAN: Well, it really hard to balance, because the kid born and raised in here, they go to school here, they spend most of their daytime at the school, they’re communicating with the local people here, American kids. So it’s very hard to pull them back, you know? Just some, but basically to me, exception ; not normal, exception. All my grandkid, they speak very little Vietnamese. They just Americanized almost hundred percent. They eat American food, very few, sometimes they eat some Vietnamese food, but only certain items they eat, not like us, we eat everything. BRODY: Right. That’s a common challenge for (both talking). TRAN: Yeah, that’s right. It’s very hard to maintain that—that what we call the tapestry here. You know, people coming in, blending into society, and that’s it. No exception. BRODY: Right. So what to you are the—you know, even in the time that you initially first came, what were some of the key pieces of Vietnamese culture and lifestyle that you wanted to make sure that you carried on, even though you were in a new place? TRAN: Well, the thing is, the way the family of Vietnamese is, they try to have the hierarchy ; grandparent, parent, kid. But it not in here. We try to do that, but I doubt that we can maintain it long term. BRODY: Here in the United States? TRAN: Yes. BRODY: Why? TRAN: Well, because—(laughs) it’s Americanized. They different story, different culture. And I can’t say bad or good, but it’s culture. We can’t change the culture. BRODY: Right. You’re in a new place and— TRAN: Yeah. And back home, we have—the first person had to learn how to become good human being first, before technology, before everything, but first. The second in there is the train, your education and talent, it varies and so on, so on. The people lacking good character, it couldn’t be good people. So that’s the—it’s different with Vietnamese, they main thing differently. I don’t know good or bad, but that the way we go. BRODY: The different mindset, it sounds like, that you’re saying. So as—go ahead, I’m sorry. TRAN: Yeah, let me say just one example. One of my last daughter get married last year. And she asked me for the list of the people she will invite. And I gave her the list, but I forgot one important thing: that I had to put my name on the outside label. So when she get pick up the list, guest list, and got the invitation, she put her and her husband address on the envelope and invitation inside. She mail out—and some people don’t even know, recognize her. See what I’m saying? BRODY: Right. TRAN: They don’t do that in Vietnam. They don’t do that, period. BRODY: From the father. TRAN: Because some of my relative, they even don’t know her name, because she young. She is young. And I have to call every single one and apologize for her, I said I don’t intend to do that, just forgive us for that. I call every one of them. BRODY: Yeah, you called every single one? TRAN: (laughs) Every single one. BRODY: Because it was a cultural misunderstanding? TRAN: Yeah. The younger one, no problem, with her brother and sister, cousin. Shouldn’t been a problem, but the people who are, like, my age or above, I had to call. Some of them, they were open. They said, “Don’t worry about it.” But they do come. BRODY: But they came? That’s good. TRAN: Yeah, they came. (laughs) BRODY: Yeah, once they understood, right? That’s an interesting—an interesting story because your— TRAN: Now, in our country they cannot do that, period. BRODY: Right. That would not happen, right? TRAN: It would not happen back home. adaptation ; Americanization ; assimilation ; cultural differences ; culture ; English ; food ; language ; misunderstandings ; Vietnamese language 2125 Thoughts about social class BRODY: That makes me think—this is not the same subject at all, but I wanted to ask you about your thoughts about social class. When you came here to the United States, we talked about how your job was quite different than what you had been doing in Vietnam, but did you have—do you remember anything about your observations about the differences in the United States regarding social class? TRAN: You mean the poor, rich, middle class, so on, so forth? BRODY: Yes. TRAN: Yeah. The United States, I want to say it’s a—we don’t see that that much here. You go outside on the street, you see people walking around, you don’t know who rich or who not. They dress somewhat the same. They drive almost similar vehicle, you know? Even maybe older a few years, but not much different. Back home, social class is very clear. If you own a car, you’re the top of the class. You walk, then you low class. (both laugh) BRODY: So it’s very easy to tell, right? TRAN: And the way you dress, old clothes, new clothes, people ride bicycle compared to motorcycle, compared to vehicle, so— BRODY: There’s a hierarchy. TRAN: Yeah, hierarchy. And now we’re here, and you can’t tell that much. You have billion dollar, I don’t have, but I think you and I is almost the same. Same level. BRODY: Right. Why do you think that is? TRAN: It is the graded you here. They don’t look at the people because they don’t expect people be that person rich, or poor. BRODY: It’s just based on the person. TRAN: Yeah. BRODY: So did you feel like in your getting to the United States, did you move from one social class to another? Or were you kind of the same? TRAN: It not only social class, but because I didn’t move that much—except I do get some better position in later life but I don’t think that a different social class. I make enough money to feed the family, brought the kid up and something like that. I’m not rich because I’m not—if you want to be rich in this society you have to do business, not to work for somebody, and get rich—it don’t work that way. BRODY: Right. So that wasn’t much of a factor in your thinking? TRAN: That’s true, yeah. hierarchy ; inequality ; poverty ; social class ; social mobility ; wealth 2279 Parenting/Experiences with education system BRODY: Yeah, or your experience. So you had four kids come with you from Vietnam, and then they were in school here. What are some of—you talked a little bit about some of the differences between the schools, you know, serving lunch here and things like that. How about the academics? What were your experiences with teachers and with your kids as they were going to school? TRAN: They different, too. Very, very different. On the same subject, after the four kid came here, we had two more coming here. BRODY: Oh, okay, two more that were born here? TRAN: Two daughters, yes. And the one who came in ’75, we had second daughter in ’76. Then ten year later we have another one girl—’86, so ten year apart. And all married and got out. BRODY: Oh, congratulations. (laughs) TRAN: The oldest one fifty, I think he fifty on January the ninth, a couple of more day. He’s fifty. The youngest one, she thirty-three. Thirty-three in April. Tax day, she born on tax day. BRODY: On tax day. (laughs) TRAN: Right. She not here ; she’s in Maryland. BRODY: In Maryland, I see. So school-wise, were the—was the transition for your kids smooth into the school system? What were some challenges, if there were any? TRAN: You mean the— BRODY: The kids in the school, or dealing with teachers or academics. TRAN: Oh, I think they got along very well. They had no problem whatsoever. Through interacting with all the American kid, no problem at all. Matter of fact, the first six month after my first son get in first grade, in a public school in east Dallas, the principal recognize him as a good citizen. So it’s only six month. BRODY: Six months, he was a good citizen. TRAN: Very quickly, you know? BRODY: Yes, yes, that’s great. TRAN: The teacher love him, he do so well in school even. And somehow, they pick up English very quickly. BRODY: Yes, kids do, right? How about you? Speaking of language learning, you already were quite good at English but you, you know, had to transition into all the things that you had to do here. academics ; children ; education ; English ; parenting ; school system ; schools ; teachers 2411 Learning American customs and culture BRODY: Yes, kids do, right? How about you? Speaking of language learning, you already were quite good at English but you, you know, had to transition into all the things that you had to do here. TRAN: Yeah, that’s right. BRODY: What were some of the ways that you tried to improve your English or work on that? TRAN: (laughs) Yeah, just read paper and watch television, you know. I probably went to school too. But it’s hard. I mean, the thing of the culture, custom, those are hard to get used to— BRODY: Even more than language? TRAN: —it take a long time. But other than that, I don’t think English ever was a problem with. I mean— BRODY: What were some of the customs that were confusing to you? TRAN: (laughs) Oh, yeah. Let me see. The customs, you know, one of the only—the holiday, the Christmas Day? Yeah. We had to have a very good in the decoration and Christmas tree and gifts and parties, so on, so forth. We had very little back home. We had so much food here ; as a matter of fact, over-full. It’s too much. BRODY: Right. Too much food? (laughs) TRAN: And we had little back home. (laughs) Over-gifts, you know? Some of my grandkid had, maybe, twenty gift. Back home? Zero. BRODY: Zero gifts. (laughs) TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) So the culture is different. But they—I mean, even they don’t have anything, but they do behave themselves. BRODY: That’s interesting. So yeah, the holidays are different here. So did the Men’s Club at St. Pius or your neighbors or people at work or school, is that the main way that you learned about American customs? TRAN: That’s true, yeah. That’s true. By interacting with people from church and other organization, at work. I think they do train. Workshop is the main thing, because you be in there eight-hour a day. But it didn’t take that much long for me to learn to get around and accustomed to the custom, and so—and, you know, it’s hard to start a new life with my age—at thirty-two, by that time—to start over. BRODY: Yeah. You really did. TRAN: It got difficult, very, very difficult, because I have a big family too. BRODY: Yep. A lot of responsibility and a lot to learn all at once. Christmas ; culture ; customs ; English ; food ; gifts ; holidays ; language ; television 2584 Role of Tran's mother in the family's life BRODY: So your mother was here with you, you said, as well. Did she live in the same house? TRAN: She used to stay with us from ’75 until, I think—I want to say until ’88. Then she moved to stay with my sister. My sister, by that time, she married, she had a couple kid, so she bought a house and my mother move over there and we stay up here by ourselves, and the last kid, which is now thirty-two, thirty-three years old, we put in daycare. It was two years of age. At St. Pius X school, they have daycare. BRODY: They have daycare there. So you guys stayed in that community, you didn’t move. TRAN: Right. We stayed in that community until—let’s see, 1998. Then we moved out to Richardson twenty years ago. daycare ; grandmother ; intergenerational households ; mother 2651 Memories of Monsignor Weinzapfel at St. Pius X Catholic Church BRODY: Okay. In that—the pastor at St. Pius X was Monsignor Weinzapfel, is that right? TRAN: Yes. BRODY: Tell me about your memories of him. I’ve heard he was very involved with the Vietnamese community. TRAN: Oh yeah, he’s a (laughs) very good person. He very active with the helping Vietnamese to settle. He let us use a lot of facility that we need for our activity, including the church, and didn’t charge us that much, you know. It was a collection during Mass and give some back to him. He always helped the Vietnamese in way that’s try to settle down in this area, and I really was good friends with him. BRODY: You were good friends with him? TRAN: Yeah. Anything he need for Vietnamese, he call me. He said—anybody confusing, he said, “Call Sao.” ___________(??), but sometime later, when we moved to Richardson, we did invite him to come over to have supper with us and things like that. BRODY: Oh, that’s nice. Why was he so interested, do you think, in helping the Vietnamese community settle down here? TRAN: Well, I think that one thing that normally the Catholics try to do that, work with refugees, but I think the group of Vietnamese were the first group he deal with. By that time, he about midfifties, still fairly young. So sometimes he rode a bicycle from church to our home and I was at work and my wife, my mother, and the kid at home, except the one in school. He just speak English and none of my [family] member speak English. So he call over, said, “Let’s say a prayer.” So my people say in Vietnamese, he say in English. (laughs) Then he bless and ride bicycle, go home. (Brody laughs) He’s a funny guy. BRODY: (laughs) So he was a flexible guy as far as prayers go and language, too. That’s a great story. Catholic Church ; English ; English language ; flexibility ; friendships ; Monsignor Weinzapfel ; refugees ; St. Pius X ; Vietnamese language ; Vietnamese refugees 2791 Reflections on discrimination and racism BRODY: So I wanted to ask you, on a different note, your family or you, do you remember any experiences of discrimination or racism as you were trying to settle here? TRAN: I don’t think so, no. BRODY: Not at all? That’s good. Why do you think that it went so smoothly, in that regard, for your family? TRAN: Well, I probably—basically, the reason we didn’t run into the discrimination problem, like you’re just saying, basically, is just lucky, you know? BRODY: Hm, yeah, lucky. TRAN: Just lucky, you get lucky. They could deal with a group, don’t have this kind of problem. That’s the only thing I can say, because we have—I see people dealing with that, but we’re not in that. So very hard to recognize discrimination. BRODY: Well, that’s fortunate that you did not experience it ; that’s good. Do you have much interaction, back then, with other groups that are discriminated against in the community? African Americans or— TRAN: No, I don’t have that opportunity. I even involved to a lot of activities that help the Vietnamese in the area. I also join the—what they call—Rotary Club. I was vice president, White Rock Rotary Club. BRODY: Oh, good. What kind of activities did the White Rock Rotary Club do? TRAN: You mean the— BRODY: What did you do with them? What was your— TRAN: Oh, we have other activity. We go out, help people, and thing like that, basically. The Rotary Club ; I think you know that club, right? BRODY: Yes, I know the Rotary Club, yes. driscrimination ; racism ; White Rock Rotary Club 2904 Tran's role as a leader in the early Vietnamese community in Dallas BRODY: So going back to the—you were such a leader in the St. Pius community and the Vietnamese community, and people came to you with questions and the church came to you with questions if there were things that people were going through. What were some of the sorts of problems that you were faced with sometimes when they asked you for your help? TRAN: Well, the thing is sometimes they—you mean dealing with my people who had some problem? Well, the thing is, sometimes they, sadly, would more expectation than it should be, and they should know my capacity is limit, you know. So sometimes they asked a little bit more than I can do. BRODY: What were the kind of things that they were asking for help with? TRAN: Well, the thing sometimes they’d get me to bring kid to the hospital, but I got busy with other stuff, you know? And I can understand. I mean, most people didn’t speak English by that time. But I couldn’t cover everything. I do help that a lot, but only so much I can do. BRODY: Yeah. So sometimes you were asked to do a lot of things— TRAN: Yeah, family have work, so on and so forth. (laughs) BRODY: School, right. So your capacity was limited. TRAN: Yeah, was limit. I wanted to do more, but it’s hard. So I think one family that, he came here with his wife and no kids, left all the kid behind, and he speak no English whatsoever. And so I think by the time he work for Bishop Lynch High School—Catholic high school, down further to the road. I’m not sure you know that high school or not. Bishop Lynch. BRODY: Bishop Lynch High School? TRAN: Yeah, high school. And work there at as a janitor. You know, the _________(??) And every time they had a problem they call me. The sister who in charge that school call me too, so they’re trying to phase out the problem, you know? | BRODY: Yeah, so you’re trying to do your job, to take care of your family and still help. TRAN: But I do help a lot of people, except that only so much I can do. BRODY: Absolutely. Well, the community grew so much, also. I would imagine that there were so—over time, more and more people who had things that they needed help with. (laughs) TRAN: Oh yeah, that’s right, yeah. What I’m saying is only the beginning of that first—maybe first two year or so. After that, you know, they got a lot of young kid who speak English and learn more English, they get used to the life in United States, so they don’t ask for help that much anymore. BRODY: Right, right, because they have other people to turn to as well. So you had your hands full at the beginning, right? (laughs) TRAN: Yeah. It phased out in about a couple of year. I had to raise my family and put kid in school. (laughs) Bishop Lynch high school ; English ; English language ; help ; hospital ; language ; leadership ; problems ; schools ; Vietnamese community 3081 American citizenship and identity BRODY: So, your kids—when—this is a question that we’ve kind of talked about a little bit already, but when you think about yourself and your—did you become an American citizen eventually? TRAN: Yes. In order to become American citizen we have to stay in the United States five years. And then you got the—I think, got green card, and then take another five year to apply for citizenship. So we all become citizenship in, I want to say, probably 1986. And only me, my wife, and the rest of the kids, they automatically come in, become citizens. BRODY: The kids, right? So when you think of yourself now after you’ve gotten the American citizenship, what does it mean to you to be American? Or do you think of yourself as American? Do you think of yourself as Vietnamese, Vietnamese American? TRAN: Oh, it’s mixed. It’s mixed feelings. BRODY: Yeah? Tell me about your feelings about that? TRAN: Well, I’m very happy to become American citizenship, because that’s the goal, to stay here permanently. And if I can stay here without citizenship, you cannot quite well. So I’m very happy with it, and I’d like to tell you another story, becoming citizenship. When I grant first citizenship, my company throw a party. I think about sixty people come over and enjoy it—a reception, rather. And we all—they all happy. But they ask me to make a speech, and I didn’t prepare for it. And I tell people, “Lady and gentlemen, I’m very happy to become American citizenship. But when I first come here, I don’t have nothing. But you took me in, give me your country, give me the church to practice, give me job, and give me friendship.” Some of the women cried. (laughs) BRODY: That sounds beautiful. That’s beautiful, and you didn’t prepare. (laughs) TRAN: Not even at all. BRODY: That was from the heart. Right. So your mixed feelings about both of those things. TRAN: Yeah, mixed feelings. I still bleed all(??) Vietnamese, but I still like to become American citizenship. BRODY: Yeah, and this is—your life has been here at this point, so—and your family. TRAN: I haven’t been back home yet. BRODY: Really? You haven’t been back? TRAN: Yeah, the thing is—the thing I—all my brother, sister, my mother here, my wife here, my kids here. My wife only have one brother here. The rest of her brother, they’re back home. We do communicate once in a while, we would call them, talk with them and thing like that. But that’s—I think she have one, two, three, she have four brother— BRODY: Back there? TRAN: Yeah. She’s only girl in the family. BRODY: And she’s the only one who came here too. American citizenship ; American identity ; citizenship ; coworkers ; friendship ; green card ; identity ; naturalized citizen ; naturalizing ; party ; reception ; US citizenship ; Vietnam ; Vietnamese identity 3305 Tran discusses his wife's work experience in Texas Did she work after she came here? TRAN: Oh she work at—let’s see. When she give the first daughter here, 1976, she worked—at ’78, she started work. Because I myself, I am unable to cover everything, because my salary is still very low by that. And she go work for some company doing some electronic work, like assembly, put things together. She work until the year 2000, she left the workforce. BRODY: Wow. So she had her own— TRAN: Yeah. She’d stay home, take care of the kids and so on, so forth. BRODY: Yes, that’s interesting. TRAN: Take care of the kids, and take care grandkid. BRODY: And grandkids again. (laughs) A mom’s work is never done. assembly work ; childcare ; children ; employment ; jobs ; motherhood ; women ; work 3368 Thoughts about politics So with—in terms of politics, have you been involved in politics here in the United States? TRAN: No. All we do is go voting, that’s about it. BRODY: Just vote. Well, that’s an involvement— TRAN: No activity BRODY: Are there differences that you’ve observed or were you particularly involved in Vietnam with politics? TRAN: No, in Vietnam I don’t involve in politic at all, but over here I do vote. That’s all. political engagement ; poltics ; vote ; voting 3393 Tran reflects on his life, family, and accomplishments BRODY: Yeah. So when you think about yourself and your identity and all of the experiences that you’ve had in your life, what are some of the thoughts that you reflect on about, you know, as you look back on your life? TRAN: Well, I look at my life. I have these friend that say that I really accomplished that much. It happens a lot, because you change from life of Vietnam to United States and get used to here, and set up the family and raise them in a well-mannered—all of my kid went to school and a lot of them graduate school. I think only one didn’t have a graduate degree. Five of them— BRODY: That’s pretty impressive, yeah. Did you tell them that was an expectation? TRAN: No, they go to school and just encourage them, but I never tell them, “You have to do this,” no. Matter of fact, I have two medical doctors, two lawyer, and one teacher, and one business. BRODY: Wow. That’s an impressive family. TRAN: Yeah. And they all kids, they marry to five doctors. So end up five doctor in my family. No, marry three doctor, then that’s two and three together, make five doctor, and two lawyer. BRODY: Wow. You’ve got it covered. (laughs) TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) BRODY: So you never told them, “I expect—” TRAN: No. I don’t want to change them. “You have to become this.” Sometimes I try to talk them, encourage them, but I don’t force them. I don’t force them to—certain people forcing kid learn certain subject, but I don’t do that as a trait(??). The same thing with when they get married. Of course, I like the person for those who marry, but I cannot tell them, “You have to marry this.” That’s the line. They make mistake, they learn from. But can you imagine if you tell the kid, “You’ve got to marry this poor girl or this boy,” and five year later they don’t work out very well, who really carry the responsibility? So I don’t want to do that. They’re on their own. Not only that, when they marry, they on their own. I don’t stick my nose in their family. That is the way it should be. They make mistake, they pay for it. I keep telling kid today, tomorrow you decide to go buy helicopter, go buy it if you can pay for it. But I won’t stop you. (laughs) BRODY: Right. So a wise father. (laughs) TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) It’s true. I would never call and said, “What are you doing?” No. I call and say hello and things like that. Otherwise, I can’t survive with that many kids. accomplishments ; education ; encouragement ; family ; fatherhood ; parenting ; success 3587 Changes in the Vietnamese community in Dallas/Reflections on diversity and American culture BRODY: So I want to go back just briefly to talk about the Vietnamese community in Dallas. In terms of your own perceptions, the community as it’s changed from the 1970s to today, what is the—what are some of the characteristics of the Vietnamese community in Dallas? TRAN: Well, it’s very hard to say, but I mean it’s kind of mixed bag, you know, a lot of people. It truly good, move to forward, but some people left behind. So you can tie those together, and to me, if people move forward they seem very good, you know? They seem very good, they seem get along well, they do act as good people, American people as well. But some people left behind because they don’t have enough education to adapt, adapt the new culture. So they’re left behind, they leave the _____ for not bring a light(??). BRODY: So there’s a difference even within— TRAN: But not that many, okay? Them different. BRODY: Do you feel like the community is unified in terms of how they interact with the larger society? TRAN: They do, but not hundred percent, you know? It’s always a crack here and there. BRODY: Yeah. Are there differences in terms of people belonging to different religions— TRAN: Different religion, different education level, different knowledge, it is complete different. BRODY: Yeah, that’s interesting, especially because the larger community in this area has gotten very diverse and a lot of different groups not— TRAN: Oh yeah. BRODY: I think in 1975 it wasn’t as diverse, so the Vietnamese were the first. TRAN: That’s true, because it’s so many ethnic group come in after ’75 besides Vietnamese, you know? Middle East and Chinese and Indian and Australia, all kind. It once can be Europe, whatever. It’s a big culture. BRODY: Yeah. It’s very different now than it was when you first arrived. TRAN: Oh, yes. It is difficult, but it’s good for United States. That’s the way United States should be. That’s the way—it produce a lot good people, because they mix blood, mix culture. You look at people in Europe, they so pure. So therefore, it’s tougher for them to deal with. Over here it mix. They bring all kind of culture in, bring all kind of language in. I don’t know how many languages the people in the United States they speak. BRODY: Right. Many many. TRAN: It’s over the hundreds. BRODY: Yeah. So immigration is a key part of— TRAN: Oh yeah, there’s no doubt about that. The reason make United States strong is because the mixed culture. If you look at the—if you look more, lean toward the interior you see all the, like, chicken. When they mix blood, chicken strong and big. But they pure blood, it’s skinny. (both laugh) That’s one way to explore the thinking, you know? BRODY: So some diversity, right? TRAN: Yeah. You need that. adaptation ; community ; culture ; Dallas ; difference ; diversity ; education ; immigration ; language ; languages ; religion ; unity ; Vietnamese community Baylor University Institute for Oral History Sao Tran Oral History Memoir Interview Number 1 Interviewed by Betsy T. Brody January 7, 2019 Richardson, Texas Project -- Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans: The Making of the Vietnamese Community in North Texas BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is January 7, 2019. I am interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Sao Tran. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History, and is part of the Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans project. Alright, Mr. Tran, I&#039 ; m so happy that you could join me here today and we could record this interview. To start with, could you tell me a little bit about your life in Vietnam, what you your work was and what you were doing as the Vietnam War wound down? |00:00:36| TRAN: Well, when I become the working, I do school teacher for one year and, as you know, teacher didn&#039 ; t pay that much back home. And then I left the teaching job, I go work for the US consulate general office, but the branch office in the Hội An. That&#039 ; s part of the historical city now, Hội An, Quảng Nam. I worked there as a interpreter and translator, and then I become office manager and then I got transferred to Danang in-- well, this in 1972. So I start in Hội An, 1967, and transfer to Danang, 1972 as the position of admin specialist. Then I stay there until &#039 ; 75, the company--my country fall to the communist side, so we got evacuated. But before we got evacuated outside of Vietnam we go through Saigon, it one of the most north of Vietnam, and from there we flew to Guam and to Camp Pendleton, and then sponsored by St. Pius X [Catholic Parish] in East Texas. So we came here-- BRODY: In Texas. So when you finally made it to Texas-- TRAN: --I believe, June, 1975. |00:02:10| BRODY: So the evacuation itself--so you had to make your way to Saigon first? TRAN: Yes, that&#039 ; s right. The thing and what happened is it--I think in March, should be in early March, I send my family to Saigon, and then I stay there about a couple of weeks, because I had to stay behind to help with the local employee. I told you that I was administration specialist, I had to help my local employee for evacuation. So I stayed there until most of them left, and then I have take the last flight, flew out from Danang to Saigon, and from Saigon I stayed one month, and then again I involve the evacuation, so I send my family out two day ahead. I stayed back to help all the local employee evacuation with their family. Then I flew out--American officer said, &quot ; Don&#039 ; t worry about it, we&#039 ; ll locate your family.&quot ; However, that what they say, but not exactly happen. Two days later, after my family left the Vietnam, I flew out, and, like, we flew through Guam, which is naval base. Meanwhile, I don&#039 ; t know where my family by that time. BRODY: Oh my gosh. You must have been so worried. TRAN: Yeah. I was very worried. BRODY: How many people were--how many of your family members had you sent ahead? TRAN: Yeah, the--in total, my family is ten, including me. We have four kid, one brother, two sister, and mother. So ten people. BRODY: Okay. And your wife, of course? TRAN: And my wife. Really, I was confused and worried when I was in Guam, and I look all over, I talk with all kind of US official to try and locate my family, but nobody knew. So two day later, somehow because the Subic Bay&#039 ; s refugee camp is full, because most of Vietnamese go out through Philippine, it closer. So it&#039 ; s full, they had--so what they do from in that island(??), they send my family to the Guam from Philippine. So where I was, Sunday morning I wake up and walk around the camp, I catch my oldest son lie on the cot in military tent. That is where we get reunited. And then later, about two days later, we process paperwork and flew to Camp Pendleton in California. And we stay there about thirty day or so, and then we find a sponsor, I think somewhere in June 1975, we found--original sponsor was the University of Plano. And I think the president of the Plano University by that time, Dorothy Morris. That&#039 ; s very little university, Plano, and I think a few years later they phase out, it&#039 ; s sold. I stay in Plano University for group-- with other people, maybe sixty people. That only temp advisor. They had to go out and look for permanent--I&#039 ; m sorry, temporary sponsor. They had to go out and look for permanent sponsor. So there, the St. Pius X jump in and sponsor our family, because the family is so big, ten people, and nobody can sign with that big, because so big for them to carry that responsibility. So finally, St. Pius X took over and then we move from Plano to east Dallas, which where the St. Pius X church located. |00:06:33| BRODY: Yes. So what was that--how did that feel for you, when you got that news that St. Pius church was going to sponsor your family? TRAN: A matter of fact, it&#039 ; s very happy that we sponsored by the church because nobody really want to carry that big responsibility except the church, because they&#039 ; re a group of people. They have manpower, they have resource to help us. So they go out and look for house, put our need to live, they find familiar food for us to eat, and then I find a job. (laughs) |00:07:11| BRODY: Oh, what was your job? What job did you find? TRAN: The first job I found is the--they call computer operator, but that was the--in those days it&#039 ; s mainframe, not PC [personal computer] nowadays. And the main job is to work in the tape library. BRODY: The tape library? TRAN: Library, yeah, and the big twenty-four-hundred feet--the big one, big tape. When they call the number on the drive, you go into a library, you get the number, hang it on, and when it dismount, you take it up, put it back in the library. It is simple, but it&#039 ; s basically the heavy, physical work, because you walk all day long with heavy tape, a lot of that big, heavy tape. (laughs) BRODY: So that&#039 ; s pretty different than what you were doing in Vietnam. TRAN: Yeah, yeah, that&#039 ; s right. Having office with people. BRODY: Yeah, you were working in an office and administration in Vietnam. How did that--how was the transition for you, or what were you--what did you feel in finding that job? Were you happy when you found the computer job? TRAN: Well, I can&#039 ; t feel(??) happy or not ; I had to have something to eat for the kid, you know, the family. So I think it&#039 ; s fine at the beginning. It&#039 ; s hard, but it&#039 ; s okay. BRODY: Yeah. You survived and provided for your family, right? TRAN: Yeah, it&#039 ; s--I think they pay about three dollar and quarter an hour. BRODY: Right. This is still 1975? TRAN: Yeah. |00:08:44| BRODY: Yes. So I want to go back real quick. I mean, the story that you told about finding your family by accident in Guam is pretty astonishing. What was the moment like? Did you see them, or did they see you? TRAN: The thing, by that time the Red Cross, they give you a tent, I think only a single- person tent. If you have family they give you a big tent. I had a little tent. And then I wake up real early in the morning, probably about five, six o&#039 ; clock, and I keep walking around the area, just don&#039 ; t know what to do. And I walk by a big tent, military, it&#039 ; s canvas, and I saw my son lying on the couch, military couch. He slept-- BRODY: He was sleeping. He was just sleeping. TRAN: Yeah, and suddenly I found them, family, yeah. Basically, like miracle, you know? BRODY: Sounds like it, and they must have been so relieved as well. TRAN: Yeah, they do. Yeah, and they said--well, two days later we process the paper through the immigration service and we flew to-- BRODY: Camp Pendleton. TRAN: --to San Diego. Is that San Diego? Camp Pendleton, yeah. |00:09:57| BRODY: Yes, yes, near San Diego. So--okay, so back to east Dallas, then. So the sponsor was the church that sponsored your family. Were there any specific people that were sponsoring you, or just the church in general? TRAN: I think that by that time they passed aside our family to what they call Men&#039 ; s Club, the Men&#039 ; s Club. And they had the Men&#039 ; s Club work closely with us to try to help us through the--find food, find house, and thing like that, get try to settle in the area, get familiar with the custom and try to help. Some of my family didn&#039 ; t--most of my--all of my family don&#039 ; t speak English except me, and so they helped teaching English and do a health check, whatever. And it really hard for me by that time because, like I said, nobody speak English except me. So I had to buy groceries, I had--everything, I had to do it ; everything. BRODY: It&#039 ; s all on your shoulders there. TRAN: Except cooking. They do cooking. |00:11:05| BRODY: They did the cooking. What were some of the most challenging things about, for example, buying groceries? Obviously, time, but was it--what were some of the biggest surprises that you experienced when you were shopping for your family? TRAN: Well the thing that surprising because they didn&#039 ; t--back in Vietnam, they don&#039 ; t price stuff like we do here. So easy, very easy to do shopping here rather than back home. Back home, they don&#039 ; t know price and they can tell you price, you have to keep negotiate, negotiate, and that&#039 ; s when you buy ten item, take about two or three hour before you get through ten item (Brody laughs) because you keep barking back and forth. (both laugh) Over here, you see price, whether you like or not, that&#039 ; s all--they don&#039 ; t change the price. BRODY: It seems straightforward, yes. TRAN: Yes. Ten dollar is ten dollar. It&#039 ; s easier. BRODY: Yes. So the Men&#039 ; s Club, the people in the Men&#039 ; s Club ; were there particular leaders in that group that kind of took you along and showed you how to do the things? TRAN: Yeah, the Men&#039 ; s Club, I think the president of Men&#039 ; s Club by that time, Mr. Travis Harmon. Travis Harmon, he&#039 ; s president, he worked very closely with us--of course, you have other members helping with, but he the main guy. We need anything, we call him, he help. But we try to limit how have had to call because anything we can do, we try to do ourselves, because the big family like that, you can call and you don&#039 ; t want to bother them. |00:12:45| BRODY: Right. So the household, you were the only one who spoke English, and yet you had all the kids. How did you navigate getting them into school and having them enrolled and working on their schoolwork? TRAN: Yeah, at first at the early--I think a couple of lady in the parish help us through process to register kid in school. And then after that, we had the walk from our home to the school because it not too far away. I want to say about mile and a half. BRODY: Okay. Not too far at all. TRAN: Yeah. However, we came from hot weather country, and in the morning here, even in, let&#039 ; s say, spring, it still very cold. So my wife had to bring the kid to walk to school and come back. And that&#039 ; s cold for her. BRODY: That&#039 ; s cold--it&#039 ; s cold for her, for sure. The kids get used to it, I guess. TRAN: Yeah, but they got used very quickly. |00:13:58| BRODY: Yes. Is it different having kids in school in Vietnam versus in the United States? What were some of the key differences? TRAN: Oh yeah, it different. Much different. We come from the country not quite wealthy a lot, and the wealthy in our country, so the life of the school is different, the class different. Over here, school feed kid. They supply everything in public school, book and everything. We didn&#039 ; t have to buy anything. And we make low income, we fill out application, ask for the lunch exempt, reducing, whatever, but they have to do something back home. Back home they have to walk home and eat lunch and come back. |00:14:46| BRODY: Right, it&#039 ; s very different, yes. When you were working, did you experience any--did you interact very much with other Americans, or were you primarily with other Vietnamese refugees? What was your work experience like? TRAN: The working--I work strictly with all American, no Vietnamese around at all because that really an oil company, what they call Sun Oil Company, and their headquarter is in--I want to say in Philadelphia, Northeast. But they have the data center in Oklahoma--Tulsa, Oklahoma. They relocate data center from Tulsa to Dallas, and I think on Empire Central [Drive] and I-30 [Interstate 30], right. Because they just relocate, they need manpower. A lot of low, low-class employees. (laughs) They don&#039 ; t want to come here, they want to fool around with. So they had vacant. That&#039 ; s why they hired me and my brother, both. No need to train, anything, just only group of number, hang the tape, pick the tape, put on tape right and dismount and put it back in. That&#039 ; s all we had to do. BRODY: That&#039 ; s all you had to do, yes. TRAN: Sometimes we have the time to clean the tape drive, we put the tape back in the library by the number. Make sure you put in proper number so next time you can locate. BRODY: Right, easily. TRAN: Sometimes it&#039 ; s part of misfound, take a half day to look for it. (both laugh) BRODY: That must be frustrating. So your other coworkers were mostly Americans, other than your brother? TRAN: Yeah, that&#039 ; s right. Only my brother. But we in different shift. |00:16:40| BRODY: Right, so--oh right, different shifts. So what was it--were you friendly with the other Americans? TRAN: Oh yeah, they were good, it&#039 ; s fine. BRODY: So tell me about your--what that was like, your work environment and your relationships. TRAN: It very good, because the thing is, the--I think the first year we came to that data center, one of the tape hanger, he&#039 ; s a senior in the group. And he was actually a marine who come from--return from Vietnam. And he said, &quot ; Sao, I want to give you something.&quot ; I said, &quot ; What do you want me give?&quot ; &quot ; I give you a car.&quot ; BRODY: He gave you a car? TRAN: Yeah, he had Volkswagen, you know, the old Beetle? He gave me the Beetle Volkswagen. And by that time, he lived in Lewisville. So we go out to Lewisville, pick up the Volkswagen, and I drive for about two or three years. It&#039 ; s a very good car. And by the time me and my family get bigger, so I had to buy some station wagon. Then I gave that Volkswagen to somebody else. I didn&#039 ; t sell, you know? BRODY: Wow. So that&#039 ; s very generous-- TRAN: Yeah, it is. |00:17:54| BRODY: --he just--why do you think he gave you the Volkswagen? TRAN: He said he&#039 ; d love to help us, because he came from Vietnam. He had returned from Vietnam, rather. And he&#039 ; d love to help us. And not only that, but the first Christmas, the data center, I think they collect money to help us buy the--for a TV set, black and white, and buy a whole bunch of food for us and feed one of the lunch before Christmas. So I brought the TV home for the kids and look at--they watch it. BRODY: Oh wow, they must have been thrilled. TRAN: Yeah, it&#039 ; s small, about twelve inch, but it&#039 ; s good. BRODY: Yes, that&#039 ; s great. So that sounds like it was a very welcoming experience, your whole experience. TRAN: Yeah, it was, it was. BRODY: Were you worried that--as you were coming, you know, making your way to Texas with the different stops that you made, were you--what were some of your thoughts as you were coming over here? Were you worried that it wasn&#039 ; t going to be welcoming or that it might be hard? TRAN: At first I do, I did. But after I contact with people around me, I feel very comfortable with and they like, I ask for help if I need to, and they were ready to help us anytime we need. But like I said, I tried not to ask so much. I chose to limit myself. BRODY: That&#039 ; s good, that&#039 ; s good. So the--your main interaction was with the workplace and the church, it sounds like. TRAN: Church, main thing, you&#039 ; re right. |00:19:33| BRODY: So tell me more about your relationships at St. Pius X. TRAN: Well, with St. Pius X, I had made contact with the pastor of that church and everything related to the Vietnamese, he&#039 ; d call upon me, because I&#039 ; m the guy who would speak English, the rest of them speak somewhat, not very well. BRODY: That&#039 ; s Monsignor? TRAN: Yeah. So any problem with the Vietnamese or they need some help and they talk with this pastor or whoever in the parish office and they don&#039 ; t understand, they call me. They always call me. (laughs) BRODY: So you knew what was going on in the community because you were helping-- TRAN: Yeah, it&#039 ; s like I could relay back to them easier. I think the original group who came to St. Pius X by that time is ten family. But I&#039 ; m the guy who come first. The first family. BRODY: You were the first family. |00:20:33| TRAN: And they had rented house for us, it&#039 ; s $175 a month. Three bedroom, only one bath for ten people. (laughs) BRODY: Wow. (laughs) That must&#039 ; ve been crowded. TRAN: Yeah, that&#039 ; s true. Yeah, we stayed there a couple of year. Or course, the first few months, they pay the rent but after that we had to pick up the bill. BRODY: But by then you&#039 ; ve got your job and-- TRAN: Yeah, I&#039 ; ve got that job. Then I go to school, came to school and then advance. BRODY: So while you were still working you went back to school? TRAN: Yeah, I have to go full time, full-time school and full-time job. |00:21:10| BRODY: Where did you go to school? TRAN: First school is because I work on computer, that&#039 ; s what I told you, at the library. I went to the school by, at that time called the Texas Institute. They trained data processor, trained data processor. And I went--let me think--about a year and graduate, still couldn&#039 ; t find any job other than the same job. Then I went to El Centro Community College. I graduated in three semester. (laughs) BRODY: Wow, that&#039 ; s fast. You must&#039 ; ve been studying fast. TRAN: Yeah, three semester. I go for--remember, I work full time too. Then by that time, it improve. However, I continue to go the other school, really not intend to get degree, but intend to learn more stuff so I can improve my skill, not only in technology but also in social activity, things like that. So I went to, let&#039 ; s see, East Texas [Baptist University] and also go to Dallas University--no, no, it&#039 ; s at Dallas Baptist University. BRODY: Dallas Baptist? TRAN: Dallas Baptist University. That was very close to--I think it was Grand Prairie, somewhere in there. |00:22:36| BRODY: What did you study? TRAN: Oh, studied--let&#039 ; s see, I forgot what it is. It&#039 ; s a long time, don&#039 ; t remember, but the main thing is more or less just little social study. I remember, I took one course with the teacher, communication course, they called it Looking In and Looking Out, I could remember that. (laughs) But just the main thing, but I already have the associate degree from El Centro, so I think that all I need. BRODY: Right, right. But you wanted to learn more and to socialize more. Were your classmates--did you interact very much with your classmates, or were you-- TRAN: Oh yeah, same thing you and I here. Of course, I still have accent, but at least I communicated. BRODY: Yes, absolutely. So you had some friends that you knew there. TRAN: Yeah, uh-hm. Sure. BRODY: Are you still in touch with any of those friends? TRAN: Say again? BRODY: Are you still in touch with any of those friends from that time? TRAN: No. It&#039 ; s been a long time, you&#039 ; re talking. BRODY: It was a long time ago, yes. TRAN: About forty years now. |00:23:36| BRODY: Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to go back. About the church, were you very involved with the Catholic Church when you were still in Vietnam, or was that something that developed once you got here? TRAN: No. I was a Catholic in Vietnam, but I didn&#039 ; t really involve to church activity until 1975 when I move here. BRODY: Right, when you got here. |00:24:01| TRAN: And not only that, I&#039 ; m the guy who bought the church for Vietnamese, now the Vietnamese--St. Peter Vietnamese Catholic Church. BRODY: Wait, so you built the church--you helped-- TRAN: No. We bought it from-- BRODY: You bought the church? TRAN: Yeah. We bought it from Reinhardt Bible Church, which [St. Peter Vietnamese Catholic Church] is located on Garland Road and Fuller [Drive]--Garland Road and, I think, Fuller? Oh, [North] Buckner [Boulevard]. Rather easier is, Buckner and Garland Road. And now they still have it. They still meet there in that church. BRODY: Yeah, it&#039 ; s still there. So the Vietnamese community at St. Pius X in the 1970s, it was growing. So you were the first families, but--first family, and then there came ten more--many more families? TRAN: And it grew quickly because like I said previously, ten families original. Then after that, just go up, and jump up, because I can sponsor somebody else, somebody else sponsor for somebody else, so it&#039 ; s changing and exponent. BRODY: Right, it grew fast. TRAN: And then we used St. Pius X four PM Sunday Mass. Only one mass. We also used the school for Sunday School in the afternoon. BRODY: In Vietnamese? TRAN: In Vietnamese, yes. And then, I think, in 1995, the community decided to buy their own church. And by that time, we turned from Washington, D.C. after we attend my grandson graduation, and the group of Vietnamese from the community come over to our home and said, &quot ; You need to be leader to look for church for us.&quot ; And I asked them, &quot ; How much money you guys have?&quot ; They said &quot ; Ninety thousand.&quot ; I said, &quot ; Ninety thousand, tell me buy a church?&quot ; (both laugh) But I think it over and said, &quot ; Okay, I&#039 ; ll buy it. I&#039 ; ll do it.&quot ; And we have--I form a sixteen-member committee to go out and look for church, fundraising, everything else. We bought the church in eighteen months. BRODY: Wow, that&#039 ; s amazing. So that community had a lot of cohesion and a desire to stick together, then, and to form their own church. Earlier, as that community was forming, what types of activities and--you know, you mentioned the Mass at four PM and the Sunday School--did you do any--do you remember any other types of traditions and things that happened within that community? TRAN: Well, you mean talking about St. Pius X, right? BRODY: Yes. TRAN: Yeah. The thing beside that, not that much except that maybe when we have the Vietnamese festival in mid-autumn or the Vietnamese new year, they use the facility for the celebrate. And also, I think in May, normally, it&#039 ; s the month of Mother Mary. So we have the procession, all kind of thing, you know. But when we move to the new church, which is located on Garland Road and near the Buckner, we can have more activity then. |00:27:29| BRODY: Yeah, tell me about those activities. What do you remember? TRAN: The--I stay a member of that church, but because I&#039 ; m living too far away, so I go to church here in Richardson. Once in a while I went out there. My name is still there. (laughs) Then when we moved to have a new church we have a new pastor, we have all kind of activity: teaching Sunday school, all the activity, a woman club, a man club, and Boy Scout and all kinds of stuff. It&#039 ; s a regular--same with American church. BRODY: Yes, but you replicated everything for the Vietnamese community. TRAN: Yeah, that&#039 ; s right. Um-hm. BRODY: So, like the children that grew up in the Vietnamese Catholic church there, what are you impressions of them? Some people say when the second generation is being raised in another country that they may lose some of their culture. What are your observations about that? TRAN: Well, I agree with that, because seeing here, thing that I&#039 ; d like to mention to you that--when I buy that church for them, I think we probably used about max thirty years. So you have all the age, people phase out and kids kept growing up, they adapt to a new culture and they can blend into society complete, but it&#039 ; s really not that--that not true anymore. BRODY: That&#039 ; s not what happened? TRAN: No, it&#039 ; s not. Of course, it Americanized somewhat, but it still continue to work with the church, come to the church and enjoy all kind of activity, except it not a hundred percent. It phase out somewhat, but I see it still going. |00:29:18| BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. Are there new families coming in still? TRAN: Oh yeah, sure, yeah. They tend to go to the church every Sunday, and they also involve to other activity, but the Sundays are the main thing. Like you said, some Vietnamese kids don&#039 ; t even speak Vietnamese anymore. BRODY: That&#039 ; s true. So how do you feel-- TRAN: Because the problem with the parent, they don&#039 ; t speak Vietnamese at home. Some of them, they&#039 ; re afraid the kid don&#039 ; t speak English, so they try to work with the kid at home, and soon the kid forget the Vietnamese. My family, all my kids speak English and also Vietnamese. But they cannot write Vietnamese, they cannot read. But they speak very well. I speak Vietnamese at home with my wife, my mother, so they get along with it. But I don&#039 ; t know about next generation, about my grandkid. That&#039 ; s different story. |00:30:32| BRODY: Right, right. So what do you think are the challenges for the grandkids, for example, having grown, you know, been born here and raised in English? So in trying to preserve the culture and to think about the religion, culture, those types of things, what are the biggest challenges for people who come as refugees, who are immigrants, to try to find that balance? TRAN: Well, it really hard to balance, because the kid born and raised in here, they go to school here, they spend most of their daytime at the school, they&#039 ; re communicating with the local people here, American kids. So it&#039 ; s very hard to pull them back, you know? Just some, but basically to me, exception ; not normal, exception. All my grandkid, they speak very little Vietnamese. They just Americanized almost hundred percent. They eat American food, very few, sometimes they eat some Vietnamese food, but only certain items they eat, not like us, we eat everything. BRODY: Right. That&#039 ; s a common challenge for (both talking). TRAN: Yeah, that&#039 ; s right. It&#039 ; s very hard to maintain that--that what we call the tapestry here. You know, people coming in, blending into society, and that&#039 ; s it. No exception. |00:31:52| BRODY: Right. So what to you are the--you know, even in the time that you initially first came, what were some of the key pieces of Vietnamese culture and lifestyle that you wanted to make sure that you carried on, even though you were in a new place? TRAN: Well, the thing is, the way the family of Vietnamese is, they try to have the hierarchy ; grandparent, parent, kid. But it not in here. We try to do that, but I doubt that we can maintain it long term. BRODY: Here in the United States? TRAN: Yes. BRODY: Why? TRAN: Well, because--(laughs) it&#039 ; s Americanized. They different story, different culture. And I can&#039 ; t say bad or good, but it&#039 ; s culture. We can&#039 ; t change the culture. BRODY: Right. You&#039 ; re in a new place and-- TRAN: Yeah. And back home, we have--the first person had to learn how to become good human being first, before technology, before everything, but first. The second in there is the train, your education and talent, it varies and so on, so on. The people lacking good character, it couldn&#039 ; t be good people. So that&#039 ; s the--it&#039 ; s different with Vietnamese, they main thing differently. I don&#039 ; t know good or bad, but that the way we go. BRODY: The different mindset, it sounds like, that you&#039 ; re saying. So as--go ahead, I&#039 ; m sorry. |00:33:28| TRAN: Yeah, let me say just one example. One of my last daughter get married last year. And she asked me for the list of the people she will invite. And I gave her the list, but I forgot one important thing: that I had to put my name on the outside label. So when she get pick up the list, guest list, and got the invitation, she put her and her husband address on the envelope and invitation inside. She mail out--and some people don&#039 ; t even know, recognize her. See what I&#039 ; m saying? BRODY: Right. TRAN: They don&#039 ; t do that in Vietnam. They don&#039 ; t do that, period. BRODY: From the father. TRAN: Because some of my relative, they even don&#039 ; t know her name, because she young. She is young. And I have to call every single one and apologize for her, I said I don&#039 ; t intend to do that, just forgive us for that. I call every one of them. BRODY: Yeah, you called every single one? TRAN: (laughs) Every single one. BRODY: Because it was a cultural misunderstanding? TRAN: Yeah. The younger one, no problem, with her brother and sister, cousin. Shouldn&#039 ; t been a problem, but the people who are, like, my age or above, I had to call. Some of them, they were open. They said, &quot ; Don&#039 ; t worry about it.&quot ; But they do come. BRODY: But they came? That&#039 ; s good. TRAN: Yeah, they came. (laughs) BRODY: Yeah, once they understood, right? That&#039 ; s an interesting--an interesting story because your-- TRAN: Now, in our country they cannot do that, period. BRODY: Right. That would not happen, right? TRAN: It would not happen back home. |00:35:22| BRODY: That makes me think--this is not the same subject at all, but I wanted to ask you about your thoughts about social class. When you came here to the United States, we talked about how your job was quite different than what you had been doing in Vietnam, but did you have--do you remember anything about your observations about the differences in the United States regarding social class? TRAN: You mean the poor, rich, middle class, so on, so forth? BRODY: Yes. TRAN: Yeah. The United States, I want to say it&#039 ; s a--we don&#039 ; t see that that much here. You go outside on the street, you see people walking around, you don&#039 ; t know who rich or who not. They dress somewhat the same. They drive almost similar vehicle, you know? Even maybe older a few years, but not much different. Back home, social class is very clear. If you own a car, you&#039 ; re the top of the class. You walk, then you low class. (both laugh) BRODY: So it&#039 ; s very easy to tell, right? TRAN: And the way you dress, old clothes, new clothes, people ride bicycle compared to motorcycle, compared to vehicle, so-- BRODY: There&#039 ; s a hierarchy. TRAN: Yeah, hierarchy. And now we&#039 ; re here, and you can&#039 ; t tell that much. You have billion dollar, I don&#039 ; t have, but I think you and I is almost the same. Same level. |00:36:58| BRODY: Right. Why do you think that is? TRAN: It is the graded you here. They don&#039 ; t look at the people because they don&#039 ; t expect people be that person rich, or poor. BRODY: It&#039 ; s just based on the person. TRAN: Yeah. BRODY: So did you feel like in your getting to the United States, did you move from one social class to another? Or were you kind of the same? TRAN: It not only social class, but because I didn&#039 ; t move that much--except I do get some better position in later life but I don&#039 ; t think that a different social class. I make enough money to feed the family, brought the kid up and something like that. I&#039 ; m not rich because I&#039 ; m not--if you want to be rich in this society you have to do business, not to work for somebody, and get rich--it don&#039 ; t work that way. BRODY: Right. So that wasn&#039 ; t much of a factor in your thinking? TRAN: That&#039 ; s true, yeah. |00:37:54| BRODY: Yeah, or your experience. So you had four kids come with you from Vietnam, and then they were in school here. What are some of--you talked a little bit about some of the differences between the schools, you know, serving lunch here and things like that. How about the academics? What were your experiences with teachers and with your kids as they were going to school? TRAN: They different, too. Very, very different. On the same subject, after the four kid came here, we had two more coming here. BRODY: Oh, okay, two more that were born here? TRAN: Two daughters, yes. And the one who came in &#039 ; 75, we had second daughter in &#039 ; 76. Then ten year later we have another one girl--&#039 ; 86, so ten year apart. And all married and got out. BRODY: Oh, congratulations. (laughs) TRAN: The oldest one fifty, I think he fifty on January the ninth, a couple of more day. He&#039 ; s fifty. The youngest one, she thirty-three. Thirty-three in April. Tax day, she born on tax day. BRODY: On tax day. (laughs) TRAN: Right. She not here ; she&#039 ; s in Maryland. |00:39:04| BRODY: In Maryland, I see. So school-wise, were the--was the transition for your kids smooth into the school system? What were some challenges, if there were any? TRAN: You mean the-- BRODY: The kids in the school, or dealing with teachers or academics. TRAN: Oh, I think they got along very well. They had no problem whatsoever. Through interacting with all the American kid, no problem at all. Matter of fact, the first six month after my first son get in first grade, in a public school in east Dallas, the principal recognize him as a good citizen. So it&#039 ; s only six month. BRODY: Six months, he was a good citizen. TRAN: Very quickly, you know? BRODY: Yes, yes, that&#039 ; s great. TRAN: The teacher love him, he do so well in school even. And somehow, they pick up English very quickly. |00:40:07| BRODY: Yes, kids do, right? How about you? Speaking of language learning, you already were quite good at English but you, you know, had to transition into all the things that you had to do here. TRAN: Yeah, that&#039 ; s right. BRODY: What were some of the ways that you tried to improve your English or work on that? TRAN: (laughs) Yeah, just read paper and watch television, you know. I probably went to school too. But it&#039 ; s hard. I mean, the thing of the culture, custom, those are hard to get used to-- BRODY: Even more than language? TRAN: --it take a long time. But other than that, I don&#039 ; t think English ever was a problem with. I mean-- |00:40:49| BRODY: What were some of the customs that were confusing to you? TRAN: (laughs) Oh, yeah. Let me see. The customs, you know, one of the only--the holiday, the Christmas Day? Yeah. We had to have a very good in the decoration and Christmas tree and gifts and parties, so on, so forth. We had very little back home. We had so much food here ; as a matter of fact, over-full. It&#039 ; s too much. BRODY: Right. Too much food? (laughs) TRAN: And we had little back home. (laughs) Over-gifts, you know? Some of my grandkid had, maybe, twenty gift. Back home? Zero. BRODY: Zero gifts. (laughs) TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) So the culture is different. But they--I mean, even they don&#039 ; t have anything, but they do behave themselves. |00:41:54| BRODY: That&#039 ; s interesting. So yeah, the holidays are different here. So did the Men&#039 ; s Club at St. Pius or your neighbors or people at work or school, is that the main way that you learned about American customs? TRAN: That&#039 ; s true, yeah. That&#039 ; s true. By interacting with people from church and other organization, at work. I think they do train. Workshop is the main thing, because you be in there eight-hour a day. But it didn&#039 ; t take that much long for me to learn to get around and accustomed to the custom, and so--and, you know, it&#039 ; s hard to start a new life with my age--at thirty-two, by that time--to start over. BRODY: Yeah. You really did. TRAN: It got difficult, very, very difficult, because I have a big family too. BRODY: Yep. A lot of responsibility and a lot to learn all at once. So your mother was here with you, you said, as well. Did she live in the same house? TRAN: She used to stay with us from &#039 ; 75 until, I think--I want to say until &#039 ; 88. Then she moved to stay with my sister. My sister, by that time, she married, she had a couple kid, so she bought a house and my mother move over there and we stay up here by ourselves, and the last kid, which is now thirty-two, thirty-three years old, we put in daycare. It was two years of age. At St. Pius X school, they have daycare. BRODY: They have daycare there. So you guys stayed in that community, you didn&#039 ; t move. TRAN: Right. We stayed in that community until--let&#039 ; s see, 1998. Then we moved out to Richardson twenty years ago. |00:44:11| BRODY: Okay. In that--the pastor at St. Pius X was Monsignor Weinzapfel, is that right? TRAN: Yes. BRODY: Tell me about your memories of him. I&#039 ; ve heard he was very involved with the Vietnamese community. TRAN: Oh yeah, he&#039 ; s a (laughs) very good person. He very active with the helping Vietnamese to settle. He let us use a lot of facility that we need for our activity, including the church, and didn&#039 ; t charge us that much, you know. It was a collection during Mass and give some back to him. He always helped the Vietnamese in way that&#039 ; s try to settle down in this area, and I really was good friends with him. BRODY: You were good friends with him? TRAN: Yeah. Anything he need for Vietnamese, he call me. He said--anybody confusing, he said, &quot ; Call Sao.&quot ; (??), but sometime later, when we moved to Richardson, we did invite him to come over to have supper with us and things like that. |00:45:19| BRODY: Oh, that&#039 ; s nice. Why was he so interested, do you think, in helping the Vietnamese community settle down here? TRAN: Well, I think that one thing that normally the Catholics try to do that, work with refugees, but I think the group of Vietnamese were the first group he deal with. By that time, he about midfifties, still fairly young. So sometimes he rode a bicycle from church to our home and I was at work and my wife, my mother, and the kid at home, except the one in school. He just speak English and none of my [family] member speak English. So he call over, said, &quot ; Let&#039 ; s say a prayer.&quot ; So my people say in Vietnamese, he say in English. (laughs) Then he bless and ride bicycle, go home. (Brody laughs) He&#039 ; s a funny guy. |00:46:18| BRODY: (laughs) So he was a flexible guy as far as prayers go and language, too. That&#039 ; s a great story. So I wanted to ask you, on a different note, did your family or you, do you remember any experiences of discrimination or racism as you were trying to settle here? TRAN: I don&#039 ; t think so, no. BRODY: Not at all? That&#039 ; s good. Why do you think that it went so smoothly, in that regard, for your family? TRAN: Well, I probably--basically, the reason we didn&#039 ; t run into the discrimination problem, like you&#039 ; re just saying, basically, is just lucky, you know? BRODY: Hm, yeah, lucky. TRAN: Just lucky, you get lucky. They could deal with a group, don&#039 ; t have this kind of problem. That&#039 ; s the only thing I can say, because we have--I see people dealing with that, but we&#039 ; re not in that. So very hard to recognize discrimination. |00:47:22| BRODY: Well, that&#039 ; s fortunate that you did not experience it ; that&#039 ; s good. Do you have much interaction, back then, with other groups that are discriminated against in the community? African Americans or-- TRAN: No, I don&#039 ; t have that opportunity. I even involved to a lot of activities that help the Vietnamese in the area. I also join the--what they call--Rotary Club. I was vice president, White Rock Rotary Club. BRODY: Oh, good. What kind of activities did the White Rock Rotary Club do? TRAN: You mean the-- BRODY: What did you do with them? What was your-- TRAN: Oh, we have other activity. We go out, help people, and thing like that, basically. The Rotary Club ; I think you know that club, right? |00:48:22| BRODY: Yes, I know the Rotary Club, yes. So going back to the--you were such a leader in the St. Pius community and the Vietnamese community, and people came to you with questions and the church came to you with questions if there were things that people were going through. What were some of the sorts of problems that you were faced with sometimes when they asked you for your help? TRAN: Well, the thing is sometimes they--you mean dealing with my people who had some problem? Well, the thing is, sometimes they, sadly, would more expectation than it should be, and they should know my capacity is limit, you know. So sometimes they asked a little bit more than I can do. BRODY: What were the kind of things that they were asking for help with? TRAN: Well, the thing sometimes they&#039 ; d get me to bring kid to the hospital, but I got busy with other stuff, you know? And I can understand. I mean, most people didn&#039 ; t speak English by that time. But I couldn&#039 ; t cover everything. I do help that a lot, but only so much I can do. BRODY: Yeah. So sometimes you were asked to do a lot of things-- TRAN: Yeah, family have work, so on and so forth. (laughs) BRODY: School, right. So your capacity was limited. TRAN: Yeah, was limit. I wanted to do more, but it&#039 ; s hard. So I think one family that, he came here with his wife and no kids, left all the kid behind, and he speak no English whatsoever. And so I think by the time he work for Bishop Lynch High School-- Catholic high school, down further to the road. I&#039 ; m not sure you know that high school or not. Bishop Lynch. BRODY: Bishop Lynch High School? TRAN: Yeah, high school. And work there at as a janitor. You know, the (??) And every time they had a problem they call me. The sister who in charge that school call me too, so they&#039 ; re trying to phase out the problem, you know? |00:50:25| BRODY: Yeah, so you&#039 ; re trying to do your job, to take care of your family and still help. TRAN: But I do help a lot of people, except that only so much I can do. BRODY: Absolutely. Well, the community grew so much, also. I would imagine that there were so--over time, more and more people who had things that they needed help with. (laughs) TRAN: Oh yeah, that&#039 ; s right, yeah. What I&#039 ; m saying is only the beginning of that first-- maybe first two year or so. After that, you know, they got a lot of young kid who speak English and learn more English, they get used to the life in United States, so they don&#039 ; t ask for help that much anymore. BRODY: Right, right, because they have other people to turn to as well. So you had your hands full at the beginning, right? (laughs) TRAN: Yeah. It phased out in about a couple of year. I had to raise my family and put kid in school. (laughs) |00:51:21| BRODY: So, your kids--when--this is a question that we&#039 ; ve kind of talked about a little bit already, but when you think about yourself and your--did you become an American citizen eventually? TRAN: Yes. In order to become American citizen we have to stay in the United States five years. And then you got the--I think, got green card, and then take another five year to apply for citizenship. So we all become citizenship in, I want to say, probably 1986. And only me, my wife, and the rest of the kids, they automatically come in, become citizens. |00:52:19| BRODY: The kids, right? So when you think of yourself now after you&#039 ; ve gotten the American citizenship, what does it mean to you to be American? Or do you think of yourself as American? Do you think of yourself as Vietnamese, Vietnamese American? TRAN: Oh, it&#039 ; s mixed. It&#039 ; s mixed feelings. BRODY: Yeah? Tell me about your feelings about that? TRAN: Well, I&#039 ; m very happy to become American citizenship, because that&#039 ; s the goal, to stay here permanently. And if I can stay here without citizenship, you cannot quite well. So I&#039 ; m very happy with it, and I&#039 ; d like to tell you another story, becoming citizenship. When I grant first citizenship, my company throw a party. I think about sixty people come over and enjoy it--a reception, rather. And we all--they all happy. But they ask me to make a speech, and I didn&#039 ; t prepare for it. And I tell people, &quot ; Lady and gentlemen, I&#039 ; m very happy to become American citizenship. But when I first come here, I don&#039 ; t have nothing. But you took me in, give me your country, give me the church to practice, give me job, and give me friendship.&quot ; Some of the women cried. (laughs) |00:53:51| BRODY: That sounds beautiful. That&#039 ; s beautiful, and you didn&#039 ; t prepare. (laughs) TRAN: Not even at all. BRODY: That was from the heart. Right. So your mixed feelings about both of those things. TRAN: Yeah, mixed feelings. I still bleed all(??) Vietnamese, but I still like to become American citizenship. BRODY: Yeah, and this is--your life has been here at this point, so--and your family. |00:54:13| TRAN: I haven&#039 ; t been back home yet. BRODY: Really? You haven&#039 ; t been back? TRAN: Yeah, the thing is--the thing I--all my brother, sister, my mother here, my wife here, my kids here. My wife only have one brother here. The rest of her brother, they&#039 ; re back home. We do communicate once in a while, we would call them, talk with them and thing like that. But that&#039 ; s--I think she have one, two, three, she have four brother-- BRODY: Back there? TRAN: Yeah. She&#039 ; s only girl in the family. BRODY: And she&#039 ; s the only one who came here too. Did she work after she came here? TRAN: Oh she work at--let&#039 ; s see. When she give the first daughter here, 1976, she worked--at &#039 ; 78, she started work. Because I myself, I am unable to cover everything, because my salary is still very low by that. And she go work for some company doing some electronic work, like assembly, put things together. She work until the year 2000, she left the workforce. BRODY: Wow. So she had her own-- TRAN: Yeah. She&#039 ; d stay home, take care of the kids and so on, so forth. BRODY: Yes, that&#039 ; s interesting. TRAN: Take care of the kids, and take care grandkid. |00:56:02| BRODY: And grandkids again. (laughs) A mom&#039 ; s work is never done. So with--in terms of politics, have you been involved in politics here in the United States? TRAN: No. All we do is go voting, that&#039 ; s about it. BRODY: Just vote. Well, that&#039 ; s an involvement-- TRAN: No activity. BRODY: Are there differences that you&#039 ; ve observed or were you particularly involved in Vietnam with politics? TRAN: No, in Vietnam I don&#039 ; t involve in politic at all, but over here I do vote. That&#039 ; s all. |00:56:28| BRODY: Yeah. So when you think about yourself and your identity and all of the experiences that you&#039 ; ve had in your life, what are some of the thoughts that you reflect on about, you know, as you look back on your life? TRAN: Well, I look at my life. I have these friend that say that I really accomplished that much. It happens a lot, because you change from life of Vietnam to United States and get used to here, and set up the family and raise them in a well-mannered--all of my kid went to school and a lot of them graduate school. I think only one didn&#039 ; t have a graduate degree. Five of them-- BRODY: That&#039 ; s pretty impressive, yeah. Did you tell them that was an expectation? TRAN: No, they go to school and just encourage them, but I never tell them, &quot ; You have to do this,&quot ; no. Matter of fact, I have two medical doctors, two lawyer, and one teacher, and one business. BRODY: Wow. That&#039 ; s an impressive family. TRAN: Yeah. And they all kids, they marry to five doctors. So end up five doctor in my family. No, marry three doctor, then that&#039 ; s two and three together, make five doctor, and two lawyer. BRODY: Wow. You&#039 ; ve got it covered. (laughs) TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) |00:57:59| BRODY: So you never told them, &quot ; I expect--&quot ; TRAN: No. I don&#039 ; t want to change them. &quot ; You have to become this.&quot ; Sometimes I try to talk them, encourage them, but I don&#039 ; t force them. I don&#039 ; t force them to--certain people forcing kid learn certain subject, but I don&#039 ; t do that as a trait(??). The same thing with when they get married. Of course, I like the person for those who marry, but I cannot tell them, &quot ; You have to marry this.&quot ; That&#039 ; s the line. They make mistake, they learn from. But can you imagine if you tell the kid, &quot ; You&#039 ; ve got to marry this poor girl or this boy,&quot ; and five year later they don&#039 ; t work out very well, who really carry the responsibility? So I don&#039 ; t want to do that. They&#039 ; re on their own. Not only that, when they marry, they on their own. I don&#039 ; t stick my nose in their family. That is the way it should be. They make mistake, they pay for it. I keep telling kid today, tomorrow you decide to go buy helicopter, go buy it if you can pay for it. But I won&#039 ; t stop you. (laughs) BRODY: Right. So a wise father. (laughs) TRAN: Yeah. (laughs) It&#039 ; s true. I would never call and said, &quot ; What are you doing?&quot ; No. I call and say hello and things like that. Otherwise, I can&#039 ; t survive with that many kids. |00:59:40| BRODY: (laughs) That&#039 ; s funny. So I want to go back just briefly to talk about the Vietnamese community in Dallas. In terms of your own perceptions, the community as it&#039 ; s changed from the 1970s to today, what is the--what are some of the characteristics of the Vietnamese community in Dallas? TRAN: Well, it&#039 ; s very hard to say, but I mean it&#039 ; s kind of mixed bag, you know, a lot of people. It truly good, move to forward, but some people left behind. So you can tie those together, and to me, if people move forward they seem very good, you know? They seem very good, they seem get along well, they do act as good people, American people as well. But some people left behind because they don&#039 ; t have enough education to adapt, adapt the new culture. So they&#039 ; re left behind, they leave the for not bring a light(??). BRODY: So there&#039 ; s a difference even within-- TRAN: But not that many, okay? Them different. |01:01:02| BRODY: Do you feel like the community is unified in terms of how they interact with the larger society? TRAN: They do, but not hundred percent, you know? It&#039 ; s always a crack here and there. BRODY: Yeah. Are there differences in terms of people belonging to different religions-- TRAN: Different religion, different education level, different knowledge, it is complete different. BRODY: Yeah, that&#039 ; s interesting, especially because the larger community in this area has gotten very diverse and a lot of different groups not-- TRAN: Oh yeah. BRODY: I think in 1975 it wasn&#039 ; t as diverse, so the Vietnamese were the first. TRAN: That&#039 ; s true, because it&#039 ; s so many ethnic group come in after &#039 ; 75 besides Vietnamese, you know? Middle East and Chinese and Indian and Australia, all kind. It once can be Europe, whatever. It&#039 ; s a big culture. BRODY: Yeah. It&#039 ; s very different now than it was when you first arrived. |01:02:14| TRAN: Oh, yes. It is difficult, but it&#039 ; s good for United States. That&#039 ; s the way United States should be. That&#039 ; s the way--it produce a lot good people, because they mix blood, mix culture. You look at people in Europe, they so pure. So therefore, it&#039 ; s tougher for them to deal with. Over here it mix. They bring all kind of culture in, bring all kind of language in. I don&#039 ; t know how many languages the people in the United States they speak. BRODY: Right. Many many. TRAN: It&#039 ; s over the hundreds. BRODY: Yeah. So immigration is a key part of-- TRAN: Oh yeah, there&#039 ; s no doubt about that. The reason make United States strong is because the mixed culture. If you look at the--if you look more, lean toward the interior you see all the, like, chicken. When they mix blood, chicken strong and big. But they pure blood, it&#039 ; s skinny. (both laugh) That&#039 ; s one way to explore the thinking, you know? BRODY: So some diversity, right? TRAN: Yeah. You need that. |01:03:31| BRODY: I guess I&#039 ; ve kind of asked you all the questions I was going to, but I wonder if there&#039 ; s anything that I didn&#039 ; t ask you that you&#039 ; d like to share ; a story or your thoughts about-- TRAN: I think you asked--I&#039 ; m okay with almost everything. If later on you need, just call me. BRODY: Okay, I will. Well, I really appreciate your time and enjoyed hearing your stories. And I think it&#039 ; s an important story and I&#039 ; m glad to help you tell it. TRAN: I don&#039 ; t know how much I help you but I do it my best, you know. BRODY: It was wonderful, thank you very much. TRAN: Thank you. end of interview All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2019oh007_btba_006.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Sao Tran Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2019oh007_btba_006 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-01-07 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/7e14e7ee2d155fe898b26d12c429c21c.jpg 274fb064bdfe9a04872b61c02a2521ca Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Phong Le OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Phong Le, January 18, 2018 2019oh008_btba_008 1:00:25 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Vietnamese in North Texas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Phong Le Betsy Brody mp3 oh-interviews_le-ph_2019-01-18_bdg_acc.mp3 1:|17(25)|19(21)|38(2)|56(6)|73(9)|89(5)|110(2)|126(17)|151(10)|176(14)|204(9)|213(1)|227(8)|238(1)|252(5)|267(8)|283(15)|297(14)|316(4)|337(7)|352(13)|379(3)|400(1)|408(12)|419(11)|438(11)|459(4)|473(3)|489(8)|502(2)|515(3)|528(3)|539(2)|557(6)|582(10)|604(9)|632(3)|664(6)|681(14)|694(1)|709(7)|723(13)|744(8)|762(14)|780(10)|791(4)|803(3)|825(5)|837(4)|851(13)|868(1)|888(1)|901(6)|912(3)|928(12)|941(7)|955(12)|971(8)|986(4)|1006(10) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/117365 Aviary audio 1 Interview Introduction BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is January 18, 2019. I’m interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Phong Le. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the “Becoming Texas, Becoming Americans” project. Thank you, Mr. Le, for meeting with me. LE: Thank you, Betsy Becoming Texas, Becoming Americans 25 Life's trajectory-from Vietnam to North Texas BRODY: I’m looking forward to an interesting conversation. Just to start out with, can you tell me a little bit about your background, your time in Vietnam? What do you remember of your family’s experience there? LE: Sure.Sure. Well, it depend how much time we have, but I’ll try to give a quick summary. We came to the US in 1975, right after the war ended. Actually, we left about two weeks earlier, before the chaos happened, and it was a group of us that pretty much snuck out in the middle of the night with the members from the US Embassy that helped us get out of Vietnam—or get out Saigon, at that point. But my background—basically, I’m trying to be a very simple person. I came to the US at around age ten, and it’s been a great ride since then. We grew up in West Texas, and then made our home in North Texas, so most of our family members are now in North Texas. I’ve enjoyed travel. I’ve worked for a lot of different Fortune 500 companies, as well as launched a bunch of startups in the North Texas area, helped build the life science community in the North Texas area, and now, I’m currently working with Lenovo, leading the life science solution division. I’m travelling around the world identifying medical research that could help develop new diagnosis and new drugs for the expansion, and hopefully provide a much better, higher quality of life for everybody. BRODY: That’s great. Sounds like an exciting and enriching life. escape from Vietnam ; Fortune 500 companies ; Lenovo ; North Texas ; refugees ; startups ; West Texas 124 Dramatic escape from Vietnam at ten years old/Saving his pet cricket So you were ten years old when—in 1975? LE: Correct. BRODY: And it sounds like it was a dramatic exit from Vietnam. Can you tell me what you remember of the actual leaving? LE: (both speaking at once) Sure, sure. I mean, I think I have a pretty good memory, but everybody have their own perspective and so forth, but the night that we left was quite, I guess, surprising for everyone. From what I remember is that we were woken up in themiddle of the night, and we were just told, “Grab one thing,” and then everybody was shoved into a van. BRODY: What did you grab? LE: I grabbed my cricket. (both laugh) I actually— BRODY: A pet. LE: A pet, yeah, because I—at the time, I loved playing with different type of toys, and we all have our pet—what is it?—dog, cat, or so forth, but I had my prized fighting cricket. I had a group in the neighborhood that were competing in cricket fighting, and BRODY: (laughs) Oh, that’s great. Did you have siblings? LE: I do. There were eight of us at one time, but two younger one—the twins—they died early, and so there’s still six of us ; five boys and one girl. And we all made it out, but it was quite a journey. We were taken a nearby airfield and kind of just waited in the airplane. I think it was a DC-9 or DC-10, which was pretty stripped down with machine gun mounted on the window, and they just kept us there overnight until daybreak, and then we flew out. So it was quite an interesting time. BRODY: Were you part of that group because your family was involved with the embassy? LE: Correct. Yeah. My mom’s sister—my aunt—has connection with the US Embassy, and they basically evacuate as many folks as they can at the last minute, and that’s how we were able to come out together. cricket ; cricket-fighting ; escape from Vietnam ; military planes ; refugees ; US Embassy ; Vietnam 256 Travel to Phillippines, Guam, and Fort Chaffee, Arkansas/Looking for a sponsor BRODY: That’s great. So then, where—you flew out. Where did you end up initially? LE: Initially, we ended up in the Philippines and we stayed at the airfields there, and then we flew out from there through, I guess, a different transport plane, and then we ended up in Guam as the first stage of settlement for most of the refugees coming out of Vietnam. We were there for a few months, and then we got transported to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas right after that. BRODY: So then you were in Arkansas for how long? LE: I can’t remember, but I assume—it was a long, hot summer. That’s all I remember. But I think we were there at least two or three months, because the goal here is to identify a sponsor that can provide the housing and accommodation, jobs, and so forth in order for you to settle in the states. And at that point, you go wherever there are sponsors, and since we have a big family, it was more difficult to find a sponsor that can take on a large group. There were actually two families—my mom and my mom’s sisters as well—so we’re a large group ; I think there were a total of twelve of us together. With that large of a size and trying to keep everybody together, it took a little bit longer. employemt ; Fort Chaffee ; Guam ; housing ; jobs ; Phillippines ; refugee camps ; sponsors ; sponsorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_New_Arrivals Wikipedia entry for Operation New Arrivals 348 Family sponsored by owner of a Holiday Inn in Sweetwater, Texas BRODY: Yeah. So eventually who sponsored you? LE: It turned out we’ve received words that there was one gentleman that actually could take all of us, which was great news, but we ended up in a place that we completely unaware of and unexpected, which is in West Texas in a small town called Sweetwater, a small town of about ten, twelve thousand people. He is the owner of the local Holiday Inn, so it worked out very well for him because he has plenty of room for us to stay, and also, he has jobs that we could work at at the hotel to help with the cleaning and help with the hotel. I remember we did everything from cleaning the pool to cleaning the rooms, so we basically helped take care of the hotel. cleaning ; employment ; Holiday Inn ; hotel ; housing ; jobs ; sponsor ; sponsors ; sponsorship ; Sweetwater, Texas ; swimming pool ; West Texas 402 Experiences as the only Vietnamese family in Sweetwater, Texas BRODY: Wow. Were there other Vietnamese people in Sweetwater at that time? LE: No. We were the only one. BRODY: The only one’s your family. LE: Yeah. It was quite an oddity. BRODY: What was that like for you as a child, to be there in Sweetwater? LE: It was a lot of fun because we got a lot of attention everywhere we went, from the supermarket to just playing in the street and going to school, because everybody wanted to know where you came from and how they can help, so it was a very interesting time. People were very friendly and helpful. We were invited to a different church every weekend, so we basically took the tour. LE: Yeah. It was a very interesting time, but that’s how we survived. We didn’t have anything, obviously, so through the church and through the community and through all those efforts, we were able to get our own place and be able to accept a lot of donation, and start a—or at least, I thought it was actually a very fun time for me. churches ; donations ; friends ; hospitality ; refugee ; Vietnamese ; welcome 473 Reflections about school BRODY: You were in school then. LE: Yes. BRODY: What was that like? LE: It was interesting because we had to dress different. We had to adapt to the community, and understanding what you can do and what you cannot do, and learning how to speak English, so that was probably the most challenging part. So there were curriculum that we did really well, and there are area that we had no clue what was going on. Anything that was science and math, we did, actually, really well, but any related stuff related to English, and then we struggle, obviously. But after about a year or so, I think everyone adapted pretty quickly, so I had a lot of fun. adapting ; English ; English language ; fun ; language learning ; math ; rules ; school ; science 514 Le recounts his mother's egg roll business BRODY: Speaking of adapting, you mentioned having to learn what you could do and what you couldn’t do. What are some things that you remember being surprising or challenging to learn in that regard? LE: Sure. I think it’s just a thing, in general, as a family. For instance, my mom—we’re all trying to make a living, and she’s actually a very good cook, having raised all these kids, so we started our own little egg roll kitchen at home. (laughs) We didn’t know that you weren’t supposed to do that, (laughs) so we basically running an egg rolls kitchen out of our small home. We had an old home with no AC or anything like that. I guess, after about a month, we got shut down, (laughs) but everybody loved it and we had orders from the entire town. BRODY: Who shut you down? LE: It was the Health Department! (laughs) Said, “Oh, we’re not supposed to do that?” I thought—like, in most third world country, you can just buy food off the street. You can just cook off the street. You can sell to anybody you want, so anyhow— BRODY: Did your mom pursue the egg roll business after that? LE: (both speaking at once) No, no. Not at all. No. BRODY: (both speaking at once) No? LE: Yeah. She was too busy working in the garment factory, but it was something that she loves to enjoy doing anyway, and so why not make it for the whole town? BRODY: Right. Right. Sounds like the town enjoyed it. LE: Yeah. So she was just starting to cook for everybody and just little things like that. Things like—you can’t keep farm animals in the backyard, (laughs) so we had a lot of wild animals like ducks and chicken.BRODY: Really? (laughs) LE: Yeah. (laughs) You’re not supposed to do that. Just things like that, but we adapted pretty well. I thought we did pretty well adjusting to the culture and considering, even though it was a small town. adapting ; business ; cooking ; culture ; egg rolls ; food ; Health Department ; rules 626 Friendships and growing up in small town America BRODY: Yeah. So given that you were the only Vietnamese family in the town, your friends must have been all American. LE: Oh, yeah. BRODY: And so what was—tell me about your friendships and your pastimes as a teenager or a child. LE: (both speaking at once) Yeah. See, that’s the trouble. As a teenager growing up in a small town, you do get in a lot of trouble. Most people don’t know that Sweetwater, at one time, was considered the methamphetamine capital of the country because of all the trailers and RV parks, and it was a very wide open area that just made it a perfect area for people to make drugs. That’s an unfortunate part of Sweetwater area, even though it’s a beautiful, nice area. Now, it’s known for being the largest concentration of windmill in the world, and big oil and gas development too, but at the time, that’s what it was known for. We did—from my group of friends, we did get into a lot of trouble. There was a lot of drugs involved. We did a lot of boys’ things. Vandalism is like a regular weekend activity, right? But growing up in that area, I just adapted to just about everything I’d get my hands on, so I adapted really well with all the other kids, and I was pretty good in sport as well, so that helps. But we were constantly getting in trouble and trying to be one step ahead of the law and so forth, so that’s what I remember my childhood. (laughs) drugs ; friendships ; metamphetamines ; small town ; sports ; teenagers ; vandalism 734 Le remembers his parents' transition to life in America/Reflections on shift in social class BRODY: What did your parents think of that and going through the process that they took to get here? How was it for them, parenting in a new country? LE: Yeah. So it’s a—my dad was—my mom—well, both my mom and dad were very strict, and we do have corporal punishment, just like we have at the time in the US, but more so in an Asian family—Vietnamese family, so we constantly get reprimanded quite a bit. You get your butt whipped. You get your hand knuckle whipped or you get your face slapped. That’s very typical things in that time, so that was a very common occurrence, but my parents were actually too busy working to really look after us, which is part of adapting. He had a high level position. He’d been high-level educator in Vietnam, and now he has to go work in a factory, go work in a lumber yard at an assembly line, so it was a hard adjustment. They worked long hours, and my mom did the same thing. She worked at a garment factory for many years, so disciplining the kid and monitoring all these kids running around is actually very difficult. We all did pretty well, I thought. We did enough to stay out of trouble, considering we were on welfare and food stamps, and had to basically take whatever donation we can get, just trying to adjust to the community and also trying to stay out of trouble as well because we all had a lot of goals and desires, and in a small town, there’s not a whole lot to do, so you end up conspiring a lot of things that you shouldn’t be doing. (laughs) But we tried to participate in sports and in bands, and as much academic environment as we can, and that kind of helped us stay out of trouble. BRODY: It’s interesting you mentioned the—sort of the shift that your parents had to go through from the types of lifestyle and jobs that they had in Vietnam, and then to not only be in a new country, but to have—sort of be in a different social class. Do you have any thoughts or do you have any memories around that transition? LE: For me, I didn’t really have much of an impact there, but for my parents, my mom never worked in her life. She married young. She raised a incredible family, and coming here to the US, she has to take her first job and starting work long hours, and low pay long hours. They both did, so I think that took a huge toll on my dad because he came from a well-to-do family, had a very nice, comfortable lifestyle, and had high credential and high position in Vietnam, being a top educator to the top ranked school, as well being a private tutor to the president’s sons and general’s family and so forth, so that was a big change, so it took a big toll on him and he didn’t survive very long. Within four years, he passed away. BRODY: Oh no. While you were still in Sweetwater? LE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. assembly line ; corporal punishment ; death ; discipline ; employment ; factory ; food stamps ; garment factory ; jobs ; parenting ; parents ; poverty ; social class ; struggles ; wealth ; welfare 948 Involvement with churches in Sweetwater/Small town life BRODY: So as the town you were in had so many churches, were you guys involved with church very much? LE: Yeah. We were raised as Catholics, and so Catholic church was the main church that we go to. But because we, being new and such an oddity in that area, we basically accepted every invitation that came and I think we visit almost every church. (laughs) That was a great way to get to know the community, and also that was a great way to get the support that we needed as well. BRODY: It sounds like the town was very welcoming. I mean, some people say that small towns or that Americans or Texans are not particularly open to people who are different, but that does not sound like it was your experience. LE: (both speaking at once) No. Not at all. I think in small towns, people are much more helpful and much more accommodating, and also, we have something that’s unique that gives them something to talk about and give them something to learn about. Whereas, I guess, on the bigger town, they may help you get started a bit, but they expect you to get on your feet within a few months, right? But in a smaller town, you develop a connection much quicker and it seems to be more genuine. Catholic Church ; church ; kindness ; openness ; religion ; small towns ; welcoming 1038 Moving to Lubbock, Austin and arriving in North Texas BRODY: Interesting. So then what brought you here to North Texas? LE: Well, after my dad passed away, we moved to Lubbock, Texas, and continue our education there. And then from then, as each sibling started to attend college, then we start moving to different direction around the county. I’ve ended up going to school in the University of Texas in Austin. And ever since then, I’ve pretty much sprouted out and worked overseas, and worked different part of the country, and now, back in North Texas. North Texas is—I guess we all grew up with high aspiration and looking for better opportunity, and obviously, the Dallas–Fort Worth area has the opportunities that we were looking for, so that’s why we ended up settling here. BRODY: How old were you when you—was it after college that you ended up in— LE: (both speaking at once) Right. Correct. Some of the family member were ready to move to the Dallas area beforehand, but I came back from Europe in 1989 and started a start-up company—my first start-up—in the North Texas area. Dallas ; death ; Lubbock ; moving ; University of Texas at Austin ; West Texas 1120 Developing his first start up company and his strategies for handling learning differences BRODY: Interesting. What kind of work was it? LE: It was a very interesting company at the time that focused on multimedia technology. I came back and I joined a group to focus on developing tools to advance learning, especially for people with learning disabilities like myself, since I’m supposed to be dyslexic and ADD and all that, which is something that’s very difficult, at the time, to diagnose. But at the same time, I found ways around that and I’ve learned how to learn through audiovisual means, versus the standard reading. BRODY: Was that hard for you in school then, in a traditional school? LE: (both speaking at once) Oh, definitely. Yeah. BRODY: How did you kind of cope with both the language and the learning differences? LE: Yeah. So my brain works very different than most. I didn’t know at the time, but as I get a little bit older and older, and talked to other people, and diagnosed myself, I found out it’s a gift. It’s not a disability. And I’ve learned how to leverage that—learned how to multitask—so I have what most people consider is a little bit different. It’s like, most people are either the right brain or the left brain ; well, I’m both, which can cause a lot of confusion if you don’t know what’s going on inside your own head, but once I figured that out, I was able to leverage that so I can be creative and analytical at the same time. That’s when I really excelled, but at any early age I didn’t understand all that, so I needed a lot of tutoring. But I did well, regardless. I was on the honor list, and on the dean’s roll, and so forth, so—honor rolls—I’m sorry, honor rolls and dean’s list. As you can see, that’s my dyslexia. (both laugh) But what it does is, it give you a whole different perspective on life and, from an educational standpoint, it takes me a little longer to learn something, but once I get going, I can excel a lot faster. ADD ; dyslexia ; learning differences ; multimedia ; start up company ; technology 1236 Learning English and &quot ; West Texas English&quot ; BRODY: Well, that’s good that you’ve figured it out. So language learning must have been particularly challenging or— LE: Actually, it actually came out to be a bonus because at one time, I spoke five languages, once I learned how it works. But to learn English, it was difficult at the beginning, but then, you— BRODY: Did you know any English before you came? LE: Just a little bit. Not too much. BRODY: So you just quickly learned it. LE: Yeah. We learned, actually, slang English or (both laugh) West Texas English. So you can understand different part of Texas have different dialect, and West Texan— BRODY: What are some of examples of West Texas English? LE: West Texas is like, “Y’all come back now, you hear?” right? (Brody laughs) That’s the West Texas slang there. But West Texas people just slur your words more and we tend to speak a little bit slower. And so that’s what we picked up, but as you start hitting the university level, then you learn the proper English, so my tongue has been twisted many times. (Brody laughs) But also, I’ve learned French, I’ve learned Italian and, through my travel, I’ve picked up little bit Spanish, Japanese, and so forth. BRODY: Wow. That’s impressive. LE: Thank you. English language ; language ; language learning ; learning English ; slang ; West Texas English 1314 Career trajectory and world travel experience BRODY: After college, you came to the DFW area. What were you doing at that time? LE: So actually, after college, I got my first job and I moved to Belgium, working for a Unisys computer there, so that’s where I picked up French on the southern part of Belgium, which is the French-speaking part. I spent a year doing that. Then I came back to the US for a little bit in Boston, New York area, then I went back to Europe for my second internship working in Italy—it’s where I picked up Italian. BRODY: How long were you there? LE: Italy? About six months. And then from there, I came back to the US and accepted a full-time position in New York with Citibank. I worked there for two years, among other jobs. And then from there, moved back to the North Texas area to launch my first company. And like any start up, your first start up tend to be a failure, (laughs) but the network I built and the people I met was invaluable. From there, I move on to securing a position with EDS at the time, which is the Ross Perot Company at the time. Then that company got acquired by HP, but I already left at the time. And then I went and followed my boss to MCI System House, which then also got acquired by EDS/HP, so that was my second time back. (laughs) And then I went to work for TXU at the time, the big Texas utility company, which is also broken up now. Then I continued from there to work for them for a little while, then I had higher aspiration to launch more start-up company, so I went back to get my master in technology commercialization at the University of Texas as well, so I was commuting back and forth between Dallas and Austin. Ended up doing really well and got a job offer to go to Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. So I did that, but then after 9/11—did that for two years—and after 9/11, moved back to Texas again because 9/11 pretty much shut all the government labs down for security reasons, also to start focusing again on developing weapon of mass destruction because of the war that we’re getting into with the Middle East and so forth, especially with Iraq and Iran. But no matter where I went, I always came back to North Texas, so North Texas tend to be the hub. I helped build up the North Texas life sciences community here. I launched a start up here in Frisco, did really well there, and helped develop the medical device in life science industry area. From there, I launched other company in other part of the states— but still use Texas as a hub—and did a lot of advising, consulting, and travelled the world, and then now, I’m running the life science division for Lenovo, which is—luckily, I’m still able to base out here in North Texas. 9/11 ; Austin ; Belgium ; Boston ; career ; Citibank ; Dallas ; EDS ; education ; employment ; French language ; Hewlett Packard ; Iran ; Iraq ; Italian language ; Italy ; jobs ; language learning ; Lenovo ; Los Alamos ; MCI ; New York ; North Texas ; Ross Perot ; start up companies ; TXU ; war 1517 Identity as a &quot ; universal citizen with a Texas stamp&quot ; BRODY: So you’ve always come back. Do you think of yourself as a Texan? LE: I think so. I think of myself as a universal citizen with a Texas stamp. (laughs) BRODY: Tell me more about your thoughts about identity and how you identify. LE: For me, it’s a little bit different. I’ve really never identified myself as a Texan, or even a US citizen, because of my travel. Since I’ve travelled so much—been in over fifty, I don’t know, maybe sixty countries by now—I have more of a universal perspective. But no matter where I go, people ask me where am I from and I always say, “Texas. Dallas, Texas.” North Texas—and everybody’d recognize that, right? You can tell in other part of the US, but when you say, “Dallas, Texas,” people know. That, in a way, kind of give me a little bit of pride. So I guess, in a way, I do identify myself as a Texan since I finally bit the bullet in buying a truck. (laughs) BRODY: You bought a truck? (laughs) What color is your truck? LE: It’s a silver Ford F-150. BRODY: I think you are a Texan. (laughs) LE: There you go. When you a buy a truck, you are a bona fide Texan. (laughs) American identity ; Dallas ; identity ; Texan identity ; Texas ; travel ; trucks ; universal perspective 1599 Vietnamese identity vs. Vietnamese American identity BRODY: That’s really funny, but I mean, it raises a interesting point. I mean, you’ve lived in so many places and you’ve been so many places. Do you think of yourself as Vietnamese? As Vietnamese American? American? LE: Yeah, sure. I mean, I get that question asked all the time, and again, because of my travel, I kind of lose track of my identity in a way. I always identify myself as a universal citizen. But people always say, Well, aren’t you Vietnamese and aren’t you American, so aren’t you Vietnamese American? I’ll say, “Yeah, I guess so,” right? But I don’t have a large group of Vietnamese friends, or I don’t participate on a weekly basis or on a monthly basis with the Vietnamese community like I used to in the early days. To me, I just look at myself as a universal citizen, and even though I was born in Vietnam, raised in West Texas—raised in North Texas. But to me, I can relate to everybody. BRODY: Yeah. There’s a flexibility that comes with that, but yet, people will always ask you, right? LE: Yeah. Always ask. It’s like, “Where are you from?” But then, they say, No, no. Where are you really from? I say, Okay, then I got to feed them the full story. But if they ask me, Well, where are you from? I say, “Dallas, Texas.” American identity ; Asian Americans ; Dallas ; friendships ; identity ; Texan identity ; Texas ; Vietnamese Americans ; Vietnamese community ; Vietnamese identity 1688 Impact of refugee experience on world view BRODY: How much does the—or in what ways does the refugee experience that is your story inform the way that you interact with the world? LE: Oh, I think it’s tremendous. I mean, just, not so necessarily just being a Vietnamese refugee, but I think just being a refugee, period. Why do refugees and immigrants tend to do so much better in the US than, let’s say, the average citizen? And a lot of it has to do with where you came from and the circumstance of how you got here that allow you to be more inspired and allow you to take a look at a problem from a different perspective, which is something that I think most people who are raised in a comfortable environment tend to take things for granted, so that’s something that I have to remind myself on a daily basis, because we do have a very comfortable life in North Texas. We earned it, but at the same time, I feel like it does make us kind of lazy. That’s something that I see in the second generation. I see it in my own kids, which I try to remind them that you can’t take anything for granted. So from that perspective, just being a refugee, period, remind yourself that at one point, you had nothing and it could happen again. Anything that you have can always be taken away from you, so you have to take care of what you have and be more grateful of the things that you do have, and be more grateful and be more aware of your surrounding. That’s something that I think most of us have lost. | children ; flexibility ; immigrants ; immigration ; refugee experience ; refugees ; second generation ; success ; Vietnamese refugee ; world view 1790 Involvement in and observation about the Vietnamese community in Dallas BRODY: You mentioned you not being as involved now in the Vietnamese community as you were early on. Can you take me back to the time that you were involved with the Vietnamese community? What were the types of things that people did? LE: Sure. I mean, on my earlier days, since we are new in a community, you have to bond with your own race, in a way. So you have to go to the church event, you have to go to the community events, because that’s all you knew at the time. But then we kind of expand beyond that, but at the time, we were very close with the church, with the community, we participated in all the events—charity events as well as fundraisingevents and other business events. I used to mentor and I used to tutor and I used to lecture in the community for the various venture that I was involved with. That community is still there, but I just haven’t participated as much, I guess I would say, in the last ten years or so, since I kind of branch out to other part of the world—other part of business, which is mostly predominated by Caucasian, but that’s just the nature of business. But today, I see a lot more Asians being integrated. Same thing with other races too ; whether it’s blacks, Latino, Hispanic, wherever, we seem to have a more integrated community now, so I just don’t see myself standing out like I used to. BRODY: Yeah. That’s a function of time as well as the community itself growing. What words would you choose to characterize the Vietnamese community in North Texas in general? LE: Oh, it’s amazing. From what I’ve seen in the past, when I was involved in the early days, most people have low-level-paying jobs. I was one of the few that actually were doing really well, but I really didn’t understand why they didn’t do as well, but that’s because of their culture. They stayed within their own circle or their own bubbles that they’re comfortable with. They were required to speak Vietnamese at home. They were required to participate in the Vietnamese community. So most of the people at the time have very low paying jobs. They were blue-collar worker. But as the time pass on and generation gotten more and more educated, the community has exploded. I mean, most of the jobs before were either in restaurants or in low-wages labor, but now they’re professionals. They’re in management. They’re doctors, lawyers, engineers, business owner, so it’s changed dramatically, I would say, in the last ten, fifteen years as people became a lot more affluent, more wealthy. You see them have much bigger house, nicer house, nicer cars. So in essence, the community has adapted very well. But then there are new waves of Vietnamese coming in as well that are starting from the bottom as well, so it’s like a cycle that we go through, but— business ; culture ; diversity ; education ; fundraising ; integration ; mentoring ; restaurants ; social class ; social mobility ; success ; Vietnamese Catholic Church ; Vietnamese community ; Vietnamese language ; wealth 1992 Community connections through food BRODY: Do you think there’s much interaction between the new arrivals and the people who came at the time that you did? LE: I think so. I think a lot of them are still connected through the food that we all share. I think food itself brings people together, and because we’re all looking for the best Vietnamese food possible and the most authentic Vietnamese restaurants possible, we tend to pool ourselves together in those environment. Even for me, I have to have at least a few Vietnamese dish at least once a week. (laughs) BRODY: Do you cook? LE: I try to. Yeah, I try to, but it’s hard to cook for—just for one or two people. BRODY: Well, that just makes me think. When you were growing up in Sweetwater, what was that like? Did your mom cook Vietnamese food every day? LE: (both speaking at once) Oh, definitely. Yeah. Every day. Every day. And there was not much of it, so there was no second serving. (laughs) BRODY: Well, was it hard for her to get the groceries? LE: In a way, but we grew. That’s why we had a little farm in our backyard, which we shouldn’t have. (both laugh) She tried to grow whatever she needs in the backyard, and she wanted fresh chicken, so we grew our own chicken. (both laugh) BRODY: Then you found out the hard way, right? LE: Yeah. So we had fresh egg. It was difficult to get some of the items she needs, but sometimes, we had to drive two hours away just to get the ingredient and supplies she need. But yeah, she cooked every day. We couldn’t afford to eat out. cooking ; culture ; farming ; food ; gardening ; groceries ; restaurants ; Vietnamese food ; Vietnamese restaurants 2086 American food BRODY: Right. Were there things that struck you, at the time, as being particularly American things that your friends were eating that you were—that you hoped that you could try? LE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pizza and burgers was actually a treat. (Brody laughs) Yeah. Believe it or not, it was kind of funny because when my dad passed away, one of my friends’ dad owned the local Sonic restaurant, and they donated over four hundred burgers and fries to us. (laughs) So that was quite— BRODY: You’ll never forget that. (laughs) LE: Yeah. So that was like, “Wow!” That was like—that was a treat for everybody, because we had a lot of people that came in for the funeral, and most of them were Vietnamese. Since my dad was quite well known for the time, so people drove in from long distance to attend the funeral, and instead of having Vietnamese food, we ended up having hamburger! (laughs) American food ; burgers ; fast food ; food ; funeral ; pizza ; Sonic ; Vietnamese food 2145 Le reflects on his father's role as a leader in the Vietnamese community BRODY: Why was your dad so well known? LE: He’s the top educator in Vietnam, and that’s a very respected position. BRODY: And the people in the surrounding communities knew that. I mean, when he was alive, did people come and seek out his company and counsel? LE: Oh yeah, so we had a lot of company all the time. BRODY: It sounds like that, at that time, even though you were in West Texas and you were the only Vietnamese family in Sweetwater, it sounds like, in the neighboring communities, there were other Vietnamese families as well. LE: Correct. BRODY: How did you find each other? LE: You know, that’s a good question. I was too young to know, because we didn’t really have internet back then, so somehow, I guess just through mail—just snail mail and just driving, even just word of mouth, that people were beginning to connect with each other. BRODY: Do you think the churches had any role in connecting people? LE: (both speaking at once) Oh, definitely, yeah. I think the Vietnamese community definitely—the Catholic church, especially. The Vietnamese Catholic churches definitely helped connect a lot of people. leadership ; Sweetwater ; Vietnamese Americans ; Vietnamese Catholic Church ; Vietnamese community ; West Texas 2213 Church and Religion BRODY: Here in Dallas, are you still attending Catholic church or involved in a Vietnamese Catholic church? LE: Only when my mom call me. (both laugh) Yeah. My mom go to church at least twice a week, since they’re very— BRODY: (both speaking at once) And she’s here too? LE: Yeah. She’s here in Dallas. BRODY: Does she attend a Vietnamese Catholic church? LE: Yeah, yeah. And, as well, American church. BRODY: (both speaking at one) St. Peter’s. LE: Yeah. That one, and also a couple of them in Dallas. She kind of rotate around, but she goes to American church as well as Vietnamese church. BRODY: So now the church is not a big factor, but at the time that you were integrating, that was definitely— LE: (both speaking at once) Sure. Right. Yeah. I think church and religion—at the time, that was really the sole avenue you go to for support. Catholic Church ; churches ; Dallas ; religion ; St. Peter's Vietnamese Catholic Church ; Vietnamese Catholic Church 2262 Racism and discrimination BRODY: Tell me about—you’ve travelled around and you’ve lived in a lot of places and interacted with a lot of different people. Have you experienced any discrimination or racism, or do you have any thoughts on that? LE: (both speaking at one) Sure. I think in the early days, because we were so unique and different, people were just calling us by different names and so forth that, at the time, we didn’t know what they mean anyways, so it didn’t bother us. (both laugh) BRODY: That’s good. LE: Right. We’ve learned a few slang ourselves, so we kind of throw some back to them, and sometimes they didn’t like it either. To me, I just didn’t see that as a problem, but occasionally people would say whatever they need to say just to express themselves or make them feel bigger, but I never looked at that as something that would hold me back. If there’s any racial bias or discrimination, it’s not the one that’s verbal or the one that’s in your face that you’re concerned with. It was the one that’s really behind the doors where decisions are made against you just because you are different. And sometime I do see that, but I never let that stop me from being able to achieve what I needed to achieve, so I always had to work a little bit longer, work a little bit harder and smarter, and just have to get to the right people at the right time. But I can see that. I can see that in the early days, but I don’t see that as much today. Definitely twenty years ago, thirty years ago if I look back, I do see that, but at the time, it was not as apparent to me or it didn’t bother me. But if I were more aware, as I am now, and go back to those same time period, I probably would’ve done something about it. But at the time, you just accept it. buillying ; discrimination ; racism ; slang ; teasing 2385 Parenting and passing on cultural values BRODY: You mentioned you’ve got kids and have raised them here, obviously, in Texas. Tell me about your family. LE: Sure. I have two grown daughter. They’re both in college. What’s different about them is that I did not marry within my own race, so I married a wonderful woman from Oklahoma, raised on a dairy farm, blonde hair, blue eyes. (Brody laughs) BRODY: How did you meet? LE: We met at a club (laughs) and, as it turned out, we were working for the same company at the time, so that kind of kicked things off a little bit. And it was—had the right chemistry, and we have two beautiful daughters and they were both born with blonde hair at the early age, which is kind of weird, but that was not expected. But then their hair got dark as they get older. They’ve done really well and, in the early years, they looked a little bit, probably, more Americans, but now as they grown older, they look a little bit more Asian, so even those transition has been very interesting for them as well. BRODY: Yeah. Can you tell me about how—what your observations of their own experience growing up? LE: Yeah. They basically were raised as American because, since I divorced, when— even though we raised them together, I divorced when they were a little bit younger, and my ex basically raised them the way that she wanted, which, basically, as an American. So as far as I’m concerned, they’re as American as they can be, but we also tried to introduce them to Asian culture as well, but I think they’re much more suited to be a North Texan, let’s say. American identity ; Asian identity ; children ; culture ; divorce ; interracial marriage ; marriage ; parenting ; values 2503 Key values of Asian or Vietnamese culture BRODY: What are the key values that you think are part of Asian culture or Vietnamese culture? LE: I think family is key, but in the early days that was extremely important. Everything you do, you have to think about your family first. But I think, in recent years—like I said, in the last ten years, that doesn’t seem to be as important anymore because people tend to have more choices now. BRODY: Even among the Asian community here? LE: (both speaking at once) Yeah, yeah. BRODY: Just here, or even abroad? LE: (both speaking at once) I think everywhere. I mean, even in China, they had to pass a law that parents can sue their children, because if the parent feel like the children are not spending enough time with them or taking care of them as they age, the parents actually can sue the children now. That kind of tell you how much has changed, and that goes with economics. As the economies get better and better, people get more and more busy, and they have more and more choices. They rather spend time with people in their own age or their own interest, so family is not really on the top of their priority list, unless it’s holidays time. So I began to see that everywhere as well, and I think that’s just the natural cycle of life. BRODY: So family is a key value but kind of, maybe, diminishing. LE: I think so. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Are there any other values that you think would characterize Vietnamese culture? LE: Food, definitely. Before, everybody cook, so that was something that you could share among family, so you spent a lot of time cooking together and eating together, and I think that’s been diminished as well. We have more and more options now. We have more and more restaurants that are open where they go out to eat, versus cook at home, so I think that’s diminishing as well—at least, in my family. My mom, she try to cook for everybody at least once or twice a month, but before, you were doing it every day. So that doesn’t happen anymore because you’re so busy now. I think that’s changing too, and that’s the bond that you used to have which is beginning to fade away. Asian values ; China ; cooking ; culture ; family ; food ; restaurants ; Vietnamese values 2637 Reflections on writing a book about his life BRODY: I was thinking about some of the—the whole path that you took here, and I know that you’ve written a book, and thank you so much for sharing that. Can you tell me what drove you write your book and, sort of, what it contains? LE: Right. Right. Yeah, I’ve kind of live a pretty fast life. (laugh) The book was published in 2006 and I was about only forty at the time, and it took me long—even though it’s a short book, but it’s very straight to the point—a little bit too much of the truth, which scare a lot of people. LE: In other words, it has subjects in there that most people are afraid to talk about, especially at the time when the internet was just taking off. Now, it’s no big deal, but the content of the book still hold truth, which kind of surprising for me, but for someone that’s only forty years old and haven’t had a whole lot of experience in life, but yet had enough, or at least more than the average person, that people are willing to want to read it. But the book covers topics that deals with sex, love, marriage, gambling, business, entrepreneurship, finding balance, spirituality, religion, and so forth. I guess I’m just a fast learner in a way. I’ve had a lot of experience even at the time, and I’ve done a lot more since then. But in essence, the content and the book laid the foundation for the life that I hope that my kids can relate, because I didn’t have a father growing up—he passed away young—so a lot of us has to learn things our own way, so we created our own niche, we’ve made things work, and I was hoping to leave a legacy for my kids. And a lot of people also wanted to know: how can I be able to do all this in such a short period of time? Well, I was only forty, so a lot of people thought that a lot of these were all made up. But I’m a dual brainer, so my brain is on all the time, even though—when I’m sleeping, I do a lot of lucid dreaming, so my brain is constantly working and I solve problems that a lot of people can’t solve, so there’s not really anything that is impossible. It’s just, what can you imagine? What can your mind allow you to imagine? There’s so much to be discovered still, and I just got a jumpstart on that, and I continue to help solve problem that most people can’t solve. So that’s what I want to leave behind for my kids. It started out as more of a manuscript, and then people start asking more and more about it, and then I started adding other topics in. But I think at the time, it was really to help my kid understand why I did what I did so that they don’t have to repeat the same mistake, and they can also use that platform to grow upon. And as it turned out, it help a lot of college students. BRODY: Really? LE: Yeah. I still get a lot of thank-you notes from college students and college graduates who’ve taken some of the advice and move on to their careers and saw what I predicted come to reality. BRODY: What did you predict? LE: Half the book—the stuff I wrote in my book actually came true already in just prediction of where technology is heading, and the society that we’re living in and how you can make it better. |00:47:36| BRODY: The title of the book is Living in Paradox. What is the paradox you’re referring to there? LE: Well, life is a paradox, if you haven’t figured that out yet, (laughs) but most people believe in right or wrong or believe there’s only one way of doing certain things, but life is a paradox. We are constantly in conflict. We’re constantly contradicting ourself. We’re constantly contradicting each other, and that’s why we have all these conflicts, and we have to find a compromise. So there are no rights or wrong, at least from my perspective. It is whatever we make of it. Rules change. Why do rules change? Because we decided it’s okay today but then not okay tomorrow, and then with time we switch it back. Take marijuana as a perfect example. Why is it legal in some states, and not legal in the other? We live in the same country, right? That’s just one example. Life is a paradox, and if you understand what are those environment are so that you can allow yourself to understand the left and the right, the black and the white, then you can decide which side you want to stand on and understand why, or maybe just find a gray area and find that balance, which is something that very difficult for us to achieve—for most of us to achieve, and so it’s something we have to work on on a daily basis. BRODY: What do you mean? advice ; book ; legacy ; predictions ; problem-solving ; technology 2940 Links between his experiences and his flexible mindset/philosophy about life BRODY: That sounds like the same kind of flexibility you were talking about earlier. How much do you think your own story, your own experiences has contributed to your sort of flexible mindset? LE: Well, I think experience—when we’re young, we’re selfishly motivated, so we want to do things our way because we want to prove ourself. But as you gain more and more experience, you realize you don’t know as much as you thought. And then we can get a lot of knowledge from the internet—you can google anything you want—but the wisdom is missing. Very few of us can actually connect the dots. We can regurgitate a lot of stuff that we live and read about, but until you actually have that experience—two person can have the same experience, and they’ll give you two different perspective, right? So it’s extremely important that you understand yourself, and then understand how to express yourself in the environment that you want to live in. But if you’re incapable of adapting to that environment, it’s okay too. You just have to create your own environment. I’ve been pretty lucky at being able to adapt in all situation, and I continue to push myself to explore what I’m capable of and not forget what’s the most important things in life. BRODY: What do you think the most important things in life are? LE: (laughs) Oh my god. For me? (laughs) BRODY: Yes. (laughs) LE: The most important thing for me is really to have the best experience I could possibly have without hurting myself or people around me. (both laugh) BRODY: Fair enough. LE: Yeah. Life is all about the experience. I could give you the philosophical perspective as well, but we may not have time for that today. (laughs) BRODY: Go ahead. (laughs) I would love to hear it. LE: This life as you know it is what nature intend for us to do, and then this is life as you know it is what society intend for you to do. So what nature intend for us to do is basically just to reproduce, replicate. That’s really—so if you ask someone, “What is the meaning of life?” They could give you all kind of answer, but in reality, there’s only one meaning of life which is reproduction, replication. If you look at all DNA program, and that’s really the area that I work in—is in genomic research, leveraging AI and supercomputers to do that—there’s only one purpose in life, and that’s to replicate. And then whatever you want to surround yourself with to support that mechanism, that’s what organic life is designed to do. If we don’t replicate, we die, so that’s why DNA program only does one thing and it does it pretty well. It makes a lot of copies, and it trying to seduce other host to support your replication. That’s why we have viruses, bacteria, and why we have different species, and male, female, and so forth, but in reality, it’s only one program ; it’s to replicate. But then you have life for society as well, and society support that whole process, so we build a society that will allow you to replicate faster and better, and that’s why we have more people living today than we ever had combined in the history of the world. So we’ve done a very good job at that. BRODY: At that, yes. LE: So that’s really the purpose of life, and once we expend this planet, then we go to the other planet. (laughs) Take it with a—but in reality, I think the other part is—to life—is the consciousness, is that the side effect of life, now, is consciousness, is that we became aware of what nature intend for us to do, and we’re trying to change nature. We’re redesigning nature right now. That’s why we no longer live in the wilderness. We live in a concrete world. We live in a sterile world. We can’t go back. Our immune system has been compromised, so that’s why we get so sick so easy once we get outside of our environment, because we sterilize our environment. We’re rewriting the program. We’re re-editing our genome. We’re changing our own self to be able to, again, replicate even better. We got designer babies now. In essence, we’re constantly in conflict between our physical and mental aspect, is that the physical side—nature already programmed it for us. Now it’s our awareness. What do we want to do? Do we want to follow nature’s rules or do we want to redesign it? That’s awareness. BRODY: Interesting. Sounds like a lot to think about, for sure. LE: Most of us don’t want to think about it. It’s too complicated. We just want our food, football, and TV. (both laugh) adaptation ; experience ; flexibility ; nature ; philosophy 3259 Politics BRODY: Yeah. There’s—and this kind of makes me think about this other area that we haven’t talked about yet. You’ve described what society wants and sort of the expectations of that. Where does politics fit into that? Are you engaged with politics, either—I know you think of yourself as a universal citizen, so does that make you more engaged at the global level or the local level or both? LE: I try not to, and I used to volunteer and help deliver message, and used to pass out pamphlets and leaflet and so forth, but I don’t do it anymore because, just from a personal level, if there’s something that I can change and control, I will do it. I just don’t feel like we’re in control of this big machine anymore, so I try to just do what I can within my own little community. From a bigger perspective, we need an overhaul. For a political perspective, the system that gotten us here no longer works, and that’s why we have so much disarray right now in Washington. Not just in the US, but look at the UK, for instance, with Brexit, and all the other country that can’t seem to get along anymore because their population has been diversified now, so the old system—the old model— doesn’t work anymore. It’s almost like having the tax system that’s been so outdated that there’s so many loopholes in it that you basically have to revamp it. In that perspective, these changes will not come overnight, and that’s just something that we all have to continue to pursue, and I think technology will help to get us there. It’s sometimes better just to start from scratch, so look at another example, like electric vehicles. Tesla’s taking the lead on that—or space travel. Those are the kind of things that has to happen in order for us to wake up and get rid of the old model, and be able to get out of our comfort zone. But right now, I think we’re not there yet, so I try to stay away from it. (laughs) BRODY: Yeah. Well—and even—do you keep up with Vietnamese politics at all? LE: Some. Not much. Only because of the business I do. Right now, I mean, we look at what’s going on in Asia, especially with China and Vietnam, and with communism and socialism and capitalism all mixed into one, so that’s actually working really well, right? So you don’t have to have just communism. You just have to apply communism when you need to, apply socialism when you need to, and apply capitalism when you need to— whereas we think about just, Capitalism, capitalism, capitalism. Well, that’s not a sustainable model. American politics ; Brexit ; capitalism ; China ; communism ; politics ; socialism ; technology ; Vietnamese politics ; volunteer 3438 What does it mean to be American? BRODY: When you’re thinking about yourself and your kids and the people who are in your community, do you think of yourselves as American? Do you think of yourself as American? And if so or if not, what do you think it means to be American or to say that you’re American? LE: Yeah. When I travel, I get asked a lot of question like, “Where are you from?” and, “Oh, you’re Americans, right?” And I say, “Oh, yeah.” Even when I hear a side conversation, even though I’m not born in the US—but what is the US? The US is made up of refugees and immigrants, right? So some of us are born here, some of them are not, but in essence, if you pay your taxes, you’re an American. (both laugh) BRODY: It’s that simple. LE: It’s that simple, yeah! There’s no way about it. What is American? Being an American is the ability to have the freedom that we’ve earned. We pay for it. We sacrifice ourself for it. Freedom, the ability to express yourself, the ability to do whatever is needed to provide for your family in a way where you’re not restricted like most countries. As much as I like to travel and enjoy all the culture around the world, I still like coming home to North Texas because to me, there’s no other place in the world that I’ve seen that has the best quality of life. I mean, everywhere else, there’s things you can do, there’s things you cannot do, whereas, here, in Texas, especially North Texas, we can do just about anything we want as long as we don’t hurt ourself and other people. We have more opportunities here than anywhere else. You can launch a start-up any time you want. You can create and express yourself anyway you want. I always feel very blessed and grateful every time I come home. We have a beautiful airport. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Yeah, so this is home. LE: Yeah. We have a beautiful airport. We got lots of land. You can actually see the sunset. (laughs) The air is better than most. We complain our air quality here but, boy, have you been to China? (both laugh) American identity ; business ; food stamps ; freedom ; identity ; immigrants ; opportunity ; refugees ; start up companies ; success ; taxes ; Texas ; welfare Baylor University Institute for Oral History Phong Hung Le Oral History Memoir Interview Number 1 Interviewed by Betsy T. Brody January 18, 2019 Richardson, Texas Project -- Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans: The Making of the Vietnamese Community in North Texas BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is January 18, 2019. I&#039 ; m interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Phong Le. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the &quot ; Becoming Texas, Becoming Americans&quot ; project. Thank you, Mr. Le, for meeting with me. LE: Thank you, Betsy. |00:00:23| BRODY: I&#039 ; m looking forward to an interesting conversation. Just to start out with, can you tell me a little bit about your background, your time in Vietnam? What do you remember of your family&#039 ; s experience there? LE: Sure. Sure. Well, it depend how much time we have, but I&#039 ; ll try to give a quick summary. We came to the US in 1975, right after the war ended. Actually, we left about two weeks earlier, before the chaos happened, and it was a group of us that pretty much snuck out in the middle of the night with the members from the US Embassy that helped us get out of Vietnam--or get out Saigon, at that point. But my background--basically, I&#039 ; m trying to be a very simple person. I came to the US at around age ten, and it&#039 ; s been a great ride since then. We grew up in West Texas, and then made our home in North Texas, so most of our family members are now in North Texas. I&#039 ; ve enjoyed travel. I&#039 ; ve worked for a lot of different Fortune 500 companies, as well as launched a bunch of start- ups in the North Texas area, helped build the life science community in the North Texas area, and now, I&#039 ; m currently working with Lenovo, leading the life science solution division. I&#039 ; m travelling around the world identifying medical research that could help develop new diagnosis and new drugs for the expansion, and hopefully provide a much better, higher quality of life for everybody. BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. Sounds like an exciting and enriching life. So you were ten years old when--in 1975? LE: Correct. |00:02:09| BRODY: And it sounds like it was a dramatic exit from Vietnam. Can you tell me what you remember of the actual leaving? LE: (both speaking at once) Sure, sure. I mean, I think I have a pretty good memory, but everybody have their own perspective and so forth, but the night that we left was quite, I guess, surprising for everyone. From what I remember is that we were woken up in the middle of the night, and we were just told, &quot ; Grab one thing,&quot ; and then everybody was shoved into a van. BRODY: What did you grab? LE: I grabbed my cricket. (both laugh) I actually-- BRODY: A pet. LE: A pet, yeah, because I--at the time, I loved playing with different type of toys, and we all have our pet--what is it?--dog, cat, or so forth, but I had my prized fighting cricket. I had a group in the neighborhood that were competing in cricket fighting, and mine was the champion, which I kept, so that&#039 ; s the first thing I grabbed--my cricket box. |00:03:17| BRODY: (laughs) Oh, that&#039 ; s great. Did you have siblings? LE: I do. There were eight of us at one time, but two younger one--the twins--they died early, and so there&#039 ; s still six of us ; five boys and one girl. And we all made it out, but it was quite a journey. We were taken a nearby airfield and kind of just waited in the airplane. I think it was a DC-9 or DC-10, which was pretty stripped down with machine gun mounted on the window, and they just kept us there overnight until daybreak, and then we flew out. So it was quite an interesting time. BRODY: Were you part of that group because your family was involved with the embassy? LE: Correct. Yeah. My mom&#039 ; s sister--my aunt--has connection with the US Embassy, and they basically evacuate as many folks as they can at the last minute, and that&#039 ; s how we were able to come out together. |00:04:15| BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. So then, where--you flew out. Where did you end up initially? LE: Initially, we ended up in the Philippines and we stayed at the airfields there, and then we flew out from there through, I guess, a different transport plane, and then we ended up in Guam as the first stage of settlement for most of the refugees coming out of Vietnam. We were there for a few months, and then we got transported to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas right after that. BRODY: So then you were in Arkansas for how long? LE: I can&#039 ; t remember, but I assume--it was a long, hot summer. That&#039 ; s all I remember. But I think we were there at least two or three months, because the goal here is to identify a sponsor that can provide the housing and accommodation, jobs, and so forth in order for you to settle in the states. And at that point, you go wherever there are sponsors, and since we have a big family, it was more difficult to find a sponsor that can take on a large group. There were actually two families--my mom and my mom&#039 ; s sisters as well--so we&#039 ; re a large group ; I think there were a total of twelve of us together. With that large of a size and trying to keep everybody together, it took a little bit longer. BRODY: Yeah. So eventually who sponsored you? LE: It turned out we&#039 ; ve received words that there was one gentleman that actually could take all of us, which was great news, but we ended up in a place that we completely unaware of and unexpected, which is in West Texas in a small town called Sweetwater, a small town of about ten, twelve thousand people. He is the owner of the local Holiday Inn, so it worked out very well for him because he has plenty of room for us to stay, and also, he has jobs that we could work at at the hotel to help with the cleaning and help with the hotel. I remember we did everything from cleaning the pool to cleaning the rooms, so we basically helped take care of the hotel. BRODY: Wow. Were there other Vietnamese people in Sweetwater at that time? LE: No. We were the only one. BRODY: The only one&#039 ; s your family. LE: Yeah. It was quite an oddity. |00:06:49| BRODY: What was that like for you as a child, to be there in Sweetwater? LE: It was a lot of fun because we got a lot of attention everywhere we went, from the supermarket to just playing in the street and going to school, because everybody wanted to know where you came from and how they can help, so it was a very interesting time. People were very friendly and helpful. We were invited to a different church every weekend, so we basically took the tour. BRODY: (laughs) It sounds like it was a very supportive settlement. LE: Yeah. It was a very interesting time, but that&#039 ; s how we survived. We didn&#039 ; t have anything, obviously, so through the church and through the community and through all those efforts, we were able to get our own place and be able to accept a lot of donation, and start a--or at least, I thought it was actually a very fun time for me. |00:07:52| BRODY: You were in school then. LE: Yes. BRODY: What was that like? LE: It was interesting because we had to dress different. We had to adapt to the community, and understanding what you can do and what you cannot do, and learning how to speak English, so that was probably the most challenging part. So there were curriculum that we did really well, and there are area that we had no clue what was going on. Anything that was science and math, we did, actually, really well, but any related stuff related to English, and then we struggle, obviously. But after about a year or so, I think everyone adapted pretty quickly, so I had a lot of fun. BRODY: Speaking of adapting, you mentioned having to learn what you could do and what you couldn&#039 ; t do. What are some things that you remember being surprising or challenging to learn in that regard? LE: Sure. I think it&#039 ; s just a thing, in general, as a family. For instance, my mom--we&#039 ; re all trying to make a living, and she&#039 ; s actually a very good cook, having raised all these kids, so we started our own little egg roll kitchen at home. (laughs) We didn&#039 ; t know that you weren&#039 ; t supposed to do that, (laughs) so we basically running an egg rolls kitchen out of our small home. We had an old home with no AC or anything like that. I guess, after about a month, we got shut down, (laughs) but everybody loved it and we had orders from the entire town. BRODY: Who shut you down? LE: It was the Health Department! (laughs) Said, &quot ; Oh, we&#039 ; re not supposed to do that?&quot ; I thought--like, in most third world country, you can just buy food off the street. You can just cook off the street. You can sell to anybody you want, so anyhow-- BRODY: Did your mom pursue the egg roll business after that? LE: (both speaking at once) No, no. Not at all. No. BRODY: (both speaking at once) No? |00:09:40| LE: Yeah. She was too busy working in the garment factory, but it was something that she loves to enjoy doing anyway, and so why not make it for the whole town? BRODY: Right. Right. Sounds like the town enjoyed it. LE: Yeah. So she was just starting to cook for everybody and just little things like that. Things like--you can&#039 ; t keep farm animals in the backyard, (laughs) so we had a lot of wild animals like ducks and chicken. BRODY: Really? (laughs) LE: Yeah. (laughs) You&#039 ; re not supposed to do that. Just things like that, but we adapted pretty well. I thought we did pretty well adjusting to the culture and considering, even though it was a small town. BRODY: Yeah. So given that you were the only Vietnamese family in the town, your friends must have been all American. LE: Oh, yeah. |00:10:38| BRODY: And so what was--tell me about your friendships and your pastimes as a teenager or a child. LE: (both speaking at once) Yeah. See, that&#039 ; s the trouble. As a teenager growing up in a small town, you do get in a lot of trouble. Most people don&#039 ; t know that Sweetwater, at one time, was considered the methamphetamine capital of the country because of all the trailers and RV parks, and it was a very wide open area that just made it a perfect area for people to make drugs. That&#039 ; s an unfortunate part of Sweetwater area, even though it&#039 ; s a beautiful, nice area. Now, it&#039 ; s known for being the largest concentration of windmill in the world, and big oil and gas development too, but at the time, that&#039 ; s what it was known for. We did--from my group of friends, we did get into a lot of trouble. There was a lot of drugs involved. We did a lot of boys&#039 ; things. Vandalism is like a regular weekend activity, right? But growing up in that area, I just adapted to just about everything I&#039 ; d get my hands on, so I adapted really well with all the other kids, and I was pretty good in sport as well, so that helps. But we were constantly getting in trouble and trying to be one step ahead of the law and so forth, so that&#039 ; s what I remember my childhood. (laughs) |00:12:13| BRODY: What did your parents think of that and going through the process that they took to get here? How was it for them, parenting in a new country? LE: Yeah. So it&#039 ; s a--my dad was--my mom--well, both my mom and dad were very strict, and we do have corporal punishment, just like we have at the time in the US, but more so in an Asian family--Vietnamese family, so we constantly get reprimanded quite a bit. You get your butt whipped. You get your hand knuckle whipped or you get your face slapped. That&#039 ; s very typical things in that time, so that was a very common occurrence, but my parents were actually too busy working to really look after us, which is part of adapting. He had a high level position. He&#039 ; d been high-level educator in Vietnam, and now he has to go work in a factory, go work in a lumber yard at an assembly line, so it was a hard adjustment. They worked long hours, and my mom did the same thing. She worked at a garment factory for many years, so disciplining the kid and monitoring all these kids running around is actually very difficult. We all did pretty well, I thought. We did enough to stay out of trouble, considering we were on welfare and food stamps, and had to basically take whatever donation we can get, just trying to adjust to the community and also trying to stay out of trouble as well because we all had a lot of goals and desires, and in a small town, there&#039 ; s not a whole lot to do, so you end up conspiring a lot of things that you shouldn&#039 ; t be doing. (laughs) But we tried to participate in sports and in bands, and as much academic environment as we can, and that kind of helped us stay out of trouble. BRODY: It&#039 ; s interesting you mentioned the--sort of the shift that your parents had to go through from the types of lifestyle and jobs that they had in Vietnam, and then to not only be in a new country, but to have--sort of be in a different social class. Do you have any thoughts or do you have any memories around that transition? LE: For me, I didn&#039 ; t really have much of an impact there, but for my parents, my mom never worked in her life. She married young. She raised a incredible family, and coming here to the US, she has to take her first job and starting work long hours, and low pay long hours. They both did, so I think that took a huge toll on my dad because he came from a well-to-do family, had a very nice, comfortable lifestyle, and had high credential and high position in Vietnam, being a top educator to the top ranked school, as well being a private tutor to the president&#039 ; s sons and general&#039 ; s family and so forth, so that was a big change, so it took a big toll on him and he didn&#039 ; t survive very long. Within four years, he passed away. BRODY: Oh no. While you were still in Sweetwater? LE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. |00:15:45| BRODY: Oh. I&#039 ; m sorry to hear that. So as the town you were in had so many churches, were you guys involved with church very much? LE: Yeah. We were raised as Catholics, and so Catholic church was the main church that we go to. But because we, being new and such an oddity in that area, we basically accepted every invitation that came and I think we visit almost every church. (laughs) That was a great way to get to know the community, and also that was a great way to get the support that we needed as well. BRODY: It sounds like the town was very welcoming. I mean, some people say that small towns or that Americans or Texans are not particularly open to people who are different, but that does not sound like it was your experience. LE: (both speaking at once) No. Not at all. I think in small towns, people are much more helpful and much more accommodating, and also, we have something that&#039 ; s unique that gives them something to talk about and give them something to learn about. Whereas, I guess, on the bigger town, they may help you get started a bit, but they expect you to get on your feet within a few months, right? But in a smaller town, you develop a connection much quicker and it seems to be more genuine. |00:17:18| BRODY: Interesting. So then what brought you here to North Texas? LE: Well, after my dad passed away, we moved to Lubbock, Texas, and continue our education there. And then from then, as each sibling started to attend college, then we start moving to different direction around the county. I&#039 ; ve ended up going to school in the University of Texas in Austin. And ever since then, I&#039 ; ve pretty much sprouted out and worked overseas, and worked different part of the country, and now, back in North Texas. North Texas is--I guess we all grew up with high aspiration and looking for better opportunity, and obviously, the Dallas--Fort Worth area has the opportunities that we were looking for, so that&#039 ; s why we ended up settling here. BRODY: How old were you when you--was it after college that you ended up in-- LE: (both speaking at once) Right. Correct. Some of the family member were ready to move to the Dallas area beforehand, but I came back from Europe in 1989 and started a start-up company--my first start-up--in the North Texas area. |00:18:38| BRODY: Interesting. What kind of work was it? LE: It was a very interesting company at the time that focused on multimedia technology. I came back and I joined a group to focus on developing tools to advance learning, especially for people with learning disabilities like myself, since I&#039 ; m supposed to be dyslexic and ADD and all that, which is something that&#039 ; s very difficult, at the time, to diagnose. But at the same time, I found ways around that and I&#039 ; ve learned how to learn through audiovisual means, versus the standard reading. BRODY: Was that hard for you in school then, in a traditional school? LE: (both speaking at once) Oh, definitely. Yeah. BRODY: How did you kind of cope with both the language and the learning differences? LE: Yeah. So my brain works very different than most. I didn&#039 ; t know at the time, but as I get a little bit older and older, and talked to other people, and diagnosed myself, I found out it&#039 ; s a gift. It&#039 ; s not a disability. And I&#039 ; ve learned how to leverage that--learned how to multitask--so I have what most people consider is a little bit different. It&#039 ; s like, most people are either the right brain or the left brain ; well, I&#039 ; m both, which can cause a lot of confusion if you don&#039 ; t know what&#039 ; s going on inside your own head, but once I figured that out, I was able to leverage that so I can be creative and analytical at the same time. That&#039 ; s when I really excelled, but at any early age I didn&#039 ; t understand all that, so I needed a lot of tutoring. But I did well, regardless. I was on the honor list, and on the dean&#039 ; s roll, and so forth, so--honor rolls--I&#039 ; m sorry, honor rolls and dean&#039 ; s list. As you can see, that&#039 ; s my dyslexia. (both laugh) But what it does is, it give you a whole different perspective on life and, from an educational standpoint, it takes me a little longer to learn something, but once I get going, I can excel a lot faster. BRODY: Well, that&#039 ; s good that you&#039 ; ve figured it out. So language learning must have been particularly challenging or-- LE: Actually, it actually came out to be a bonus because at one time, I spoke five languages, once I learned how it works. But to learn English, it was difficult at the beginning, but then, you-- |00:20:59| BRODY: Did you know any English before you came? LE: Just a little bit. Not too much. BRODY: So you just quickly learned it. LE: Yeah. We learned, actually, slang English or (both laugh) West Texas English. So you can understand different part of Texas have different dialect, and West Texan-- BRODY: What are some of examples of West Texas English? LE: West Texas is like, &quot ; Y&#039 ; all come back now, you hear?&quot ; right? (Brody laughs) That&#039 ; s the West Texas slang there. But West Texas people just slur your words more and we tend to speak a little bit slower. And so that&#039 ; s what we picked up, but as you start hitting the university level, then you learn the proper English, so my tongue has been twisted many times. (Brody laughs) But also, I&#039 ; ve learned French, I&#039 ; ve learned Italian and, through my travel, I&#039 ; ve picked up little bit Spanish, Japanese, and so forth. BRODY: Wow. That&#039 ; s impressive. LE: Thank you. BRODY: After college, you came to the DFW area. What were you doing at that time? LE: So actually, after college, I got my first job and I moved to Belgium, working for a Unisys computer there, so that&#039 ; s where I picked up French on the southern part of Belgium, which is the French-speaking part. I spent a year doing that. Then I came back to the US for a little bit in Boston, New York area, then I went back to Europe for my second internship working in Italy--it&#039 ; s where I picked up Italian. |00:22:33| BRODY: How long were you there? LE: Italy? About six months. And then from there, I came back to the US and accepted a full-time position in New York with Citibank. I worked there for two years, among other jobs. And then from there, moved back to the North Texas area to launch my first company. And like any start up, your first start up tend to be a failure, (laughs) but the network I built and the people I met was invaluable. From there, I move on to securing a position with EDS at the time, which is the Ross Perot Company at the time. Then that company got acquired by HP, but I already left at the time. And then I went and followed my boss to MCI System House, which then also got acquired by EDS/HP, so that was my second time back. (laughs) And then I went to work for TXU at the time, the big Texas utility company, which is also broken up now. Then I continued from there to work for them for a little while, then I had higher aspiration to launch more start-up company, so I went back to get my master in technology commercialization at the University of Texas as well, so I was commuting back and forth between Dallas and Austin. Ended up doing really well and got a job offer to go to Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico. So I did that, but then after 9/11--did that for two years--and after 9/11, moved back to Texas again because 9/11 pretty much shut all the government labs down for security reasons, also to start focusing again on developing weapon of mass destruction because of the war that we&#039 ; re getting into with the Middle East and so forth, especially with Iraq and Iran. But no matter where I went, I always came back to North Texas, so North Texas tend to be the hub. I helped build up the North Texas life sciences community here. I launched a start up here in Frisco, did really well there, and helped develop the medical device in life science industry area. From there, I launched other company in other part of the states-- but still use Texas as a hub--and did a lot of advising, consulting, and travelled the world, and then now, I&#039 ; m running the life science division for Lenovo, which is--luckily, I&#039 ; m still able to base out here in North Texas. |00:25:16| BRODY: So you&#039 ; ve always come back. Do you think of yourself as a Texan? LE: I think so. I think of myself as a universal citizen with a Texas stamp. (laughs) BRODY: Tell me more about your thoughts about identity and how you identify. LE: For me, it&#039 ; s a little bit different. I&#039 ; ve really never identified myself as a Texan, or even a US citizen, because of my travel. Since I&#039 ; ve travelled so much--been in over fifty, I don&#039 ; t know, maybe sixty countries by now--I have more of a universal perspective. But no matter where I go, people ask me where am I from and I always say, &quot ; Texas. Dallas, Texas.&quot ; North Texas--and everybody&#039 ; d recognize that, right? You can tell in other part of the US, but when you say, &quot ; Dallas, Texas,&quot ; people know. That, in a way, kind of give me a little bit of pride. So I guess, in a way, I do identify myself as a Texan since I finally bit the bullet in buying a truck. (laughs) BRODY: You bought a truck? (laughs) What color is your truck? LE: It&#039 ; s a silver Ford F-150. BRODY: I think you are a Texan. (laughs) LE: There you go. When you a buy a truck, you are a bona fide Texan. (laughs) BRODY: That&#039 ; s really funny, but I mean, it raises a interesting point. I mean, you&#039 ; ve lived in so many places and you&#039 ; ve been so many places. Do you think of yourself as Vietnamese? As Vietnamese American? American? LE: Yeah, sure. I mean, I get that question asked all the time, and again, because of my travel, I kind of lose track of my identity in a way. I always identify myself as a universal citizen. But people always say, Well, aren&#039 ; t you Vietnamese and aren&#039 ; t you American, so aren&#039 ; t you Vietnamese American? I&#039 ; ll say, &quot ; Yeah, I guess so,&quot ; right? But I don&#039 ; t have a large group of Vietnamese friends, or I don&#039 ; t participate on a weekly basis or on a monthly basis with the Vietnamese community like I used to in the early days. To me, I just look at myself as a universal citizen, and even though I was born in Vietnam, raised in West Texas--raised in North Texas. But to me, I can relate to everybody. BRODY: Yeah. There&#039 ; s a flexibility that comes with that, but yet, people will always ask you, right? LE: Yeah. Always ask. It&#039 ; s like, &quot ; Where are you from?&quot ; But then, they say, No, no. Where are you really from? I say, Okay, then I got to feed them the full story. But if they ask me, Well, where are you from? I say, &quot ; Dallas, Texas.&quot ; |00:28:07| BRODY: How much does the--or in what ways does the refugee experience that is your story inform the way that you interact with the world? LE: Oh, I think it&#039 ; s tremendous. I mean, just, not so necessarily just being a Vietnamese refugee, but I think just being a refugee, period. Why do refugees and immigrants tend to do so much better in the US than, let&#039 ; s say, the average citizen? And a lot of it has to do with where you came from and the circumstance of how you got here that allow you to be more inspired and allow you to take a look at a problem from a different perspective, which is something that I think most people who are raised in a comfortable environment tend to take things for granted, so that&#039 ; s something that I have to remind myself on a daily basis, because we do have a very comfortable life in North Texas. We earned it, but at the same time, I feel like it does make us kind of lazy. That&#039 ; s something that I see in the second generation. I see it in my own kids, which I try to remind them that you can&#039 ; t take anything for granted. So from that perspective, just being a refugee, period, remind yourself that at one point, you had nothing and it could happen again. Anything that you have can always be taken away from you, so you have to take care of what you have and be more grateful of the things that you do have, and be more grateful and be more aware of your surrounding. That&#039 ; s something that I think most of us have lost. |00:29:50| BRODY: You mentioned you not being as involved now in the Vietnamese community as you were early on. Can you take me back to the time that you were involved with the Vietnamese community? What were the types of things that people did? LE: Sure. I mean, on my earlier days, since we are new in a community, you have to bond with your own race, in a way. So you have to go to the church event, you have to go to the community events, because that&#039 ; s all you knew at the time. But then we kind of expand beyond that, but at the time, we were very close with the church, with the community, we participated in all the events--charity events as well as fundraising events and other business events. I used to mentor and I used to tutor and I used to lecture in the community for the various venture that I was involved with. That community is still there, but I just haven&#039 ; t participated as much, I guess I would say, in the last ten years or so, since I kind of branch out to other part of the world--other part of business, which is mostly predominated by Caucasian, but that&#039 ; s just the nature of business. But today, I see a lot more Asians being integrated. Same thing with other races too ; whether it&#039 ; s blacks, Latino, Hispanic, wherever, we seem to have a more integrated community now, so I just don&#039 ; t see myself standing out like I used to. |00:31:25| BRODY: Yeah. That&#039 ; s a function of time as well as the community itself growing. What words would you choose to characterize the Vietnamese community in North Texas in general? LE: Oh, it&#039 ; s amazing. From what I&#039 ; ve seen in the past, when I was involved in the early days, most people have low-level-paying jobs. I was one of the few that actually were doing really well, but I really didn&#039 ; t understand why they didn&#039 ; t do as well, but that&#039 ; s because of their culture. They stayed within their own circle or their own bubbles that they&#039 ; re comfortable with. They were required to speak Vietnamese at home. They were required to participate in the Vietnamese community. So most of the people at the time have very low paying jobs. They were blue-collar worker. But as the time pass on and generation gotten more and more educated, the community has exploded. I mean, most of the jobs before were either in restaurants or in low-wages labor, but now they&#039 ; re professionals. They&#039 ; re in management. They&#039 ; re doctors, lawyers, engineers, business owner, so it&#039 ; s changed dramatically, I would say, in the last ten, fifteen years as people became a lot more affluent, more wealthy. You see them have much bigger house, nicer house, nicer cars. So in essence, the community has adapted very well. But then there are new waves of Vietnamese coming in as well that are starting from the bottom as well, so it&#039 ; s like a cycle that we go through, but-- BRODY: Do you think there&#039 ; s much interaction between the new arrivals and the people who came at the time that you did? LE: I think so. I think a lot of them are still connected through the food that we all share. I think food itself brings people together, and because we&#039 ; re all looking for the best Vietnamese food possible and the most authentic Vietnamese restaurants possible, we tend to pool ourselves together in those environment. Even for me, I have to have at least a few Vietnamese dish at least once a week. (laughs) BRODY: Do you cook? LE: I try to. Yeah, I try to, but it&#039 ; s hard to cook for--just for one or two people. |00:33:55| BRODY: Well, that just makes me think. When you were growing up in Sweetwater, what was that like? Did your mom cook Vietnamese food every day? LE: (both speaking at once) Oh, definitely. Yeah. Every day. Every day. And there was not much of it, so there was no second serving. (laughs) BRODY: Well, was it hard for her to get the groceries? LE: In a way, but we grew. That&#039 ; s why we had a little farm in our backyard, which we shouldn&#039 ; t have. (both laugh) She tried to grow whatever she needs in the backyard, and she wanted fresh chicken, so we grew our own chicken. (both laugh) BRODY: Then you found out the hard way, right? LE: Yeah. So we had fresh egg. It was difficult to get some of the items she needs, but sometimes, we had to drive two hours away just to get the ingredient and supplies she need. But yeah, she cooked every day. We couldn&#039 ; t afford to eat out. BRODY: Right. Were there things that struck you, at the time, as being particularly American things that your friends were eating that you were--that you hoped that you could try? LE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Pizza and burgers was actually a treat. (Brody laughs) Yeah. Believe it or not, it was kind of funny because when my dad passed away, one of my friends&#039 ; dad owned the local Sonic restaurant, and they donated over four hundred burgers and fries to us. (laughs) So that was quite-- BRODY: You&#039 ; ll never forget that. (laughs) LE: Yeah. So that was like, &quot ; Wow!&quot ; That was like--that was a treat for everybody, because we had a lot of people that came in for the funeral, and most of them were Vietnamese. Since my dad was quite well known for the time, so people drove in from long distance to attend the funeral, and instead of having Vietnamese food, we ended up having hamburger! (laughs) BRODY: Hamburgers. (laughs) Why was your dad so well known? LE: He&#039 ; s the top educator in Vietnam, and that&#039 ; s a very respected position. BRODY: And the people in the surrounding communities knew that. I mean, when he was alive, did people come and seek out his company and counsel? LE: Oh yeah, so we had a lot of company all the time. |00:36:07| BRODY: It sounds like that, at that time, even though you were in West Texas and you were the only Vietnamese family in Sweetwater, it sounds like, in the neighboring communities, there were other Vietnamese families as well. LE: Correct. BRODY: How did you find each other? LE: You know, that&#039 ; s a good question. I was too young to know, because we didn&#039 ; t really have internet back then, so somehow, I guess just through mail--just snail mail and just driving, even just word of mouth, that people were beginning to connect with each other. BRODY: Do you think the churches had any role in connecting people? LE: (both speaking at once) Oh, definitely, yeah. I think the Vietnamese community definitely--the Catholic church, especially. The Vietnamese Catholic churches definitely helped connect a lot of people. BRODY: Here in Dallas, are you still attending Catholic church or involved in a Vietnamese Catholic church? LE: Only when my mom call me. (both laugh) Yeah. My mom go to church at least twice a week, since they&#039 ; re very-- BRODY: (both speaking at once) And she&#039 ; s here too? LE: Yeah. She&#039 ; s here in Dallas. BRODY: Does she attend a Vietnamese Catholic church? LE: Yeah, yeah. And, as well, American church. BRODY: (both speaking at one) St. Peter&#039 ; s. LE: Yeah. That one, and also a couple of them in Dallas. She kind of rotate around, but she goes to American church as well as Vietnamese church. BRODY: So now the church is not a big factor, but at the time that you were integrating, that was definitely-- LE: (both speaking at once) Sure. Right. Yeah. I think church and religion--at the time, that was really the sole avenue you go to for support. |00:37:41| BRODY: Tell me about--you&#039 ; ve travelled around and you&#039 ; ve lived in a lot of places and interacted with a lot of different people. Have you experienced any discrimination or racism, or do you have any thoughts on that? LE: (both speaking at one) Sure. I think in the early days, because we were so unique and different, people were just calling us by different names and so forth that, at the time, we didn&#039 ; t know what they mean anyways, so it didn&#039 ; t bother us. (both laugh) BRODY: That&#039 ; s good. LE: Right. We&#039 ; ve learned a few slang ourselves, so we kind of throw some back to them, and sometimes they didn&#039 ; t like it either. To me, I just didn&#039 ; t see that as a problem, but occasionally people would say whatever they need to say just to express themselves or make them feel bigger, but I never looked at that as something that would hold me back. If there&#039 ; s any racial bias or discrimination, it&#039 ; s not the one that&#039 ; s verbal or the one that&#039 ; s in your face that you&#039 ; re concerned with. It was the one that&#039 ; s really behind the doors where decisions are made against you just because you are different. And sometime I do see that, but I never let that stop me from being able to achieve what I needed to achieve, so I always had to work a little bit longer, work a little bit harder and smarter, and just have to get to the right people at the right time. But I can see that. I can see that in the early days, but I don&#039 ; t see that as much today. Definitely twenty years ago, thirty years ago if I look back, I do see that, but at the time, it was not as apparent to me or it didn&#039 ; t bother me. But if I were more aware, as I am now, and go back to those same time period, I probably would&#039 ; ve done something about it. But at the time, you just accept it. |00:39:45| BRODY: You mentioned you&#039 ; ve got kids and have raised them here, obviously, in Texas. Tell me about your family. LE: Sure. I have two grown daughter. They&#039 ; re both in college. What&#039 ; s different about them is that I did not marry within my own race, so I married a wonderful woman from Oklahoma, raised on a dairy farm, blonde hair, blue eyes. (Brody laughs) BRODY: How did you meet? LE: We met at a club (laughs) and, as it turned out, we were working for the same company at the time, so that kind of kicked things off a little bit. And it was--had the right chemistry, and we have two beautiful daughters and they were both born with blonde hair at the early age, which is kind of weird, but that was not expected. But then their hair got dark as they get older. They&#039 ; ve done really well and, in the early years, they looked a little bit, probably, more Americans, but now as they grown older, they look a little bit more Asian, so even those transition has been very interesting for them as well. |00:40:55| BRODY: Yeah. Can you tell me about how--what your observations of their own experience growing up? LE: Yeah. They basically were raised as American because, since I divorced, when-- even though we raised them together, I divorced when they were a little bit younger, and my ex basically raised them the way that she wanted, which, basically, as an American. So as far as I&#039 ; m concerned, they&#039 ; re as American as they can be, but we also tried to introduce them to Asian culture as well, but I think they&#039 ; re much more suited to be a North Texan, let&#039 ; s say. |00:41:42| BRODY: What are the key values that you think are part of Asian culture or Vietnamese culture? LE: I think family is key, but in the early days that was extremely important. Everything you do, you have to think about your family first. But I think, in recent years--like I said, in the last ten years, that doesn&#039 ; t seem to be as important anymore because people tend to have more choices now. BRODY: Even among the Asian community here? LE: (both speaking at once) Yeah, yeah. BRODY: Just here, or even abroad? LE: (both speaking at once) I think everywhere. I mean, even in China, they had to pass a law that parents can sue their children, because if the parent feel like the children are not spending enough time with them or taking care of them as they age, the parents actually can sue the children now. That kind of tell you how much has changed, and that goes with economics. As the economies get better and better, people get more and more busy, and they have more and more choices. They rather spend time with people in their own age or their own interest, so family is not really on the top of their priority list, unless it&#039 ; s holidays time. So I began to see that everywhere as well, and I think that&#039 ; s just the natural cycle of life. BRODY: So family is a key value but kind of, maybe, diminishing. LE: I think so. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Are there any other values that you think would characterize Vietnamese culture? LE: Food, definitely. Before, everybody cook, so that was something that you could share among family, so you spent a lot of time cooking together and eating together, and I think that&#039 ; s been diminished as well. We have more and more options now. We have more and more restaurants that are open where they go out to eat, versus cook at home, so I think that&#039 ; s diminishing as well--at least, in my family. My mom, she try to cook for everybody at least once or twice a month, but before, you were doing it every day. So that doesn&#039 ; t happen anymore because you&#039 ; re so busy now. I think that&#039 ; s changing too, and that&#039 ; s the bond that you used to have which is beginning to fade away. |00:44:00| BRODY: I was thinking about some of the--the whole path that you took here, and I know that you&#039 ; ve written a book, and thank you so much for sharing that. Can you tell me what drove you write your book and, sort of, what it contains? LE: Right. Right. Yeah, I&#039 ; ve kind of live a pretty fast life. (laugh) The book was published in 2006 and I was about only forty at the time, and it took me long--even though it&#039 ; s a short book, but it&#039 ; s very straight to the point--a little bit too much of the truth, which scare a lot of people. BRODY: What do you mean? LE: In other words, it has subjects in there that most people are afraid to talk about, especially at the time when the internet was just taking off. Now, it&#039 ; s no big deal, but the content of the book still hold truth, which kind of surprising for me, but for someone that&#039 ; s only forty years old and haven&#039 ; t had a whole lot of experience in life, but yet had enough, or at least more than the average person, that people are willing to want to read it. But the book covers topics that deals with sex, love, marriage, gambling, business, entrepreneurship, finding balance, spirituality, religion, and so forth. I guess I&#039 ; m just a fast learner in a way. I&#039 ; ve had a lot of experience even at the time, and I&#039 ; ve done a lot more since then. But in essence, the content and the book laid the foundation for the life that I hope that my kids can relate, because I didn&#039 ; t have a father growing up--he passed away young--so a lot of us has to learn things our own way, so we created our own niche, we&#039 ; ve made things work, and I was hoping to leave a legacy for my kids. And a lot of people also wanted to know: how can I be able to do all this in such a short period of time? Well, I was only forty, so a lot of people thought that a lot of these were all made up. But I&#039 ; m a dual brainer, so my brain is on all the time, even though--when I&#039 ; m sleeping, I do a lot of lucid dreaming, so my brain is constantly working and I solve problems that a lot of people can&#039 ; t solve, so there&#039 ; s not really anything that is impossible. It&#039 ; s just, what can you imagine? What can your mind allow you to imagine? There&#039 ; s so much to be discovered still, and I just got a jumpstart on that, and I continue to help solve problem that most people can&#039 ; t solve. So that&#039 ; s what I want to leave behind for my kids. It started out as more of a manuscript, and then people start asking more and more about it, and then I started adding other topics in. But I think at the time, it was really to help my kid understand why I did what I did so that they don&#039 ; t have to repeat the same mistake, and they can also use that platform to grow upon. And as it turned out, it help a lot of college students. BRODY: Really? LE: Yeah. I still get a lot of thank-you notes from college students and college graduates who&#039 ; ve taken some of the advice and move on to their careers and saw what I predicted come to reality. BRODY: What did you predict? LE: Half the book--the stuff I wrote in my book actually came true already in just prediction of where technology is heading, and the society that we&#039 ; re living in and how you can make it better. |00:47:36| BRODY: The title of the book is Living in Paradox. What is the paradox you&#039 ; re referring to there? LE: Well, life is a paradox, if you haven&#039 ; t figured that out yet, (laughs) but most people believe in right or wrong or believe there&#039 ; s only one way of doing certain things, but life is a paradox. We are constantly in conflict. We&#039 ; re constantly contradicting ourself. We&#039 ; re constantly contradicting each other, and that&#039 ; s why we have all these conflicts, and we have to find a compromise. So there are no rights or wrong, at least from my perspective. It is whatever we make of it. Rules change. Why do rules change? Because we decided it&#039 ; s okay today but then not okay tomorrow, and then with time we switch it back. Take marijuana as a perfect example. Why is it legal in some states, and not legal in the other? We live in the same country, right? That&#039 ; s just one example. Life is a paradox, and if you understand what are those environment are so that you can allow yourself to understand the left and the right, the black and the white, then you can decide which side you want to stand on and understand why, or maybe just find a gray area and find that balance, which is something that very difficult for us to achieve--for most of us to achieve, and so it&#039 ; s something we have to work on on a daily basis. |00:48:59| BRODY: That sounds like the same kind of flexibility you were talking about earlier. How much do you think your own story, your own experiences has contributed to your sort of flexible mindset? LE: Well, I think experience--when we&#039 ; re young, we&#039 ; re selfishly motivated, so we want to do things our way because we want to prove ourself. But as you gain more and more experience, you realize you don&#039 ; t know as much as you thought. And then we can get a lot of knowledge from the internet--you can google anything you want--but the wisdom is missing. Very few of us can actually connect the dots. We can regurgitate a lot of stuff that we live and read about, but until you actually have that experience--two person can have the same experience, and they&#039 ; ll give you two different perspective, right? So it&#039 ; s extremely important that you understand yourself, and then understand how to express yourself in the environment that you want to live in. But if you&#039 ; re incapable of adapting to that environment, it&#039 ; s okay too. You just have to create your own environment. I&#039 ; ve been pretty lucky at being able to adapt in all situation, and I continue to push myself to explore what I&#039 ; m capable of and not forget what&#039 ; s the most important things in life. |00:50:34| BRODY: What do you think the most important things in life are? LE: (laughs) Oh my god. For me? (laughs) BRODY: Yes. (laughs) LE: The most important thing for me is really to have the best experience I could possibly have without hurting myself or people around me. (both laugh) BRODY: Fair enough. LE: Yeah. Life is all about the experience. I could give you the philosophical perspective as well, but we may not have time for that today. (laughs) BRODY: Go ahead. (laughs) I would love to hear it. LE: This life as you know it is what nature intend for us to do, and then this is life as you know it is what society intend for you to do. So what nature intend for us to do is basically just to reproduce, replicate. That&#039 ; s really--so if you ask someone, &quot ; What is the meaning of life?&quot ; They could give you all kind of answer, but in reality, there&#039 ; s only one meaning of life which is reproduction, replication. If you look at all DNA program, and that&#039 ; s really the area that I work in--is in genomic research, leveraging AI and supercomputers to do that--there&#039 ; s only one purpose in life, and that&#039 ; s to replicate. And then whatever you want to surround yourself with to support that mechanism, that&#039 ; s what organic life is designed to do. If we don&#039 ; t replicate, we die, so that&#039 ; s why DNA program only does one thing and it does it pretty well. It makes a lot of copies, and it trying to seduce other host to support your replication. That&#039 ; s why we have viruses, bacteria, and why we have different species, and male, female, and so forth, but in reality, it&#039 ; s only one program ; it&#039 ; s to replicate. But then you have life for society as well, and society support that whole process, so we build a society that will allow you to replicate faster and better, and that&#039 ; s why we have more people living today than we ever had combined in the history of the world. So we&#039 ; ve done a very good job at that. BRODY: At that, yes. LE: So that&#039 ; s really the purpose of life, and once we expend this planet, then we go to the other planet. (laughs) Take it with a--but in reality, I think the other part is--to life--is the consciousness, is that the side effect of life, now, is consciousness, is that we became aware of what nature intend for us to do, and we&#039 ; re trying to change nature. We&#039 ; re redesigning nature right now. That&#039 ; s why we no longer live in the wilderness. We live in a concrete world. We live in a sterile world. We can&#039 ; t go back. Our immune system has been compromised, so that&#039 ; s why we get so sick so easy once we get outside of our environment, because we sterilize our environment. We&#039 ; re rewriting the program. We&#039 ; re re-editing our genome. We&#039 ; re changing our own self to be able to, again, replicate even better. We got designer babies now. In essence, we&#039 ; re constantly in conflict between our physical and mental aspect, is that the physical side--nature already programmed it for us. Now it&#039 ; s our awareness. What do we want to do? Do we want to follow nature&#039 ; s rules or do we want to redesign it? That&#039 ; s awareness. BRODY: Interesting. Sounds like a lot to think about, for sure. LE: Most of us don&#039 ; t want to think about it. It&#039 ; s too complicated. We just want our food, football, and TV. (both laugh) |00:54:19| BRODY: Yeah. There&#039 ; s--and this kind of makes me think about this other area that we haven&#039 ; t talked about yet. You&#039 ; ve described what society wants and sort of the expectations of that. Where does politics fit into that? Are you engaged with politics, either--I know you think of yourself as a universal citizen, so does that make you more engaged at the global level or the local level or both? LE: I try not to, and I used to volunteer and help deliver message, and used to pass out pamphlets and leaflet and so forth, but I don&#039 ; t do it anymore because, just from a personal level, if there&#039 ; s something that I can change and control, I will do it. I just don&#039 ; t feel like we&#039 ; re in control of this big machine anymore, so I try to just do what I can within my own little community. From a bigger perspective, we need an overhaul. For a political perspective, the system that gotten us here no longer works, and that&#039 ; s why we have so much disarray right now in Washington. Not just in the US, but look at the UK, for instance, with Brexit, and all the other country that can&#039 ; t seem to get along anymore because their population has been diversified now, so the old system--the old model-- doesn&#039 ; t work anymore. It&#039 ; s almost like having the tax system that&#039 ; s been so outdated that there&#039 ; s so many loopholes in it that you basically have to revamp it. In that perspective, these changes will not come overnight, and that&#039 ; s just something that we all have to continue to pursue, and I think technology will help to get us there. It&#039 ; s sometimes better just to start from scratch, so look at another example, like electric vehicles. Tesla&#039 ; s taking the lead on that--or space travel. Those are the kind of things that has to happen in order for us to wake up and get rid of the old model, and be able to get out of our comfort zone. But right now, I think we&#039 ; re not there yet, so I try to stay away from it. (laughs) BRODY: Yeah. Well--and even--do you keep up with Vietnamese politics at all? LE: Some. Not much. Only because of the business I do. Right now, I mean, we look at what&#039 ; s going on in Asia, especially with China and Vietnam, and with communism and socialism and capitalism all mixed into one, so that&#039 ; s actually working really well, right? So you don&#039 ; t have to have just communism. You just have to apply communism when you need to, apply socialism when you need to, and apply capitalism when you need to-- whereas we think about just, Capitalism, capitalism, capitalism. Well, that&#039 ; s not a sustainable model. |00:57:18| BRODY: When you&#039 ; re thinking about yourself and your kids and the people who are in your community, do you think of yourselves as American? Do you think of yourself as American? And if so or if not, what do you think it means to be American or to say that you&#039 ; re American? LE: Yeah. When I travel, I get asked a lot of question like, &quot ; Where are you from?&quot ; and, &quot ; Oh, you&#039 ; re Americans, right?&quot ; And I say, &quot ; Oh, yeah.&quot ; Even when I hear a side conversation, even though I&#039 ; m not born in the US--but what is the US? The US is made up of refugees and immigrants, right? So some of us are born here, some of them are not, but in essence, if you pay your taxes, you&#039 ; re an American. (both laugh) BRODY: It&#039 ; s that simple. LE: It&#039 ; s that simple, yeah! There&#039 ; s no way about it. What is American? Being an American is the ability to have the freedom that we&#039 ; ve earned. We pay for it. We sacrifice ourself for it. Freedom, the ability to express yourself, the ability to do whatever is needed to provide for your family in a way where you&#039 ; re not restricted like most countries. As much as I like to travel and enjoy all the culture around the world, I still like coming home to North Texas because to me, there&#039 ; s no other place in the world that I&#039 ; ve seen that has the best quality of life. I mean, everywhere else, there&#039 ; s things you can do, there&#039 ; s things you cannot do, whereas, here, in Texas, especially North Texas, we can do just about anything we want as long as we don&#039 ; t hurt ourself and other people. We have more opportunities here than anywhere else. You can launch a start-up any time you want. You can create and express yourself anyway you want. I always feel very blessed and grateful every time I come home. We have a beautiful airport. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Yeah, so this is home. LE: Yeah. We have a beautiful airport. We got lots of land. You can actually see the sunset. (laughs) The air is better than most. We complain our air quality here but, boy, have you been to China? (both laugh) |00:59:31| BRODY: That&#039 ; s funny. Is there anything else that you&#039 ; d like to share, or anything that I&#039 ; ve forgotten to ask? LE: No. I think you got a pretty detailed list, so I hope that this contribute to the archive and help inspire other refugees and immigrants coming to the area. That&#039 ; s one of the reason when I wrote my book too, is that people always ask me how did I do this? How did I do that? Well, if I can come here with nothing and start from the very bottom on welfare and food stamps and be able to achieve what I was able to achieve, and be able to provide for my friends and family, and continue to grow the business community, continue to contribute to the community, I can teach that to anybody. BRODY: Yes. That&#039 ; s really inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing. I really appreciate your time, and I&#039 ; m so happy that we could record your story today. LE: Thank you. BRODY: Thank you so much. end of interview All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2019oh008_btba_008.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Phong Le Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2019oh008_btba_008 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-01-18 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/95c364e0069356d88ca4dfa0168a3fa2.jpg f0d7bf04786620485f3dee0be6ccbfcf Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Connie Phan OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Connie Phan, May 31, 2019 2019oh009_btba_009 1:09:57 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Connie Phan Betsy Brody mp3 oh-interviews_phan-kc_2019-05-31_bdg_acc.mp3 1:|22(4)|26(13)|33(3)|44(5)|57(9)|72(9)|84(1)|92(2)|121(9)|131(9)|154(5)|165(10)|174(7)|187(2)|206(3)|216(10)|234(2)|255(1)|262(1)|281(12)|290(5)|302(5)|308(4)|315(9)|326(7)|338(10)|355(3)|373(7)|394(8)|403(14)|420(9)|428(6)|445(3)|462(3)|484(2)|495(7)|501(14)|527(2)|533(12)|543(11)|554(5)|565(7)|584(2)|603(5)|621(9)|630(1)|643(4)|647(7)|652(8)|671(3)|691(4)|707(5)|717(4)|728(12)|741(11)|757(3)|764(11)|772(7)|787(2)|794(5)|814(9)|820(8)|837(5)|849(3)|868(6)|874(12)|886(4)|897(4)|909(6)|923(12) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/117362 Aviary audio 0 Introduction BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is May 31, 2019. I am interviewing, for the first time, Ms. Connie Phan. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the “Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans” project. Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans 23 Escaping Vietnam by boat/Encounter with pirates and almost drowning BRODY: All right, Connie. Thank you so much for joining me here today. I am really looking forward to hearing your story. To get started with, can you tell me a little bit about what your life was like in Vietnam? PHAN: First, thank you so much for including me in this project. When I was in Vietnam, before I came here in 1978, when I left Vietnam, I was still a student—sophomore year. Oh, no, actually, freshman—yes. We left Vietnam in April 1978, and we arrive about four day and five night on a boat. About, let’s see, maybe twenty-two-meter boat with about 430 people—refugees, and we—during those three day—four day, we encounter pirate. (begins to cry) Looking back, I feel so blessed because there are so many refugee in boat didn’t make it. They got robbed, and woman and kid—either the pirate took them with them when they didn’t get any gold, but I’ve always been lucky. We only got it second time, and then the third time, we saw a pirate’s boat, but then we almost to Malaysia, I think, so they kind of leave us alone, so we made it to a military island—very small, remote island. Doesn’t have any—probably a few military personnel, and they help us get onto the island. I believe it was around two or three o’clock a.m. or something. It’s very dark. We were so glad that we made it. I’m sorry. (laughs) BRODY: No, no. Thank you for sharing that story. That was—I mean, it sounds very scary for you, and you were young. PHAN: I probably fifteen at the time or sixteen. Yes. And I’m the oldest of the five, and my sister is about eight years younger than me. Before we accept this plan, my father always want us to know how to swim, so in the morning, four of us—we’d just go into the beach and try to learn how to swim with some neighbors, but we all know how to swim by then already. And I was very—I mean, after four and five day, the fourth day, we already lack of food, so we—and be sitting at the boat. Your body is tired. I didn’t realize. But then, we are so excited to see the island, so everybody jump off the boat and I said, “Oh, I can do it. I can swim, so don’t mind me.” I jumped down, and I keep sinking, sinking, sinking! Yeah. I couldn’t get up to the top. And then, suddenly, there’s a big hand that’s grabbed me and pulled me up. I said, “Oh! That’s my dad! Oh, Lord!” (laughs) BRODY: So your dad was able to grab you. PHAN: Yeah. Uh-hm. Actually, he’s also the one that helping people bring up to the shore. Yeah, so I said, “Oh my goodness.” I remember that moment that I look up. It was him. Oh, it’s like— BRODY: (both speaking at once) What a relief. PHAN: Uh-hm. But yeah, those memory is kind of buried in the back of my mind. boat ; boat people ; drowning ; escape ; gold ; island ; leaving Vietnam ; Malaysia ; military island ; pirates ; refugees ; swimming ; Vietnam 307 Details of plan and payment to escape Vietnam/Opportunities available due to Chinese descent BRODY: Your dad, in Vietnam, was he working in some capacity with the Americans who were there? Or what did he do? PHAN: He actually was a businessman. The trip that—our trip, actually, is organized by my—I guess call it uncle? My aunt’s husband. There’s about twelve or thirteen people in the group that organize this trip, but we had to work with the local government—I guess, police station or something like that, the local—that they have to give them the gold under the table for each person, at least five and half ounces of gold per head, so that—regardless of old or young, so that’s the base price that they have to provide to the local government so they can let us leave the country that we’re not prosecute. Most of—I would say 95 percent of the boat are Chinese Vietnamese, which is—most of them are either like me—my parent is Chinese but born in Vietnam, so I guess is considered a minority? BRODY: Within Vietnam. PHAN: Vietnam, yeah. And Vietnamese people—the Vietnamese citizen is not allowed on this kind of planned trip. Yeah. But actually, there are few family is Vietnamese, but they—you can tell by their last names is very distinctive. It’s Nguyen, N-g-u-y-e-n, and a friend of my dad or someone introduce him, and they wanted to leave too, so they would ask my dad, would have to do fake paper, identification for them to change their name to someone else, like a more Chinese-Vietnamese last name—either Tran or, like, Phan, or some other name. Actually, my father’s name is Luong—L-u-o-n-g. In Vietnamese spelling, for—in China, it’s called __(??) or __(??) in Hong Kong. So it can tell that, but that’s more Chinese that was born in Vietnam. They came from China. BRODY: Okay. So there were distinctions in that. Did they get the fake papers? PHAN: Yeah. So those—I think at least two family were able to escape, but they were very quiet on the boat. If they talk—they don’t want people discover that they are true Vietnamese citizen. BRODY: Oh, I see. PHAN: And they might—if they get in trouble, we all get in trouble. BRODY: So they stayed quiet on the boat. PHAN: Yes. Uh-hm. Yes. Chinese descent ; gold ; local government ; Vietnamese-Chinese 515 Memories of finding shelter on Malaysian island/Hiding money in shoes BRODY: Wow. So you got to Malaysia, right? To this island? PHAN: Correct. BRODY: And what was that like? PHAN: The island basically had no water—no running water. The people that came—the refugee came before us, they dig wells and built a shed. They would go to the—to cut wood and then make the shed, and then use some sort of plastic like a roof. So I guess younger men, or they had the ability physically, can go do that. Like, older person might not. Luckily, my dad had enough—he bought two hundred dollar US that he buried. He put it in my brother’s—the shoe—I guess—how— BRODY: The sole. PHAN: The sole, yeah. He hide it in there, so that’s how we got the money and buy a shed for seven of us so we don’t have to build a—otherwise, we would be sleeping out on the open. BRODY: On the beach. PHAN: Yeah. Uh-hm. So that’s how—actually, how we had that two-hundred dollar left, because when we encountered the pirate, basically, they took everything—the watches or a necklace or a ring that you have. Yeah. Of course— BRODY: (both speaking at one) So smart that your dad hid the money in the shoe. PHAN: Yes. Back then, US dollar, actually, is illegal to exchange US dollar in Vietnam. You can get—you can put in jail for having US money—currency. BRODY: Right, by 1978. PHAN: Yes. Actually, the whole time in Vietnam, you cannot have currency—you cannot own US currency. island ; Malaysia ; money ; shed ; shelter ; US currency 653 Memories of day-to-day life in Malaysian refugee camp (Pulau Bidong) BRODY: Wow. Okay, so that was really brave (Phan laughs) that he did that, that he had that. From the camp, what was your day-to-day life like in the camp? PHAN: It’s the—I guess United Nation will provide the food for each person. They gave us a bag—like, a plastic bag. Inside, there’s would be three can of food. One is a green bean. One’s fish or either, if it’s not fish, it’d be chicken and—what’s the other? Maybe red bean or something like that, and a bag of—a pouch of rice that we have to cook. Every person had the same kind of bag. Every morning, we would be had to headed out to the main, I guess, where gathering—just stand in line and get that bag, and that’s our food. I guess the water—we just—if you live in the shed, it already have the well built, then you’re lucky. Otherwise, you had to go the public well to carry the water, but those were water—the well water just only for shower. You can’t really drink any, and the United Nation do provide water for per person. I think it may be a gallon per person or something, and a family—you can—I forgot my younger brother, my second brother—he’s the one that would carry the water for the drinking water and for—so those are for us to drink and eat, shower, those kind of—you have to use your well water. And those—every day, we just go and stand in line, get those food and come home, and then my mom would have to find way to cook those. And the refugee in the Pulau Bidong, they getting very creative that they need to find fresh meat and fresh fruit, so they do built their own—a little boat, and they would go out to the closer, I guess, bigger city island somewhere in Malaysia. I heard that maybe, it’s called Terengganu, but I’m not sure, but that’s how they go out, and they do that either at night or somehow, not letting people know. And then when they come back, they bring the goods back, and they would have a market to sell it. BRODY: Wow. That’s enterprising. PHAN: Uh-hm. But then, we would get in trouble if they get caught. Yeah. The military there, they don’t want you do that, (laughs) but I don’t know how they do it, but they did it. So that’s how we get—sometimes, we would have money, then—people have money, they were able to buy fresh fruit or fresh meat. Otherwise, they would stay with the canned food. BRODY: You were a young child, right? Like, you were in high school still? Did you have to stand in line for every day for the food too? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Uh-hm. Yes. BRODY: So, adults, children—everybody individually. PHAN: Actually, not every day. They—the shipment come maybe twice a week or something like that. And then, I guess—my memory is, like, we’d stand in line getting that. Every time, we like, Oh, the shipment’s come! Everybody get outside! Let’s go! Everybody had to go down to the center to stand in line and get those. And then most of the time, we don’t have anything to do, then I join a drafting class that the refugee camp there—the people get there before and they have teacher that—or that used to be a teacher, so they volunteer and teach the kids, so I joined. I signed up, went to the drafting class, so I was able to learn how to draw, and I brought you that book today. drafting class ; food ; rations ; Terengganu ; United Nations ; volunteers ; water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidong_Island Wikipedia page for Bidong Island 921 Description of docks and process of leaving the refugee camp BRODY: Yeah. This notebook that you brought from the camp—the cover says, “United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,” and you’ve got your name on there, and then your drawings that you’ve made. So this is how you were occupied during the day, learning. There’s some really nice drawings in here, especially—tell me about this one of the docks there. PHAN: Oh, yeah. The bridge of the dock—yeah. I guess it was built—the first one, probably, is a lot older and is more for incoming boat, and the other one is the one that leaving, which is everybody wanted to go on—be on that bridge—I mean, that dock, because that’s the one that you’ll get to go— BRODY: (both speaking at once) Get to go somewhere else. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yeah, yeah. Go to settle at place. You either go to America, Australia, or French, or any country in the European that they accept the refugee. BRODY: For your family, when did you get to go onto the dock to go somewhere else? PHAN: I believe we—around August of 1979. Yes. And at night time, usually, they would announce the name of the boat, and then the name of the person—the family that gets selected to go. BRODY: Oh, okay. Every evening. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. Every evening around seven o’clock, I think. And I remember clearly, at night, we—usually we would get together and sing or—I learned how to sing in English, but I didn’t understand what I was singing, (Brody laughs) and now, I remember I was thinking of the songs—something—“Que Sera, Sera”? I don’t know exactly which—French, right? BRODY: (both speaking at once) Spanish. (both laugh) PHAN: Oh, okay. So something like that. And then, when we get quiet, when—then the announcement came on one of those—what was it called? BRODY: Loud speakers. PHAN: Yes, and they have everywhere. Our boat number was KG-zero-two-zero-six, and I think our number rank—is ranked number—either four [hundred] thirty or—yeah. I forgot the rank number. That’s—they call it boat number one, two—if you say you come—your number is—your boat number is two hundred, then they know—they kind of know what month you come in. Yeah. So we are four hundred thirty-something. And in one day, it can be twenty to thirty boat, but very tiny boat, and some day doesn’t have any boat coming in. So I think the—in April of nineteen eight—between April and May 1978 is vast of boat coming in. The number get—adding quicker, from either four hundred to four-fifty, like to four-seventy-five, so quick. Yeah. When I left, I think it may be five hundred or five-fifty? I’m not quite remember. It’s been a long time. BRODY: (both speaking at once) So, you had been there for over a year. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Fourteen month. BRODY: Fourteen months? PHAN: Yeah. Um-hm. | America ; Australia ; boats ; docks ; drafting class ; families ; notebook ; Que Sera, Sera ; refugee camp ; singing ; UN High Commissioner for Refugees ; UNHCR ; United Nations 1154 Finding a sponsor and heading to America BRODY: It changed because you got a sponsor? PHAN: Yeah. We would get interview by different country, and first, we were interviewed by Australia representative, and they will ask—they asked my father, Do you have any other relative that live in other country? And then my dad said, “Oh yeah. I have a sister in America,” and then, he kind of, “Oh.” He shouldn’t say that because (laughs) he actually really wanted to go to Australia. Yeah. And then they said, Oh, okay. Then you had to go to United State, (laughs) so I say, “Okay.” So that’s how we end up in the United State. But Australia—actually my cousin, which is my dad’s aunt’s younger sister, which is my cousin—he already been to Australia and he left a year or two year—maybe a year before when we left in ’78, so he left already either ’77 or ’76. And now he also made it to Malaysia or Indonesia. I’m not quite remember, but he made it to Australia. That’s why my dad wanted to go to Australia. But it never—my aunt—he had two sister, and the younger sister, when they left before us, she took care of two of my cousin—no, three of my cousin—male, there(??). So a total of four of them made it to Pennsylvania, so that’s why my dad just told the representative in Australia that he had a sister made it to USA, so that’s why we—okay. Said, “Okay, you go to the United State table over there.” (laughs) That’s how we end up in United State. BRODY: So they called your name, and you were able to get on a boat. Where did your family head first? PHAN: We actually—yeah. When we get to the dock, then they would take us to Kuala Lumpur, which is the capital of Malaysia, and that’s where we get on a plane. That plane was like a big military plane—can seat five hundred people, I believe. It’s called a Tiger, I remember. It’s very big plane. A lot of refugee people on that plane, and then I believe we flew to San Francisco, and then we stay in the military camp. I remember our family was given a room. Seven of us stayed there for about a week. Maybe they were making sure that we don’t have any infected disease. Then we get to go to our home—I guess, home city, which is the sponsor that sponsor us, and my dad—he had a friend that live in Richmond, Virginia, and we call him Uncle Bac—B-a-c, I think. He is a Vietnamese citizen that a good friend of my dad when they were in Vietnam. I don’t know how they connected anyway, but that’s—and then, Uncle Bac—B-a-c—I guess Uncle Bac that we’d call him back then—he connect—I guess he get in touch with the Catholic church, and that’s how they sponsored our family, and that’s why we went to Richmond, Virginia. And our sponsor at the time, the church—there’s two lady. I remember one of them was Mrs. Ellis—Ellis, E-l-l-i-s—and her husband’s Alexander Ellis the Third, and I guess we call her Mrs. Ellis. She’s a volunteer and she’s very active in her church, and there’s another lady that work with her. I forgot her name, but—yes. They both help us to settle. Found a house for us to rent, and I remember our address for the house in Richmond is 2333 West Gray Street. BRODY: Wow. (both laugh) That’s a great memory. PHAN: Yeah, and we happened to live on the Gray Street! (laughs) Yeah. America ; Australia ; church ; family ; house ; housing ; Kuala Lumpur ; Malaysia ; military camp ; military plane ; quarantine ; relatives ; Richmond ; sponsors ; sponsorship ; United States ; USA ; Virginia 1493 High school years in Richmond BRODY: How long were you in Richmond? PHAN: It’s about two year, and it’s—first year, we loved it because we had never seen snow. And we said, Oh, so cool and so nice! Had so much fun. But then, after second year, we said, We cannot stay in this kind of weather. I believe we had to put chains on the tire. It’s very hard. And I went to a high school—they put me in a high school—Thomas Jefferson High School. They put me in tenth grade and I didn’t speak any English. I had a dictionary—Chinese dictionary and I carry it with me, and I believe there’s already the three Vietnamese refugee already in that school and that they also—their last name’s also Tran, so we just connected right away, and we rented the same house. They lived upstair. We lived downstair. (laughs) BRODY: So immediate community. PHAN: Uh-huh. And I remember, sometime, I left my dictionary in the school somewhere, and somebody find it and they just bring it to me. “This is your.” I said, “That’s right. It’s mine.” (laughs) It’s very funny. BRODY: You need it. PHAN: Uh-huh. And I was put in a English class for mental—well, I guess, not “mental,” but it’s more talent-challenge kid, like either handicap, or on wheelchair, or kid that have speech problem, so I was put in that class so I can learn English easier for me. BRODY: So they put you in a special-ed class. PHAN: Dead correct. That’s right. That’s why I— BRODY: But there—was there an ESL—English as a second language—program? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Not really. Back then we don’t have an ESL class, and that’s the only class that they could put me in it for English, and I do clearly remember I was in the history class. This teacher—I forgot his name. Maybe Mr. William or something. Anyway, he put me sitting nearby him, but then I couldn’t understand what he said but I can read, so when he give quizzes and test, he’d be just reading out loud and I couldn’t understand what he said, but if he give me the test and I can read it slowly, then I can do it. And then—I don’t know how I told him that I—and then the next time, the first quiz—I flunked the first quiz—the second quiz, and I told him, “I need the quiz that you can give to me,” so he just moved my table next to his desk, and then he just slide his quiz over and let me read, and then he read to the class. And from then on I always aced—make a hundred on the quiz. BRODY: That’s great! (laughs) PHAN: Yeah. But I just take slow for me to read, but then try to hear an American speak English is harder. Even though— BRODY: (both speaking at once) You had a lot to learn all at once. PHAN: Correct. Uh-hm. Chinese dictionary ; cold ; high school ; Richmond ; snow ; Thomas Jefferson High School ; Virginia 1714 Moving to Dallas,Texas for a warmer climate BRODY: Two years in Richmond. How did your parents find a warmer climate? PHAN: Somehow someone—I don’t know how they got ahold of—oh, I remember now. The refugee that we met—a friend that—in Pulau Bidong. He actually came to Dallas, Texas, and then when he talked to this gentleman—we call him Uncle Kee—and then Uncle Kee said that he from Danang, Vietnam. And then when they got to talk and then the friend that—the refugee that live in Pulau Bidong kind of know us too—our neighbor—and they said, Oh, I think I know somebody live in Danang and his name is Quanh Luong, and then our Uncle Kee said, “Oh my goodness! That’s my—I call him ‘brother’! ‘Brother Quanh’!” And then that’s how, I guess, they exchange number, and they call us somehow, and then my dad said, “Oh my goodness.” So he say—and then, my dad told him, “It’s too cold up here,” and then he say, “Oh, just come down here. Just come down here. We find you a place. Don’t worry.” And then, we—okay. Then, my dad just decided to, “Okay, let’s move.” So we told our sponsor, and they were very sad that we were leaving but they understand. So we went to a Greyhound station, bought seven ticket, and just hop on the Greyhound bus and come down to Dallas. (laughs) BRODY: Wow. How brave. And then the uncle met you here? PHAN: Yes. Uh-hm. Dallas ; Greyhoud bus ; Pulau Bidong ; refugees ; Texas 1828 Living arrangements in Dallas/Registering at North Dallas High School BRODY: Where did you live when you first got to Dallas? PHAN: It’s funny. When we on the Greyhound bus, the Greyhound bus had to stop at some gas station for restroom stop, and—it’s funny—my dad didn’t come back, and one of the—I guess the passenger say, “One of the China man not coming back yet! You can’t leave!” (both laugh) And then the bus driver wait for him to come back, so it’s funny. Yeah, I remember somehow we made it to Dallas to the Greyhound bus downtown, and my Uncle Kee—he lived in a housing Section 8, one of the government-run Mexican village on Harry Hine. So it’s only a one-bedroom—no, maybe a two-bedroom—a two-bedroom condo, I guess? Apartment? It’s very tiny, probably around 750 square feet, though not more than 1,000 square feet. So seven of us and my Uncle Kee, his wife, and he had two children—a daughter and a son—but the son was very young back then, and the daughter, Van, she’s—we kind of call each other cousin now, so Cousin Van—she’s about same age as Mylinh. And I imagine her dad gave her room to us—of seven of us in her room, she got kicked out. (laughs) BRODY: (laughs) She got kicked out. PHAN: And she had— BRODY: (both speaking at once) So there were eleven of you in the house. PHAN: Yes. Uh-hm. And we stayed there maybe a week or two or something like that, so we can find apartment to rent. Myself and my three—four of my other three brother, we went to—I think he’s—no, his neighbor—my Uncle Kee’s neighbor have a son that is in high school, so he took us to North Dallas High School to register, so I end up going to North Dallas High School with my other two brother, Tom and Peter, and my third brother, Minh—which is now, he’s Ryan—and Mylinh is younger, so they go to middle school. I don’t know who took them there. I forgot. But I remember clearly, I went to North Dallas High School and registered. (laughs) I went there. |00:33:24| BRODY: As an eleventh-grader, then? PHAN: Actually, yes, eleventh-grader, because I kind of—almost finished tenth grade over in— BRODY: In Richmond. PHAN: Yeah, in Richmond. I believe we also get the transcript. I don’t know how we did all that. We went to high—the Thomas Jefferson, and the counselors—I think, Mrs. Brumbler? It start with a B. I think Bumbo or Bumber or something like that. She’s a very tiny, small woman and she gave us the transcript and it’s not finished. I don’t remember, because we left October or so. We came here in October, I think. The school was already start. apartment ; Chinaman ; Dallas ; Greyhound bus ; Harry Hines ; housing ; North Dallas High School ; Section 8 ; transcript 2057 Memories of North Dallas High School BRODY: So did you start school right away then? PHAN: Yes. Um-hm. I was eleven grade(??). BRODY: (both speaking at once) At North Dallas High School. PHAN: Yeah. BRODY: What was that like, both being new to Dallas and also kind of entering a new high school after school had already started? PHAN: Actually, over here, it’s more—because there are more Vietnamese community, so there are a lot of Vietnamese student already at North Dallas High School. And North Dallas High School, there is mainly—that I believe—maybe 90 percent or 80 percent Hispanic already, but there’s about—my number may be not correct—but there’s African American and Caucasian, but mainly, I think, Hispanic is the majority of the student body. And again, minority of the Vietnamese refugee, and there may be some Laos and Cambodia student there, but the Vietnamese student is—probably had more than the Cambodia or the Laos. African Americans ; Cambodians ; Caucasians ; education ; Hispanics ; Laotians ; North Dallas High School ; refugees ; schools ; Vietnamese students 2136 Friendships, Vietnamese classmates, and Math Club/Meeting her future husband BRODY: What was it like for you in terms of making friends and integrating into those classes? PHAN: Actually, it’s very easy because there’s some Vietnamese student there already, so we became friend pretty quick. And most of us, since English is our second language, but math or geometry is international language, so I was—I always flunked math when I was in Vietnam, but when I came over here, I just got hundred most of the time—an A. I got just automatically got it. That’s the only thing I understand, so easy is a triangle or geometry or trigonometry, and math is so easy. So we excel in math. And I joined the math club, the math team, and then we’d be going with—and then make a lot of friend—students who joined the math team and go to many high school to compete. I didn’t bring trophy home, but maybe a ribbon or something. BRODY: (laughs) But it was fun, you remember. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yes, and actually at that high school, I met my husband there. BRODY: Oh, did you really? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Uh-hm. BRODY: How did you meet him? Tell me about that. PHAN: He actually in the same class. We were the same grade. But he’s a lot smarter, so (laughs) he always made the math team. He always brings the—either bring first place home or second at least, but I’m usually the one that have the last one, either six or seven, (laughs) something like that. geometry ; math ; refugees ; Vietnamese students 2265 Working during high school BRODY: So, was he—did you go to tournaments together, and was it love at first sight? PHAN: No. Actually, no. (laughs) I was taking an architecture drafting class. He also taking an architecture drafting class, and he, actually, also working already as a—managing a Chinese movie theater at night, because our community here, we don’t really have a movie theater, and I guess that’s some Hong Kong investment. I guess—I think a few brother from Hong Kong, they rented a movie theater on Fitzhugh and Capital, and they usually have Chinese movie at night from ten o’clock to two or three o’clock, and my husband, Timothy Phan, he actually work as a—selling ticket at that theater. BRODY: Oh, did he? PHAN: Yes. Uh-huh. So he already making money when he’s in high school. (laughs) My first job in America here—actually, this was in Virginia too. My mom was a housekeeper. We work for a cleaning company. She worked with cleaning company, and I sometime help her in the summer. We go to client house and clean, and clean their toilet and vacuum and mop the floor. That’s my first job there too, and when we arrived to Dallas, my first job in Dallas here is, I had gotten to do—a classmate—her name is Lei Lee and, unfortunately, she’s already pass away. BRODY: Oh, no. PHAN: Yeah. She had cancer, so she was pass away probably last year or two years ago. Anyway, she’s the one that find a job for me. We got paid twenty-five dollar working on the weekend, Saturday to Sunday, at the Dallas Market Center downtown. We are in one those stand that selling coke and hot dogs. And the gentleman that hire us, he’s—I believe he’s Jewish, and we call him Mr. Frank. Somehow he got a bunch of Vietnamese student working for him on the weekend. Everybody get paid twenty-five dollar cash, so that’s good money for us. (laughs) Chinese movie theater ; Dallas Market Center ; employment ; Fitzhugh ; Hong Kong ; housekeeper ; Jewish ; jobs ; movie theater ; movies 2465 Parents' jobs and lack of involvement with school BRODY: You were working and you were going to school, and your parents—how involved were they with your school? PHAN: In school part, we had to handle everything ourself. My parent doesn’t speak English, so in term of homework, we had to figure out our own, and we either talk to our friends or—yeah. There’s no such thing as tutor. It’s not like in Vietnam when I had tutor. (laughs) My dad would be working at assembly—electrical—some kind of electrical assembly company, and my mom worked as cleaning staff for a hotel at that big one down here. What’s it called? Loew—back then, they call it Loew Anatole. BRODY: (both speaking at once) The Anatole. Yeah. PHAN: Yeah. Loew Anatole. But now, I think it’s some— BRODY: Just The Anatole. PHAN: Yeah. Some—either Marriott or someone bought them already. She worked there until she retire. She had to clean the room, at least eight room a day. So every time I stay in a hotel, I always put tip. assembly ; education ; electrical ; employment ; English ; English language ; housekeeper ; jobs ; Lowes Anatole Hotel ; parenting ; school 2565 Learning English BRODY: They were working hard, and you guys were in school and also working hard. How was learning English for you? Because— PHAN: Actually, learning English—we learned it for watching Tom and Jerry. BRODY: Tom and Jerry. (laughs) PHAN: (laughs) Yeah. When we came home from school, we just turned it on. We just watch it, and that’s—we enjoyed watching that, and actually, I believe I learn English from Tom and Jerry. (both laugh) BRODY: That’s fantastic. But it must have been challenging, and especially with all of you being different ages, sort of picking up the language. Does anything stand out in your mind as—besides Tom and Jerry—about the process or some of the challenges with the language? PHAN: I remember clearly, in Virginia, we had a phone and when it ring, we all kind of hang around the phone and say, What we going to do? Pick up the phone? And pick up the phone, but then when they speak English, we don’t know how to talk back. And then actually, that phone was calling for Mylinh, my sister, and then she was talking English to her classmate! We were just like, How is she communicate? We didn’t understand. What is she talking about? But I don’t know how she pick up English so quick! BRODY: Well, she was younger, wasn’t she? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. She was about eight years old, I believe. Yeah. And then, we would ask her, What did you talk about? And then, she said, “I don’t know.” (both laugh) It’s funny. When we left Richmond, I think her classmate—her friend gave her a bear, and she still kept the bear. She still have the bear. (laughs) cartoons ; English language ; friendship ; kindness ; language ; learning English ; telephone ; Tom and Jerry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_and_Jerry Wikipedia page on &quot ; Tom and Jerry&quot ; cartoons 2674 Reflections on how knowing a family in Dallas helped to ease the transition BRODY: Aw. Wow. Some of those small kindnesses. Speaking of that—so you didn’t have a sponsor here in Dallas. PHAN: No. We started on our own in North Texas, yeah. Basically—I’m thankful for our Uncle Kee and his wife and his family. Unfortunately, he pass away too. He pass away with cancer, and so is his wife, Aunt Kee—we both—our family went to the funeral for both of them. The second one is only my sister and I and my brother, Ryan, can go. Three of us went to Aunt Kee’s funeral maybe four years ago? Something like that. But Uncle Kee pass away seven or eight—ten years ago. And now, our cousin, I guess—we call her cousin—Cousin Van—we feel like family. She’s live in Seattle now. That’s how we were here. BRODY: It sounds like it made a big difference to have the family members—your aunt and uncle and cousin—to help you sort of transition into this. PHAN: Correct. Um-hm. assimilation ; death ; family ; funerals ; integration ; transition 2763 Phan reflects on religion and her recent Baptism BRODY: Does anything stand out in your mind, other than what you’ve said already, about letting you stay in their house and so on? Small things that made a difference? Making you feel comfortable? PHAN: Well, yeah. I guess we would feel right at home right away. I guess, to me, a lot of thing we don’t plan, and I feel like maybe (begins to cry) God already had a plan for us. It is ___(??). I was atheist and as I became Christian probably ten years ago, maybe? I’m not quite sure, but I remember I was—even though we go to church and try to learn English, and my mom was Buddhist, and my dad is—he kind of—I mean, he’s okay with any religion, so we basically root in the Buddhist religion because we were in Asia. In 2010, maybe around that time, somehow something happened, and then—I kind of feel bad, back then, that I said, “Oh, I do not believe in God. I mean, there’s no such thing. Man—human revolution, back in forty-some million years—there’s no such thing as someone getting born with a virgin.” I just think it’s foolish when people come and tell me those kind of thing. (begins to cry) But I believe God is looking over our family and we were saved for a reason, and I just got baptize— BRODY: You were just baptized? PHAN: Baptized in 2016. Yeah, it was on my birthday. BRODY: Oh, that’s beautiful. PHAN: Uh-hm. I turned fifty-three on that day. BRODY: And you got baptized on your fifty-third birthday. At what church were your baptized at? PHAN: I was baptized at American Baptist Church, AABC—Asian, I’m sorry. Asian American Baptist Church, not far from here. BRODY: So that was a really meaningful— PHAN: Yeah. Uh-hm. BRODY: —change for you. PHAN: Yeah. My dad actually get baptize before I did. He became a Christian also. |00:50:05| BRODY: So you were sponsored in Virginia by Catholic Charities [USA], but really your family wasn’t particularly religious at that point. PHAN: Correct. My mom still practice Buddhism, but actually, she—God answer our prayer. She’s not baptized yet, but she converted. How do you say those—like, she stand in public to announce that she accept Christ. BRODY: Oh, okay. So she took—made that profession. PHAN: Yeah, uh-huh. Last December. BRODY: Okay. So what role does religion, do you feel like, play in your life and your experience that you’re talking about here? PHAN: Can you rephrase that question? I don’t quite understand. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Well, I mean, was it part of your integration process, or not really much, as you were getting used to being in this country and getting used to school and your family was getting used to work? Did religion play a role in that? PHAN: Not really. Yeah. I mean, I grew up more in the Buddhism religion, but then I’ve declared myself as a atheist probably between teenager until mid-forty. And I’m still learning. I mean, I really don’t go to church every Sunday, but I do listen to as much possible on the radio, and I have friends that are supporting me. Any time I have a question about God and Jesus, teaching about the Bible, I always have answer from my friend. BRODY: Right. So the churches that—the church that you got baptized in is an Asian-American Baptist church. So language-wise, do you—is it English? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Actually, the church practice in English and they do have Chinese Bible study after the service. Mainly, the church is speaking in English. Asian American Baptist Church ; atheism ; Buddhism ; Christianity ; conversion ; God ; language ; religion ; spirituality 3185 Phan reflects on her friendships with Asians, Caucasians, and African Americans BRODY: (both speaking at once) In English, because there’s multiple different types of languages that people speak. When you think about your community that you’re part of, are you—do you mostly interact with other Asian people or are you—do you feel like you have a diverse group of friends and contacts? PHAN: I would say it’s 60, 70 percent Asian, but we didn’t—I have friends that’s Caucasian and African American that I feel comfortable to talk with and email or texting. And my son, he had a classmate since second grade—the last name is Quitman/Kweitman(??)—and my son was the groom-man. BRODY: Oh, in the wedding. PHAN: Yeah, in the wedding this year. And they were roommate together at UT [University of Texas] in freshman year, and I usually—when I make sushi or something, I would make Brady a box for him and a box for my son. (both laugh) And then, I say—I always say that I’m his Asian mom. (both laugh) BRODY: That’s really sweet. So yeah, I mean, tell me about your kids. You have just the one son? PHAN: I have two son, Kenyon and Weldon, and Kenyon—he’s twenty-six now, and Weldon is twenty-two now. Weldon just graduated from UNT [University of North Texas] in music degree, and Kenyon graduated in—I guess, four years ago. They’re four year apart, so he graduated in UT in biochemistry. BRODY: Great. I’m going to stop the tape for a second and see—about one thing. pause in recording African Americans ; Asian Americans ; Asians ; Black ; Caucasians ; children ; friendships ; University of North Texas ; University of Texas ; White 3274 Motherhood and children's identity BRODY: All right. Restarting this recording now. So we were talking about your kids. They’re in their twenties and they were raised entirely here, born and raised in Texas. Do you think they think of themselves—in what way do they think of their identity? Vietnamese? Chinese? Asian American? American? PHAN: They probably think of themselves Asian American because—but then, they know that they have Chinese root and little bit of Vietnamese background. They understand the Chinese—Cantonese language better than the Vietnamese, but they—now, they can distinguish when we talk Cantonese or we talk in Vietnamese. My younger son, Weldon, had a little difficulty to distinguish that, but he’s getting better now. But my older son, he definitely know when people speak Cantonese. He can understand a little, but not as much. When he was little, I did speak Cantonese—strictly Cantonese to him, and my husband—he’s Chinese also, but he’s from Hainan Province, which is an island in Hainan in China. They do have their own dialect, so he and his mom speak to my older son, Kenyon, in Hainanese, so he can switch over quickly and speak to them, and he speak to me Chinese. But then when he’s about three and a half—about four, I put him in a daycare, and that’s when he start to learning English, and we still keep the language until my younger son, the second—my younger son was born. He have a speech delay, so we were told by the speech therapist that we should speak either one language, that we do not mix it, that way—to help him, so we decided to keep English in that, because sometime we do speak English and Cantonese kind of mixed together, so it’s hard. So we just kind of drop the Chinese language in the household and then speak English after my second son was born. And then my older son, Kenyon—he kind of lost. (laughs) BRODY: Right. You don’t use it. PHAN: Yes. Yeah. He lost the language. But then, now, he kind of catching back a little because some of his classmate speak Cantonese at home. So he learn a little at a time, coming back. Asian American identity ; Cantonese ; Cantonese language ; Chinese Vietnamese ; English language ; Hainan Province ; Hainanese ; identity ; language ; language learning ; Vietnamese identity ; Vietnamese language 3520 Phan discusses her own sense of identity BRODY: That’s great. So you think they think of themselves as Asian American. How do you think of yourself? Your identity? PHAN: I would consider myself Asian American now because I’m American citizen, and even though I’m root in China, but I don’t really have any connection with China because I’ve never been to China. (both laugh) But I do learn the culture and the language when I was young, so it still embedded in my brain that I know the language. I appreciate the language a lot, and I feel kind of bad that I’m not good at any of the language because I’m halfway—like, I still have very heavy accent in English, and I’m not really perfectly in speaking in Mandarin. I’m not speaking perfectly in Cantonese. I’m not perfectly speaking in Vietnamese. (laughs) BRODY: But that’s a lot of languages that you know. (laughs) PHAN: Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of halfway in between, so yeah, I guess, if you—like, you have so much water, you can fill up four cup. You can’t fill them all full. BRODY: I see what you mean. So you think of yourself as Asian American as well. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Um-hm. American citizenship ; Asian American identity ; Asian Americans ; Cantonese ; China ; Chinese culture ; culture ; English language ; identity ; language ; language learning ; Mandarin ; Vietnamese language 3621 Transitioning between social classes as a refugee BRODY: Earlier—I’m just kind of jumping backwards a little bit. Earlier, you mentioned that in Vietnam you had a tutor and things like that, but then when you came here, that wasn’t really the lifestyle that you were in. Did you feel like your family transitioned from one social class to another when you came to the United States? PHAN: Yes, definitely. My dad, he’s doing very well as a businessman in Vietnam where he owned a lot of business. He operated restaurant, and then he go through a lot of business selling peanut butter, restaurant, and then recycling—metal recycling plant. I mean, our social status in Vietnam can considered well. We have maids come to the house and take care of the kid. My mom doesn’t really have to do anything. She have a chef that cook for the family. We go to private school, and my dad even have a Jeep—have a car and he had a driver! BRODY: Wow. PHAN: Yeah. He didn’t drive. It’s considered pretty well, I would say. And then we lost all that when we came here. We start from scratch, that my mom start as a cleaning staff at the hotel and my dad working at a assembly. And he—actually, his first job when he’s in America, from Richmond, Virginia, is he’s replacing those batteries for those—is it arcade? BRODY: Oh, arcades? PHAN: Not arcade. What’s it called? Those—like, construction? They have those blinking sign for those cars? They put—yeah. Like, they blocking the road. BRODY: Oh, yes. I know what you’re talking about. PHAN: Yeah. And those blinking orange— BRODY: Reflector lights. PHAN: Reflector light, yeah. That’s right. Uh-hm. He replacing those battery. That’s his first job. He come from—he was a—not a chairman, but one of, like, executive member in a school—in Chinese school in Danang that he donate a lot of fund to the school. They have his name on a plaque. Like, he donated the basketball court equipment. It will have his name on there. But when we came to America, he start from scratch. But he survived well because he go through the World War II from China. He came from China. He left China when he was about ten or eleven, crossed to Vietnam by himself, and I don’t know how he survived. BRODY: Wow. PHAN: Yeah. BRODY: That’s brave. PHAN: Yeah. I mean, his life’s probably more difficult than my life, and I’m sure my children is have a better life than me. My life was much better than for my dad—my dad’s life—so that’s our goal, I guess. We just make our next generation have a better life than us. assembly ; business ; cleaning staff ; housekeeper ; social class ; wealth 3872 Discrimination and racism BRODY: Yes. Absolutely. When you made that transition and your family made that transition, do you remember any experiences with discrimination or racism as you were adjusting to life here? PHAN: There are a few cases, but we don’t take it as offended. That just life. We go through. We don’t hold grudges when people make comment that hurt ourselves. I mean, they just don’t know. I mean, sometime they don’t mean it, and just move on. I feel very blessed that I haven’t encounter, physically, discrimination that, like, a lot of African American culture that go through in the sixty. But I’m sure there are a few, but then I don’t really kept it that affect my life. I just move on. And, like, people will probably say things, so I just let it go and just move on, to me. discrimination ; prejudice ; racism 3963 Thoughts about diversity in the United States BRODY: Earlier, you mentioned your family friends and friends of your children being of different cultural backgrounds. Do you know—what is—can you tell me about some of your feelings around being in a country where you’re meeting all different types of people with different backgrounds? PHAN: I think my difficulty is more language communication. Some of the friend—the mom that I—is Caucasian. I’m sure they very nice, open heart, and they know that I’m from Vietnam, I’m Chinese, speak the language—the dialect, the English accent heavy, but they understand and they reach out, and I feel very blessed that I feel welcome. A lot of mom that I encounter from either elementary school with my kid, to middle school and high school—I mean, very cordial and very helping. accents ; communication ; diversity ; English language ; friendships ; language ; language learning 4045 Meaning of &quot ; being American&quot ; /Emotional reaction to the Pledge of Allegiance BRODY: That’s great. What does it mean to you to be an American? You mentioned you got your American citizenship. What does it mean to say, “I am an American”? PHAN: I’m very proud, and freedom is not free. To me, we are very blessed to live in America, and the freedom we have now, I feel a lot of people take it for granted. (begins to cry) Sometime I get emotional when I stand up, when we have—what’s it called? What’s it called? I pledge the allegiance. BRODY: The “Pledge of Allegiance.” PHAN: Yeah. Um-hm. BRODY: It makes you emotional? PHAN: Yes. BRODY: What do you think about when you’re doing the “Pledge of Allegiance”? PHAN: I always tears up and get—I wish I could sing and say that, (laughs) but I usually tears up. American identity ; freedom ; patriotism ; Pledge of Allegiance 4134 Reflections about memories brought up in interview BRODY: Is there anything else that you’d like to share that I haven’t asked you about or something else that you’d like to add to what we’ve talked about today? PHAN: I’m sure there’s many, many small story that—right now, I don’t have any. But this interview, it kind of bring a lot of joy and sad, and I made of lot memory that’s kind of buried a long time that just come right back, and it’s hard. BRODY: Well, thank you so much for sharing those memories and those stories, and I think that your story is valuable, and it’s been an honor to record this interview and to hear your stories, and I’m so happy that they’re going to be part of this collection. PHAN: Oh, thank you so much, Betsy, to having me here. BRODY: Oh, thank you very much. I really, really appreciate it. It’s been really beautiful. PHAN: Thank you. BRODY: Thank you. end of interview emotions ; memories Baylor University Institute for Oral History Khanh &quot ; Connie&quot ; Phan Oral History Memoir Interview Number 1 Interviewed by Betsy T. Brody May 31, 2019 Richardson, Texas Project -- Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans: The Making of the Vietnamese Community in North Texas BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is May 31, 2019. I am interviewing, for the first time, Ms. Connie Phan. This interview is taking place in my office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the &quot ; Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans&quot ; project. All right, Connie. Thank you so much for joining me here today. I am really looking forward to hearing your story. To get started with, can you tell me a little bit about what your life was like in Vietnam? |00:00:34| PHAN: First, thank you so much for including me in this project. When I was in Vietnam, before I came here in 1978, when I left Vietnam, I was still a student-- sophomore year. Oh, no, actually, freshman--yes. We left Vietnam in April 1978, and we arrive about four day and five night on a boat. About, let&#039 ; s see, maybe twenty-two- meter boat with about 430 people--refugees, and we--during those three day--four day, we encounter pirate. (begins to cry) Looking back, I feel so blessed because there are so many refugee in boat didn&#039 ; t make it. They got robbed, and woman and kid--either the pirate took them with them when they didn&#039 ; t get any gold, but I&#039 ; ve always been lucky. We only got it second time, and then the third time, we saw a pirate&#039 ; s boat, but then we almost to Malaysia, I think, so they kind of leave us alone, so we made it to a military island--very small, remote island. Doesn&#039 ; t have any--probably a few military personnel, and they help us get onto the island. I believe it was around two or three o&#039 ; clock a.m. or something. It&#039 ; s very dark. We were so glad that we made it. I&#039 ; m sorry. (laughs) |00:03:02| BRODY: No, no. Thank you for sharing that story. That was--I mean, it sounds very scary for you, and you were young. PHAN: I probably fifteen at the time or sixteen. Yes. And I&#039 ; m the oldest of the five, and my sister is about eight years younger than me. Before we accept this plan, my father always want us to know how to swim, so in the morning, four of us--we&#039 ; d just go into the beach and try to learn how to swim with some neighbors, but we all know how to swim by then already. And I was very--I mean, after four and five day, the fourth day, we already lack of food, so we--and be sitting at the boat. Your body is tired. I didn&#039 ; t realize. But then, we are so excited to see the island, so everybody jump off the boat and I said, &quot ; Oh, I can do it. I can swim, so don&#039 ; t mind me.&quot ; I jumped down, and I keep sinking, sinking, sinking! Yeah. I couldn&#039 ; t get up to the top. And then, suddenly, there&#039 ; s a big hand that&#039 ; s grabbed me and pulled me up. I said, &quot ; Oh! That&#039 ; s my dad! Oh, Lord!&quot ; (laughs) BRODY: So your dad was able to grab you. PHAN: Yeah. Uh-hm. Actually, he&#039 ; s also the one that helping people bring up to the shore. Yeah, so I said, &quot ; Oh my goodness.&quot ; I remember that moment that I look up. It was him. Oh, it&#039 ; s like-- BRODY: (both speaking at once) What a relief. PHAN: Uh-hm. But yeah, those memory is kind of buried in the back of my mind. |00:05:01| BRODY: Yes. You&#039 ; ll never forget that. Your dad, in Vietnam, was he working in some capacity with the Americans who were there? Or what did he do? PHAN: He actually was a businessman. The trip that--our trip, actually, is organized by my--I guess call it uncle? My aunt&#039 ; s husband. There&#039 ; s about twelve or thirteen people in the group that organize this trip, but we had to work with the local government--I guess, police station or something like that, the local--that they have to give them the gold under the table for each person, at least five and half ounces of gold per head, so that-- regardless of old or young, so that&#039 ; s the base price that they have to provide to the local government so they can let us leave the country that we&#039 ; re not prosecute. Most of--I would say 95 percent of the boat are Chinese Vietnamese, which is--most of them are either like me--my parent is Chinese but born in Vietnam, so I guess is considered a minority? BRODY: Within Vietnam. PHAN: Vietnam, yeah. And Vietnamese people--the Vietnamese citizen is not allowed on this kind of planned trip. Yeah. But actually, there are few family is Vietnamese, but they--you can tell by their last names is very distinctive. It&#039 ; s Nguyen, N-g-u-y-e-n, and a friend of my dad or someone introduce him, and they wanted to leave too, so they would ask my dad, would have to do fake paper, identification for them to change their name to someone else, like a more Chinese-Vietnamese last name--either Tran or, like, Phan, or some other name. Actually, my father&#039 ; s name is Luong--L-u-o-n-g. In Vietnamese spelling, for--in China, it&#039 ; s called (??) or (??) in Hong Kong. So it can tell that, but that&#039 ; s more Chinese that was born in Vietnam. They came from China. |00:08:01| BRODY: Okay. So there were distinctions in that. Did they get the fake papers? PHAN: Yeah. So those--I think at least two family were able to escape, but they were very quiet on the boat. If they talk--they don&#039 ; t want people discover that they are true Vietnamese citizen. BRODY: Oh, I see. PHAN: And they might--if they get in trouble, we all get in trouble. BRODY: So they stayed quiet on the boat. PHAN: Yes. Uh-hm. Yes. |00:08:33| BRODY: Wow. So you got to Malaysia, right? To this island? PHAN: Correct. BRODY: And what was that like? PHAN: The island basically had no water--no running water. The people that came--the refugee came before us, they dig wells and built a shed. They would go to the--to cut wood and then make the shed, and then use some sort of plastic like a roof. So I guess younger men, or they had the ability physically, can go do that. Like, older person might not. Luckily, my dad had enough--he bought two hundred dollar US that he buried. He put it in my brother&#039 ; s--the shoe--I guess--how-- BRODY: The sole. PHAN: The sole, yeah. He hide it in there, so that&#039 ; s how we got the money and buy a shed for seven of us so we don&#039 ; t have to build a--otherwise, we would be sleeping out on the open. BRODY: On the beach. PHAN: Yeah. Uh-hm. So that&#039 ; s how--actually, how we had that two-hundred dollar left, because when we encountered the pirate, basically, they took everything--the watches or a necklace or a ring that you have. Yeah. Of course-- |00:10:16| BRODY: (both speaking at one) So smart that your dad hid the money in the shoe. PHAN: Yes. Back then, US dollar, actually, is illegal to exchange US dollar in Vietnam. You can get--you can put in jail for having US money--currency. BRODY: Right, by 1978. PHAN: Yes. Actually, the whole time in Vietnam, you cannot have currency--you cannot own US currency. |00:10:47| BRODY: Wow. Okay, so that was really brave (Phan laughs) that he did that, that he had that. From the camp, what was your day-to-day life like in the camp? PHAN: It&#039 ; s the--I guess United Nation will provide the food for each person. They gave us a bag--like, a plastic bag. Inside, there&#039 ; s would be three can of food. One is a green bean. One&#039 ; s fish or either, if it&#039 ; s not fish, it&#039 ; d be chicken and--what&#039 ; s the other? Maybe red bean or something like that, and a bag of--a pouch of rice that we have to cook. Every person had the same kind of bag. Every morning, we would be had to headed out to the main, I guess, where gathering--just stand in line and get that bag, and that&#039 ; s our food. I guess the water--we just--if you live in the shed, it already have the well built, then you&#039 ; re lucky. Otherwise, you had to go the public well to carry the water, but those were water--the well water just only for shower. You can&#039 ; t really drink any, and the United Nation do provide water for per person. I think it may be a gallon per person or something, and a family--you can--I forgot my younger brother, my second brother-- he&#039 ; s the one that would carry the water for the drinking water and for--so those are for us to drink and eat, shower, those kind of--you have to use your well water. And those-- every day, we just go and stand in line, get those food and come home, and then my mom would have to find way to cook those. And the refugee in the Pulau Bidong, they getting very creative that they need to find fresh meat and fresh fruit, so they do built their own--a little boat, and they would go out to the closer, I guess, bigger city island somewhere in Malaysia. I heard that maybe, it&#039 ; s called Terengganu, but I&#039 ; m not sure, but that&#039 ; s how they go out, and they do that either at night or somehow, not letting people know. And then when they come back, they bring the goods back, and they would have a market to sell it. BRODY: Wow. That&#039 ; s enterprising. PHAN: Uh-hm. But then, we would get in trouble if they get caught. Yeah. The military there, they don&#039 ; t want you do that, (laughs) but I don&#039 ; t know how they do it, but they did it. So that&#039 ; s how we get--sometimes, we would have money, then--people have money, they were able to buy fresh fruit or fresh meat. Otherwise, they would stay with the canned food. |00:14:06| BRODY: You were a young child, right? Like, you were in high school still? Did you have to stand in line for every day for the food too? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Uh-hm. Yes. BRODY: So, adults, children--everybody individually. PHAN: Actually, not every day. They--the shipment come maybe twice a week or something like that. And then, I guess--my memory is, like, we&#039 ; d stand in line getting that. Every time, we like, Oh, the shipment&#039 ; s come! Everybody get outside! Let&#039 ; s go! Everybody had to go down to the center to stand in line and get those. And then most of the time, we don&#039 ; t have anything to do, then I join a drafting class that the refugee camp there--the people get there before and they have teacher that--or that used to be a teacher, so they volunteer and teach the kids, so I joined. I signed up, went to the drafting class, so I was able to learn how to draw, and I brought you that book today. |00:15:20| BRODY: Yeah. This notebook that you brought from the camp--the cover says, &quot ; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,&quot ; and you&#039 ; ve got your name on there, and then your drawings that you&#039 ; ve made. So this is how you were occupied during the day, learning. There&#039 ; s some really nice drawings in here, especially--tell me about this one of the docks there. PHAN: Oh, yeah. The bridge of the dock--yeah. I guess it was built--the first one, probably, is a lot older and is more for incoming boat, and the other one is the one that leaving, which is everybody wanted to go on--be on that bridge--I mean, that dock, because that&#039 ; s the one that you&#039 ; ll get to go-- BRODY: (both speaking at once) Get to go somewhere else. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yeah, yeah. Go to settle at place. You either go to America, Australia, or French, or any country in the European that they accept the refugee. |00:16:28| BRODY: For your family, when did you get to go onto the dock to go somewhere else? PHAN: I believe we--around August of 1979. Yes. And at night time, usually, they would announce the name of the boat, and then the name of the person--the family that gets selected to go. BRODY: Oh, okay. Every evening. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. Every evening around seven o&#039 ; clock, I think. And I remember clearly, at night, we--usually we would get together and sing or--I learned how to sing in English, but I didn&#039 ; t understand what I was singing, (Brody laughs) and now, I remember I was thinking of the songs--something--&quot ; Que Sera, Sera&quot ; ? I don&#039 ; t know exactly which--French, right? BRODY: (both speaking at once) Spanish. (both laugh) PHAN: Oh, okay. So something like that. And then, when we get quiet, when--then the announcement came on one of those--what was it called? |00:17:41| BRODY: Loud speakers. PHAN: Yes, and they have everywhere. Our boat number was KG-zero-two-zero-six, and I think our number rank--is ranked number--either four [hundred] thirty or--yeah. I forgot the rank number. That&#039 ; s--they call it boat number one, two--if you say you come--your number is--your boat number is two hundred, then they know--they kind of know what month you come in. Yeah. So we are four hundred thirty-something. And in one day, it can be twenty to thirty boat, but very tiny boat, and some day doesn&#039 ; t have any boat coming in. So I think the--in April of nineteen eight--between April and May 1978 is vast of boat coming in. The number get--adding quicker, from either four hundred to four-fifty, like to four-seventy-five, so quick. Yeah. When I left, I think it may be five hundred or five-fifty? I&#039 ; m not quite remember. It&#039 ; s been a long time. BRODY: (both speaking at once) So, you had been there for over a year. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Fourteen month. BRODY: Fourteen months? PHAN: Yeah. Um-hm. |00:19:13| BRODY: It changed because you got a sponsor? PHAN: Yeah. We would get interview by different country, and first, we were interviewed by Australia representative, and they will ask--they asked my father, Do you have any other relative that live in other country? And then my dad said, &quot ; Oh yeah. I have a sister in America,&quot ; and then, he kind of, &quot ; Oh.&quot ; He shouldn&#039 ; t say that because (laughs) he actually really wanted to go to Australia. Yeah. And then they said, Oh, okay. Then you had to go to United State, (laughs) so I say, &quot ; Okay.&quot ; So that&#039 ; s how we end up in the United State. But Australia--actually my cousin, which is my dad&#039 ; s aunt&#039 ; s younger sister, which is my cousin--he already been to Australia and he left a year or two year-- maybe a year before when we left in &#039 ; 78, so he left already either &#039 ; 77 or &#039 ; 76. And now he also made it to Malaysia or Indonesia. I&#039 ; m not quite remember, but he made it to Australia. That&#039 ; s why my dad wanted to go to Australia. But it never--my aunt--he had two sister, and the younger sister, when they left before us, she took care of two of my cousin--no, three of my cousin--male, there(??). So a total of four of them made it to Pennsylvania, so that&#039 ; s why my dad just told the representative in Australia that he had a sister made it to USA, so that&#039 ; s why we--okay. Said, &quot ; Okay, you go to the United State table over there.&quot ; (laughs) That&#039 ; s how we end up in United State. |00:21:28| BRODY: So they called your name, and you were able to get on a boat. Where did your family head first? PHAN: We actually--yeah. When we get to the dock, then they would take us to Kuala Lumpur, which is the capital of Malaysia, and that&#039 ; s where we get on a plane. That plane was like a big military plane--can seat five hundred people, I believe. It&#039 ; s called a Tiger, I remember. It&#039 ; s very big plane. A lot of refugee people on that plane, and then I believe we flew to San Francisco, and then we stay in the military camp. I remember our family was given a room. Seven of us stayed there for about a week. Maybe they were making sure that we don&#039 ; t have any infected disease. Then we get to go to our home--I guess, home city, which is the sponsor that sponsor us, and my dad--he had a friend that live in Richmond, Virginia, and we call him Uncle Bac--B-a-c, I think. He is a Vietnamese citizen that a good friend of my dad when they were in Vietnam. I don&#039 ; t know how they connected anyway, but that&#039 ; s--and then, Uncle Bac--B-a-c--I guess Uncle Bac that we&#039 ; d call him back then--he connect--I guess he get in touch with the Catholic church, and that&#039 ; s how they sponsored our family, and that&#039 ; s why we went to Richmond, Virginia. And our sponsor at the time, the church--there&#039 ; s two lady. I remember one of them was Mrs. Ellis--Ellis, E-l-l-i-s--and her husband&#039 ; s Alexander Ellis the Third, and I guess we call her Mrs. Ellis. She&#039 ; s a volunteer and she&#039 ; s very active in her church, and there&#039 ; s another lady that work with her. I forgot her name, but--yes. They both help us to settle. Found a house for us to rent, and I remember our address for the house in Richmond is 2333 West Gray Street. BRODY: Wow. (both laugh) That&#039 ; s a great memory. PHAN: Yeah, and we happened to live on the Gray Street! (laughs) Yeah. |00:24:55| BRODY: How long were you in Richmond? PHAN: It&#039 ; s about two year, and it&#039 ; s--first year, we loved it because we had never seen snow. And we said, Oh, so cool and so nice! Had so much fun. But then, after second year, we said, We cannot stay in this kind of weather. I believe we had to put chains on the tire. It&#039 ; s very hard. And I went to a high school--they put me in a high school-- Thomas Jefferson High School. They put me in tenth grade and I didn&#039 ; t speak any English. I had a dictionary--Chinese dictionary and I carry it with me, and I believe there&#039 ; s already the three Vietnamese refugee already in that school and that they also-- their last name&#039 ; s also Tran, so we just connected right away, and we rented the same house. They lived upstair. We lived downstair. (laughs) BRODY: So immediate community. PHAN: Uh-huh. And I remember, sometime, I left my dictionary in the school somewhere, and somebody find it and they just bring it to me. &quot ; This is your.&quot ; I said, &quot ; That&#039 ; s right. It&#039 ; s mine.&quot ; (laughs) It&#039 ; s very funny. BRODY: You need it. PHAN: Uh-huh. And I was put in a English class for mental--well, I guess, not &quot ; mental,&quot ; but it&#039 ; s more talent-challenge kid, like either handicap, or on wheelchair, or kid that have speech problem, so I was put in that class so I can learn English easier for me. |00:26:56| BRODY: So they put you in a special-ed class. PHAN: Dead correct. That&#039 ; s right. That&#039 ; s why I-- BRODY: But there--was there an ESL--English as a second language--program? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Not really. Back then we don&#039 ; t have an ESL class, and that&#039 ; s the only class that they could put me in it for English, and I do clearly remember I was in the history class. This teacher--I forgot his name. Maybe Mr. William or something. Anyway, he put me sitting nearby him, but then I couldn&#039 ; t understand what he said but I can read, so when he give quizzes and test, he&#039 ; d be just reading out loud and I couldn&#039 ; t understand what he said, but if he give me the test and I can read it slowly, then I can do it. And then--I don&#039 ; t know how I told him that I--and then the next time, the first quiz--I flunked the first quiz--the second quiz, and I told him, &quot ; I need the quiz that you can give to me,&quot ; so he just moved my table next to his desk, and then he just slide his quiz over and let me read, and then he read to the class. And from then on I always aced--make a hundred on the quiz. BRODY: That&#039 ; s great! (laughs) PHAN: Yeah. But I just take slow for me to read, but then try to hear an American speak English is harder. Even though-- BRODY: (both speaking at once) You had a lot to learn all at once. PHAN: Correct. Uh-hm. |00:28:33| BRODY: Two years in Richmond. How did your parents find a warmer climate? PHAN: Somehow someone--I don&#039 ; t know how they got ahold of--oh, I remember now. The refugee that we met--a friend that--in Pulau Bidong. He actually came to Dallas, Texas, and then when he talked to this gentleman--we call him Uncle Kee--and then Uncle Kee said that he from Danang, Vietnam. And then when they got to talk and then the friend that--the refugee that live in Pulau Bidong kind of know us too--our neighbor--and they said, Oh, I think I know somebody live in Danang and his name is Quanh Luong, and then our Uncle Kee said, &quot ; Oh my goodness! That&#039 ; s my--I call him &#039 ; brother&#039 ; ! &#039 ; Brother Quanh&#039 ; !&quot ; And then that&#039 ; s how, I guess, they exchange number, and they call us somehow, and then my dad said, &quot ; Oh my goodness.&quot ; So he say--and then, my dad told him, &quot ; It&#039 ; s too cold up here,&quot ; and then he say, &quot ; Oh, just come down here. Just come down here. We find you a place. Don&#039 ; t worry.&quot ; And then, we--okay. Then, my dad just decided to, &quot ; Okay, let&#039 ; s move.&quot ; So we told our sponsor, and they were very sad that we were leaving but they understand. So we went to a Greyhound station, bought seven ticket, and just hop on the Greyhound bus and come down to Dallas. (laughs) BRODY: Wow. How brave. And then the uncle met you here? PHAN: Yes. Uh-hm. |00:30:26| BRODY: Where did you live when you first got to Dallas? PHAN: It&#039 ; s funny. When we on the Greyhound bus, the Greyhound bus had to stop at some gas station for restroom stop, and--it&#039 ; s funny--my dad didn&#039 ; t come back, and one of the--I guess the passenger say, &quot ; One of the China man not coming back yet! You can&#039 ; t leave!&quot ; (both laugh) And then the bus driver wait for him to come back, so it&#039 ; s funny. Yeah, I remember somehow we made it to Dallas to the Greyhound bus downtown, and my Uncle Kee--he lived in a housing Section 8, one of the government- run Mexican village on Harry Hine. So it&#039 ; s only a one-bedroom--no, maybe a two- bedroom--a two-bedroom condo, I guess? Apartment? It&#039 ; s very tiny, probably around 750 square feet, though not more than 1,000 square feet. So seven of us and my Uncle Kee, his wife, and he had two children--a daughter and a son--but the son was very young back then, and the daughter, Van, she&#039 ; s--we kind of call each other cousin now, so Cousin Van--she&#039 ; s about same age as Mylinh. And I imagine her dad gave her room to us--of seven of us in her room, she got kicked out. (laughs) BRODY: (laughs) She got kicked out. PHAN: And she had-- BRODY: (both speaking at once) So there were eleven of you in the house. PHAN: Yes. Uh-hm. And we stayed there maybe a week or two or something like that, so we can find apartment to rent. Myself and my three--four of my other three brother, we went to--I think he&#039 ; s--no, his neighbor--my Uncle Kee&#039 ; s neighbor have a son that is in high school, so he took us to North Dallas High School to register, so I end up going to North Dallas High School with my other two brother, Tom and Peter, and my third brother, Minh--which is now, he&#039 ; s Ryan--and Mylinh is younger, so they go to middle school. I don&#039 ; t know who took them there. I forgot. But I remember clearly, I went to North Dallas High School and registered. (laughs) I went there. |00:33:24| BRODY: As an eleventh-grader, then? PHAN: Actually, yes, eleventh-grader, because I kind of--almost finished tenth grade over in-- BRODY: In Richmond. PHAN: Yeah, in Richmond. I believe we also get the transcript. I don&#039 ; t know how we did all that. We went to high--the Thomas Jefferson, and the counselors--I think, Mrs. Brumbler? It start with a B. I think Bumbo or Bumber or something like that. She&#039 ; s a very tiny, small woman and she gave us the transcript and it&#039 ; s not finished. I don&#039 ; t remember, because we left October or so. We came here in October, I think. The school was already start. |00:34:15| BRODY: So did you start school right away then? PHAN: Yes. Um-hm. I was eleven grade(??). BRODY: (both speaking at once) At North Dallas High School. PHAN: Yeah. BRODY: What was that like, both being new to Dallas and also kind of entering a new high school after school had already started? PHAN: Actually, over here, it&#039 ; s more--because there are more Vietnamese community, so there are a lot of Vietnamese student already at North Dallas High School. And North Dallas High School, there is mainly--that I believe--maybe 90 percent or 80 percent Hispanic already, but there&#039 ; s about--my number may be not correct--but there&#039 ; s African American and Caucasian, but mainly, I think, Hispanic is the majority of the student body. And again, minority of the Vietnamese refugee, and there may be some Laos and Cambodia student there, but the Vietnamese student is--probably had more than the Cambodia or the Laos. BRODY: What was it like for you in terms of making friends and integrating into those classes? PHAN: Actually, it&#039 ; s very easy because there&#039 ; s some Vietnamese student there already, so we became friend pretty quick. And most of us, since English is our second language, but math or geometry is international language, so I was--I always flunked math when I was in Vietnam, but when I came over here, I just got hundred most of the time--an A. I got just automatically got it. That&#039 ; s the only thing I understand, so easy is a triangle or geometry or trigonometry, and math is so easy. So we excel in math. And I joined the math club, the math team, and then we&#039 ; d be going with--and then make a lot of friend-- students who joined the math team and go to many high school to compete. I didn&#039 ; t bring trophy home, but maybe a ribbon or something. BRODY: (laughs) But it was fun, you remember. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yes, and actually at that high school, I met my husband there. BRODY: Oh, did you really? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Uh-hm. |00:37:06| BRODY: How did you meet him? Tell me about that. PHAN: He actually in the same class. We were the same grade. But he&#039 ; s a lot smarter, so (laughs) he always made the math team. He always brings the--either bring first place home or second at least, but I&#039 ; m usually the one that have the last one, either six or seven, (laughs) something like that. BRODY: So, was he--did you go to tournaments together, and was it love at first sight? PHAN: No. Actually, no. (laughs) I was taking an architecture drafting class. He also taking an architecture drafting class, and he, actually, also working already as a-- managing a Chinese movie theater at night, because our community here, we don&#039 ; t really have a movie theater, and I guess that&#039 ; s some Hong Kong investment. I guess--I think a few brother from Hong Kong, they rented a movie theater on Fitzhugh and Capital, and they usually have Chinese movie at night from ten o&#039 ; clock to two or three o&#039 ; clock, and my husband, Timothy Phan, he actually work as a--selling ticket at that theater. |00:39:01| BRODY: Oh, did he? PHAN: Yes. Uh-huh. So he already making money when he&#039 ; s in high school. (laughs) My first job in America here--actually, this was in Virginia too. My mom was a housekeeper. We work for a cleaning company. She worked with cleaning company, and I sometime help her in the summer. We go to client house and clean, and clean their toilet and vacuum and mop the floor. That&#039 ; s my first job there too, and when we arrived to Dallas, my first job in Dallas here is, I had gotten to do--a classmate--her name is Lei Lee and, unfortunately, she&#039 ; s already pass away. BRODY: Oh, no. PHAN: Yeah. She had cancer, so she was pass away probably last year or two years ago. Anyway, she&#039 ; s the one that find a job for me. We got paid twenty-five dollar working on the weekend, Saturday to Sunday, at the Dallas Market Center downtown. We are in one those stand that selling coke and hot dogs. And the gentleman that hire us, he&#039 ; s--I believe he&#039 ; s Jewish, and we call him Mr. Frank. Somehow he got a bunch of Vietnamese student working for him on the weekend. Everybody get paid twenty-five dollar cash, so that&#039 ; s good money for us. (laughs) |00:41:03| BRODY: That&#039 ; s great money. You were working and you were going to school, and your parents--how involved were they with your school? PHAN: In school part, we had to handle everything ourself. My parent doesn&#039 ; t speak English, so in term of homework, we had to figure out our own, and we either talk to our friends or--yeah. There&#039 ; s no such thing as tutor. It&#039 ; s not like in Vietnam when I had tutor. (laughs) My dad would be working at assembly--electrical--some kind of electrical assembly company, and my mom worked as cleaning staff for a hotel at that big one down here. What&#039 ; s it called? Loew--back then, they call it Loew Anatole. BRODY: (both speaking at once) The Anatole. Yeah. PHAN: Yeah. Loew Anatole. But now, I think it&#039 ; s some-- BRODY: Just The Anatole. PHAN: Yeah. Some--either Marriott or someone bought them already. She worked there until she retire. She had to clean the room, at least eight room a day. So every time I stay in a hotel, I always put tip. |00:42:38| BRODY: They were working hard, and you guys were in school and also working hard. How was learning English for you? Because-- PHAN: Actually, learning English--we learned it for watching Tom and Jerry. BRODY: Tom and Jerry. (laughs) PHAN: (laughs) Yeah. When we came home from school, we just turned it on. We just watch it, and that&#039 ; s--we enjoyed watching that, and actually, I believe I learn English from Tom and Jerry. (both laugh) BRODY: That&#039 ; s fantastic. But it must have been challenging, and especially with all of you being different ages, sort of picking up the language. Does anything stand out in your mind as--besides Tom and Jerry--about the process or some of the challenges with the language? PHAN: I remember clearly, in Virginia, we had a phone and when it ring, we all kind of hang around the phone and say, What we going to do? Pick up the phone? And pick up the phone, but then when they speak English, we don&#039 ; t know how to talk back. And then actually, that phone was calling for Mylinh, my sister, and then she was talking English to her classmate! We were just like, How is she communicate? We didn&#039 ; t understand. What is she talking about? But I don&#039 ; t know how she pick up English so quick! BRODY: Well, she was younger, wasn&#039 ; t she? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. She was about eight years old, I believe. Yeah. And then, we would ask her, What did you talk about? And then, she said, &quot ; I don&#039 ; t know.&quot ; (both laugh) It&#039 ; s funny. When we left Richmond, I think her classmate--her friend gave her a bear, and she still kept the bear. She still have the bear. (laughs) |00:44:28| BRODY: Aw. Wow. Some of those small kindnesses. Speaking of that--so you didn&#039 ; t have a sponsor here in Dallas. PHAN: No. We started on our own in North Texas, yeah. Basically--I&#039 ; m thankful for our Uncle Kee and his wife and his family. Unfortunately, he pass away too. He pass away with cancer, and so is his wife, Aunt Kee--we both--our family went to the funeral for both of them. The second one is only my sister and I and my brother, Ryan, can go. Three of us went to Aunt Kee&#039 ; s funeral maybe four years ago? Something like that. But Uncle Kee pass away seven or eight--ten years ago. And now, our cousin, I guess--we call her cousin--Cousin Van--we feel like family. She&#039 ; s live in Seattle now. That&#039 ; s how we were here. BRODY: It sounds like it made a big difference to have the family members--your aunt and uncle and cousin--to help you sort of transition into this. PHAN: Correct. Um-hm. |00:46:02| BRODY: Does anything stand out in your mind, other than what you&#039 ; ve said already, about letting you stay in their house and so on? Small things that made a difference? Making you feel comfortable? PHAN: Well, yeah. I guess we would feel right at home right away. I guess, to me, a lot of thing we don&#039 ; t plan, and I feel like maybe (begins to cry) God already had a plan for us. It is (??). I was atheist and as I became Christian probably ten years ago, maybe? I&#039 ; m not quite sure, but I remember I was--even though we go to church and try to learn English, and my mom was Buddhist, and my dad is--he kind of--I mean, he&#039 ; s okay with any religion, so we basically root in the Buddhist religion because we were in Asia. In 2010, maybe around that time, somehow something happened, and then--I kind of feel bad, back then, that I said, &quot ; Oh, I do not believe in God. I mean, there&#039 ; s no such thing. Man--human revolution, back in forty-some million years--there&#039 ; s no such thing as someone getting born with a virgin.&quot ; I just think it&#039 ; s foolish when people come and tell me those kind of thing. (begins to cry) But I believe God is looking over our family and we were saved for a reason, and I just got baptize-- |00:49:07| BRODY: You were just baptized? PHAN: Baptized in 2016. Yeah, it was on my birthday. BRODY: Oh, that&#039 ; s beautiful. PHAN: Uh-hm. I turned fifty-three on that day. BRODY: And you got baptized on your fifty-third birthday. At what church were your baptized at? PHAN: I was baptized at American Baptist Church, AABC--Asian, I&#039 ; m sorry. Asian American Baptist Church, not far from here. BRODY: So that was a really meaningful-- PHAN: Yeah. Uh-hm. BRODY: --change for you. PHAN: Yeah. My dad actually get baptize before I did. He became a Christian also. |00:50:05| BRODY: So you were sponsored in Virginia by Catholic Charities [USA], but really your family wasn&#039 ; t particularly religious at that point. PHAN: Correct. My mom still practice Buddhism, but actually, she--God answer our prayer. She&#039 ; s not baptized yet, but she converted. How do you say those--like, she stand in public to announce that she accept Christ. BRODY: Oh, okay. So she took--made that profession. PHAN: Yeah, uh-huh. Last December. |00:50:51| BRODY: Okay. So what role does religion, do you feel like, play in your life and your experience that you&#039 ; re talking about here? PHAN: Can you rephrase that question? I don&#039 ; t quite understand. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Well, I mean, was it part of your integration process, or not really much, as you were getting used to being in this country and getting used to school and your family was getting used to work? Did religion play a role in that? PHAN: Not really. Yeah. I mean, I grew up more in the Buddhism religion, but then I&#039 ; ve declared myself as a atheist probably between teenager until mid-forty. And I&#039 ; m still learning. I mean, I really don&#039 ; t go to church every Sunday, but I do listen to as much possible on the radio, and I have friends that are supporting me. Any time I have a question about God and Jesus, teaching about the Bible, I always have answer from my friend. BRODY: Right. So the churches that--the church that you got baptized in is an Asian- American Baptist church. So language-wise, do you--is it English? PHAN: (both speaking at once) Actually, the church practice in English and they do have Chinese Bible study after the service. Mainly, the church is speaking in English. |00:52:58| BRODY: (both speaking at once) In English, because there&#039 ; s multiple different types of languages that people speak. When you think about your community that you&#039 ; re part of, are you--do you mostly interact with other Asian people or are you--do you feel like you have a diverse group of friends and contacts? PHAN: I would say it&#039 ; s 60, 70 percent Asian, but we didn&#039 ; t--I have friends that&#039 ; s Caucasian and African American that I feel comfortable to talk with and email or texting. And my son, he had a classmate since second grade--the last name is Quitman/Kweitman(??)--and my son was the groom-man. BRODY: Oh, in the wedding. PHAN: Yeah, in the wedding this year. And they were roommate together at UT [University of Texas] in freshman year, and I usually--when I make sushi or something, I would make Brady a box for him and a box for my son. (both laugh) And then, I say--I always say that I&#039 ; m his Asian mom. (both laugh) |00:54:30| BRODY: That&#039 ; s really sweet. So yeah, I mean, tell me about your kids. You have just the one son? PHAN: I have two son, Kenyon and Weldon, and Kenyon--he&#039 ; s twenty-six now, and Weldon is twenty-two now. Weldon just graduated from UNT [University of North Texas] in music degree, and Kenyon graduated in--I guess, four years ago. They&#039 ; re four year apart, so he graduated in UT in biochemistry. BRODY: Great. I&#039 ; m going to stop the tape for a second and see--about one thing. pause in recording |00:55:15| BRODY: All right. Restarting this recording now. So we were talking about your kids. They&#039 ; re in their twenties and they were raised entirely here, born and raised in Texas. Do you think they think of themselves--in what way do they think of their identity? Vietnamese? Chinese? Asian American? American? PHAN: They probably think of themselves Asian American because--but then, they know that they have Chinese root and little bit of Vietnamese background. They understand the Chinese--Cantonese language better than the Vietnamese, but they-- now, they can distinguish when we talk Cantonese or we talk in Vietnamese. My younger son, Weldon, had a little difficulty to distinguish that, but he&#039 ; s getting better now. But my older son, he definitely know when people speak Cantonese. He can understand a little, but not as much. When he was little, I did speak Cantonese--strictly Cantonese to him, and my husband--he&#039 ; s Chinese also, but he&#039 ; s from Hainan Province, which is an island in Hainan in China. They do have their own dialect, so he and his mom speak to my older son, Kenyon, in Hainanese, so he can switch over quickly and speak to them, and he speak to me Chinese. But then when he&#039 ; s about three and a half--about four, I put him in a daycare, and that&#039 ; s when he start to learning English, and we still keep the language until my younger son, the second--my younger son was born. He have a speech delay, so we were told by the speech therapist that we should speak either one language, that we do not mix it, that way--to help him, so we decided to keep English in that, because sometime we do speak English and Cantonese kind of mixed together, so it&#039 ; s hard. So we just kind of drop the Chinese language in the household and then speak English after my second son was born. And then my older son, Kenyon--he kind of lost. (laughs) BRODY: Right. You don&#039 ; t use it. PHAN: Yes. Yeah. He lost the language. But then, now, he kind of catching back a little because some of his classmate speak Cantonese at home. So he learn a little at a time, coming back. |00:58:38| BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. So you think they think of themselves as Asian American. How do you think of yourself? Your identity? PHAN: I would consider myself Asian American now because I&#039 ; m American citizen, and even though I&#039 ; m root in China, but I don&#039 ; t really have any connection with China because I&#039 ; ve never been to China. (both laugh) But I do learn the culture and the language when I was young, so it still embedded in my brain that I know the language. I appreciate the language a lot, and I feel kind of bad that I&#039 ; m not good at any of the language because I&#039 ; m halfway--like, I still have very heavy accent in English, and I&#039 ; m not really perfectly in speaking in Mandarin. I&#039 ; m not speaking perfectly in Cantonese. I&#039 ; m not perfectly speaking in Vietnamese. (laughs) BRODY: But that&#039 ; s a lot of languages that you know. (laughs) PHAN: Yeah. I mean, it&#039 ; s kind of halfway in between, so yeah, I guess, if you--like, you have so much water, you can fill up four cup. You can&#039 ; t fill them all full. BRODY: I see what you mean. So you think of yourself as Asian American as well. PHAN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Um-hm. |01:00:21| BRODY: Earlier--I&#039 ; m just kind of jumping backwards a little bit. Earlier, you mentioned that in Vietnam you had a tutor and things like that, but then when you came here, that wasn&#039 ; t really the lifestyle that you were in. Did you feel like your family transitioned from one social class to another when you came to the United States? PHAN: Yes, definitely. My dad, he&#039 ; s doing very well as a businessman in Vietnam where he owned a lot of business. He operated restaurant, and then he go through a lot of business selling peanut butter, restaurant, and then recycling--metal recycling plant. I mean, our social status in Vietnam can considered well. We have maids come to the house and take care of the kid. My mom doesn&#039 ; t really have to do anything. She have a chef that cook for the family. We go to private school, and my dad even have a Jeep-- have a car and he had a driver! BRODY: Wow. PHAN: Yeah. He didn&#039 ; t drive. It&#039 ; s considered pretty well, I would say. And then we lost all that when we came here. We start from scratch, that my mom start as a cleaning staff at the hotel and my dad working at a assembly. And he--actually, his first job when he&#039 ; s in America, from Richmond, Virginia, is he&#039 ; s replacing those batteries for those--is it arcade? BRODY: Oh, arcades? PHAN: Not arcade. What&#039 ; s it called? Those--like, construction? They have those blinking sign for those cars? They put--yeah. Like, they blocking the road. BRODY: Oh, yes. I know what you&#039 ; re talking about. PHAN: Yeah. And those blinking orange-- BRODY: Reflector lights. PHAN: Reflector light, yeah. That&#039 ; s right. Uh-hm. He replacing those battery. That&#039 ; s his first job. He come from--he was a--not a chairman, but one of, like, executive member in a school--in Chinese school in Danang that he donate a lot of fund to the school. They have his name on a plaque. Like, he donated the basketball court equipment. It will have his name on there. But when we came to America, he start from scratch. But he survived well because he go through the World War II from China. He came from China. He left China when he was about ten or eleven, crossed to Vietnam by himself, and I don&#039 ; t know how he survived. |01:03:58| BRODY: Wow. PHAN: Yeah. BRODY: That&#039 ; s brave. PHAN: Yeah. I mean, his life&#039 ; s probably more difficult than my life, and I&#039 ; m sure my children is have a better life than me. My life was much better than for my dad--my dad&#039 ; s life--so that&#039 ; s our goal, I guess. We just make our next generation have a better life than us. |01:04:26| BRODY: Yes. Absolutely. When you made that transition and your family made that transition, do you remember any experiences with discrimination or racism as you were adjusting to life here? PHAN: There are a few cases, but we don&#039 ; t take it as offended. That just life. We go through. We don&#039 ; t hold grudges when people make comment that hurt ourselves. I mean, they just don&#039 ; t know. I mean, sometime they don&#039 ; t mean it, and just move on. I feel very blessed that I haven&#039 ; t encounter, physically, discrimination that, like, a lot of African American culture that go through in the sixty. But I&#039 ; m sure there are a few, but then I don&#039 ; t really kept it that affect my life. I just move on. And, like, people will probably say things, so I just let it go and just move on, to me. |01:06:01| BRODY: Earlier, you mentioned your family friends and friends of your children being of different cultural backgrounds. Do you know--what is--can you tell me about some of your feelings around being in a country where you&#039 ; re meeting all different types of people with different backgrounds? PHAN: I think my difficulty is more language communication. Some of the friend--the mom that I--is Caucasian. I&#039 ; m sure they very nice, open heart, and they know that I&#039 ; m from Vietnam, I&#039 ; m Chinese, speak the language--the dialect, the English accent heavy, but they understand and they reach out, and I feel very blessed that I feel welcome. A lot of mom that I encounter from either elementary school with my kid, to middle school and high school--I mean, very cordial and very helping. |01:07:23| BRODY: That&#039 ; s great. What does it mean to you to be an American? You mentioned you got your American citizenship. What does it mean to say, &quot ; I am an American&quot ; ? PHAN: I&#039 ; m very proud, and freedom is not free. To me, we are very blessed to live in America, and the freedom we have now, I feel a lot of people take it for granted. (begins to cry) Sometime I get emotional when I stand up, when we have--what&#039 ; s it called? What&#039 ; s it called? I pledge the allegiance. BRODY: The &quot ; Pledge of Allegiance.&quot ; PHAN: Yeah. Um-hm. BRODY: It makes you emotional? PHAN: Yes. BRODY: What do you think about when you&#039 ; re doing the &quot ; Pledge of Allegiance&quot ; ? PHAN: I always tears up and get--I wish I could sing and say that, (laughs) but I usually tears up. |01:08:58| BRODY: Is there anything else that you&#039 ; d like to share that I haven&#039 ; t asked you about or something else that you&#039 ; d like to add to what we&#039 ; ve talked about today? PHAN: I&#039 ; m sure there&#039 ; s many, many small story that--right now, I don&#039 ; t have any. But this interview, it kind of bring a lot of joy and sad, and I made of lot memory that&#039 ; s kind of buried a long time that just come right back, and it&#039 ; s hard. BRODY: Well, thank you so much for sharing those memories and those stories, and I think that your story is valuable, and it&#039 ; s been an honor to record this interview and to hear your stories, and I&#039 ; m so happy that they&#039 ; re going to be part of this collection. PHAN: Oh, thank you so much, Betsy, to having me here. BRODY: Oh, thank you very much. I really, really appreciate it. It&#039 ; s been really beautiful. PHAN: Thank you. BRODY: Thank you. end of interview All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2019oh009_btba_009.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Connie Phan Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2019oh009_btba_009 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-05-31 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/1b3ff333d32533b834897e85cd90e3ac.jpg 60c1cdea491c4fc4723b2174f976cdfe Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tina Nguyen OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Tina Nguyen, June 1, 2019 2019oh010_btba_010 59:53 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Tina Nguyen Betsy Brody mp3 1:|27(14)|36(4)|49(3)|56(5)|63(14)|81(7)|96(9)|103(12)|116(6)|123(2)|130(3)|141(3)|160(3)|172(10)|185(9)|198(2)|206(13)|215(10)|226(1)|243(2)|264(7)|276(4)|287(8)|305(1)|326(15)|335(1)|353(1)|363(5)|373(12)|387(1)|396(10)|404(6)|414(10)|432(10)|451(4)|464(5)|480(12)|491(7)|502(10)|514(9)|528(12)|542(7)|555(1)|563(5)|575(12)|584(9)|597(3)|606(8)|624(2)|640(12)|649(14)|670(1)|681(8)|695(2)|709(10)|726(8)|738(14)|753(5)|768(10) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/117363 Aviary audio 1 Interview Introduction BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is June 1, 2019. I am interviewing, for the first time, Ms. Tina Nguyen. This interview is taking place at Ms. Nguyen’s house in Murphy, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the “Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans” project. Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans 21 Leaving Vietnam as a child/Impact of Chinese heritage Thank you so much, Tina, for joining me for this interview. Just to get started, can you tell me about your life in Vietnam? NGUYEN: Sure. I left Vietnam when I was about nine years old with a family group of twenty. (laughs) BRODY: Wow. That’s a large group. NGUYEN: Yeah. So it’s with my grandparents, and they were Chinese and half- Vietnamese. There were twenty of them, so it’s everybody on my dad’s side of the family. My grandparents and all their kids and their wives and their kids came along. So that means my mom—she left her whole family behind—so, like, her mother, her sisters, and brothers were behind. She came with us, and she was at the age of twenty-nine when she left. Because the family was so large, when we got to America, we split up ten and ten due to sponsorship. There’s no one—no organization or church—that was able to sponsor a full twenty, so they could do, like, a ten-ten, so ten went to California, and ten went to Mississippi. But my story is, because I was half-Chinese or half-Vietnamese, it wasn’t like I left secretly by a boat or something. My grandparents, because of their nationality, Chinese, and they were a little bit well off, they were able to pay, I guess, for our way to come to American by gold. I heard, like, a bar of gold for—I don’t even know how much per person, or whatever. BRODY: Who were they paying to? NGUYEN: I guess it’s just the association? I’m not sure because I was very young. But it’s just, basically, you pay your way for a chance at freedom, not knowing. We did come by boat, but it wasn’t like a secret way where we had to sneak out in the middle of the night. We had a designated date, a time to say goodbye to family, et cetera, and then the next morning, people were—I remember waving to my maternal grandmother side of the family and all that. So we went on a boat. I want to say about 180 people were on this small boat, and just based on what I remembered, it was very crowded and what was brought on the boat for food was ramen noodles. I remember just eating ramen noodles from a canister. And I think after, maybe, three or four days—my timing could be way off. I don’t know, because I was so young—I think we landed in Indonesia. I think the city was called Galang and we stayed there for about nine months. They set up a camp, I guess—a refugee camp, and from what I remembered, it was more like a large cabin that would house about, maybe, twenty or thirty people in each cabin, and there’s several cabins. And in the cabin, you basically—for each family, there’s a big, large platform like a bed or something, so probably the size of a ten-by-ten or something, and that’s basically your house. So we would have a roof over our head with that platform with just that wooden board, and then for food and stuff, I think you—we had to go get water. I remember going and they have water that is allocated out. You can’t just get what you want. Each family have a certain amount, and you have to line up to get the water. The same thing with food ; they have allocated amount of sardines in a can, so I remember eating sardines with rice in a can, like, every single day. That was what we—that was just your allocated amount. We were there, and then once we were settled, then my mom got a job with the Indonesian people who had restaurants, and she was also a seamstress, so she was able to work for some small mom-and-pop shop to make clothes and— BRODY: There in Indonesia still? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Uh-huh. boat ; food ; Galang ; gold ; Indonesia ; leaving Vietnam ; refugee camps ; Vietnamese-Chinese 346 Being sent to work for an Indonesian family at nine years old BRODY: Okay. So as part of the camp, there was a business stream as well? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. So—no. The weird thing is, I think, from what I remember—so the camp is on one side, and then I remember you have to travel by a small boat just to get to the other side of the island, I think, but—so the other side is more industrialized, whereas where we stayed—I mean, there weren’t any buildings. There weren’t any kind of businesses. It was just the refugee camp. And then, you take a little boat ride across—that’s probably, like, thirty minutes, forty minutes or something, and it’s just like a totally different world with businesses, restaurants, and stuff, whereas where we stayed didn’t have any of that. Right. There were no restaurants. BRODY: (both speaking at once) No—okay. Just living spaces. NGUYEN: Exactly. Yep. And by way of making money, I think my mom or my dad somehow was talking to an Indonesian family, and somehow they came up with an opportunity for me, at the age of nine, to kind of live with this family that owns a restaurant, and I would help around the house or around the restaurant by washing dishes or something. It was those—it was just a combination of both. It’s just a little amount of money or whatever the child can bring in at the time, and then more importantly, just an opportunity to blend in and make way of life for myself and then for the family as well. I think that probably occurred for nine months or so. And I remember at one point, they had—this family with a restaurant—they had sons of, like, fifteen, sixteen years old, and when it was time for us to get sponsored to go to Mississippi—Houston, Mississippi—I remember the story was, they offered my parent to see if they would be willing to let me stay and marry one of their sons! (laughs) BRODY: Oh my goodness! (laughs) You were nine years old! NGUYEN: I know! (laughs) Yes. Of course, my mom said no, (both laugh) thank you. Well, no, we never took that opportunity. businesses ; children ; employment ; Indonesia ; jobs ; refugee camps ; refugees ; restaurants 513 Sponsorship and arrival in the United States NGUYEN: Then after nine months to a year in Indonesia, then we were sponsored. Like I said earlier, ten of us were sponsored in Houston or Jackson, Mississippi, by a church group. That was my grandparents, my dad, my two younger sisters, and my mom, so we, immediately, has a family of five, and then, my grandparent had one, two, three, four aunts, right? Four aunts. And—yeah, maybe three aunts, and then my grandparents—I know that the total, including the five of us, was ten. And then the rest of the family, which includes my oldest aunt and my uncle, went to Los Angeles, California, so they were sponsored by another organization. And so we lived in Mississippi for about a year or so, and I remembered they sponsored and gave us a house that would—that was big enough for all ten of us in there. By way of occupation, I remember my parents having to do lawn work, and I remember back then, it was huge just to make—I want to say—is it three dollar an hour, or maybe—yeah, maybe three dollar an hour? But they were doing kind of lawn care work, and we kind of blend in and go to church, and we stayed there for about a year. Then my mom found out she has an aunt that lives in Plano, Texas, so then she got into contact with her aunt, which is now my great-aunt, and they helped us—or sponsored us to come and live in Plano. So we made the drive—it was, like, thirteen hour drive from Mississippi to Plano—with my dad, and then we just got situated in Plano and lived there for a couple years. BRODY: Did you live with your aunt? NGUYEN: Yes. We lived with my aunt for—or my great-aunt, rather, for about a year or so, and then she got jobs for my mom and my dad, which was to be a cook, like, at a Denny’s or something. Once my parents got jobs, then we moved into an apartment. So they—we kind of got situated and lived on our own after that. church ; employment ; housing ; Housto ; Jackson, Mississippi ; jobs ; Los Angeles ; Mississippi ; Plano ; sponsors ; sponsorship ; Texas ; United State 715 Parents' status and work in Vietnam BRODY: What did your parents do in terms of work in Vietnam? NGUYEN: My dad, because of his heritage—his being half-Chinese—and my Chinese grandparents on the paternal side were well-off. They had a business and it was a shoe shop. And my mom was more on the—kind of like, my mom’s side was more on the poor side, so she was more on the farming side. I remembered them going to sell stacked up loads of bananas on a boat and leaving in the middle of the night—yeah, collecting all the bananas and selling them. BRODY: So really different than what they ended up doing when they got here. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Uh-huh. BRODY: Yeah. Do you remember what that transition was like for them, to go from what they had been doing both in Vietnam, and then later in Mississippi, to working as cooks? NGUYEN: It was probably very difficult because, number one, they knew that they were leaving for freedom, better life for the kids, but basically, it was just the unknown because when we left, there was no guarantee that, Okay, yes, you’re going to be sponsored, you’re going to make it to America. It was just, You’re going to some island, may it be Indonesia, or Thailand, or Malaysia,—I don’t know, I’m not sure—but then from there, that’s where you’re hoping that you get sponsorships. So when they left, I don’t think they have an idea as to, Okay, I’m going to go to Texas or California. That just kind of like, We’ll see what happens when we get there. So when they got here, not knowing a word of English and not having a skill because they were young—so it was basically starting fresh in a new country, learning a new language, getting a new skill, so I would imagine that was very difficult. bananas ; Chinese ; English ; farming ; freedom ; language ; language learning ; poverty ; social class ; wealth 860 Role of churches and religion BRODY: Right. I would imagine. You mentioned about the sponsorships, that you were initially sponsored by a church. What role—did religion play a role in your family’s story in your integration or later on in your life? NGUYEN: No. I think the church was just to help us out, but it wasn’t like we were like, Okay, we’re Christian, or we’re Baptist, and therefore that we were selected because of that. I think they selected us knowing that we weren’t religious yet and all that. It was more of a—I want to say, like a—what is that term? Montessori? Yeah. Kind of like one of those organizations that’s just, Okay, we just want to help people out, and then giving them a chance to develop their own lives. church ; religion 916 Attending school in Mississippi and Texas BRODY: Okay. Let’s see. You were quite young, so you must’ve been in school, both in Mississippi and then in Texas. Can you tell me what you remember about being in school? NGUYEN: Yes. So obviously, I started out in elementary and not knowing any English. I remembered going to a school in Mississippi, and I thought it was just odd. For some reason, I have this memory of a milk carton. During recess, they gave out milk carton or something—this is way back then—and coming from Vietnam, we don’t drink milk. There’s no cows. Vietnam is just not a dairy country. So I remember not coping very well with that because I couldn’t drink milk, and I remember just being, I guess, frustrated because not knowing the language, not knowing how to communicate. And then in Vietnam, it wasn’t as structured like in the US. Like, for example, when I left, I want to say that I was already—even though at nine, I was in the fifth or sixth grade because, basically, in Vietnam or where I was, if you master a certain skill or whatever is required, you get to skip the class and you move on to the next class. I was higher than most kids my age, and then I remember going to Mississippi and start in the first grade, and I think my dad—even though it’s a different country, he was thinking it worked similarly in Vietnam. So somehow, he was talking to, I guess, a teacher or a principal or a translator, and he was asking to see if I could skip as well, (both laugh) and I think they were—they didn’t go for it at first, but because of—like, my math was more advanced. I was already doing multiplication and all that, and so they did let me skip second and I went to third, I think. Something like—I know I was able to skip one grade. Then we moved to Plano and I remember, once we got to live with my great-aunt, it was just—the opportunities that was kind of presented to me from my aunt was, “Oh, you’re going to have so much homework and you’re going to be carrying bunch of books,” and all that, which is—I know it sounds ironic, but it was like it was a good thing. It was just like an award to have that opportunity to do homework and carry a stacks of book this tall, because the way she was saying it, it wasn’t like, “Oh,” to scare you, but it was more of, “Oh, you’re not going to believe it. This is your opportunity.” For us, it was like—for education, it was really important. In Vietnam—I didn’t tell you this, but—only the rich or the well- off could afford education, but if you live on a farm or something, then you—I mean, school is not easily accessible, so you would have to walk for miles to go to school. I think in Vietnam, I remember having to walk through the farm, and trees, and forest, and all that to go to the school, so just the thought of hearing about, “Oh, yeah, you’ll be carrying stacks of books,” and all that, it was very rewarded—very welcoming. Like, “Oh my gosh! Really?” It was a gift. BRODY: Right. That didn’t scare you at all. NGUYEN: Yeah! Yeah. No. Uh-huh. BRODY: Once you did get to school, was there a lot of homework and a lot of books? NGUYEN: I think because I was in the oldest in my family of three girls, I’ve always been more mature than my sisters, and maybe because I was the oldest, I’ve always— from elementary through junior high, through high school and college, I was very independent and very education-focused. I always wanted to make sure I’m the head of the class, getting straight As. So it was more of—no one made me. I just kind of took that on by myself. communication ; dairy ; education ; elementary school ; English ; food ; homework ; language ; math ; milk ; milk cartons ; Mississippi ; opportunities ; schools ; social class ; studying ; success ; Texas 1260 Moving from Plano to Houston and back to North Texas BRODY: Did you stay in Plano for long? NGUYEN: Yes. I think we stayed for about two or three years, and then we moved to Houston. That was probably in 1984 or ’85. Then my grandparents, who—so when we left, it was just my immediate family—my dad and my two younger sisters and my mom—and then my grandparents—later on, they had other connections, and my aunt and my grandparents moved to Houston. So then, after living in Plano for two or three years, my grandparents were like, Okay, hey, there’s some opportunities here in Houston with a lot more Asian community, et cetera, so they told us—or they told my parents, “That, maybe, is a better opportunity for jobs and all that, if you guys want to come check out Houston.” Then we moved to Houston in ’84 or ’85, and I think we lived there for a few years. Yeah, two or three years. |00:22:19| BRODY: Yeah. And then you came back? Or— NGUYEN: Yes. Unfortunately, in Houston for two or three years, my parents got a divorce, and then—so my mom left with just us girls, went back to Plano, and then hooked up with her aunt again, the one—yeah. So then we lived in Plano here—I want to say, probably, in 1986 until I graduated high school in ’91. BRODY: And so you went to Plano schools, or— NGUYEN: I went—no. In Richardson. I went to Richardson High School. Um-hm. divorce ; Houston ; Plano ; Texas 1393 Attending high school in Richardson, Texas BRODY: Right. At that point when you came back, were there more Vietnamese students, or still pretty limited? NGUYEN: I think so, yes, because I think when I came back here, that’s where I met Dai, so it was a lot more—there were, I want to say—yeah. I know of at least three or probably five—at least five Vietnamese friends that were in my class, and then probably more a year ahead of me. And that’s where I met my husband, too, in Richardson High School. BRODY: Right. So there was a growing community, it sounds like. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Uh-huh. BRODY: I mean, did you have friends that were—did you mostly stick with the Vietnamese students, or did you have friends of all different races and ethnicities? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) We had friends of all different—yeah. There were— most—yeah. Several of my friends were Vietnamese, but it wasn’t like, Okay, I only hung around the Vietnamese group or something. diversity ; friendships ; high school ; Richardson ; Richardson, Texas ; Vietnamese students 1454 Cultural misunderstanding at sleep-away camp BRODY: Right. And so socially and academically, what do you remember about—were there any challenges or funny things that happened? NGUYEN: Yeah. Academically, I did very well. I think since second grade, I made straight As through high school, through college, et cetera. But there was one instance, for whatever reason, I remembered. It was camp—summer camp. Maybe that was, like, in the fifth grade, when—like my kids now—you get a chance to go off and—it wasn’t in the summer ; it was during the school year—but you get a chance to go off for two or three days with the other students. And there’s one story I remembered. In our country— this is kind of funny—but what I remembered, clothing-wise, we didn’t have specific clothing set for, like, pajamas ; certain things are for school or for summer and all that. I guess we were just lucky if you had clothes on your back, you know, so to me, at that young age, anything with a collar, I would remember it being, Okay, that’s dressy enough. So I remember one time during that summer camp—or school camp trip—I wore what’s considered to be a pajama set, but it had a collar, and for Vietnam, pajamas—if you have a collar, that’s too fancy! (Brody laughs) It can’t be pajamas! And so I never thought of it as being pajamas. I remember it being pink, but I didn’t wear the whole outfit. It was just the shirt and I’d wear a pant. But I remember wearing it, and then some kid made fun. It was like, “She’s wearing pajamas!” And so then it dawned on me that, Oh, okay, there is a difference. Just because it has collar doesn’t mean that it’s normal, regular, everyday clothes. BRODY: Right. So it was a cultural lesson. (laughs) NGUYEN: Yes! (laughs) So yeah, that’s kind of stuck with me somehow. clothing ; culture ; misunderstanding ; sleep-away camp ; teasing 1599 Learning English BRODY: How was your English learning process? Was it—what do you remember about that? NGUYEN: I think it was—I mean, when you were young, I think the younger you are, the easier it is, right? If you start—if you come here later in life, the language, the learning, the speaking of it, the pronunciation of it is harder because you have your way of pronouncing. Let’s say, if Vietnamese was your primary language, chances are you’re going to have an accent when you learn to speak English, but if you’re younger, then you become more fluent easier, so I didn’t have a hard time. I probably did at the very beginning. I’m sure I did, but it was—because I was too young to remember. I mean, I remember it wasn’t so hard that it created something that’s not—bad memories or anything like that. English ; English language ; language learning ; learning English 1670 Nguyen's mother's experiences adapting and working in the United States How about your mom? How was her language—her process? NGUYEN: My mom—for her, I think she missed out a lot because, even though she left when she was twenty-nine, and so that’s still young, right? Because when she got here, that’s probably around the same age when I finished college and got situated, got married, and had my firstborn, so I could imagine it was more difficult for my mom because she didn’t have an opportunity for education. As soon as we got here, it was just more of, okay, what can she do to provide for her family? So it was just—she went straight to the job market and trying to make a living for the family. I think she—so she worked as a cook for a country club, actually, in Richardson—the Richardson Canyon Creek Country Club—for, probably, about—at least ten years—ten, fifteen years. And then to make ends meet, she also—because her background, she knows how to sew, she’s a seamstress—she would sew as her other job. So she—until I was going to college, she probably had two jobs for at least ten, fifteen years. BRODY: Oh. As a single mom as well, that must’ve been a challenge. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Well, by then, she got remarried, so I have a stepdad. But still, she is probably one of the hardest, hardest working mom I know. cooking ; education ; employment ; food ; jobs ; seamstress ; sewing 1791 Living in Buckner Children's Home Did you stay—it sounds like you moved from Plano to Richardson. Did you—what was the housing situation? Did you move into a different apartment? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Okay. Yes. After my parents got divorced and we left Houston to move back to Plano and she reconnected with my great aunt, right? Being a single mom with three girls—by then I was in the seventh grade, and then my sister would be in the sixth grade, and then my youngest would’ve been, like, first grade or something—she didn’t have, I guess, enough or couldn’t provide enough for us, being a single mom. So there, my great-aunt said that there was an organization where they would help with the kids, but you would have to have the kids go stay in a children’s home—like a dorm or something. And so three of us—my two sisters and myself—we went and lived in Buckner Children’s Home. That’s off of—that’s on Buckner [Boulevard]. I remember it was extremely, extremely hard on my mom because she felt like, okay, she couldn’t take care of us, but my aunt convinced her that, “Okay, this is not long term. It could be just three months, it could be six months, just so you can get on your foot. And then once you have an apartment, get a job, or something, then you’ll get them back. But it’s hard for you to go to work, and then, the kids being so young, who’s going to watch them? Who’s going to take them to school, et cetera?” So she convinced my mom that this is probably the best opportunity for us kids. I think my mom agreed to it, and so my sisters and I went there, and my other two sisters stayed for a week. They couldn’t handle it. They were like, No. They didn’t want it. I think especially for my youngest sister, it was just hard because they grouped you by age so we couldn’t stay together. So the thought—my mom was like, the thought of my youngest sister—she’s five years younger than me, so I was in the seventh grade, she would be in, like, first or second grade, right? At that age, she’s like, “I can’t imagine her being by herself.” Even though we’d get to see her every day, we still can’t sleep with her and all that. So then my two sisters wanted to go home. Being the older one, I was like, “I think I could handle this and help my mom out,” and so I stayed and I lived in Buckner until, probably, about—almost three years ; sixth, seventh, eighth grade. I think I left in eighth grade. BRODY: Did they—what was the name of the organization that—do you remember? NGUYEN: Yeah. It was called Buckner Children’s Home. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Oh, that was—okay, so that was just who was running it. And then did they take to you school every day? NGUYEN: Yeah. So basically it is a—it’s almost like a little campus with, like, fifteen different dorms. There’s a girls’ dorm. There’s a boys’ dorm. There’s a big cafeteria. It’s almost like the little world. They have a church. And then in the morning, they’ll have a bus that would take us to the public school, and then they’ll bring us back home. They have a rec center, et cetera, so— BRODY: Do they take you to the school that you’re zoned for in your neighborhood where your mom was living? NGUYEN: Yeah. My mom was living—no. She could come and see me on the weekend, but my mom was going back to live with my aunt to help make a living. But then on the weekend, my mom would come visit me. BRODY: Okay. So your sisters went home, and then your mom could see them daily, but you were sticking it out in the children’s home. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think I just—I liked the structure of—because for whatever reason—I don’t know if it’s because when I left, I know the importance of education more than my younger sisters, so I appreciated it a lot more and I liked the structure of, “Okay, okay. This is what you do. From certain time, you go to school.” I actually was the one that volunteered, told my mom that I think I can give it a try and see how I’ll do. Yeah, so I stayed there about three years. BRODY: Did you develop a lot of friendships there? NGUYEN: Um-hm. Yeah. You basically live there in a dorm. It’s a two-story dorm, and you have what’s called a “house parent.” They’re kind of like your parents that would take care of you twenty-four seven. They’ll—on a daily basis, you get to make your phone calls to your family and all that. They—I lived with them and they became kind of like my parents. They’re my American parents. In fact, after I left, and even when I went to—years later—five, ten years later, going to high school and college, I would always go back to see them until they passed. They both passed. BRODY: Was it a religiously run group? NGUYEN: Um-hm. Yeah. It was run by a church. It was a Baptist church, and you would go to church every Wednesday and Sunday. BRODY: Were the other kids from all different backgrounds? NGUYEN: Um-hm. Yeah. There were, like, three other Vietnamese. It was just basically the same situation. It was more of, your parents are in trouble, or they don’t—they can’t afford, or let’s say, their parents—I don’t know—do drugs or something. It’s just a better place for the child. I guess it’s a better option than foster because you’re not living with a family. You’re living with other people a similar age, similar situation, and you’re being housed by a couple—a grandparent that actually live on that campus. Baptist ; Baptist Church ; Buckner Children's Home ; education ; housing ; orphanage ; refugees ; school https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/buckner-baptist-childrens-home Handbook of Texas entry for Buckner Children's Home 2255 Vietnamese identity and American identity BRODY: Yeah. That’s interesting. I’m thinking about your—how you think of yourself, then. You had a variety of different experiences, both because of the age that you were when you came, being so young, and then living in different parts of the country and different parts of Texas as well. When you think about your own identity, how do you see yourself? Do you think of yourself as Vietnamese or Vietnamese American? American? NGUYEN: I think—I feel like I’m very fortunate to have the lives of two worlds, because that’s one thing I feel really bad for my kids, because they only know this world here. I mean, yes, we took them back to Vietnam, but they don’t have the same appreciation, the same feeling or thoughts about Vietnam culture unless you really live it. So I feel like—I mean, even food and stuff, the authentic food and stuff—they don’t eat it or they don’t enjoy it like I do, so I feel like it’s more of a loss for them. I feel very privileged and fortunate to be a Vietnamese, but still have the opportunity that I have living in America. BRODY: It is—yeah, that’s true, that you’ve got two different cultures that you’re able to enjoy. NGUYEN: Yeah. But my kids, even though I try to explain it to them, I don’t think they—they will never grasp it. They’re like, Oh, no, I’m good. You know? (Brody laughs) Yeah. We don’t have the freedom, the luxury that they have now with video games and all that. But if I were to think back of what I had, just playing with chopsticks and balls, but just—I feel like my life is like a chapter—a book, right? I feel like it’s a lot more interesting, because I have all of these—than somebody like my kids, who just have just their version of it. Yeah. I know it sounds hard and probably bad, but to them, they’re okay. They’re like, Oh, no, I’m great. American identity ; culture ; food ; identity ; Vietnamese identity 2413 Generational differences in identity BRODY: Would you say you would think of your kids as American? And what does that mean? NGUYEN: I think they’re more Americanized than the traditional Vietnamese. Like, they’re a different generation than, let’s say, me and my husband. So even though we encourage them—in fact, when they were younger, it’s much easier when they were younger than now—to speak Vietnamese in the home because I want them, number one, to know their roots ; two, whenever you have more than one language, it’s so much better for you. So we basically either take them to a temple so they can continue to learn the Vietnamese language or force them to speak when they’re in the home—the Vietnamese. We’re like, Okay, when you’re at school, feel free, but once you get home, I don’t want you to talk English to grandma, grandpa, or me or dad. That was easier before they go to school. Then once they start being more fluent in school and with friends, we still have to remind them. I think now, my kids, even though they don’t speak it—or they—my oldest one does. He’s really good. He can actually read and write, but my youngest one, Maddison—she doesn’t speak it very well, but she understand everything. (both laugh) BRODY: Should be careful what you say. (laughs) NGUYEN: Right. Right. Yeah. She understands when I speak to her. In our family, we probably do both. In our family, we probably do both. We’ll combine English and Vietnamese all in one sentence. (laughs) Amerianized ; American identity ; culture ; language ; language learning ; Vietnamese identity ; Vietnamese language 2526 Meeting and marrying her high school sweetheart/Going to college at UNT and Texas A &amp ; M BRODY: You mentioned going back to Vietnam and taking the kids. What was that like, and what— NGUYEN: Oh, okay. My first trip to Vietnam was before the kids. Actually, my husband went first. So, I mentioned I met my husband in ’89, so we’re high school sweethearts. weeks after graduation was our wedding day. We planned our wedding—because the other thing about our culture that I’m really proud of—and even though I don’t have that same expectation as the current generation—my parents were extremely strict, and especially since my mom has three girls. Later on, my mom remarried, and so I have a stepdad who is still living near us here—but they were really strict, and they don’t believe in dating. There was no such thing as, Okay, you’re going to a movie, or a boyfriend kind of deal, so the only time my husband, now, got to see me, even when he was a senior and I was a junior, was him coming over to have dinner at our house. BRODY: With the family. NGUYEN: With the family, yes. So it was huge for me to go off to college. My mom always knew that I was very focused on education, so she was not going to be the person that’s stand in my way, so choosing the location of the school or all that was all me than my parents. And so my parents, being very strict—so they didn’t—they don’t believe in sex before marriage. (laughs) So even after we graduate high school, I remember my stepdad, now, have the “birds and the bees” talk with my husband, now, who was my boyfriend back then, and made him a promise that he—to keep me pure until we get married. And so we—two weeks after—so we planned our wedding that last semester, and I think probably the biggest accomplishment he and I ever done was basically— because his situation is similar to mine, but his is a little bit more difficult because he doesn’t have parents here. His parents were in Vietnam, so he kind of raised himself. He came here with his sister and his brothers, so he kind of raised himself—buying his own He’s a year ahead of me. He graduated in ’90, I graduated in ’91. And then he—even though we were young, I guess we’re a lot more mature than our kids at my age back then, so we knew that—or he knew that he wanted to marry me and that we would have our life together, so he waited a year until I graduated. He went to UNT [University of North Texas] for me to graduate, and then we both went to Texas A&amp ; M afterwards. And then, we graduated from A&amp ; M in ’95 at the same time, and I remember literally two weeks after graduation was our wedding day. We planned our wedding—because the other thing about our culture that I’m really proud of—and even though I don’t have that same expectation as the current generation—my parents were extremely strict, and especially since my mom has three girls. Later on, my mom remarried, and so I have a stepdad who is still living near us here—but they were really strict, and they don’t believe in dating. There was no such thing as, Okay, you’re going to a movie, or a boyfriend kind of deal, so the only time my husband, now, got to see me, even when he was a senior and I was a junior, was him coming over to have dinner at our house. BRODY: With the family. NGUYEN: With the family, yes. So it was huge for me to go off to college. My mom always knew that I was very focused on education, so she was not going to be the person that’s stand in my way, so choosing the location of the school or all that was all me than my parents. And so my parents, being very strict—so they didn’t—they don’t believe in sex before marriage. (laughs) So even after we graduate high school, I remember my stepdad, now, have the “birds and the bees” talk with my husband, now, who was my boyfriend back then, and made him a promise that he—to keep me pure until we get married. And so we—two weeks after—so we planned our wedding that last semester, and I think probably the biggest accomplishment he and I ever done was basically— because his situation is similar to mine, but his is a little bit more difficult because he doesn’t have parents here. His parents were in Vietnam, so he kind of raised himself. He came here with his sister and his brothers, so he kind of raised himself—buying his own car, going to his own sport events at school and all that, or paying for his own insurance. Even when we were in high school, he was working at 7-Eleven on the weekend just for cash so he can pay for insurance for his car, gas, and all that. And even at that age, for Richardson High School, he was paying for my lunch every day, so he was already kind of taking care of me. So we went to college together and, sure enough, he kept his promise. (laughs) So we—I live in my own apartment with my roommates, he has his roommates, and we got married two weeks after graduation, and, yes, in the traditional Vietnamese ceremony. college ; culture ; dating ; high school ; marriage ; parenting ; Vietnamese culture ; wedding 2807 Traditional Vietnamese wedding ceremony BRODY: What was that ceremony like? NGUYEN: The traditional Vietnamese is very—it’s a long thing. It’s not just, you go to church for the ceremony, that’s it. It’s like—well, first, there’s an engagement ceremony. For our culture, you only—not only are you marrying each other, you’re marrying the family, so the family is very involved. So even with the engagement, you have a ceremony where the groom’s side comes over to the bride’s side to request for a hand in marriage, and they bring gifts and all that. And then a year later, we got married. It’s same thing there. They basically—everybody from the groom’s side drive over, present gifts. We have our own ceremony, either at home or at the temple, pay your respect to your ancestors, and then you exchange your vows there, et cetera. And then, at night’s when they have the reception for all the guest. BRODY: The party, right? NGUYEN: Yes. Uh-huh. BRODY: Did you have a big party? NGUYEN: Yeah! (laughs) When—because we got married to weeks after graduation, we didn’t have our jobs yet, so I would say that probably the biggest accomplishment both of us did was we paid for our college ourself, because our parents weren’t well off. We paid for the wedding ourself—well, with the help of some student loans, towards the end. (laughs) In fact, that last semester, Chad borrowed a student loan to buy the ring! (laughs) Yeah. And I was also very fortunate. Even when I was in high school, I was applying scholarships everywhere, so I paid for myself through college by way of scholarships. But I think that’s probably our biggest accomplishment is, like, we got—we kind of set everything up for ourselves for what we have. ceremony ; college ; engagement ; families ; family ; gifts ; ritual ; traditions ; Vietnamese customs ; wedding 2938 Career in accounting BRODY: That sounds like you worked really hard to do things on your terms and do things the way you wanted to. That’s impressive. Your story is really interesting because you’ve gone through so many different things and seen so many different types of people. Along the way, did you ever have any experience with what you perceived to be discrimination or racism? Was that something that you encountered? NGUYEN: Fortunately, I haven’t encountered anything major, but maybe some in the work place, but being— BRODY: Where do you work? What type of work do you do? NGUYEN: I have a degree in accounting from A&amp ; M, and my husband has an electrical engineering. My first job after I left A&amp ; M, we moved to Houston. He had a job at Compaq Computer, which is now HP [Hewlett Packard], and because of my always ambitious—I always wanted to work for the best of the best, and so my first job out of college—and this is way before all this happened, but I don’t know if you know, but—so my first job was with Enron, (laughs) which was before all this happened. In fact, when I worked for them for three years and until I had my baby in ’99, and that’s when we literally dropped everything and we moved back home to Dallas. And then, 2001 or whenever, that’s when the Enron collapsed and all that. In fact, I let—it was just like the Titanic sank. No one knew. I mean, I even left the majority of my 401k in the Enron fund and probably lost all of it. BRODY: Wow. NGUYEN: So no, it was horrible, but I was fortunate in that there were people I knew that were close to retiring that lost, like, half a million dollars—everything. BRODY: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. NGUYEN: Yeah. It was just—yeah. It was just so crazy when I heard all that happen, when I was here in Dallas. accounting ; career ; discrimination ; Enron ; Houston ; racism 3086 Returning to Dallas after having first baby BRODY: Wow. So you came back to Dallas after having the baby and— NGUYEN: Yes. BRODY: What was driving that decision? NGUYEN: Okay, so I guess being—having your firstborn, it’s probably the most important thing in life. He’s like our little prince, (Brody laughs) because all of our families—even though we graduated and moved to Houston, all of my family and Chad’s family—which is his sisters and brothers—are here in Dallas. We wanted family member to take care of Sean, and we couldn’t imagine a stranger taking care of him. So as soon as he got a job transfer, we literally picked up our clothes. We left the house. We didn’t even have it sold. We took our clothes and we moved back home, here, to Dallas, just so we can have somebody take care of Sean when I found a job. In fact, I didn’t even have a job yet, but I knew that I could find a job and sure enough, I found it in a month or so, when I got here. childcare ; culture ; Dallas ; employment ; family ; Houston ; jobs 3162 Engagement with Vietnamese community Have you tried to stay in contact with or engaged with the larger Vietnamese community outside your family? NGUYEN: Here, it’s mostly more family. There are some organizations, but we’re not as active just because there’s just so—we’re so busy with our own families. Yes. I mean, yeah, after that, then I had my other two kids. It was just—I think we become more of your typical—not just Vietnamese, but just a family, a married family with kids that has sports and just kids activities and stuff. So it wasn’t like, “Okay, because I’m Vietnamese, I’m going to go to this organization, et cetera.” It was just—we’re raised and we live as if we’re a typical family. BRODY: Yeah. Do you—when you think about—though you’re not particularly involved with the Vietnamese community in general, because you’re doing family things and you’re a busy family, when you think about the Vietnamese community in North Texas, what are some words that come to mind? NGUYEN: I think there’s a lot more, I guess—a lot more Vietnamese networking or association in Houston than in Dallas. I think the way Dallas is structured is so spread out, whereas Houston, it’s more in the southwest Bellaire area, so there’s a lot more activities or organization in the Houston for the Vietnamese community than here in Dallas. BRODY: Do you think that the Vietnamese community in Dallas, maybe, is more spread out and sort of in their own communities— NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Right. Unless it’s, like, temple or religion related, I don’t think they have a—yeah, it’s not very close-knit here. Dallas ; Houston ; networking ; parenting ; religion ; temple ; Vietnamese community 3301 Engagement with politics BRODY: Right. So a different sort of integration it sounds like. And that makes me think about your—are you engaged with politics, either—some people have said that they keep a close eye on politics in Vietnam and also in the United States. Is that something that you see as something that you’re interested in? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) I think my parents are more into it, because I left when I was such a young age so I would just hear it, but I’m not more of, okay, following it as much as my parents are. BRODY: Right. And what about American politics? NGUYEN: Same thing there. I mean, I just go based on the platforms. I mean, I don’t— I’m not like, Okay, I’m pro-Republican, and I’m pro-Democrat. So it’s just what we feel is the best choice for the generation. politics 3355 What does it mean to be American?/What does it mean to be Vietnamese? BRODY: Right. And here’s—as we kind of get to the end of our conversation here, I want to ask you a couple of questions. What do you think it means to be American, whether you’re thinking about yourself or your kids or just in general? NGUYEN: Okay. To be an American, to me, means opportunities and freedom, a lot. I feel like you get—you have so many options here. You get to pick what you want to study. You get to pick what you want to do. But at the same time, it’s also because of too much freedom, I feel like things—you take a lot of things for granted, so it’s pros and cons. While it’s a great country for opportunities and to have a better life and all that, sometimes I feel like that same freedom or that luxury prevents you from appreciation for what you do have. BRODY: Yeah. I understand what you mean. And what does it mean to you to be Vietnamese? NGUYEN: Vietnamese, to me, is being respectful to my roots, the heritage, being open to choice to be all American or Japanese or any—I don’t think I would ever change that. I think things are meant for a reason, and I’m fortunate to have that combo where I appreciate and have the respect of the culture but, at the same time, the opportunities, the options, the freedom of the future. BRODY: That’s really nice. Thank you for sharing that. Is there anything else that I didn’t ask you that you’d like to share in this interview, or think that I should know about the subject? NGUYEN: I don’t think so. I think we talked about pretty much everything from my childhood, to school, to where I’m at today with my kids and all that. I think it’s just—at the end of the day, it’s just living—regardless of what nationality you are—just living righteously and hoping that you embed that in your children. BRODY: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. It was a beautiful story and I really am honored to have a chance to record this for this collection, so thank you so much. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) You’re welcome. Sure. If there’s any other questions that we probably didn’t cover or something, feel free to call me and— BRODY: I will. Thank you. NGUYEN: Uh-huh. American identity ; culture ; freedom ; heritage ; opportunities ; opportunity ; Vietnamese identity Baylor University Institute for Oral History Tina Trang Nguyen Oral History Memoir Interview Number 1 Interviewed by Betsy T. Brody June 1, 2019 Murphy, Texas Project -- Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans: The Making of the Vietnamese Community in North Texas BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is June 1, 2019. I am interviewing, for the first time, Ms. Tina Nguyen. This interview is taking place at Ms. Nguyen&#039 ; s house in Murphy, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the &quot ; Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans&quot ; project. Thank you so much, Tina, for joining me for this interview. Just to get started, can you tell me about your life in Vietnam? |00:00:27| NGUYEN: Sure. I left Vietnam when I was about nine years old with a family group of twenty. (laughs) BRODY: Wow. That&#039 ; s a large group. NGUYEN: Yeah. So it&#039 ; s with my grandparents, and they were Chinese and half- Vietnamese. There were twenty of them, so it&#039 ; s everybody on my dad&#039 ; s side of the family. My grandparents and all their kids and their wives and their kids came along. So that means my mom--she left her whole family behind--so, like, her mother, her sisters, and brothers were behind. She came with us, and she was at the age of twenty-nine when she left. Because the family was so large, when we got to America, we split up ten and ten due to sponsorship. There&#039 ; s no one--no organization or church--that was able to sponsor a full twenty, so they could do, like, a ten-ten, so ten went to California, and ten went to Mississippi. But my story is, because I was half-Chinese or half-Vietnamese, it wasn&#039 ; t like I left secretly by a boat or something. My grandparents, because of their nationality, Chinese, and they were a little bit well off, they were able to pay, I guess, for our way to come to American by gold. I heard, like, a bar of gold for--I don&#039 ; t even know how much per person, or whatever. |00:02:23| BRODY: Who were they paying to? NGUYEN: I guess it&#039 ; s just the association? I&#039 ; m not sure because I was very young. But it&#039 ; s just, basically, you pay your way for a chance at freedom, not knowing. We did come by boat, but it wasn&#039 ; t like a secret way where we had to sneak out in the middle of the night. We had a designated date, a time to say goodbye to family, et cetera, and then the next morning, people were--I remember waving to my maternal grandmother side of the family and all that. So we went on a boat. I want to say about 180 people were on this small boat, and just based on what I remembered, it was very crowded and what was brought on the boat for food was ramen noodles. I remember just eating ramen noodles from a canister. And I think after, maybe, three or four days--my timing could be way off. I don&#039 ; t know, because I was so young--I think we landed in Indonesia. I think the city was called Galang and we stayed there for about nine months. They set up a camp, I guess--a refugee camp, and from what I remembered, it was more like a large cabin that would house about, maybe, twenty or thirty people in each cabin, and there&#039 ; s several cabins. And in the cabin, you basically--for each family, there&#039 ; s a big, large platform like a bed or something, so probably the size of a ten-by-ten or something, and that&#039 ; s basically your house. So we would have a roof over our head with that platform with just that wooden board, and then for food and stuff, I think you--we had to go get water. I remember going and they have water that is allocated out. You can&#039 ; t just get what you want. Each family have a certain amount, and you have to line up to get the water. The same thing with food ; they have allocated amount of sardines in a can, so I remember eating sardines with rice in a can, like, every single day. That was what we--that was just your allocated amount. We were there, and then once we were settled, then my mom got a job with the Indonesian people who had restaurants, and she was also a seamstress, so she was able to work for some small mom-and-pop shop to make clothes and-- |00:05:42| BRODY: There in Indonesia still? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Uh-huh. BRODY: Okay. So as part of the camp, there was a business stream as well? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. So--no. The weird thing is, I think, from what I remember--so the camp is on one side, and then I remember you have to travel by a small boat just to get to the other side of the island, I think, but--so the other side is more industrialized, whereas where we stayed--I mean, there weren&#039 ; t any buildings. There weren&#039 ; t any kind of businesses. It was just the refugee camp. And then, you take a little boat ride across--that&#039 ; s probably, like, thirty minutes, forty minutes or something, and it&#039 ; s just like a totally different world with businesses, restaurants, and stuff, whereas where we stayed didn&#039 ; t have any of that. Right. There were no restaurants. BRODY: (both speaking at once) No--okay. Just living spaces. NGUYEN: Exactly. Yep. And by way of making money, I think my mom or my dad somehow was talking to an Indonesian family, and somehow they came up with an opportunity for me, at the age of nine, to kind of live with this family that owns a restaurant, and I would help around the house or around the restaurant by washing dishes or something. It was those--it was just a combination of both. It&#039 ; s just a little amount of money or whatever the child can bring in at the time, and then more importantly, just an opportunity to blend in and make way of life for myself and then for the family as well. I think that probably occurred for nine months or so. And I remember at one point, they had--this family with a restaurant--they had sons of, like, fifteen, sixteen years old, and when it was time for us to get sponsored to go to Mississippi--Houston, Mississippi--I remember the story was, they offered my parent to see if they would be willing to let me stay and marry one of their sons! (laughs) |00:08:17| BRODY: Oh my goodness! (laughs) You were nine years old! NGUYEN: I know! (laughs) Yes. Of course, my mom said no, (both laugh) thank you. Well, no, we never took that opportunity. Then after nine months to a year in Indonesia, then we were sponsored. Like I said earlier, ten of us were sponsored in Houston or Jackson, Mississippi, by a church group. That was my grandparents, my dad, my two younger sisters, and my mom, so we, immediately, has a family of five, and then, my grandparent had one, two, three, four aunts, right? Four aunts. And--yeah, maybe three aunts, and then my grandparents--I know that the total, including the five of us, was ten. And then the rest of the family, which includes my oldest aunt and my uncle, went to Los Angeles, California, so they were sponsored by another organization. And so we lived in Mississippi for about a year or so, and I remembered they sponsored and gave us a house that would--that was big enough for all ten of us in there. By way of occupation, I remember my parents having to do lawn work, and I remember back then, it was huge just to make--I want to say--is it three dollar an hour, or maybe--yeah, maybe three dollar an hour? But they were doing kind of lawn care work, and we kind of blend in and go to church, and we stayed there for about a year. Then my mom found out she has an aunt that lives in Plano, Texas, so then she got into contact with her aunt, which is now my great-aunt, and they helped us--or sponsored us to come and live in Plano. So we made the drive--it was, like, thirteen hour drive from Mississippi to Plano--with my dad, and then we just got situated in Plano and lived there for a couple years. |00:11:17| BRODY: Did you live with your aunt? NGUYEN: Yes. We lived with my aunt for--or my great-aunt, rather, for about a year or so, and then she got jobs for my mom and my dad, which was to be a cook, like, at a Denny&#039 ; s or something. Once my parents got jobs, then we moved into an apartment. So they--we kind of got situated and lived on our own after that. |00:11:54| BRODY: What did your parents do in terms of work in Vietnam? NGUYEN: My dad, because of his heritage--his being half-Chinese--and my Chinese grandparents on the paternal side were well-off. They had a business and it was a shoe shop. And my mom was more on the--kind of like, my mom&#039 ; s side was more on the poor side, so she was more on the farming side. I remembered them going to sell stacked up loads of bananas on a boat and leaving in the middle of the night--yeah, collecting all the bananas and selling them. BRODY: So really different than what they ended up doing when they got here. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Uh-huh. BRODY: Yeah. Do you remember what that transition was like for them, to go from what they had been doing both in Vietnam, and then later in Mississippi, to working as cooks? NGUYEN: It was probably very difficult because, number one, they knew that they were leaving for freedom, better life for the kids, but basically, it was just the unknown because when we left, there was no guarantee that, Okay, yes, you&#039 ; re going to be sponsored, you&#039 ; re going to make it to America. It was just, You&#039 ; re going to some island, may it be Indonesia, or Thailand, or Malaysia,--I don&#039 ; t know, I&#039 ; m not sure--but then from there, that&#039 ; s where you&#039 ; re hoping that you get sponsorships. So when they left, I don&#039 ; t think they have an idea as to, Okay, I&#039 ; m going to go to Texas or California. That just kind of like, We&#039 ; ll see what happens when we get there. So when they got here, not knowing a word of English and not having a skill because they were young--so it was basically starting fresh in a new country, learning a new language, getting a new skill, so I would imagine that was very difficult. |00:14:17| BRODY: Right. I would imagine. You mentioned about the sponsorships, that you were initially sponsored by a church. What role--did religion play a role in your family&#039 ; s story in your integration or later on in your life? NGUYEN: No. I think the church was just to help us out, but it wasn&#039 ; t like we were like, Okay, we&#039 ; re Christian, or we&#039 ; re Baptist, and therefore that we were selected because of that. I think they selected us knowing that we weren&#039 ; t religious yet and all that. It was more of a--I want to say, like a--what is that term? Montessori? Yeah. Kind of like one of those organizations that&#039 ; s just, Okay, we just want to help people out, and then giving them a chance to develop their own lives. |00:15:16| BRODY: Okay. Let&#039 ; s see. You were quite young, so you must&#039 ; ve been in school, both in Mississippi and then in Texas. Can you tell me what you remember about being in school? NGUYEN: Yes. So obviously, I started out in elementary and not knowing any English. I remembered going to a school in Mississippi, and I thought it was just odd. For some reason, I have this memory of a milk carton. During recess, they gave out milk carton or something--this is way back then--and coming from Vietnam, we don&#039 ; t drink milk. There&#039 ; s no cows. Vietnam is just not a dairy country. So I remember not coping very well with that because I couldn&#039 ; t drink milk, and I remember just being, I guess, frustrated because not knowing the language, not knowing how to communicate. And then in Vietnam, it wasn&#039 ; t as structured like in the US. Like, for example, when I left, I want to say that I was already--even though at nine, I was in the fifth or sixth grade because, basically, in Vietnam or where I was, if you master a certain skill or whatever is required, you get to skip the class and you move on to the next class. I was higher than most kids my age, and then I remember going to Mississippi and start in the first grade, and I think my dad--even though it&#039 ; s a different country, he was thinking it worked similarly in Vietnam. So somehow, he was talking to, I guess, a teacher or a principal or a translator, and he was asking to see if I could skip as well, (both laugh) and I think they were--they didn&#039 ; t go for it at first, but because of--like, my math was more advanced. I was already doing multiplication and all that, and so they did let me skip second and I went to third, I think. Something like--I know I was able to skip one grade. Then we moved to Plano and I remember, once we got to live with my great-aunt, it was just--the opportunities that was kind of presented to me from my aunt was, &quot ; Oh, you&#039 ; re going to have so much homework and you&#039 ; re going to be carrying bunch of books,&quot ; and all that, which is--I know it sounds ironic, but it was like it was a good thing. It was just like an award to have that opportunity to do homework and carry a stacks of book this tall, because the way she was saying it, it wasn&#039 ; t like, &quot ; Oh,&quot ; to scare you, but it was more of, &quot ; Oh, you&#039 ; re not going to believe it. This is your opportunity.&quot ; For us, it was like--for education, it was really important. In Vietnam--I didn&#039 ; t tell you this, but--only the rich or the well- off could afford education, but if you live on a farm or something, then you--I mean, school is not easily accessible, so you would have to walk for miles to go to school. I think in Vietnam, I remember having to walk through the farm, and trees, and forest, and all that to go to the school, so just the thought of hearing about, &quot ; Oh, yeah, you&#039 ; ll be carrying stacks of books,&quot ; and all that, it was very rewarded--very welcoming. Like, &quot ; Oh my gosh! Really?&quot ; It was a gift. BRODY: Right. That didn&#039 ; t scare you at all. NGUYEN: Yeah! Yeah. No. Uh-huh. |00:19:27| BRODY: Once you did get to school, was there a lot of homework and a lot of books? NGUYEN: I think because I was in the oldest in my family of three girls, I&#039 ; ve always been more mature than my sisters, and maybe because I was the oldest, I&#039 ; ve always-- from elementary through junior high, through high school and college, I was very independent and very education-focused. I always wanted to make sure I&#039 ; m the head of the class, getting straight As. So it was more of--no one made me. I just kind of took that on by myself. BRODY: You have two sisters, you&#039 ; ve mentioned? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. BRODY: And they&#039 ; re younger. So were you all in the same school? NGUYEN: Yes. Uh-huh. BRODY: Were there other--besides yourself and your sisters, were there a lot of other Vietnamese kids in the school? NGUYEN: Not very many at all back then in Plano. I mean, probably less than a handful. I don&#039 ; t--yeah. I remember having one best friend in Plano, which I wish, somehow, I could find her again, but yeah, her name was Ha Le and she was in Plano in (??) Elementary School. |00:21:02| BRODY: Did you stay in Plano for long? NGUYEN: Yes. I think we stayed for about two or three years, and then we moved to Houston. That was probably in 1984 or &#039 ; 85. Then my grandparents, who--so when we left, it was just my immediate family--my dad and my two younger sisters and my mom--and then my grandparents--later on, they had other connections, and my aunt and my grandparents moved to Houston. So then, after living in Plano for two or three years, my grandparents were like, Okay, hey, there&#039 ; s some opportunities here in Houston with a lot more Asian community, et cetera, so they told us--or they told my parents, &quot ; That, maybe, is a better opportunity for jobs and all that, if you guys want to come check out Houston.&quot ; Then we moved to Houston in &#039 ; 84 or &#039 ; 85, and I think we lived there for a few years. Yeah, two or three years. |00:22:19| BRODY: Yeah. And then you came back? Or-- NGUYEN: Yes. Unfortunately, in Houston for two or three years, my parents got a divorce, and then--so my mom left with just us girls, went back to Plano, and then hooked up with her aunt again, the one--yeah. So then we lived in Plano here--I want to say, probably, in 1986 until I graduated high school in &#039 ; 91. BRODY: And so you went to Plano schools, or-- NGUYEN: I went--no. In Richardson. I went to Richardson High School. Um-hm. |00:23:13| BRODY: Right. At that point when you came back, were there more Vietnamese students, or still pretty limited? NGUYEN: I think so, yes, because I think when I came back here, that&#039 ; s where I met Dai, so it was a lot more--there were, I want to say--yeah. I know of at least three or probably five--at least five Vietnamese friends that were in my class, and then probably more a year ahead of me. And that&#039 ; s where I met my husband, too, in Richardson High School. BRODY: Right. So there was a growing community, it sounds like. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Uh-huh. BRODY: I mean, did you have friends that were--did you mostly stick with the Vietnamese students, or did you have friends of all different races and ethnicities? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) We had friends of all different--yeah. There were-- most--yeah. Several of my friends were Vietnamese, but it wasn&#039 ; t like, Okay, I only hung around the Vietnamese group or something. |00:24:12| BRODY: Right. And so socially and academically, what do you remember about--were there any challenges or funny things that happened? NGUYEN: Yeah. Academically, I did very well. I think since second grade, I made straight As through high school, through college, et cetera. But there was one instance, for whatever reason, I remembered. It was camp--summer camp. Maybe that was, like, in the fifth grade, when--like my kids now--you get a chance to go off and--it wasn&#039 ; t in the summer ; it was during the school year--but you get a chance to go off for two or three days with the other students. And there&#039 ; s one story I remembered. In our country-- this is kind of funny--but what I remembered, clothing-wise, we didn&#039 ; t have specific clothing set for, like, pajamas ; certain things are for school or for summer and all that. I guess we were just lucky if you had clothes on your back, you know, so to me, at that young age, anything with a collar, I would remember it being, Okay, that&#039 ; s dressy enough. So I remember one time during that summer camp--or school camp trip--I wore what&#039 ; s considered to be a pajama set, but it had a collar, and for Vietnam, pajamas--if you have a collar, that&#039 ; s too fancy! (Brody laughs) It can&#039 ; t be pajamas! And so I never thought of it as being pajamas. I remember it being pink, but I didn&#039 ; t wear the whole outfit. It was just the shirt and I&#039 ; d wear a pant. But I remember wearing it, and then some kid made fun. It was like, &quot ; She&#039 ; s wearing pajamas!&quot ; And so then it dawned on me that, Oh, okay, there is a difference. Just because it has collar doesn&#039 ; t mean that it&#039 ; s normal, regular, everyday clothes. BRODY: Right. So it was a cultural lesson. (laughs) NGUYEN: Yes! (laughs) So yeah, that&#039 ; s kind of stuck with me somehow. |00:26:34| BRODY: That&#039 ; s a funny story. So it sounds like you did really well academically. How was your English learning process? Was it--what do you remember about that? NGUYEN: I think it was--I mean, when you were young, I think the younger you are, the easier it is, right? If you start--if you come here later in life, the language, the learning, the speaking of it, the pronunciation of it is harder because you have your way of pronouncing. Let&#039 ; s say, if Vietnamese was your primary language, chances are you&#039 ; re going to have an accent when you learn to speak English, but if you&#039 ; re younger, then you become more fluent easier, so I didn&#039 ; t have a hard time. I probably did at the very beginning. I&#039 ; m sure I did, but it was--because I was too young to remember. I mean, I remember it wasn&#039 ; t so hard that it created something that&#039 ; s not--bad memories or anything like that. |00:27:46| BRODY: Right. Not particularly stressful. How about your mom? How was her language--her process? NGUYEN: My mom--for her, I think she missed out a lot because, even though she left when she was twenty-nine, and so that&#039 ; s still young, right? Because when she got here, that&#039 ; s probably around the same age when I finished college and got situated, got married, and had my firstborn, so I could imagine it was more difficult for my mom because she didn&#039 ; t have an opportunity for education. As soon as we got here, it was just more of, okay, what can she do to provide for her family? So it was just--she went straight to the job market and trying to make a living for the family. I think she--so she worked as a cook for a country club, actually, in Richardson--the Richardson Canyon Creek Country Club--for, probably, about--at least ten years--ten, fifteen years. And then to make ends meet, she also--because her background, she knows how to sew, she&#039 ; s a seamstress--she would sew as her other job. So she--until I was going to college, she probably had two jobs for at least ten, fifteen years. BRODY: Oh. As a single mom as well, that must&#039 ; ve been a challenge. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Well, by then, she got remarried, so I have a stepdad. But still, she is probably one of the hardest, hardest working mom I know. |00:29:43| BRODY: It sounds like she really worked hard to make things work out for the family and to survive. Did you stay--it sounds like you moved from Plano to Richardson. Did you--what was the housing situation? Did you move into a different apartment? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Okay. Yes. After my parents got divorced and we left Houston to move back to Plano and she reconnected with my great aunt, right? Being a single mom with three girls--by then I was in the seventh grade, and then my sister would be in the sixth grade, and then my youngest would&#039 ; ve been, like, first grade or something--she didn&#039 ; t have, I guess, enough or couldn&#039 ; t provide enough for us, being a single mom. So there, my great-aunt said that there was an organization where they would help with the kids, but you would have to have the kids go stay in a children&#039 ; s home--like a dorm or something. And so three of us--my two sisters and myself--we went and lived in Buckner Children&#039 ; s Home. That&#039 ; s off of--that&#039 ; s on Buckner [Boulevard]. I remember it was extremely, extremely hard on my mom because she felt like, okay, she couldn&#039 ; t take care of us, but my aunt convinced her that, &quot ; Okay, this is not long term. It could be just three months, it could be six months, just so you can get on your foot. And then once you have an apartment, get a job, or something, then you&#039 ; ll get them back. But it&#039 ; s hard for you to go to work, and then, the kids being so young, who&#039 ; s going to watch them? Who&#039 ; s going to take them to school, et cetera?&quot ; So she convinced my mom that this is probably the best opportunity for us kids. I think my mom agreed to it, and so my sisters and I went there, and my other two sisters stayed for a week. They couldn&#039 ; t handle it. They were like, No. They didn&#039 ; t want it. I think especially for my youngest sister, it was just hard because they grouped you by age so we couldn&#039 ; t stay together. So the thought--my mom was like, the thought of my youngest sister--she&#039 ; s five years younger than me, so I was in the seventh grade, she would be in, like, first or second grade, right? At that age, she&#039 ; s like, &quot ; I can&#039 ; t imagine her being by herself.&quot ; Even though we&#039 ; d get to see her every day, we still can&#039 ; t sleep with her and all that. So then my two sisters wanted to go home. Being the older one, I was like, &quot ; I think I could handle this and help my mom out,&quot ; and so I stayed and I lived in Buckner until, probably, about--almost three years ; sixth, seventh, eighth grade. I think I left in eighth grade. |00:33:34| BRODY: Did they--what was the name of the organization that--do you remember? NGUYEN: Yeah. It was called Buckner Children&#039 ; s Home. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Oh, that was--okay, so that was just who was running it. And then did they take to you school every day? NGUYEN: Yeah. So basically it is a--it&#039 ; s almost like a little campus with, like, fifteen different dorms. There&#039 ; s a girls&#039 ; dorm. There&#039 ; s a boys&#039 ; dorm. There&#039 ; s a big cafeteria. It&#039 ; s almost like the little world. They have a church. And then in the morning, they&#039 ; ll have a bus that would take us to the public school, and then they&#039 ; ll bring us back home. They have a rec center, et cetera, so-- BRODY: Do they take you to the school that you&#039 ; re zoned for in your neighborhood where your mom was living? NGUYEN: Yeah. My mom was living--no. She could come and see me on the weekend, but my mom was going back to live with my aunt to help make a living. But then on the weekend, my mom would come visit me. BRODY: Okay. So your sisters went home, and then your mom could see them daily, but you were sticking it out in the children&#039 ; s home. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think I just--I liked the structure of--because for whatever reason--I don&#039 ; t know if it&#039 ; s because when I left, I know the importance of education more than my younger sisters, so I appreciated it a lot more and I liked the structure of, &quot ; Okay, okay. This is what you do. From certain time, you go to school.&quot ; I actually was the one that volunteered, told my mom that I think I can give it a try and see how I&#039 ; ll do. Yeah, so I stayed there about three years. |00:35:29| BRODY: Did you develop a lot of friendships there? NGUYEN: Um-hm. Yeah. You basically live there in a dorm. It&#039 ; s a two-story dorm, and you have what&#039 ; s called a &quot ; house parent.&quot ; They&#039 ; re kind of like your parents that would take care of you twenty-four seven. They&#039 ; ll--on a daily basis, you get to make your phone calls to your family and all that. They--I lived with them and they became kind of like my parents. They&#039 ; re my American parents. In fact, after I left, and even when I went to--years later--five, ten years later, going to high school and college, I would always go back to see them until they passed. They both passed. BRODY: Was it a religiously run group? NGUYEN: Um-hm. Yeah. It was run by a church. It was a Baptist church, and you would go to church every Wednesday and Sunday. BRODY: Were the other kids from all different backgrounds? NGUYEN: Um-hm. Yeah. There were, like, three other Vietnamese. It was just basically the same situation. It was more of, your parents are in trouble, or they don&#039 ; t--they can&#039 ; t afford, or let&#039 ; s say, their parents--I don&#039 ; t know--do drugs or something. It&#039 ; s just a better place for the child. I guess it&#039 ; s a better option than foster because you&#039 ; re not living with a family. You&#039 ; re living with other people a similar age, similar situation, and you&#039 ; re being housed by a couple--a grandparent that actually live on that campus. |00:37:34| BRODY: Yeah. That&#039 ; s interesting. I&#039 ; m thinking about your--how you think of yourself, then. You had a variety of different experiences, both because of the age that you were when you came, being so young, and then living in different parts of the country and different parts of Texas as well. When you think about your own identity, how do you see yourself? Do you think of yourself as Vietnamese or Vietnamese American? American? NGUYEN: I think--I feel like I&#039 ; m very fortunate to have the lives of two worlds, because that&#039 ; s one thing I feel really bad for my kids, because they only know this world here. I mean, yes, we took them back to Vietnam, but they don&#039 ; t have the same appreciation, the same feeling or thoughts about Vietnam culture unless you really live it. So I feel like--I mean, even food and stuff, the authentic food and stuff--they don&#039 ; t eat it or they don&#039 ; t enjoy it like I do, so I feel like it&#039 ; s more of a loss for them. I feel very privileged and fortunate to be a Vietnamese, but still have the opportunity that I have living in America. BRODY: It is--yeah, that&#039 ; s true, that you&#039 ; ve got two different cultures that you&#039 ; re able to enjoy. NGUYEN: Yeah. But my kids, even though I try to explain it to them, I don&#039 ; t think they--they will never grasp it. They&#039 ; re like, Oh, no, I&#039 ; m good. You know? (Brody laughs) Yeah. We don&#039 ; t have the freedom, the luxury that they have now with video games and all that. But if I were to think back of what I had, just playing with chopsticks and balls, but just--I feel like my life is like a chapter--a book, right? I feel like it&#039 ; s a lot more interesting, because I have all of these--than somebody like my kids, who just have just their version of it. Yeah. I know it sounds hard and probably bad, but to them, they&#039 ; re okay. They&#039 ; re like, Oh, no, I&#039 ; m great. |00:40:12| BRODY: Would you say you would think of your kids as American? And what does that mean? NGUYEN: I think they&#039 ; re more Americanized than the traditional Vietnamese. Like, they&#039 ; re a different generation than, let&#039 ; s say, me and my husband. So even though we encourage them--in fact, when they were younger, it&#039 ; s much easier when they were younger than now--to speak Vietnamese in the home because I want them, number one, to know their roots ; two, whenever you have more than one language, it&#039 ; s so much better for you. So we basically either take them to a temple so they can continue to learn the Vietnamese language or force them to speak when they&#039 ; re in the home--the Vietnamese. We&#039 ; re like, Okay, when you&#039 ; re at school, feel free, but once you get home, I don&#039 ; t want you to talk English to grandma, grandpa, or me or dad. That was easier before they go to school. Then once they start being more fluent in school and with friends, we still have to remind them. I think now, my kids, even though they don&#039 ; t speak it--or they--my oldest one does. He&#039 ; s really good. He can actually read and write, but my youngest one, Maddison--she doesn&#039 ; t speak it very well, but she understand everything. (both laugh) BRODY: Should be careful what you say. (laughs) NGUYEN: Right. Right. Yeah. She understands when I speak to her. In our family, we probably do both. We&#039 ; ll combine English and Vietnamese all in one sentence. (laughs) |00:42:00| BRODY: That&#039 ; s--and everybody understands. That&#039 ; s interesting. You mentioned going back to Vietnam and taking the kids. What was that like, and what-- NGUYEN: Oh, okay. My first trip to Vietnam was before the kids. Actually, my husband went first. So, I mentioned I met my husband in &#039 ; 89, so we&#039 ; re high school sweethearts. He&#039 ; s a year ahead of me. He graduated in &#039 ; 90, I graduated in &#039 ; 91. And then he--even though we were young, I guess we&#039 ; re a lot more mature than our kids at my age back then, so we knew that--or he knew that he wanted to marry me and that we would have our life together, so he waited a year until I graduated. He went to UNT [University of North Texas] for me to graduate, and then we both went to Texas A&amp ; M afterwards. And then, we graduated from A&amp ; M in &#039 ; 95 at the same time, and I remember literally two weeks after graduation was our wedding day. We planned our wedding--because the other thing about our culture that I&#039 ; m really proud of--and even though I don&#039 ; t have that same expectation as the current generation--my parents were extremely strict, and especially since my mom has three girls. Later on, my mom remarried, and so I have a stepdad who is still living near us here--but they were really strict, and they don&#039 ; t believe in dating. There was no such thing as, Okay, you&#039 ; re going to a movie, or a boyfriend kind of deal, so the only time my husband, now, got to see me, even when he was a senior and I was a junior, was him coming over to have dinner at our house. |00:44:14| BRODY: With the family. NGUYEN: With the family, yes. So it was huge for me to go off to college. My mom always knew that I was very focused on education, so she was not going to be the person that&#039 ; s stand in my way, so choosing the location of the school or all that was all me than my parents. And so my parents, being very strict--so they didn&#039 ; t--they don&#039 ; t believe in sex before marriage. (laughs) So even after we graduate high school, I remember my stepdad, now, have the &quot ; birds and the bees&quot ; talk with my husband, now, who was my boyfriend back then, and made him a promise that he--to keep me pure until we get married. And so we--two weeks after--so we planned our wedding that last semester, and I think probably the biggest accomplishment he and I ever done was basically-- because his situation is similar to mine, but his is a little bit more difficult because he doesn&#039 ; t have parents here. His parents were in Vietnam, so he kind of raised himself. He came here with his sister and his brothers, so he kind of raised himself--buying his own car, going to his own sport events at school and all that, or paying for his own insurance. Even when we were in high school, he was working at 7-Eleven on the weekend just for cash so he can pay for insurance for his car, gas, and all that. And even at that age, for Richardson High School, he was paying for my lunch every day, so he was already kind of taking care of me. So we went to college together and, sure enough, he kept his promise. (laughs) So we--I live in my own apartment with my roommates, he has his roommates, and we got married two weeks after graduation, and, yes, in the traditional Vietnamese ceremony. |00:46:45| BRODY: What was that ceremony like? NGUYEN: The traditional Vietnamese is very--it&#039 ; s a long thing. It&#039 ; s not just, you go to church for the ceremony, that&#039 ; s it. It&#039 ; s like--well, first, there&#039 ; s an engagement ceremony. For our culture, you only--not only are you marrying each other, you&#039 ; re marrying the family, so the family is very involved. So even with the engagement, you have a ceremony where the groom&#039 ; s side comes over to the bride&#039 ; s side to request for a hand in marriage, and they bring gifts and all that. And then a year later, we got married. It&#039 ; s same thing there. They basically--everybody from the groom&#039 ; s side drive over, present gifts. We have our own ceremony, either at home or at the temple, pay your respect to your ancestors, and then you exchange your vows there, et cetera. And then, at night&#039 ; s when they have the reception for all the guest. BRODY: The party, right? NGUYEN: Yes. Uh-huh. BRODY: Did you have a big party? NGUYEN: Yeah! (laughs) When--because we got married to weeks after graduation, we didn&#039 ; t have our jobs yet, so I would say that probably the biggest accomplishment both of us did was we paid for our college ourself, because our parents weren&#039 ; t well off. We paid for the wedding ourself--well, with the help of some student loans, towards the end. (laughs) In fact, that last semester, Chad borrowed a student loan to buy the ring! (laughs) Yeah. And I was also very fortunate. Even when I was in high school, I was applying scholarships everywhere, so I paid for myself through college by way of scholarships. But I think that&#039 ; s probably our biggest accomplishment is, like, we got--we kind of set everything up for ourselves for what we have. |00:48:57| BRODY: That sounds like you worked really hard to do things on your terms and do things the way you wanted to. That&#039 ; s impressive. Your story is really interesting because you&#039 ; ve gone through so many different things and seen so many different types of people. Along the way, did you ever have any experience with what you perceived to be discrimination or racism? Was that something that you encountered? NGUYEN: Fortunately, I haven&#039 ; t encountered anything major, but maybe some in the work place, but being-- BRODY: Where do you work? What type of work do you do? NGUYEN: I have a degree in accounting from A&amp ; M, and my husband has an electrical engineering. My first job after I left A&amp ; M, we moved to Houston. He had a job at Compaq Computer, which is now HP [Hewlett Packard], and because of my always ambitious--I always wanted to work for the best of the best, and so my first job out of college--and this is way before all this happened, but I don&#039 ; t know if you know, but--so my first job was with Enron, (laughs) which was before all this happened. In fact, when I worked for them for three years and until I had my baby in &#039 ; 99, and that&#039 ; s when we literally dropped everything and we moved back home to Dallas. And then, 2001 or whenever, that&#039 ; s when the Enron collapsed and all that. In fact, I let--it was just like the Titanic sank. No one knew. I mean, I even left the majority of my 401k in the Enron fund and probably lost all of it. BRODY: Wow. NGUYEN: So no, it was horrible, but I was fortunate in that there were people I knew that were close to retiring that lost, like, half a million dollars--everything. BRODY: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. NGUYEN: Yeah. It was just--yeah. It was just so crazy when I heard all that happen, when I was here in Dallas. |00:51:25| BRODY: Wow. So you came back to Dallas after having the baby and-- NGUYEN: Yes. BRODY: What was driving that decision? NGUYEN: Okay, so I guess being--having your firstborn, it&#039 ; s probably the most important thing in life. He&#039 ; s like our little prince, (Brody laughs) because all of our families--even though we graduated and moved to Houston, all of my family and Chad&#039 ; s family--which is his sisters and brothers--are here in Dallas. We wanted family member to take care of Sean, and we couldn&#039 ; t imagine a stranger taking care of him. So as soon as he got a job transfer, we literally picked up our clothes. We left the house. We didn&#039 ; t even have it sold. We took our clothes and we moved back home, here, to Dallas, just so we can have somebody take care of Sean when I found a job. In fact, I didn&#039 ; t even have a job yet, but I knew that I could find a job and sure enough, I found it in a month or so, when I got here. |00:52:37| BRODY: So you felt like he was well taken care of by your family members. Have you tried to stay in contact with or engaged with the larger Vietnamese community outside your family? NGUYEN: Here, it&#039 ; s mostly more family. There are some organizations, but we&#039 ; re not as active just because there&#039 ; s just so--we&#039 ; re so busy with our own families. Yes. I mean, yeah, after that, then I had my other two kids. It was just--I think we become more of your typical--not just Vietnamese, but just a family, a married family with kids that has sports and just kids activities and stuff. So it wasn&#039 ; t like, &quot ; Okay, because I&#039 ; m Vietnamese, I&#039 ; m going to go to this organization, et cetera.&quot ; It was just--we&#039 ; re raised and we live as if we&#039 ; re a typical family. BRODY: Yeah. Do you--when you think about--though you&#039 ; re not particularly involved with the Vietnamese community in general, because you&#039 ; re doing family things and you&#039 ; re a busy family, when you think about the Vietnamese community in North Texas, what are some words that come to mind? NGUYEN: I think there&#039 ; s a lot more, I guess--a lot more Vietnamese networking or association in Houston than in Dallas. I think the way Dallas is structured is so spread out, whereas Houston, it&#039 ; s more in the southwest Bellaire area, so there&#039 ; s a lot more activities or organization in the Houston for the Vietnamese community than here in Dallas. BRODY: Do you think that the Vietnamese community in Dallas, maybe, is more spread out and sort of in their own communities-- NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Right. Unless it&#039 ; s, like, temple or religion related, I don&#039 ; t think they have a--yeah, it&#039 ; s not very close-knit here. |00:54:56| BRODY: Right. So a different sort of integration it sounds like. And that makes me think about your--are you engaged with politics, either--some people have said that they keep a close eye on politics in Vietnam and also in the United States. Is that something that you see as something that you&#039 ; re interested in? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) I think my parents are more into it, because I left when I was such a young age so I would just hear it, but I&#039 ; m not more of, okay, following it as much as my parents are. BRODY: Right. And what about American politics? NGUYEN: Same thing there. I mean, I just go based on the platforms. I mean, I don&#039 ; t-- I&#039 ; m not like, Okay, I&#039 ; m pro-Republican, and I&#039 ; m pro-Democrat. So it&#039 ; s just what we feel is the best choice for the generation. |00:55:54| BRODY: Right. And here&#039 ; s--as we kind of get to the end of our conversation here, I want to ask you a couple of questions. What do you think it means to be American, whether you&#039 ; re thinking about yourself or your kids or just in general? NGUYEN: Okay. To be an American, to me, means opportunities and freedom, a lot. I feel like you get--you have so many options here. You get to pick what you want to study. You get to pick what you want to do. But at the same time, it&#039 ; s also because of too much freedom, I feel like things--you take a lot of things for granted, so it&#039 ; s pros and cons. While it&#039 ; s a great country for opportunities and to have a better life and all that, sometimes I feel like that same freedom or that luxury prevents you from appreciation for what you do have. BRODY: Yeah. I understand what you mean. And what does it mean to you to be Vietnamese? NGUYEN: Vietnamese, to me, is being respectful to my roots, the heritage, being open to choice to be all American or Japanese or any--I don&#039 ; t think I would ever change that. I think things are meant for a reason, and I&#039 ; m fortunate to have that combo where I appreciate and have the respect of the culture but, at the same time, the opportunities, the options, the freedom of the future. |00:58:51| BRODY: That&#039 ; s really nice. Thank you for sharing that. Is there anything else that I didn&#039 ; t ask you that you&#039 ; d like to share in this interview, or think that I should know about the subject? NGUYEN: I don&#039 ; t think so. I think we talked about pretty much everything from my childhood, to school, to where I&#039 ; m at today with my kids and all that. I think it&#039 ; s just--at the end of the day, it&#039 ; s just living--regardless of what nationality you are--just living righteously and hoping that you embed that in your children. BRODY: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. It was a beautiful story and I really am honored to have a chance to record this for this collection, so thank you so much. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) You&#039 ; re welcome. Sure. If there&#039 ; s any other questions that we probably didn&#039 ; t cover or something, feel free to call me and-- BRODY: I will. Thank you. NGUYEN: Uh-huh. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2019oh010_btba_010.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Tina Nguyen Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2019oh010_btba_010 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-06-01 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/files/original/e394b8a29811c8b3f362c7974e23ab5f.jpg 08c76893d58e545d7dc1b0496b135813 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Betsy Brody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Chad Nguyen OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Interview with Chad Nguyen, June 29, 2019 2019oh011_btba_011 1:19:50 ohbtba Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans btba001 Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans Chad Nguyen Betsy Brody mp3 1:|22(17)|33(2)|41(11)|62(2)|70(9)|80(7)|89(9)|102(4)|129(8)|150(3)|175(3)|199(1)|215(7)|224(12)|248(9)|261(12)|282(8)|305(3)|326(10)|340(8)|353(6)|370(11)|391(9)|409(6)|417(9)|453(3)|469(4)|491(14)|509(3)|521(14)|535(11)|552(11)|568(12)|583(5)|608(10)|632(5)|651(2)|673(1)|691(9)|703(8)|736(2)|759(12)|766(11)|775(6)|788(6)|805(9)|819(6)|835(1)|848(2)|862(1)|886(10)|895(1)|906(1)|923(4)|945(2)|954(1)|967(3)|986(2)|1007(6)|1021(4)|1038(3)|1052(15)|1065(4)|1077(12)|1099(5)|1118(5)|1126(5)|1140(3)|1152(10)|1169(7)|1178(1)|1201(6)|1219(2)|1227(11)|1241(9)|1249(9)|1260(14)|1268(11)|1281(13) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/117364 Aviary audio 0 Interview Introduction 23 Memories of life and family in Vietnam/Father's decision to take the family out of Vietnam All right, thank you so much for having me here to your home and for agreeing to this interview. To start out, could you tell me a little bit about your life in Vietnam? |00:00:33| NGUYEN: Okay. Life in Vietnam. I pretty much left Vietnam when I was a child, roughly around nine years old. As I best remember is that I came from a family pretty well-off. My mom and dad started out with nothing, and they—my dad was a fisherman, and they, over the year, very successful. During ’75, he’s considered one of the well-off people around the town in Danang. BRODY: In Danang. NGUYEN: Danang, Vietnam, which is middle part of the country. So my childhood— nothing really struggle or anything like that, but when the communists came in and conquer—I guess, took the whole country, and my dad started to kind of have a—if he said whether we leave or not—leave Vietnam or not. So during that ’75 time period, I was roughly, what, around five, six years old. He contemplated he’s not going, and as the communist progressed, when they took over the country, they took everything from him—his life, all wealth. So during that four-, five-year period, he changed his mind and he started to try to escape from Vietnam. And as I remember, I was just so little—we wouldn’t struggle or anything like that—like, food on the table or anything like that because he’s well off, so when he senses that all his wealth and all that stuff taken away from him, he’s starting to have a plan to escape from Vietnam during the ’80. During that five period, it make him realize that we got to go because this is no future. You lose your freedom or whatnot, and so that’s what he went through. BRODY: Did you have any siblings? NGUYEN: We have ten total. BRODY: Wow. NGUYEN: Ten total sibling. I am the eighth kid, and I have two little sister at the time. Life, during that time before we left from Vietnam, it wasn’t bad for us. Some families were worse just because they’re struggling because they’re not well-off, but we came from family wealth. communism ; Danang ; escape ; family ; Vietnam ; Vietnam War 208 Leaving Vietnam on fishing boats BRODY: After your dad made the decision, what happened then? NGUYEN: He make the decision to leave, and so he’s a fisherman, so he had boats. He have ship that go out and do the fishing business, so he start with that. He organize dates and time. He paid the police to kind of look away so that he can go. So the original plan was that—during the ’80, that after the new year—it was a new year, 1980, exactly—that after the new year, he’s going to start leave. So his plan was, after the new year, he pretend like he’s going to go out and fish. During that time, what’s important for him was that—because during the eighties, the Vietnamese head-butts with the Chinese during that time, and he didn’t want us, especially the boys, to be back in the country and fight for the communist Vietnam. So his plan was, when we leave, the boys have to be on the boat right away, so he snuck us out there first. We were pretending that we’re fishing and all that, and coming back a day or two—where he paid the police at the beach to look away sort of deal—and pick up the whole family ; my grandfather, grandparents, my mom, and six of the sister. So the original plan was to snuck the four boy first on the boat, go out, and pretend like we’re fishing, and then come back a day or two to the beach and pick everybody up. Anyway, there’s two boat. When they come in, the other boat owner said, “Look. Your kids on this boat, then your side have to come in and pick up, because something goes wrong, then, you know. That’s the deal.” So my father said, “Okay. I don’t care. All I’m worried about is my kid. He stay on this boat. I’m on the other boat. We’re going to go in the beach and pick up all the people—my parents and whoever.” Well, when we took off and he went into the beach, they already signal a smaller boat coming this way to tell them that, “Don’t come in. They’re going to capture you,” even though they paid money to let him go. He didn’t see the signal and he took off, and the small boat came to our boat and said, “You better go because they’re going to catch you,” so we abandoned my dad and we went to Hong Kong, because we went from the middle of the country and that’s the best route to go. During that time, we already know—with the news, we already know my dad going to be captured, and that’s how we started out. On the boat that we’re on with the four brothers, we left for Hong Kong. And I think we are very fortunate, because if you’re interview a lot of boat people—the story is not a very good outcome, and some of them very lucky to be alive and very lucky to come—the outcome, because people that go south instead of going north to Hong Kong, they encounter all sorts of thing. And there’s a good amount of boat people that lost their life at sea that lost their life to a pirate, because I think, mainly, the pirates mainly from Thailand. |00:07:37| BRODY: So you didn’t encounter anything like that. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) No. That route, we already know. My dad know, during that period, that the Chinese won’t do anything to you. They just left you alone. But, there’s no—nothing. We just have enough food, water, and go to Hong Kong. boat ; bribery ; China ; communism ; escape ; family ; fishing ; fishing boats ; Hong Kong ; leaving Vietnam ; pirates ; Vietnam War 480 Nguyen's father is captured/Nguyen and his brothers arrive in Hong Kong BRODY: Right. So your dad— NGUYEN: My dad stuck with the other boat. BRODY: Yeah, but was he okay, or no—? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) No. He got captured. BRODY: Okay. NGUYEN: Um-hm. So, that’s how the story started when we left, just as(??) boat people. But like I said, we were just fortunate enough that where we at, our location, which is a mid-part of the country, and that’s the route we go, and it’s— |00:08:23| BRODY: (both speaking at once) Just go straight there. So there was no incident. NGUYEN: No incident at all. We almost—I think—because back at the time, technology’s not good, and these people—they rely on just a compass, and you heard the story—I’m not sure—but some of them don’t know how to use—and then they lost lives at sea too. But they use a compass and they just head in that direction on the compass and go, but we were okay because we’re—our boat was big. We had plenty of water and supply, and I believe one night before we got there, there’s another Chinese boat that we encounter that point us to the right direction. Then we arrived in Hong Kong port, like, in ’80. But yeah, we were fortunate enough that nothing happened to our boat. BRODY: (both speaking at once) So you said that the boat was big and you had enough supplies. Was that—who had organized— NGUYEN: My dad. BRODY: Your dad did. NGUYEN: Yeah. My dad did. I mean, the boat that he have considered to be the biggest fishing boat in the business back then. You hear the story about small boat, and there’s tons of people in the water up to here where you sit, and those are perilous people that die at sea. Our boat was huge. No problem. BRODY: No problem. NGUYEN: But that’s because he had the plan. |00:09:52| BRODY: Right. So you were with your brothers—three brothers? NGUYEN: Three, so four of us. boat ; food ; Hong Kong ; refugee camp ; refugees ; supplies ; Wonder Bread 666 Refugee camp in Hong Kong BRODY: So you were in that floating boat in the harbor for just two—and then, they moved you to a camp in Hong Kong. NGUYEN: In Hong Kong. Um-hm. BRODY: How long were you there? NGUYEN: Total, like, nine months—eight and a half months. We left new year, so somewhere around January, February—new year for Chinese New Year—and we got there, and then we left Hong Kong in October. Roughly about nine months in. And— BRODY: Nineteen eighty, still. NGUYEN: Right. When we got there, it’s 1980, October, in that exact month. BRODY: Was that camp run by the United Nations? NGUYEN: No. That camp—actually, I believe, maybe it was a—I’m not sure, but you know Hong Kong is governed by the UK, right? So to be honest, I’m not sure about that, but we interviewed with the people, and they spoke with the British accent— BRODY: (both speaking at once) Yes, the British accent. NGUYEN: —but I’m not sure where they—it’s probably, maybe, some sort of—I don’t know, but some organization that—for refugees. I remember that. It was a British accent. Hong Kong ; refugee camp ; refugees ; United Kingdom ; United Nations 751 Memories of family attitudes about Communism/Relatives' earlier immigration to the U.S. BRODY: Yeah. (laughs) So the—while you were in the camp, did you need to locate a sponsor? How did you end up in Texas? NGUYEN: Okay. So to kind of backtrack, during ’75, when the communist took the country, my uncle, during that time—’75—and he told my brother—my father, which is his brother—he said, “Look. This is not going to be good,”—because he’s the one in the army for the South Vietnamese, the democratic part. And he said, “Look. They taking the country. You got to go now, and you have a boat.” And during ’75, it’s easy. Your family snuck out, and you’re gone. You’d be free. But my dad just lingering, and he said, “No. I don’t want to do that. So what if the communist come? There a bunch of Vietnamese people here. If they can survive, I can survive too, you know? And this is my home land.” So he said, “No. I don’t want to go.” So my uncle and his family just took off in ’75 and made it here during, like, seventy-something, and so they’re here. communism ; Florida ; immigration ; sponors ; sponsor ; Texas ; United States ; Vietnam ; Vietnam War 833 Four brothers sponsored by uncle in Texas BRODY: In Texas? NGUYEN: In—it was Florida, but he moved to Texas, and that’s the uncle and aunt that sponsor us from Hong Kong. So we didn’t have to go through any kind of church organization. Some—a lot of people do, but we don’t. We have our own relative, so that’s good. BRODY: So did you first go to Florida then? NGUYEN: No. He actually moved from Florida to Texas during the ’80, and he’s a well- off man too. He got his own restaurant, so he sponsored us. It’s pretty—I mean, it’s easier if you have some sort of foot in, good establishment, so we didn’t have any problem getting a sponsor, whereas some people do if they don’t have any support. So that’s— BRODY: So all four of you were sponsored by your aunt and uncle. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. All four. We came—four of us. Just wait for the paperwork, and we on the plane a few months—nine months later to arrive in Houston, Texas. family ; Florida ; Hong Kong ; restaurant ; sponsor ; sponsors ; Texas 893 Initial impressions of Houston BRODY: In Houston. So tell me about your first days in Houston. NGUYEN: First day in Houston? It’s kind of a shock because during that period of time, we never—we were kids. We’re not exposed to anything, especially cars. When we first arrived—well, the first thing is the plane for us as a kid. It was like, Wow, I’m on a plane! But when we land in—on the way from the airport home, we’re like, Amazing. This is—cars everywhere, because we’d never seen so many cars, (laughs) and we’re all like, Where’s all the people? No people walking. No bike. It just a total wow experience. Everybody talked about, Oh, man, everybody in the US own a car. We were like, Oh, you got to be six—really rich to own a car! And we just witnessed that, so it was, like, Wow—jaw-dropping. BRODY: You were blown away. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) I was a ten-years-old kid, and that’s how we started our life in Houston. airplane ; cars ; Houston ; Texas 961 Housing arrangement in Houston BRODY: What was your housing situation like? NGUYEN: My uncle arrange it. He has a—we live in apartment for a few months, but he had a house and then he brought us in, also, with my other—with the other side. He had two family, the husband side and the wife side, that he sponsor. BRODY: Wow. So he sponsored the whole family. NGUYEN: Um-hm. We would thank him for that, but yeah. He sponsored us. We really don’t—I think back, we fortunate enough that, because my uncle, we don’t have any struggle that a lot of people have, like, as far as job and housing, and they pretty much took care of us, like find us jobs and things like that. apartment ; family ; housing ; sponsors 1021 Strategy of lowering or raising age on paperwork/Experiences in elementary school in Houston Tell me about your jobs. Well, you were very young, so you were in school. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) No. I already—I was in school. Right. The funny thing about school with me is that at the time, my brother lower my age. BRODY: Why did he do that? NGUYEN: Because the mentality is that if you’re young, you want to go to school to learn English. You don’t want to be old and stuff, so he lower two and a half years old, and then (laughs) the older kids and the older middle-age, they would bump up the age so they would retire early! (Brody laughs) That’s how they know how the system works here, is that you can retire early if you—whatever. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Reach the age. NGUYEN: Right. So that’s how most of the—some of them were—they tell the real age, but most of us, we either lowered the age or add a few more years older. Like, my wife did the same thing. She’s younger—two years younger than she’s supposed to. BRODY: (both speaking at once) That’s really funny. It’s flexible. (laughs) NGUYEN: Yeah. And now, I have the certificate that I can’t change it back! (Brody laughs) What they heard is that you can change them. (laughs) BRODY: You can’t change, so it’s going to affect your retirement. (laughs) NGUYEN: Yes. Yes. |00:18:28| BRODY: So in school, what grade—they bumped you down, so what grade did you start in? NGUYEN: So, I started sixth grade—well, yeah, sixth grade. I was kind of like—jump a few grades when I was in Vietnam, so I was sixth grade and I was ten years old—ten and a half years old. So, when they—when my brother lowered my age, he put me in fourth grade to start, so I’m two grade down to start with! So I started fourth grade in the elementary school in Alief, Texas, down in Houston. School was fun, and got its up and down during that period. Kids would make fun of me. age ; bullying ; education ; elementary school ; retirement ; school 1169 Experiences of racism, bullying, and discrimination in school BRODY: Did people make fun of you? NGUYEN: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, racist, prejudice—it’s worse back then. BRODY: Yeah. Tell me more about that, about your experiences with that. NGUYEN: In school, a lot of kids—especially white kids—they mock your language and they do eye thing, and it’s just— BRODY: How did you handle that? NGUYEN: (laughs) Okay, I’m going to tell the truth. Okay, so I was in school, and I think it’s my second year, fifth grade, and this kid always making fun. A lot of kid making fun of me, but this kid named Todd, I remember him until today ; tall—taller than I am—freckle-faced kid, white kid, and he keep bothering me. One day at the library, he keep—somehow, he keep bothering—I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t—you know. I kick him in the crotch real hard! (both laugh) And at that point, the ESL teacher—I didn’t know much of the language—didn’t know much English yet, and the teacher—ESL teacher—call me and they said, “Oh, no! Don’t do this!” And then at that point on forward, all the kid heard and they didn’t bother me anymore! (laughs) But yeah. You know kids ; they make fun of you because you’re different. I mean, worse then than now. bullying ; discrimination ; education ; English ; racial slurs ; racism ; school 1272 Presence of other Vietnamese students at school BRODY: So I know a lot of people from Vietnam ended up in Houston, but in your particular school, were there other Vietnamese children? NGUYEN: Yes. There’s another kid that been there, Wan, and he’s the one who translate stuff to English. BRODY: For you. NGUYEN: Yeah. Met one of those kid from Houston from the school. There’s few kids Vietnamese. I think that Alief was mainly—not a whole lot back then of Vietnamese community, but now it’s huge. (??), but there’s few Vietnamese kid. BRODY: At that time. NGUYEN: At that time. Alief ; education ; English language ; Houston ; schools ; Vietnmese students 1314 Nguyen's brothers' employment experiences BRODY: So were your brothers in the same school as you? NGUYEN: My brother—about my brother, I’m the youngest, so I was ten. The one next to me, he was, I think, fifteen or fourteen—fifteen, something like that, and the one before him is two years older. And then my oldest brother, he’s, like, twenty- something—twenty-one. BRODY: Did he go to work? NGUYEN: Yes. So for him, he went to work. I was in elementary, and my other two brothers in high school. My oldest brother was—he was college educated in Vietnam, and so he started to doing drafting. His language wasn’t good, so he didn’t wanted to go back to college because he’s a little bit older—twenty-something, twenty-four, something like that—and so he went for drafting school, and it turns out he liked it. Then he becomes a builder, like a carpenter fixing houses and drawing the place, and that’s what he’s doing now. BRODY: He still does that. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) He’s build house. Uh-huh. And my other two brother—they went to school, finish high school, but didn’t go to college. We just had to work and support ourself, because you can’t depending on your relative for—they just get you on your toes to get going. They have to work and support. |00:23:42| BRODY: What kind of work did they do? NGUYEN: My other brothers—well, before they went to work, we moved to Dallas first. So when my brother didn’t have a job—the oldest one didn’t have a job—he followed this other guy, kind of like his apprentice—building houses, fixing house, remodeling home, thing like that—and he followed him up here from Houston, and I think we stayed in Houston about four, five—three years. And then we started moving up here with him because he got a job up here. And so all four brother move to Richardson, Texas, and my brother go to Richardson High School. And so the oldest one only worked, and then my other one just working part-time, like at 7-Eleven convenience store, and make some money for sure(??). building ; carpenter ; Dallas ; drafting ; education ; employment ; English language ; high school ; Houston ; jobs ; Richardson ; social class 1492 Participation in Junior High and High School Sports/Football, Track, Wrestling BRODY: Right. So all of you four brothers living together in Dallas. What part of Dallas—were you in Richardson? NGUYEN: Richardson. BRODY: And then you went to the high school, so you were in middle school at that point? NGUYEN: Yep. BRODY: Where did you go to middle school? NGUYEN: I went to West—did they call it middle school? BRODY: Junior high. NGUYEN: Junior high. Yes. West Junior High. |00:25:07| BRODY: (both speaking at once) West Junior High, and then Richardson High School. So what was it like for you? It sounds like you were the brother who had the most time in American schools. By the time you got to high school, how did you feel about being in an American school? NGUYEN: I think after we left Dallas—I mean, Houston—I don’t have any culture thing that making fun of you anymore, so when I came here in Richardson, I joined sport and I loved sport. BRODY: What sports? NGUYEN: Football. And when you’re in sport, I think it helped for me, at least, that you don’t get kids to make fun of you. You fit into some—a group, right? And so I was in sport for—really, for small kid. Really, I’m bigger than they are because I’m two years older. So I joined the football team, but I’m small kid anyway, size-wise—just more mature—but I joined football and I enjoyed it and we had a blast. All the kid look up to me because I was pretty good. I was—at West, I was, like, three years—seven, eight, nine—yeah, three years most valuable player. We go to the banquet. It’s pretty cool. BRODY: That’s very cool. NGUYEN: And then I also do track and field. BRODY: What position did you play in football? NGUYEN: I play running back, and then linebacker. BRODY: Really? And then in track and field, what were your events? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Track and field, I’d sprint the hundred meter, the two- hundred [meter], and the quarter mile, and then both of the relays—the four-hundred meter and the mile relay. |00:27:11| BRODY: And did you do football in high school, at Richardson High School? NGUYEN: Yes. And then—I’m getting to that. So all those three years is fine. So the year when I came back, sophomore, everybody was just poofed up back then, like, in the groups. BRODY: Everybody grew. NGUYEN: Yeah. And it’s—I was at JV football in Richardson High School, and my size just hundred and thirty pound. All the kids—(laughs) so I decided, “Man, this not going to work. I’m just a shrimp.” (both laugh) So I quit. I was just going to do track and field, and then one of the football coach—he also coach wrestling, and so he recruited me. “Hey, Chad,”—well, my name wasn’t Chad back then. That wasn’t a person—citizen yet, but—“You want to try out wrestling?” And I looked at him. I said, “Oh, man. This is sissy sport.” He said, “No. This is good for you. Go come and try out,” so I went and try out, and I liked it. Give me something to do. I always want to be a part of something, a team. I liked the structure, basically. That’s why—I think part of it is why I play sport, is the structure. So I joined wrestling and wrestled the rest three year from high school until graduated. BRODY: You enjoyed it? NGUYEN: Yeah. I enjoyed it. |00:28:46| BRODY: Did you still do track and field? NGUYEN: No, because at that point, like I said, I’m not growing. (laughs) It’s just that I think my advantage in junior high is that maybe I’m older, maybe, and I’m doing really better, but once I don’t have the size, and the older kid—when they catch up, it’s just hard for me. assimilation ; education ; fitting in ; football ; friendship ; High School ; junior high ; Richardson ; Richardson High School ; Richardson West Junior High ; schools ; track and field ; wrestling 1756 Meeting his future wife in high school BRODY: What about the academic side and the social side of going to school? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. The academic side—when I was in school, I didn’t try real hard. I’m doing okay. I got an A average to graduate, but—because I think, for me, is that I don’t have parents to push me too. And look back, I think that I’m lucky the way I turned out because some other kid like me without parent turn bad. There’s no guiding and no directions too. BRODY: What do you think made a difference for you? Why were you able to avoid that? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Because in my mind, when we first arrived, I said I wanted to do something. I’m not going to be a bum. I’m going to be successful, and I think that’s the mindset. Although I’m not trying too hard for my—during my high school year, but I’m okay. And things not too hard for me to get school, in honored course and all that, and AP, and stuff like that. I’m in the courses, but I’m not trying to my full potential. That’s what I felt. Also, because I’m in sport, we stayed in. We practiced until six, seven sometime—five, six, seven—four hours after school, but the way it turned out, I’m glad. I met her through high school. |00:31:00| BRODY: Oh. You met your wife in high school, yes. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Um-hm. BRODY: So tell me about how you met. NGUYEN: Okay. So I was end of my junior year. (laughs) End of my junior year, and I bump into her—not “bump” literally, but in contact with her. Then so we make arrangement and we dated that summer. And then the next year, I went into senior year. We see each other, and then we make plans. Okay, we’re going to go to college, and Which college, and all that. So I think, for us—my wife and I—we’re more mature than any other kid like I see now, because we set goals and things like that. When I met her, I said, “Okay, that’s it. She’s my wife. She’s my love.” To be honest, I didn’t propose to her, right, but we already know—she kind of know that we’re going to get married, but not until we get out of college, and that’s what we did. So we—I graduate one year before her and I didn’t go anywhere. I attended UNT [University of North Texas], driving back and forth, and then when she graduated, we all both went to [Texas] A&amp ; M together. BRODY: That must’ve been a lot of coordination for you to pull that off. NGUYEN: Yeah. Lot of driving, I guess. I guess it’s, like, pretty good drive—forty- something mile each way, right? BRODY: Yeah. NGUYEN: Every day for a year. I didn’t want to stay up there. Plus, (laughs) didn’t want spend the money. I don’t have the money too! Yeah. academics ; college ; dating ; education ; marriage ; school ; Texas A &amp ; M ; University of North Texas 1973 Memories of the Vietnamese community in Garland BRODY: That makes sense. That’s a really nice story though, that you met each other in high school. In high school and during the time once you got to Dallas, what are your memories of the larger Vietnamese community at that time? NGUYEN: At that time, it’s not so much like right now. We remember the biggest Vietnamese community probably in Garland, because everything we do, we go to Garland for— BRODY: You were very active there. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Right. Not—we’re from Richardson, but I’m talking about as far as shops, restaurant, and grocery, it’s all there. We go, and that’s how our contact with our Vietnamese community would be—like, go to the grocery and we run into them and things like that, but that’s— BRODY: All local. NGUYEN: In Garland is the biggest Vietnamese community back then, because when I’m in Richardson, Richardson wasn’t that many, you know, like Plano back then— there’s nothing in Richardson back then anyway—only the central line—but it wasn’t that big of a community thing, even in Garland. Just smaller. |00:34:10| BRODY: Did you socialize or attend religious functions or cultural functions at that time? NGUYEN: We didn’t go to—I mean, to be honest, during that time people worry—we worry about making money, get your life, go work, so we weren’t really concentrating on, Oh, okay. We’re going to be attending this community. So everybody had their own thing. BRODY: Right. Surviving. NGUYEN: Right. Surviving. So time to time, we were—especially during certain holiday—Buddhist holiday—then we go to temple, and then we see a lot of people in there. Those are the function we would go. But in general, there’s not really a community that you connect with and you go to back then. BRODY: Day-to-day. NGUYEN: Right. Day-to-day. BRODY: Just more— NGUYEN: No. I mean, of course you have some kid or people my brother worked with that are Vietnamese, but the work place is same thing with the school. You just see them here. |00:35:20| BRODY: You see people there, but not necessarily as part of your daily social life, right? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Right. Correct. Because like you said, that we’re there to survive more first, that first few years. Right now, it’s just better. I think it’s better. They have community that you can go to, get together, things like that. But I think during that time, it’s all about surviving—make a living, support yourself. Buddhism ; Dallas ; Garland ; groceries ; holidays ; restaurants ; Richardon ; traditions ; Vietnamese community 2153 Learning English BRODY: Right. So again, back to learning English. We haven’t really talked about that very much. Starting in Houston, and then on here in Richardson—how did that go? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Well, I did learn a little bit because my father—he hired tutor and would teach us that broken English or whatever they can teach. I picked up few things and hear things, but still, fluently, you can’t. So that started, and I think I picked that after two years—one, two years—because you’re a kid. You pick up really fast. BRODY: So you did ESL in Houston. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) ESL in Houston. And then, I think I didn’t do any more ESL after two years—fourth, fifth, and then, sixth, then I’m gone. I’m out of there. It was just two years of ESL. BRODY: What were some of the hardest things about learning a new language? NGUYEN: You know, I didn’t think it’s hard for me. I think part of it because I’m ten, eleven years old. I mean, if you come at a time where you’re in the teenage year, you’re a little bit older, and then your tongue is stuck with the mother language and it’s hard to pronounce everything right. |00:37:11| BRODY: Was it harder for your brothers? NGUYEN: My brother—my older brother in Dallas struggle a little bit, and I think part of that—the second to the oldest—part of that, he didn’t do too well because of the language. BRODY: Right. The timing. NGUYEN: Yeah—the language that he struggle, because I think he start out in eleventh—tenth or eleventh grade, and that just too much for him, for the language barrier. Now, my other—the brother that next to me, he’s very good. He’s—math, everything. He’s very smart guy, but he didn’t like to go to school. (laughs) He didn’t want to go to school! He would fail in PE [physical education] and ace on his, like, algebra test, but he didn’t want to go to school. I guess, back to the surviving, you’ve got to make money to support, because nobody going to pay for college, so that’s why— that’s part of the reason that he didn’t go to. English ; English as a Second Language ; Vietnamese language 2302 Experiences in college in Texas/Impact of the A&amp ; M Vietnamese American Student Association BRODY: Right. So for you, you went to UNT for a year, and then the two of you went to—you and your wife—or, not-yet-wife at that point— NGUYEN: Girlfriend. (laughs) BRODY: —girlfriend, at that point—went to Texas A&amp ; M. How did you choose Texas A&amp ; M and—tell me about that time period of your life. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Okay. So the story is that we know where we want to go, and there’s two school here, and we can’t afford private school, obviously, so the two school there is UT and then A&amp ; M. I think we chose A&amp ; M because we thought that maybe the UT–Austin is a party school. (both laugh) That’s what the logic is. So I think we choose A&amp ; M because of that, and we visit the campus. My wife and I went there and we liked it. It’s open. It’s not very congested or crowded, and so that’s why we choose A&amp ; M. |00:39:30| BRODY: And did it prove to be a good choice? (laughs) NGUYEN: Yeah. It’s very good choice. Yeah. We liked it. We liked it a lot. I think during that time of our college year, we had a huge—compare now—Vietnamese American Student Association. BRODY: Really? NGUYEN: And we had fun. I look back. We had a whole lot of fun because they always had some function just for Vietnamese American student, and talk—looking back now, they have hardly, because all the kids are now—they’re more Americanized than us. We think we’re Americanized already, but now is the third—what, third generation? BRODY: Right. NGUYEN: It’s not the same. They’re not doing the same thing that we do. BRODY: Right. I want to come back to that in a minute, but first, I’m so interested to hear more about the A&amp ; M Vietnamese American Student Association. It was big. How many students do you think were—? NGUYEN: Were big then, but few hundred—three, four hundred kids. BRODY: (both speaking at once) That is big. That is big. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Three, four hundred kids. |00:40:42| BRODY: And what kind of functions and activities did they have? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) They had musical function, food—things like that. BRODY: (both speaking at once) What kind of food? NGUYEN: Vietnamese food that we tried to learn to make sometime. BRODY: Oh, so would you cook it. NGUYEN: Somebody did. Some ladies, right, honey? (calling out to his wife in the next room ; Brody and Nguyen laugh) And then, time to time, they had host certain event, and then we have Vietnamese singer concert. |00:41:11| BRODY: Yeah. So that’s interesting because up until the time that you went to college, you were all just trying to survive and not really—didn’t have a lot of time, it sounds like, to focus on the culture and the food and things like that. So tell me how—describe your feelings when you realized that there was this Vietnamese American student organization and there were other students that shared your experience. NGUYEN: I feel like I fit in also, because we’re here in the country, during that time, and we don’t have anybody, and now, this experience in college—we have older kids— compare, right?(??)—and we have our age, and all this character of this old memory— old people. Like, not really old but—for instance, there’s this guy that much older than us, probably ten, maybe a little bit more—that he went there, and his characteristic is hard to describe. Like, he would drink tea and he would make fun of us in a nicer way. He would make fun of my wife’s bike and things like that in the Vietnamese language, and I felt like, Oh, okay. And I think that because of that also, I think that we maintain our language, and—I’m speaking for me, but my wife also—but we are able to maintain the language in writing, whereas some don’t, because like, my cousin, they came same age as I am. A lot of them don’t speak as good as a Vietnamese, or read and write Vietnamese. So I think that that’s the reason why that I liked a whole lot, the experience from college—the Vietnamese Association. Now, I ask my son now—he’s in college—and they don’t have as big because I think they are more Americanized now. Even if they have some sort of function like that, they probably won’t speak any Vietnamese, but in English. But it’s a different generation. It’s going to change. |00:43:51| American identity ; assimilation ; college ; cooking ; culture ; dating ; English language ; food ; identity ; music ; social events ; Texas A &amp ; M University ; University of North Texas ; Vietnamese American Student Association ; Vietnamese identity ; Vietnamese language ; Vietnamese students 2820 Graduation from college and careers BRODY: As you got older and got into college and doing that, what was the next chapter of your life? NGUYEN: Retirement. (both laugh) BRODY: So you’re working now, though. Before you retire, what line of work are you in? NGUYEN: I was—okay. So I graduated A&amp ; M with a electrical engineering degree, and my wife was accounting, so when we graduated in ’94, jobs lined up everywhere. You graduate that time, you had four or five jobs to choose from, and so we went back. So we got—I got a job offer here at TI, and got a job offer in Houston—Compaq—and so we choose to go to Houston and go back to where I came from. So when we graduate, I choose to work for Compaq and she work for Enron, and we started our lives there after we got married. Back to that, we graduated in end of—beginning of ’95. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. She graduated ’95. We got our degree. Two weeks, we got married. It was after college. And then we took off for our honeymoon, and then we went to Vietnam for a whole month before we start our job. We already accepted our job, but that’s—it was—(laughs) BRODY: So you went back to Vietnam for your honeymoon. NGUYEN: Yes, for a month, and I think we hadn’t been back there for, like, twenty years—fifteen, twenty years—something like that. And then we came back and start our job in Houston. She was accountant for Enron. I was doing electrical engineering design—chip design for Compaq. |00:49:03| BRODY: So you stayed in Houston, and then— NGUYEN: Stayed in Houston—oh, what year, honey? (talking to his wife in the next room) Four, five year? Five years. Five years. So we got married and stayed there, and three years later we had our first kid, and that’s the reason why we came back here, because her family’s here and mine’s also here. So working for three, four years there. We had our first child, and then six months, we moved back to Dallas, and she didn’t even have a job. We just dropped it off and dropped down everything in Houston and we moved, sold everything, and bought a house. BRODY: Brought the baby. NGUYEN: Right. Brought the baby. accounting ; baby ; Compaq ; electrical engineering ; employment ; Enron ; family ; honeymoon ; Houston ; identity ; jobs ; parenting ; retirement ; Texas Instruments ; Vietnam 3031 Jobs, job loss, and the impact of 9/11 BRODY: That’s twenty years, yes. And then you found jobs and everything, and so— NGUYEN: Well, (laughs) I lost my job a year and half later, when I came here to Dallas. BRODY: The economy. NGUYEN: Yes. The 9/11 whole deal was pretty bad, and I was pretty depressed for months because going to school, and now I don’t have a job. Then I start looking for something to do. My wife and I went and got into real estate for a while, and then I found a job doing IT work, which is what I do now ; IT support easier. I went back to engineering for a few months and I didn’t like it anymore. It’s just like, you’re in the enclosed office and coding and things like that, and I got away from it, and then I didn’t like it anymore. I think part of—I think I’m so lucky to—it’s part of my career choice, is because I have option, thanks to my wife. She also work. Otherwise, I would have probably pursued engineer and stressful. 9/11 ; depression ; employment ; engineering ; IT ; jobs ; real estate 3113 Heart attack But she’s work, and the story with me is that— what year was it, honey? In—yeah, in 2000—yeah, 2000—I had a heart attack. |00:52:17| BRODY: Oh, no! NGUYEN: Right? In the middle of a Friday morning, I had a heart attack. I didn’t know what it was. I just know how I felt, and I had a heart attack, and I told my wife, “Call 911,” and she thought I’m kidding, or—because she was little, and we always played the 911—and I come out this room. I lay down, say, “Honey, call 911! I don’t know what happened to me, but call 911!” So the guy wheeled me out the ambulance and hooked me up EKG, said, “You have a heart attack,” (laughs) so I went to the hospital and they put a stent in my— BRODY: How old were you? NGUYEN: Forty-two. BRODY: Wow. I’m really sorry to hear that. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. And I wasn’t overweight or anything like that, or smoking, or—it just happened, and the doctor says, “You don’t look very good sometime.” And then at that point on, I think I went easy on the stress, and that’s why I was doing IT. Plus, at the time, we have three kids. I think, like I said, I’m lucky because both of us are working, so some had to make sacrifice. So I took the easier job. |00:53:43| BRODY: Yeah. Well, it sounds like it made you think about— NGUYEN: And then, come home and take care of everything about the kids. So—but, yeah. I’m fortunate, and I’m really lucky that I’m alive. BRODY: That’s nice. I’m glad that you’re well now. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) But, yeah. It was a shock. But now—after that, now I’m just, like, two things in my life now that I work on hardly—I mean, work at it—is my health and my kids. So my ritual thing is I walk three, four miles a day, and I work, and then I run. I go out and run marathon, and things like that, to get the heart. BRODY: Right. Take care of your heart. NGUYEN: Yeah. Um-hm. But— 911 ; ambulance ; children ; EKG ; health ; health care ; health problems ; heart attack ; parenting ; stress 3274 Parenting BRODY: You mentioned your kids. So you’ve got three children. What has it been like for you, being a parent of children who were born here and are Americans? (laughs) NGUYEN: I think the environment we in when we were raised—I think we’re more protective of them and want to provide for them the best that we can, because we feel like we struggling when we were little. We had to work harder and things like that. So for us, we were protective. We want to, at the same time, provide the best that we can for them, give them education, things like that. But I mean, that’s the whole thing about us, is that, Okay, after she’s gone to college, our job is done as a parent and we can go to retire. So again, that’s the two thing. The most important thing for me right now is my kids—make sure they’re okay—and then my health—make sure I’m okay—and everything’s going to be okay! children ; education ; kids ; parenting 3352 Balancing Vietnamese identity and American identity BRODY: Yeah, absolutely. Those are good priorities to have. You and your wife both kind of had a foot in both worlds. It sounds like you were very comfortable in Vietnam and at home with Vietnamese culture and food and all of that, but yet, you also are Aggies, you know? You’re Texans and you are here. So how do you balance those two sides of your experience? NGUYEN: Well, you know, I think we adapt to change better, as far as for me and my wife. Like, I’ll give you an example for this. If we go back to Vietnam, the weather’s hot, we wouldn’t complain. We can ride it out. We’re okay with that. Whereas, the second generation and born here, they go to Vietnam, “Ah, that’s too hot!” That’s because we had the luxury of living both Vietnamese culture when we were growing up, even though we came at a little age, but we still have that experience and we’re okay with that, so I think that’s an advantage for us. Another thing is that food—we eat a lot of fermented fish stuff, which stinks. (both laugh) I admit it, but it taste so darn good for us! Now, all the second generation or the third that won’t touches that, and I think you can’t force them, right? But I think they lose out on that, to me, because they don’t have the experience. BRODY: Right. The taste, maybe, of your childhood. NGUYEN: So, again, we’re fortunate that we share those two different culture— American culture and the Vietnamese culture. adaptation ; American identity ; cooking ; culture ; food ; generational differences ; identity ; Vietnamese culture ; Vietnamese food ; Vietnamese identity 3465 Impact of American culture on family life BRODY: What is the part of American culture that you enjoy the most? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) I like structure, whereas in Vietnamese family, we don’t have structure. Most of them don’t have structure. BRODY: What do you mean? NGUYEN: Like sleep time, everything, do this and that, chore—like, in Vietnamese culture, the boy never do anything. They don’t cook, clean. They just eat and go, right? And the girl have to do everything. The girl have to cook, right? So here, we do everything. My family—my daughter and my son—will do everything. They do chore. The boys cook the rice. He cook. He wash the dishes. So we’re trying to— BRODY: Share all the— NGUYEN: —share everything. Okay. That is a good thing. So we kind of— BRODY: (both speaking at once) That’s the piece of American culture that you kind of melded into your family. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Exactly. Melded into—I mean, most of American here—the kid don’t want to do anything too, just like—right? (both laugh) BRODY: Right. So— NGUYEN: But we trained them, sort of, to do that, and I keep telling them, “Seeing you do things for thirty minute—washing dishes—I can do it in ten, (Brody laughs) but I want you to do it because when you’re out there on your own, you’re able to wash the dishes, or know how to.” I’ll give you example, and it make me feel so good, is that my son went to [Texas] Tech and he share apartment with these kids—these white kids—and they don’t do anything. The dishes high, and that would bother my son, and he complained to me, “Dad, they don’t know how to do anything! They don’t know how to do dishes!” And now I realized that he learned. We preach, but he won’t—we feel like he won’t listen, but they do listen. Things like that make me feel good to know, okay, at least—I thought they didn’t listen to me, but little things like that, like cleaning. He cook. He able to do laundry whenever they would come home with stinky basket. (laughs) They do all that, so that’s good. Little things that know more every day that you can take care of yourself—laundry, the cooking. You don’t have to be extravagant, but know how at least, cook rice and feed yourself, instead of—yeah. But, that’s what we aiming for, is to have that flexibility. She, right now—weekend, her chore will be dusting all the stuff and they would vacuum. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Your daughter, yes. NGUYEN: We don’t have a housekeeper or maid to do—we used to hire one, but we don’t because we do it ourselves. It’s exercise anyway, right? |01:00:51| BRODY: Right. So you do it together as a family. NGUYEN: The laundry, everything— American culture ; chores ; family ; gender differences ; parenting ; structure ; Vietnamese culture 3658 Identity as a Vietnamese American adaptability ; American identity ; culture ; flexibility ; identity ; Vietnamese Americans ; Vietnamese identity 3754 Impact of refugee experience on personality/Impact of discrimination and racism BRODY: Right. That flexibility. Some people have said that they feel like their experiences as a refugee have informed and made that flexibility part of their personality. Is that accurate for you? NGUYEN: Probably, yeah, because again, the refugee—that comes with the refugee because you have to. You left your mother country for freedom and opportunity. You have to. But again, also situation. For us, again, we’re at a young age and it’s easy for us to adapt and cope and do everything, but again—like, for instance, my brother—oh, he struggled. BRODY: Your oldest brother? NGUYEN: My second to the oldest, so he didn’t really—I don’t think—I think he just barely finished school. He was depressed. He don’t fit in. And then no school, no work— whatever. Right now, he’s a machinist, but what I’m saying is for a period of time, he don’t like it. It was hard for him to adapt and fit in. BRODY: Did he experience— NGUYEN: Language barrier and (??). discrimination ; English ; flexibility ; language ; language barrier ; prejudice ; racial slurs ; racism ; refugees 4088 Nguyen's father's imprisonment by Communists/Experience of other family members BRODY: That’s good advice, for sure. I just wanted to circle back and ask about your family—your parents. NGUYEN: Okay. So yeah, I can tell you about my parent. After we left, my father got caught and the Communists put him in prison for seven years. That’s for wanting for escape. My sister and my mom were struggling for years ; got no money, food, and things like that. We do send home money, but we were struggle here as well, and so during that time, my brother send money home, but you can’t send—it’s communist. You can’t send real money. You can send product, gifts, and I remember my brother sent home the toothpaste, they put gold in there—inside the toothpaste!—ounces or whatever—I was a kid—for them to spend. |01:09:19| BRODY: Did they get it? NGUYEN: Yes. They get some of the gift, but they getting smart. Back then, they don’t have anything for radar, or whatever system— BRODY: (both speaking at once) X-rays. NGUYEN: —X-ray system, yeah, to scan. But later on, you can’t. But during the eighties they can, so they send home—got gold to spend, but my father was in jail for seven years, and when he got out, he was really sick. They don’t have enough to eat. When they say they put you in jail, they mean put you in jail. Not the jail here that people give thing or take things for granted. You don’t get to TV, read, or get—have the degree. You messed up, you pay for it. None of this human right. So he got punished real bad. When he came out, he had to go operate on his intestine because he’d eaten bad, contaminated food because there wasn’t enough food, so I think that’s the problem that cost his life short. He passed away when he was seventy-something. But anyway, he got a operation. Took, like, three-quarters of his intestine away, and when he—then he got colon cancer afterward. That’s why he passed away shorter, but I think that’s contribute to his problem, because of the jail time. That’s seven years. BRODY: That’s a long time. NGUYEN: Long time. And my mom and my six sister—during that time, we had two came over—sent over on the boat. And so two of my sister came afterward, like, in ninety—’88 and ’92. And then recently, we have another sister came over four years ago, so we have total of seven of us. BRODY: Seven of you here, out of the ten. NGUYEN: Right. Ten. And then, three over there, but my oldest sister—she just passed away a few years ago. She suffered cancer too. BRODY: Oh. I’m so sorry. NGUYEN: But, yes. Two of them left there, and then my parents passed away too. BRODY: So the seven of you who are here are all in Dallas? NGUYEN: Yeah, most of them. My oldest one in California. He’s the one who do the construction and architecture and building. He would—he’s doing very well. Very, very well. He’s in Huntington Beach now. He buy land, and then he build houses and sell it, and California’s doing very well in housing. BRODY: Yeah. There’s a lot of people. (laughs) NGUYEN: For the price. (laughs) |01:12:24| BRODY: That’s it. Yes. The market is good there. California ; Communism ; Communists ; family ; immigration ; money ; political prisoners ; prison ; refugees 4348 Getting American citizenship/Reflections on identity and culture So the last sort of area—we’ve kind of touch on it a little bit, but it’s more on this question of identity. To you what does it mean to be American? You mentioned you achieved your citizenship, so tell me about what it meant to you to get American citizenship. NGUYEN: I—to be honest, I really didn’t think about that. To be, like—you know how some people, “Oh, yes!”? We’re not like that. In fact, my wife and I went the same time. We went and got naturalized the same time. We got the same—but again, it wasn’t a big deal for us. I guess we were young, so we became naturalized in eighty—’90, or something like that. Yeah. Ninety—I forgot, but long time ago. But for us, we weren’t like older people that dreamed to be an American immigrant, excited about. It’s just something that we needed to have or get, but it’s no problem for us. We’re younger. We passed it with flying color. So yeah, as far as that, I didn’t remember that, “Yes, I’m a US citizen now.” |01:13:54| BRODY: So after—it’s been a while since that happened and you became an American citizen, but what does it—reflecting back, what does it mean to you now to say, “I’m an American”? NGUYEN: I think American citizens should be proud to be a American citizen, and I’ll tell you why—because if you travel a lot and you go to different country and you experience stuff—experience life, experience with the people that you touches—you don’t know nowhere else you would rather want to be but here because, yes, we have our bads and good, but the freedom is outrageous here. I mean, look at that. Where else you go in the world that the president mess up something, you cuss and you mock him, and you do something? You got your freedom of speech! Nowhere else. Even some of the democratic country—some of them, you can’t do that. Like Taiwan, you can’t really say, but they’re democratic, right? Some of them. So we’ve been living in Hong Kong, Thailand, and we experienced all that. We’ve experience culture. We experience the economic, the food, the infrastructure, road—nothing compare to the US. You’ve got so much opportunity, so at the time when I was natural, I don’t feel like that. But now, you—I’m so proud because you go everywhere, you cannot have the same experience. It’s just amazing. You go to France or Europe—we haven’t been there. That’s our bucket list. But from what my father-in-law—nothing. Traffic, nowhere to have the car, the freedom to do anything—it’s all great. Very good. We’re lucky to be here. |01:16:14| BRODY: So back to that blended identity that you have ; what does it mean for you to be Vietnamese American? NGUYEN: Very proud. We have the heritage. We have the Vietnamese heritage, food— food is the best. When you get older, that’s all you think. (both laugh) It’s good. I feel that’s the best part is to be Vietnamese American, is that we live in this world of freedom and a melting pot of diversity. You can’t go anywhere and have the diversity that we have. I mean, now, we’re going backward. Look at Donald Trump about all this immigration things that he do, and you think back and you say, “This country was built on immigration.” This part is not all American. It belonged to American Indians, then we came and we conquer, and we are American. But that, because of the immigrant, create all this diversity. You name the food, you go out there and you get it. Vietnamese food is more(??) because of (??) one of the best one, but yeah. I’m so proud to be an American—Vietnamese American because to be here and to have that heritage is great. |01:17:56| BRODY: So a hundred years from now when you’re great-great-great-great-great- grandchildren might listen to this interview or read the transcript, or future scholars, is there anything that we haven’t talked about today yet that you think should be included or you think that they should know? NGUYEN: Don’t forget your heritage. Don’t forget your heritage. Open mind. Experience your heritage. Experience your Vietnamese culture as well. That’s the best thing that I want my kid to experience. We go back a whole lot to Vietnam, and they like it. I think my oldest son—he speak better Vietnamese when we went over there. We come back and know he get it. He can write too. So he’s just also the talented kid, but at least give it a chance and don’t forget your heritage. Give it a chance, because you see some kid that doesn’t have that. I’ll give you example. There’s a little kid, eleven, twelve years old. He’s Filipino and he think he’s white, and he’s making fun of—“Oh, you’re a ching-chong, right?” So it’s like, “Yes. You’re also Asian though!” (laughs) So I don’t want the kid to have that. Know where you’re from. |01:19:33| BRODY: That’s beautiful. Thank you so much for your time and for your story. It was wonderful to hear, and I’m very honored to be able to record it for this collection, so thank you very much. American citienship ; American identity ; citizenship ; culture ; democracy ; diversity ; food ; free speech ; freedom ; heritage ; identity ; immigration ; melting pot ; naturalizing ; opportunity ; parenting ; politics ; Vietnamese food ; Vietnamese language ; Vietnamese-American Baylor University Institute for Oral History Chad D. Nguyen Oral History Memoir Interview Number 1 Interviewed by Betsy T. Brody June 29, 2019 Murphy, Texas Project -- Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans: The Making of the Vietnamese Community in North Texas BRODY: This is Betsy Brody. Today is June 29, 2019. I am interviewing, for the first time, Mr. Chad Nguyen. This interview is taking place at Mr. Nguyen&#039 ; s house in Murphy, Texas. This interview is sponsored by the Baylor University Institute for Oral History and is part of the &quot ; Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans&quot ; project. All right, thank you so much for having me here to your home and for agreeing to this interview. To start out, could you tell me a little bit about your life in Vietnam? |00:00:33| NGUYEN: Okay. Life in Vietnam. I pretty much left Vietnam when I was a child, roughly around nine years old. As I best remember is that I came from a family pretty well-off. My mom and dad started out with nothing, and they--my dad was a fisherman, and they, over the year, very successful. During &#039 ; 75, he&#039 ; s considered one of the well-off people around the town in Danang. BRODY: In Danang. NGUYEN: Danang, Vietnam, which is middle part of the country. So my childhood-- nothing really struggle or anything like that, but when the communists came in and conquer--I guess, took the whole country, and my dad started to kind of have a--if he said whether we leave or not--leave Vietnam or not. So during that &#039 ; 75 time period, I was roughly, what, around five, six years old. He contemplated he&#039 ; s not going, and as the communist progressed, when they took over the country, they took everything from him--his life, all wealth. So during that four-, five-year period, he changed his mind and he started to try to escape from Vietnam. And as I remember, I was just so little--we wouldn&#039 ; t struggle or anything like that--like, food on the table or anything like that because he&#039 ; s well off, so when he senses that all his wealth and all that stuff taken away from him, he&#039 ; s starting to have a plan to escape from Vietnam during the &#039 ; 80. During that five period, it make him realize that we got to go because this is no future. You lose your freedom or whatnot, and so that&#039 ; s what he went through. |00:02:59| BRODY: Did you have any siblings? NGUYEN: We have ten total. BRODY: Wow. NGUYEN: Ten total sibling. I am the eighth kid, and I have two little sister at the time. Life, during that time before we left from Vietnam, it wasn&#039 ; t bad for us. Some families were worse just because they&#039 ; re struggling because they&#039 ; re not well-off, but we came from family wealth. |00:03:26| BRODY: After your dad made the decision, what happened then? NGUYEN: He make the decision to leave, and so he&#039 ; s a fisherman, so he had boats. He have ship that go out and do the fishing business, so he start with that. He organize dates and time. He paid the police to kind of look away so that he can go. So the original plan was that--during the &#039 ; 80, that after the new year--it was a new year, 1980, exactly--that after the new year, he&#039 ; s going to start leave. So his plan was, after the new year, he pretend like he&#039 ; s going to go out and fish. During that time, what&#039 ; s important for him was that--because during the eighties, the Vietnamese head-butts with the Chinese during that time, and he didn&#039 ; t want us, especially the boys, to be back in the country and fight for the communist Vietnam. So his plan was, when we leave, the boys have to be on the boat right away, so he snuck us out there first. We were pretending that we&#039 ; re fishing and all that, and coming back a day or two--where he paid the police at the beach to look away sort of deal--and pick up the whole family ; my grandfather, grandparents, my mom, and six of the sister. So the original plan was to snuck the four boy first on the boat, go out, and pretend like we&#039 ; re fishing, and then come back a day or two to the beach and pick everybody up. Anyway, there&#039 ; s two boat. When they come in, the other boat owner said, &quot ; Look. Your kids on this boat, then your side have to come in and pick up, because something goes wrong, then, you know. That&#039 ; s the deal.&quot ; So my father said, &quot ; Okay. I don&#039 ; t care. All I&#039 ; m worried about is my kid. He stay on this boat. I&#039 ; m on the other boat. We&#039 ; re going to go in the beach and pick up all the people--my parents and whoever.&quot ; Well, when we took off and he went into the beach, they already signal a smaller boat coming this way to tell them that, &quot ; Don&#039 ; t come in. They&#039 ; re going to capture you,&quot ; even though they paid money to let him go. He didn&#039 ; t see the signal and he took off, and the small boat came to our boat and said, &quot ; You better go because they&#039 ; re going to catch you,&quot ; so we abandoned my dad and we went to Hong Kong, because we went from the middle of the country and that&#039 ; s the best route to go. During that time, we already know--with the news, we already know my dad going to be captured, and that&#039 ; s how we started out. On the boat that we&#039 ; re on with the four brothers, we left for Hong Kong. And I think we are very fortunate, because if you&#039 ; re interview a lot of boat people--the story is not a very good outcome, and some of them very lucky to be alive and very lucky to come--the outcome, because people that go south instead of going north to Hong Kong, they encounter all sorts of thing. And there&#039 ; s a good amount of boat people that lost their life at sea that lost their life to a pirate, because I think, mainly, the pirates mainly from Thailand. |00:07:37| BRODY: So you didn&#039 ; t encounter anything like that. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) No. That route, we already know. My dad know, during that period, that the Chinese won&#039 ; t do anything to you. They just left you alone. But, there&#039 ; s no--nothing. We just have enough food, water, and go to Hong Kong. BRODY: Right. So your dad-- NGUYEN: My dad stuck with the other boat. BRODY: Yeah, but was he okay, or no--? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) No. He got captured. BRODY: Okay. NGUYEN: Um-hm. So, that&#039 ; s how the story started when we left, just as(??) boat people. But like I said, we were just fortunate enough that where we at, our location, which is a mid-part of the country, and that&#039 ; s the route we go, and it&#039 ; s-- |00:08:23| BRODY: (both speaking at once) Just go straight there. So there was no incident. NGUYEN: No incident at all. We almost--I think--because back at the time, technology&#039 ; s not good, and these people--they rely on just a compass, and you heard the story--I&#039 ; m not sure--but some of them don&#039 ; t know how to use--and then they lost lives at sea too. But they use a compass and they just head in that direction on the compass and go, but we were okay because we&#039 ; re--our boat was big. We had plenty of water and supply, and I believe one night before we got there, there&#039 ; s another Chinese boat that we encounter that point us to the right direction. Then we arrived in Hong Kong port, like, in &#039 ; 80. But yeah, we were fortunate enough that nothing happened to our boat. BRODY: (both speaking at once) So you said that the boat was big and you had enough supplies. Was that--who had organized-- NGUYEN: My dad. BRODY: Your dad did. NGUYEN: Yeah. My dad did. I mean, the boat that he have considered to be the biggest fishing boat in the business back then. You hear the story about small boat, and there&#039 ; s tons of people in the water up to here where you sit, and those are perilous people that die at sea. Our boat was huge. No problem. BRODY: No problem. NGUYEN: But that&#039 ; s because he had the plan. |00:09:52| BRODY: Right. So you were with your brothers--three brothers? NGUYEN: Three, so four of us. BRODY: So four of you all together. So when the four of you arrived in Hong Kong, what happened then? NGUYEN: We arrive Hong Kong. They took us to another boat that afloat in the middle of the port--Hong Kong port, and we stayed there for, I believe, couple of days--two or three. I was a little kid. I believe I stayed there a couple of days, and they supply--I mean, Hong Kongs get the supply--food and water. I remember I had my first Wonder Bread sandwich, because we&#039 ; d never eaten that before in Vietnam, and we were like, Wow! BRODY: What&#039 ; d you think of it? NGUYEN: It was good! (Brody laughs) Plus, we eat different food, and this is something different, and we were like, Wow, that&#039 ; s good! But Hong Kong treated us really, really nice--really well ; feed us and blanket, water within two days. Afterward, they took us to the refugee camp. |00:11:08| BRODY: So you were in that floating boat in the harbor for just two--and then, they moved you to a camp in Hong Kong. NGUYEN: In Hong Kong. Um-hm. BRODY: How long were you there? NGUYEN: Total, like, nine months--eight and a half months. We left new year, so somewhere around January, February--new year for Chinese New Year--and we got there, and then we left Hong Kong in October. Roughly about nine months in. And-- BRODY: Nineteen eighty, still. NGUYEN: Right. When we got there, it&#039 ; s 1980, October, in that exact month. BRODY: Was that camp run by the United Nations? NGUYEN: No. That camp--actually, I believe, maybe it was a--I&#039 ; m not sure, but you know Hong Kong is governed by the UK, right? So to be honest, I&#039 ; m not sure about that, but we interviewed with the people, and they spoke with the British accent-- BRODY: (both speaking at once) Yes, the British accent. NGUYEN: --but I&#039 ; m not sure where they--it&#039 ; s probably, maybe, some sort of--I don&#039 ; t know, but some organization that--for refugees. I remember that. It was a British accent. |00:12:28| BRODY: Yeah. (laughs) So the--while you were in the camp, did you need to locate a sponsor? How did you end up in Texas? NGUYEN: Okay. So to kind of backtrack, during &#039 ; 75, when the communist took the country, my uncle, during that time--&#039 ; 75--and he told my brother--my father, which is his brother--he said, &quot ; Look. This is not going to be good,&quot ; --because he&#039 ; s the one in the army for the South Vietnamese, the democratic part. And he said, &quot ; Look. They taking the country. You got to go now, and you have a boat.&quot ; And during &#039 ; 75, it&#039 ; s easy. Your family snuck out, and you&#039 ; re gone. You&#039 ; d be free. But my dad just lingering, and he said, &quot ; No. I don&#039 ; t want to do that. So what if the communist come? There a bunch of Vietnamese people here. If they can survive, I can survive too, you know? And this is my home land.&quot ; So he said, &quot ; No. I don&#039 ; t want to go.&quot ; So my uncle and his family just took off in &#039 ; 75 and made it here during, like, seventy-something, and so they&#039 ; re here. BRODY: In Texas? NGUYEN: In--it was Florida, but he moved to Texas, and that&#039 ; s the uncle and aunt that sponsor us from Hong Kong. So we didn&#039 ; t have to go through any kind of church organization. Some--a lot of people do, but we don&#039 ; t. We have our own relative, so that&#039 ; s good. |00:14:16| BRODY: So did you first go to Florida then? NGUYEN: No. He actually moved from Florida to Texas during the &#039 ; 80, and he&#039 ; s a well- off man too. He got his own restaurant, so he sponsored us. It&#039 ; s pretty--I mean, it&#039 ; s easier if you have some sort of foot in, good establishment, so we didn&#039 ; t have any problem getting a sponsor, whereas some people do if they don&#039 ; t have any support. So that&#039 ; s-- BRODY: So all four of you were sponsored by your aunt and uncle. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. All four. We came--four of us. Just wait for the paperwork, and we on the plane a few months--nine months later to arrive in Houston, Texas. |00:14:53| BRODY: In Houston. So tell me about your first days in Houston. NGUYEN: First day in Houston? It&#039 ; s kind of a shock because during that period of time, we never--we were kids. We&#039 ; re not exposed to anything, especially cars. When we first arrived--well, the first thing is the plane for us as a kid. It was like, Wow, I&#039 ; m on a plane! But when we land in--on the way from the airport home, we&#039 ; re like, Amazing. This is--cars everywhere, because we&#039 ; d never seen so many cars, (laughs) and we&#039 ; re all like, Where&#039 ; s all the people? No people walking. No bike. It just a total wow experience. Everybody talked about, Oh, man, everybody in the US own a car. We were like, Oh, you got to be six--really rich to own a car! And we just witnessed that, so it was, like, Wow--jaw-dropping. BRODY: You were blown away. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) I was a ten-years-old kid, and that&#039 ; s how we started our life in Houston. |00:16:03| BRODY: What was your housing situation like? NGUYEN: My uncle arrange it. He has a--we live in apartment for a few months, but he had a house and then he brought us in, also, with my other--with the other side. He had two family, the husband side and the wife side, that he sponsor. BRODY: Wow. So he sponsored the whole family. NGUYEN: Um-hm. We would thank him for that, but yeah. He sponsored us. We really don&#039 ; t--I think back, we fortunate enough that, because my uncle, we don&#039 ; t have any struggle that a lot of people have, like, as far as job and housing, and they pretty much took care of us, like find us jobs and things like that. BRODY: Tell me about your jobs. Well, you were very young, so you were in school. |00:17:05| NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) No. I already--I was in school. Right. The funny thing about school with me is that at the time, my brother lower my age. BRODY: Why did he do that? NGUYEN: Because the mentality is that if you&#039 ; re young, you want to go to school to learn English. You don&#039 ; t want to be old and stuff, so he lower two and a half years old, and then (laughs) the older kids and the older middle-age, they would bump up the age so they would retire early! (Brody laughs) That&#039 ; s how they know how the system works here, is that you can retire early if you--whatever. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Reach the age. NGUYEN: Right. So that&#039 ; s how most of the--some of them were--they tell the real age, but most of us, we either lowered the age or add a few more years older. Like, my wife did the same thing. She&#039 ; s younger--two years younger than she&#039 ; s supposed to. BRODY: (both speaking at once) That&#039 ; s really funny. It&#039 ; s flexible. (laughs) NGUYEN: Yeah. And now, I have the certificate that I can&#039 ; t change it back! (Brody laughs) What they heard is that you can change them. (laughs) BRODY: You can&#039 ; t change, so it&#039 ; s going to affect your retirement. (laughs) NGUYEN: Yes. Yes. |00:18:28| BRODY: So in school, what grade--they bumped you down, so what grade did you start in? NGUYEN: So, I started sixth grade--well, yeah, sixth grade. I was kind of like--jump a few grades when I was in Vietnam, so I was sixth grade and I was ten years old--ten and a half years old. So, when they--when my brother lowered my age, he put me in fourth grade to start, so I&#039 ; m two grade down to start with! So I started fourth grade in the elementary school in Alief, Texas, down in Houston. School was fun, and got its up and down during that period. Kids would make fun of me. |00:19:30| BRODY: Did people make fun of you? NGUYEN: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, racist, prejudice--it&#039 ; s worse back then. BRODY: Yeah. Tell me more about that, about your experiences with that. NGUYEN: In school, a lot of kids--especially white kids--they mock your language and they do eye thing, and it&#039 ; s just-- BRODY: How did you handle that? NGUYEN: (laughs) Okay, I&#039 ; m going to tell the truth. Okay, so I was in school, and I think it&#039 ; s my second year, fifth grade, and this kid always making fun. A lot of kid making fun of me, but this kid named Todd, I remember him until today ; tall--taller than I am--freckle-faced kid, white kid, and he keep bothering me. One day at the library, he keep--somehow, he keep bothering--I couldn&#039 ; t handle it. I couldn&#039 ; t--you know. I kick him in the crotch real hard! (both laugh) And at that point, the ESL teacher--I didn&#039 ; t know much of the language--didn&#039 ; t know much English yet, and the teacher--ESL teacher--call me and they said, &quot ; Oh, no! Don&#039 ; t do this!&quot ; And then at that point on forward, all the kid heard and they didn&#039 ; t bother me anymore! (laughs) But yeah. You know kids ; they make fun of you because you&#039 ; re different. I mean, worse then than now. |00:21:14| BRODY: So I know a lot of people from Vietnam ended up in Houston, but in your particular school, were there other Vietnamese children? NGUYEN: Yes. There&#039 ; s another kid that been there, Wan, and he&#039 ; s the one who translate stuff to English. BRODY: For you. NGUYEN: Yeah. Met one of those kid from Houston from the school. There&#039 ; s few kids Vietnamese. I think that Alief was mainly--not a whole lot back then of Vietnamese community, but now it&#039 ; s huge. (??), but there&#039 ; s few Vietnamese kid. BRODY: At that time. NGUYEN: At that time. |00:21:55| BRODY: So were your brothers in the same school as you? NGUYEN: My brother--about my brother, I&#039 ; m the youngest, so I was ten. The one next to me, he was, I think, fifteen or fourteen--fifteen, something like that, and the one before him is two years older. And then my oldest brother, he&#039 ; s, like, twenty- something--twenty-one. BRODY: Did he go to work? NGUYEN: Yes. So for him, he went to work. I was in elementary, and my other two brothers in high school. My oldest brother was--he was college educated in Vietnam, and so he started to doing drafting. His language wasn&#039 ; t good, so he didn&#039 ; t wanted to go back to college because he&#039 ; s a little bit older--twenty-something, twenty-four, something like that--and so he went for drafting school, and it turns out he liked it. Then he becomes a builder, like a carpenter fixing houses and drawing the place, and that&#039 ; s what he&#039 ; s doing now. BRODY: He still does that. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) He&#039 ; s build house. Uh-huh. And my other two brother--they went to school, finish high school, but didn&#039 ; t go to college. We just had to work and support ourself, because you can&#039 ; t depending on your relative for--they just get you on your toes to get going. They have to work and support. |00:23:42| BRODY: What kind of work did they do? NGUYEN: My other brothers--well, before they went to work, we moved to Dallas first. So when my brother didn&#039 ; t have a job--the oldest one didn&#039 ; t have a job--he followed this other guy, kind of like his apprentice--building houses, fixing house, remodeling home, thing like that--and he followed him up here from Houston, and I think we stayed in Houston about four, five--three years. And then we started moving up here with him because he got a job up here. And so all four brother move to Richardson, Texas, and my brother go to Richardson High School. And so the oldest one only worked, and then my other one just working part-time, like at 7-Eleven convenience store, and make some money for sure(??). BRODY: Right. So all of you four brothers living together in Dallas. What part of Dallas--were you in Richardson? NGUYEN: Richardson. BRODY: And then you went to the high school, so you were in middle school at that point? NGUYEN: Yep. BRODY: Where did you go to middle school? NGUYEN: I went to West--did they call it middle school? BRODY: Junior high. NGUYEN: Junior high. Yes. West Junior High. |00:25:07| BRODY: (both speaking at once) West Junior High, and then Richardson High School. So what was it like for you? It sounds like you were the brother who had the most time in American schools. By the time you got to high school, how did you feel about being in an American school? NGUYEN: I think after we left Dallas--I mean, Houston--I don&#039 ; t have any culture thing that making fun of you anymore, so when I came here in Richardson, I joined sport and I loved sport. BRODY: What sports? NGUYEN: Football. And when you&#039 ; re in sport, I think it helped for me, at least, that you don&#039 ; t get kids to make fun of you. You fit into some--a group, right? And so I was in sport for--really, for small kid. Really, I&#039 ; m bigger than they are because I&#039 ; m two years older. So I joined the football team, but I&#039 ; m small kid anyway, size-wise--just more mature--but I joined football and I enjoyed it and we had a blast. All the kid look up to me because I was pretty good. I was--at West, I was, like, three years--seven, eight, nine--yeah, three years most valuable player. We go to the banquet. It&#039 ; s pretty cool. BRODY: That&#039 ; s very cool. NGUYEN: And then I also do track and field. BRODY: What position did you play in football? NGUYEN: I play running back, and then linebacker. BRODY: Really? And then in track and field, what were your events? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Track and field, I&#039 ; d sprint the hundred meter, the two- hundred [meter], and the quarter mile, and then both of the relays--the four-hundred meter and the mile relay. |00:27:11| BRODY: And did you do football in high school, at Richardson High School? NGUYEN: Yes. And then--I&#039 ; m getting to that. So all those three years is fine. So the year when I came back, sophomore, everybody was just poofed up back then, like, in the groups. BRODY: Everybody grew. NGUYEN: Yeah. And it&#039 ; s--I was at JV football in Richardson High School, and my size just hundred and thirty pound. All the kids--(laughs) so I decided, &quot ; Man, this not going to work. I&#039 ; m just a shrimp.&quot ; (both laugh) So I quit. I was just going to do track and field, and then one of the football coach--he also coach wrestling, and so he recruited me. &quot ; Hey, Chad,&quot ; --well, my name wasn&#039 ; t Chad back then. That wasn&#039 ; t a person--citizen yet, but--&quot ; You want to try out wrestling?&quot ; And I looked at him. I said, &quot ; Oh, man. This is sissy sport.&quot ; He said, &quot ; No. This is good for you. Go come and try out,&quot ; so I went and try out, and I liked it. Give me something to do. I always want to be a part of something, a team. I liked the structure, basically. That&#039 ; s why--I think part of it is why I play sport, is the structure. So I joined wrestling and wrestled the rest three year from high school until graduated. BRODY: You enjoyed it? NGUYEN: Yeah. I enjoyed it. |00:28:46| BRODY: Did you still do track and field? NGUYEN: No, because at that point, like I said, I&#039 ; m not growing. (laughs) It&#039 ; s just that I think my advantage in junior high is that maybe I&#039 ; m older, maybe, and I&#039 ; m doing really better, but once I don&#039 ; t have the size, and the older kid--when they catch up, it&#039 ; s just hard for me. |00:29:17| BRODY: What about the academic side and the social side of going to school? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. The academic side--when I was in school, I didn&#039 ; t try real hard. I&#039 ; m doing okay. I got an A average to graduate, but--because I think, for me, is that I don&#039 ; t have parents to push me too. And look back, I think that I&#039 ; m lucky the way I turned out because some other kid like me without parent turn bad. There&#039 ; s no guiding and no directions too. BRODY: What do you think made a difference for you? Why were you able to avoid that? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Because in my mind, when we first arrived, I said I wanted to do something. I&#039 ; m not going to be a bum. I&#039 ; m going to be successful, and I think that&#039 ; s the mindset. Although I&#039 ; m not trying too hard for my--during my high school year, but I&#039 ; m okay. And things not too hard for me to get school, in honored course and all that, and AP, and stuff like that. I&#039 ; m in the courses, but I&#039 ; m not trying to my full potential. That&#039 ; s what I felt. Also, because I&#039 ; m in sport, we stayed in. We practiced until six, seven sometime--five, six, seven--four hours after school, but the way it turned out, I&#039 ; m glad. I met her through high school. |00:31:00| BRODY: Oh. You met your wife in high school, yes. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yes. Um-hm. BRODY: So tell me about how you met. NGUYEN: Okay. So I was end of my junior year. (laughs) End of my junior year, and I bump into her--not &quot ; bump&quot ; literally, but in contact with her. Then so we make arrangement and we dated that summer. And then the next year, I went into senior year. We see each other, and then we make plans. Okay, we&#039 ; re going to go to college, and Which college, and all that. So I think, for us--my wife and I--we&#039 ; re more mature than any other kid like I see now, because we set goals and things like that. When I met her, I said, &quot ; Okay, that&#039 ; s it. She&#039 ; s my wife. She&#039 ; s my love.&quot ; To be honest, I didn&#039 ; t propose to her, right, but we already know--she kind of know that we&#039 ; re going to get married, but not until we get out of college, and that&#039 ; s what we did. So we--I graduate one year before her and I didn&#039 ; t go anywhere. I attended UNT [University of North Texas], driving back and forth, and then when she graduated, we all both went to [Texas] A&amp ; M together. BRODY: That must&#039 ; ve been a lot of coordination for you to pull that off. NGUYEN: Yeah. Lot of driving, I guess. I guess it&#039 ; s, like, pretty good drive--forty- something mile each way, right? BRODY: Yeah. NGUYEN: Every day for a year. I didn&#039 ; t want to stay up there. Plus, (laughs) didn&#039 ; t want spend the money. I don&#039 ; t have the money too! Yeah. |00:32:51| BRODY: That makes sense. That&#039 ; s a really nice story though, that you met each other in high school. In high school and during the time once you got to Dallas, what are your memories of the larger Vietnamese community at that time? NGUYEN: At that time, it&#039 ; s not so much like right now. We remember the biggest Vietnamese community probably in Garland, because everything we do, we go to Garland for-- BRODY: You were very active there. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Right. Not--we&#039 ; re from Richardson, but I&#039 ; m talking about as far as shops, restaurant, and grocery, it&#039 ; s all there. We go, and that&#039 ; s how our contact with our Vietnamese community would be--like, go to the grocery and we run into them and things like that, but that&#039 ; s-- BRODY: All local. NGUYEN: In Garland is the biggest Vietnamese community back then, because when I&#039 ; m in Richardson, Richardson wasn&#039 ; t that many, you know, like Plano back then-- there&#039 ; s nothing in Richardson back then anyway--only the central line--but it wasn&#039 ; t that big of a community thing, even in Garland. Just smaller. |00:34:10| BRODY: Did you socialize or attend religious functions or cultural functions at that time? NGUYEN: We didn&#039 ; t go to--I mean, to be honest, during that time people worry--we worry about making money, get your life, go work, so we weren&#039 ; t really concentrating on, Oh, okay. We&#039 ; re going to be attending this community. So everybody had their own thing. BRODY: Right. Surviving. NGUYEN: Right. Surviving. So time to time, we were--especially during certain holiday--Buddhist holiday--then we go to temple, and then we see a lot of people in there. Those are the function we would go. But in general, there&#039 ; s not really a community that you connect with and you go to back then. BRODY: Day-to-day. NGUYEN: Right. Day-to-day. BRODY: Just more-- NGUYEN: No. I mean, of course you have some kid or people my brother worked with that are Vietnamese, but the work place is same thing with the school. You just see them here. |00:35:20| BRODY: You see people there, but not necessarily as part of your daily social life, right? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Right. Correct. Because like you said, that we&#039 ; re there to survive more first, that first few years. Right now, it&#039 ; s just better. I think it&#039 ; s better. They have community that you can go to, get together, things like that. But I think during that time, it&#039 ; s all about surviving--make a living, support yourself. |00:35:52| BRODY: Right. So again, back to learning English. We haven&#039 ; t really talked about that very much. Starting in Houston, and then on here in Richardson--how did that go? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Well, I did learn a little bit because my father--he hired tutor and would teach us that broken English or whatever they can teach. I picked up few things and hear things, but still, fluently, you can&#039 ; t. So that started, and I think I picked that after two years--one, two years--because you&#039 ; re a kid. You pick up really fast. BRODY: So you did ESL in Houston. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) ESL in Houston. And then, I think I didn&#039 ; t do any more ESL after two years--fourth, fifth, and then, sixth, then I&#039 ; m gone. I&#039 ; m out of there. It was just two years of ESL. BRODY: What were some of the hardest things about learning a new language? NGUYEN: You know, I didn&#039 ; t think it&#039 ; s hard for me. I think part of it because I&#039 ; m ten, eleven years old. I mean, if you come at a time where you&#039 ; re in the teenage year, you&#039 ; re a little bit older, and then your tongue is stuck with the mother language and it&#039 ; s hard to pronounce everything right. |00:37:11| BRODY: Was it harder for your brothers? NGUYEN: My brother--my older brother in Dallas struggle a little bit, and I think part of that--the second to the oldest--part of that, he didn&#039 ; t do too well because of the language. BRODY: Right. The timing. NGUYEN: Yeah--the language that he struggle, because I think he start out in eleventh--tenth or eleventh grade, and that just too much for him, for the language barrier. Now, my other--the brother that next to me, he&#039 ; s very good. He&#039 ; s--math, everything. He&#039 ; s very smart guy, but he didn&#039 ; t like to go to school. (laughs) He didn&#039 ; t want to go to school! He would fail in PE [physical education] and ace on his, like, algebra test, but he didn&#039 ; t want to go to school. I guess, back to the surviving, you&#039 ; ve got to make money to support, because nobody going to pay for college, so that&#039 ; s why-- that&#039 ; s part of the reason that he didn&#039 ; t go to. |00:38:20| BRODY: Right. So for you, you went to UNT for a year, and then the two of you went to--you and your wife--or, not-yet-wife at that point-- NGUYEN: Girlfriend. (laughs) BRODY: --girlfriend, at that point--went to Texas A&amp ; M. How did you choose Texas A&amp ; M and--tell me about that time period of your life. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Okay. So the story is that we know where we want to go, and there&#039 ; s two school here, and we can&#039 ; t afford private school, obviously, so the two school there is UT and then A&amp ; M. I think we chose A&amp ; M because we thought that maybe the UT--Austin is a party school. (both laugh) That&#039 ; s what the logic is. So I think we choose A&amp ; M because of that, and we visit the campus. My wife and I went there and we liked it. It&#039 ; s open. It&#039 ; s not very congested or crowded, and so that&#039 ; s why we choose A&amp ; M. |00:39:30| BRODY: And did it prove to be a good choice? (laughs) NGUYEN: Yeah. It&#039 ; s very good choice. Yeah. We liked it. We liked it a lot. I think during that time of our college year, we had a huge--compare now--Vietnamese American Student Association. BRODY: Really? NGUYEN: And we had fun. I look back. We had a whole lot of fun because they always had some function just for Vietnamese American student, and talk--looking back now, they have hardly, because all the kids are now--they&#039 ; re more Americanized than us. We think we&#039 ; re Americanized already, but now is the third--what, third generation? BRODY: Right. NGUYEN: It&#039 ; s not the same. They&#039 ; re not doing the same thing that we do. BRODY: Right. I want to come back to that in a minute, but first, I&#039 ; m so interested to hear more about the A&amp ; M Vietnamese American Student Association. It was big. How many students do you think were--? NGUYEN: Were big then, but few hundred--three, four hundred kids. BRODY: (both speaking at once) That is big. That is big. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Three, four hundred kids. |00:40:42| BRODY: And what kind of functions and activities did they have? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) They had musical function, food--things like that. BRODY: (both speaking at once) What kind of food? NGUYEN: Vietnamese food that we tried to learn to make sometime. BRODY: Oh, so would you cook it. NGUYEN: Somebody did. Some ladies, right, honey? (calling out to his wife in the next room ; Brody and Nguyen laugh) And then, time to time, they had host certain event, and then we have Vietnamese singer concert. |00:41:11| BRODY: Yeah. So that&#039 ; s interesting because up until the time that you went to college, you were all just trying to survive and not really--didn&#039 ; t have a lot of time, it sounds like, to focus on the culture and the food and things like that. So tell me how--describe your feelings when you realized that there was this Vietnamese American student organization and there were other students that shared your experience. NGUYEN: I feel like I fit in also, because we&#039 ; re here in the country, during that time, and we don&#039 ; t have anybody, and now, this experience in college--we have older kids-- compare, right?(??)--and we have our age, and all this character of this old memory-- old people. Like, not really old but--for instance, there&#039 ; s this guy that much older than us, probably ten, maybe a little bit more--that he went there, and his characteristic is hard to describe. Like, he would drink tea and he would make fun of us in a nicer way. He would make fun of my wife&#039 ; s bike and things like that in the Vietnamese language, and I felt like, Oh, okay. And I think that because of that also, I think that we maintain our language, and--I&#039 ; m speaking for me, but my wife also--but we are able to maintain the language in writing, whereas some don&#039 ; t, because like, my cousin, they came same age as I am. A lot of them don&#039 ; t speak as good as a Vietnamese, or read and write Vietnamese. So I think that that&#039 ; s the reason why that I liked a whole lot, the experience from college--the Vietnamese Association. Now, I ask my son now--he&#039 ; s in college--and they don&#039 ; t have as big because I think they are more Americanized now. Even if they have some sort of function like that, they probably won&#039 ; t speak any Vietnamese, but in English. But it&#039 ; s a different generation. It&#039 ; s going to change. |00:43:51| BRODY: And during that time period--I mean, you had actually come from Vietnam, as opposed to growing up here, even though you did both. That&#039 ; s really interesting. It sounds like that was a really meaningful organization for both of you. So that makes me think to ask you: how do you--at that period of time, how did you think of yourself, in terms of your identity? NGUYEN: I--that&#039 ; s the period where I really proud of myself, really, because looking back, if I went to another school and experienced something, I might turn out to be different. Looking at it, I think that&#039 ; s why we--my wife and I--just love Vietnam so much. We like the social interaction. Like, my wife would love to go out in Vietnam on the street and we love that, and that--my wife and I just on the same page, and we already say, Okay, we retire, we go over there. BRODY: Really? You&#039 ; d like to retire in Vietnam? Or visit? NGUYEN: Visit for long period of time. But yes, we like those interaction, especially in the language and the action. The culture--you go see and know everybody, and--I don&#039 ; t know, but I came at a young age and I&#039 ; m still having that feeling, and I&#039 ; m so grateful for that because some other kid don&#039 ; t. They just say, Oh, no, I&#039 ; m American now. But that&#039 ; s what I think I&#039 ; m proud of, is to have that. BRODY: Have both. NGUYEN: Yeah. Have that, and then--yeah. I mean, we would go to Vietnam and we wouldn&#039 ; t get sick of it, where we can stay there, won&#039 ; t get sick of it. We would go out, and mingle with the people and talk and things like that, in Vietnamese, of course. |00:46:05| BRODY: Right. Now that the community here--the Vietnamese community in this area of North Texas is larger, are you involved with a lot of Vietnamese functions and events here? NGUYEN: I don&#039 ; t because I&#039 ; m so busy. We got three kids, and hopefully--I was talking to my wife about it--hopefully, when we retire, then we start doing more stuff, because we don&#039 ; t have free time. But now our life is just--revolves around our kids, especially we have the--what, eleven years old now? I hope she go to college. We&#039 ; re going to go-- (laughs) but yeah. We dedicated our time to our kids, and so we don&#039 ; t do a lot of those function. |00:46:58| BRODY: As you got older and got into college and doing that, what was the next chapter of your life? NGUYEN: Retirement. (both laugh) BRODY: So you&#039 ; re working now, though. Before you retire, what line of work are you in? NGUYEN: I was--okay. So I graduated A&amp ; M with a electrical engineering degree, and my wife was accounting, so when we graduated in &#039 ; 94, jobs lined up everywhere. You graduate that time, you had four or five jobs to choose from, and so we went back. So we got--I got a job offer here at TI, and got a job offer in Houston--Compaq--and so we choose to go to Houston and go back to where I came from. So when we graduate, I choose to work for Compaq and she work for Enron, and we started our lives there after we got married. Back to that, we graduated in end of--beginning of &#039 ; 95. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. She graduated &#039 ; 95. We got our degree. Two weeks, we got married. It was after college. And then we took off for our honeymoon, and then we went to Vietnam for a whole month before we start our job. We already accepted our job, but that&#039 ; s--it was--(laughs) BRODY: So you went back to Vietnam for your honeymoon. NGUYEN: Yes, for a month, and I think we hadn&#039 ; t been back there for, like, twenty years--fifteen, twenty years--something like that. And then we came back and start our job in Houston. She was accountant for Enron. I was doing electrical engineering design--chip design for Compaq. |00:49:03| BRODY: So you stayed in Houston, and then-- NGUYEN: Stayed in Houston--oh, what year, honey? (talking to his wife in the next room) Four, five year? Five years. Five years. So we got married and stayed there, and three years later we had our first kid, and that&#039 ; s the reason why we came back here, because her family&#039 ; s here and mine&#039 ; s also here. So working for three, four years there. We had our first child, and then six months, we moved back to Dallas, and she didn&#039 ; t even have a job. We just dropped it off and dropped down everything in Houston and we moved, sold everything, and bought a house. BRODY: Brought the baby. NGUYEN: Right. Brought the baby. |00:49:58| BRODY: Where did you move when you got back to the Dallas area? NGUYEN: We built a house here in Murphy in &#039 ; 99, and during that time, we stayed with my mother-in-law--she have a house in Garland--for a few months before our house being built. Then we move in October &#039 ; 99 here, and we&#039 ; ve been here since. That&#039 ; s twenty years. BRODY: That&#039 ; s twenty years, yes. And then you found jobs and everything, and so-- NGUYEN: Well, (laughs) I lost my job a year and half later, when I came here to Dallas. BRODY: The economy. NGUYEN: Yes. The 9/11 whole deal was pretty bad, and I was pretty depressed for months because going to school, and now I don&#039 ; t have a job. Then I start looking for something to do. My wife and I went and got into real estate for a while, and then I found a job doing IT work, which is what I do now ; IT support easier. I went back to engineering for a few months and I didn&#039 ; t like it anymore. It&#039 ; s just like, you&#039 ; re in the enclosed office and coding and things like that, and I got away from it, and then I didn&#039 ; t like it anymore. I think part of--I think I&#039 ; m so lucky to--it&#039 ; s part of my career choice, is because I have option, thanks to my wife. She also work. Otherwise, I would have probably pursued engineer and stressful. But she&#039 ; s work, and the story with me is that-- what year was it, honey? In--yeah, in 2000--yeah, 2000--I had a heart attack. |00:52:17| BRODY: Oh, no! NGUYEN: Right? In the middle of a Friday morning, I had a heart attack. I didn&#039 ; t know what it was. I just know how I felt, and I had a heart attack, and I told my wife, &quot ; Call 911,&quot ; and she thought I&#039 ; m kidding, or--because she was little, and we always played the 911--and I come out this room. I lay down, say, &quot ; Honey, call 911! I don&#039 ; t know what happened to me, but call 911!&quot ; So the guy wheeled me out the ambulance and hooked me up EKG, said, &quot ; You have a heart attack,&quot ; (laughs) so I went to the hospital and they put a stent in my-- BRODY: How old were you? NGUYEN: Forty-two. BRODY: Wow. I&#039 ; m really sorry to hear that. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. And I wasn&#039 ; t overweight or anything like that, or smoking, or--it just happened, and the doctor says, &quot ; You don&#039 ; t look very good sometime.&quot ; And then at that point on, I think I went easy on the stress, and that&#039 ; s why I was doing IT. Plus, at the time, we have three kids. I think, like I said, I&#039 ; m lucky because both of us are working, so some had to make sacrifice. So I took the easier job. |00:53:43| BRODY: Yeah. Well, it sounds like it made you think about-- NGUYEN: And then, come home and take care of everything about the kids. So--but, yeah. I&#039 ; m fortunate, and I&#039 ; m really lucky that I&#039 ; m alive. BRODY: That&#039 ; s nice. I&#039 ; m glad that you&#039 ; re well now. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) But, yeah. It was a shock. But now--after that, now I&#039 ; m just, like, two things in my life now that I work on hardly--I mean, work at it--is my health and my kids. So my ritual thing is I walk three, four miles a day, and I work, and then I run. I go out and run marathon, and things like that, to get the heart. BRODY: Right. Take care of your heart. NGUYEN: Yeah. Um-hm. But-- |00:54:35| BRODY: You mentioned your kids. So you&#039 ; ve got three children. What has it been like for you, being a parent of children who were born here and are Americans? (laughs) NGUYEN: I think the environment we in when we were raised--I think we&#039 ; re more protective of them and want to provide for them the best that we can, because we feel like we struggling when we were little. We had to work harder and things like that. So for us, we were protective. We want to, at the same time, provide the best that we can for them, give them education, things like that. But I mean, that&#039 ; s the whole thing about us, is that, Okay, after she&#039 ; s gone to college, our job is done as a parent and we can go to retire. So again, that&#039 ; s the two thing. The most important thing for me right now is my kids--make sure they&#039 ; re okay--and then my health--make sure I&#039 ; m okay--and everything&#039 ; s going to be okay! |00:55:50| BRODY: Yeah, absolutely. Those are good priorities to have. You and your wife both kind of had a foot in both worlds. It sounds like you were very comfortable in Vietnam and at home with Vietnamese culture and food and all of that, but yet, you also are Aggies, you know? You&#039 ; re Texans and you are here. So how do you balance those two sides of your experience? NGUYEN: Well, you know, I think we adapt to change better, as far as for me and my wife. Like, I&#039 ; ll give you an example for this. If we go back to Vietnam, the weather&#039 ; s hot, we wouldn&#039 ; t complain. We can ride it out. We&#039 ; re okay with that. Whereas, the second generation and born here, they go to Vietnam, &quot ; Ah, that&#039 ; s too hot!&quot ; That&#039 ; s because we had the luxury of living both Vietnamese culture when we were growing up, even though we came at a little age, but we still have that experience and we&#039 ; re okay with that, so I think that&#039 ; s an advantage for us. Another thing is that food--we eat a lot of fermented fish stuff, which stinks. (both laugh) I admit it, but it taste so darn good for us! Now, all the second generation or the third that won&#039 ; t touches that, and I think you can&#039 ; t force them, right? But I think they lose out on that, to me, because they don&#039 ; t have the experience. BRODY: Right. The taste, maybe, of your childhood. NGUYEN: So, again, we&#039 ; re fortunate that we share those two different culture-- American culture and the Vietnamese culture. |00:57:48| BRODY: What is the part of American culture that you enjoy the most? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) I like structure, whereas in Vietnamese family, we don&#039 ; t have structure. Most of them don&#039 ; t have structure. BRODY: What do you mean? NGUYEN: Like sleep time, everything, do this and that, chore--like, in Vietnamese culture, the boy never do anything. They don&#039 ; t cook, clean. They just eat and go, right? And the girl have to do everything. The girl have to cook, right? So here, we do everything. My family--my daughter and my son--will do everything. They do chore. The boys cook the rice. He cook. He wash the dishes. So we&#039 ; re trying to-- BRODY: Share all the-- NGUYEN: --share everything. Okay. That is a good thing. So we kind of-- BRODY: (both speaking at once) That&#039 ; s the piece of American culture that you kind of melded into your family. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Exactly. Melded into--I mean, most of American here--the kid don&#039 ; t want to do anything too, just like--right? (both laugh) BRODY: Right. So-- NGUYEN: But we trained them, sort of, to do that, and I keep telling them, &quot ; Seeing you do things for thirty minute--washing dishes--I can do it in ten, (Brody laughs) but I want you to do it because when you&#039 ; re out there on your own, you&#039 ; re able to wash the dishes, or know how to.&quot ; I&#039 ; ll give you example, and it make me feel so good, is that my son went to [Texas] Tech and he share apartment with these kids--these white kids--and they don&#039 ; t do anything. The dishes high, and that would bother my son, and he complained to me, &quot ; Dad, they don&#039 ; t know how to do anything! They don&#039 ; t know how to do dishes!&quot ; And now I realized that he learned. We preach, but he won&#039 ; t--we feel like he won&#039 ; t listen, but they do listen. Things like that make me feel good to know, okay, at least--I thought they didn&#039 ; t listen to me, but little things like that, like cleaning. He cook. He able to do laundry whenever they would come home with stinky basket. (laughs) They do all that, so that&#039 ; s good. Little things that know more every day that you can take care of yourself--laundry, the cooking. You don&#039 ; t have to be extravagant, but know how at least, cook rice and feed yourself, instead of--yeah. But, that&#039 ; s what we aiming for, is to have that flexibility. She, right now--weekend, her chore will be dusting all the stuff and they would vacuum. BRODY: (both speaking at once) Your daughter, yes. NGUYEN: We don&#039 ; t have a housekeeper or maid to do--we used to hire one, but we don&#039 ; t because we do it ourselves. It&#039 ; s exercise anyway, right? |01:00:51| BRODY: Right. So you do it together as a family. NGUYEN: The laundry, everything-- |01:00:56| BRODY: I wanted to ask, also, about more on this question of identity since you&#039 ; re a parent, but to first ask to you, if you could identify a few words that summed up your idea of what it means to be a Vietnamese American. NGUYEN: I believe it&#039 ; s flexibility and adaptability because we encounter a lot of stuff in our life, and if you don&#039 ; t have the flexibility or adaptability--for instance, let&#039 ; s give some example that some people that they came--I mean, we&#039 ; re fortunate enough that we&#039 ; re a little bit younger, but if you come at a older age and you don&#039 ; t work hard and adapt, you don&#039 ; t feel fit in. You want to go back to Vietnam or you want to do--you don&#039 ; t turn out the way you hoped to turn out or your goal not met or something like that. But I think we adapt very well, school-wise, work-wise, and I think that&#039 ; s the thing for me--go to work. I&#039 ; m very friendly, very enjoyable, adaptable, so I think that&#039 ; s a good thing--trait for me that I think I have. |01:02:28| BRODY: Right. That flexibility. Some people have said that they feel like their experiences as a refugee have informed and made that flexibility part of their personality. Is that accurate for you? NGUYEN: Probably, yeah, because again, the refugee--that comes with the refugee because you have to. You left your mother country for freedom and opportunity. You have to. But again, also situation. For us, again, we&#039 ; re at a young age and it&#039 ; s easy for us to adapt and cope and do everything, but again--like, for instance, my brother--oh, he struggled. BRODY: Your oldest brother? NGUYEN: My second to the oldest, so he didn&#039 ; t really--I don&#039 ; t think--I think he just barely finished school. He was depressed. He don&#039 ; t fit in. And then no school, no work-- whatever. Right now, he&#039 ; s a machinist, but what I&#039 ; m saying is for a period of time, he don&#039 ; t like it. It was hard for him to adapt and fit in. BRODY: Did he experience-- NGUYEN: Language barrier and (??). |01:03:55| BRODY: (both speaking at once) Language barrier and--okay. Was there discrimination or racism that he-- NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Oh, of course. There&#039 ; s always that. At work--I think he told me the story one time that a black guy discriminate, and I think that guy probably in his twenty, maybe, still young, but it was the same thing--making weird language, &quot ; ching chang,&quot ; and other thing, but it&#039 ; s like that. They mimicked him like that. It got worse now, if you&#039 ; re getting picked on with words, but back then, that&#039 ; s all we hear, is they mimic you. Then they do the eye things--the most common thing they did, because we don&#039 ; t understand anyway. (laughs) BRODY: I&#039 ; ve heard that before. NGUYEN: We don&#039 ; t understand, so that&#039 ; s what they--but here now is a different level of prejudice and racism, because we understood it now. We understand the languages more in-depth. |01:05:01| BRODY: So you feel like it&#039 ; s worse today? NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. I think it&#039 ; s worse now because you can mock my language. I don&#039 ; t understand it so good. But now, I understood you. I understood deep enough in your words. It&#039 ; s worse, I think. We struggle and we feel discriminated, but that&#039 ; s because we can&#039 ; t understand it when we were younger, but now, it&#039 ; s totally different level. BRODY: Do you personally--are feeling this today, or do you think just the community in general? NGUYEN: I think the community in general. I mean, my take on that is that we cannot get away from that--the kind of prejudice or racism. People can put on a face and say this and that, but deep down, it&#039 ; s--I wouldn&#039 ; t say it&#039 ; s a--just going back from the beginning, even food gathering age or a period of time, they separated themselves. Same people. They prejudiced and racist themselves, right? They get to a group, &quot ; You cannot touch my thing. That&#039 ; s mine for my own group.&quot ; You cannot--so, we just need to learn to live with each other. Give them some respect. If you don&#039 ; t have the respect and you-- that&#039 ; s understood, then we&#039 ; re okay. We can live with each other and be happy, and you respect me and I respect you. But that&#039 ; s how I feel. Like, all these thing going on, especially now with the social media, it&#039 ; s bad. I mean, we understood it. It&#039 ; s bad. Instead of just mocking, &quot ; Ching, chong, ching,&quot ; --who cares. You don&#039 ; t know what it means. You mock. It&#039 ; s just childish. But now, it&#039 ; s just totally different. I don&#039 ; t think our kid encounter that now, because I think what the school system does now is pretty good job on that--about outbursts like that. |01:07:24| BRODY: So you feel like the kids don&#039 ; t encounter as much of that kind of overt-- NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) Yeah. I don&#039 ; t think so. Yeah. They bully in different way. Not racism. I feel like race is good, but the prejudice when it&#039 ; s there, or the racist, is worse. It&#039 ; s rare, especially with social media now. It&#039 ; s always going to be there. There&#039 ; s no denying. You can--anybody can look me straight in the eye and say, &quot ; Oh, I don&#039 ; t believe in racist,&quot ; and that. Yes, you don&#039 ; t believe in them, but it&#039 ; s there. We just have to learn to respect each other and move on. |01:08:08| BRODY: That&#039 ; s good advice, for sure. I just wanted to circle back and ask about your family--your parents. NGUYEN: Okay. So yeah, I can tell you about my parent. After we left, my father got caught and the Communists put him in prison for seven years. That&#039 ; s for wanting for escape. My sister and my mom were struggling for years ; got no money, food, and things like that. We do send home money, but we were struggle here as well, and so during that time, my brother send money home, but you can&#039 ; t send--it&#039 ; s communist. You can&#039 ; t send real money. You can send product, gifts, and I remember my brother sent home the toothpaste, they put gold in there--inside the toothpaste!--ounces or whatever--I was a kid--for them to spend. |01:09:19| BRODY: Did they get it? NGUYEN: Yes. They get some of the gift, but they getting smart. Back then, they don&#039 ; t have anything for radar, or whatever system-- BRODY: (both speaking at once) X-rays. NGUYEN: --X-ray system, yeah, to scan. But later on, you can&#039 ; t. But during the eighties they can, so they send home--got gold to spend, but my father was in jail for seven years, and when he got out, he was really sick. They don&#039 ; t have enough to eat. When they say they put you in jail, they mean put you in jail. Not the jail here that people give thing or take things for granted. You don&#039 ; t get to TV, read, or get--have the degree. You messed up, you pay for it. None of this human right. So he got punished real bad. When he came out, he had to go operate on his intestine because he&#039 ; d eaten bad, contaminated food because there wasn&#039 ; t enough food, so I think that&#039 ; s the problem that cost his life short. He passed away when he was seventy-something. But anyway, he got a operation. Took, like, three-quarters of his intestine away, and when he--then he got colon cancer afterward. That&#039 ; s why he passed away shorter, but I think that&#039 ; s contribute to his problem, because of the jail time. That&#039 ; s seven years. BRODY: That&#039 ; s a long time. NGUYEN: Long time. And my mom and my six sister--during that time, we had two came over--sent over on the boat. And so two of my sister came afterward, like, in ninety--&#039 ; 88 and &#039 ; 92. And then recently, we have another sister came over four years ago, so we have total of seven of us. BRODY: Seven of you here, out of the ten. NGUYEN: Right. Ten. And then, three over there, but my oldest sister--she just passed away a few years ago. She suffered cancer too. BRODY: Oh. I&#039 ; m so sorry. NGUYEN: But, yes. Two of them left there, and then my parents passed away too. BRODY: So the seven of you who are here are all in Dallas? NGUYEN: Yeah, most of them. My oldest one in California. He&#039 ; s the one who do the construction and architecture and building. He would--he&#039 ; s doing very well. Very, very well. He&#039 ; s in Huntington Beach now. He buy land, and then he build houses and sell it, and California&#039 ; s doing very well in housing. BRODY: Yeah. There&#039 ; s a lot of people. (laughs) NGUYEN: For the price. (laughs) |01:12:24| BRODY: That&#039 ; s it. Yes. The market is good there. So the last sort of area--we&#039 ; ve kind of touch on it a little bit, but it&#039 ; s more on this question of identity. To you what does it mean to be American? You mentioned you achieved your citizenship, so tell me about what it meant to you to get American citizenship. NGUYEN: I--to be honest, I really didn&#039 ; t think about that. To be, like--you know how some people, &quot ; Oh, yes!&quot ; ? We&#039 ; re not like that. In fact, my wife and I went the same time. We went and got naturalized the same time. We got the same--but again, it wasn&#039 ; t a big deal for us. I guess we were young, so we became naturalized in eighty--&#039 ; 90, or something like that. Yeah. Ninety--I forgot, but long time ago. But for us, we weren&#039 ; t like older people that dreamed to be an American immigrant, excited about. It&#039 ; s just something that we needed to have or get, but it&#039 ; s no problem for us. We&#039 ; re younger. We passed it with flying color. So yeah, as far as that, I didn&#039 ; t remember that, &quot ; Yes, I&#039 ; m a US citizen now.&quot ; |01:13:54| BRODY: So after--it&#039 ; s been a while since that happened and you became an American citizen, but what does it--reflecting back, what does it mean to you now to say, &quot ; I&#039 ; m an American&quot ; ? NGUYEN: I think American citizens should be proud to be a American citizen, and I&#039 ; ll tell you why--because if you travel a lot and you go to different country and you experience stuff--experience life, experience with the people that you touches--you don&#039 ; t know nowhere else you would rather want to be but here because, yes, we have our bads and good, but the freedom is outrageous here. I mean, look at that. Where else you go in the world that the president mess up something, you cuss and you mock him, and you do something? You got your freedom of speech! Nowhere else. Even some of the democratic country--some of them, you can&#039 ; t do that. Like Taiwan, you can&#039 ; t really say, but they&#039 ; re democratic, right? Some of them. So we&#039 ; ve been living in Hong Kong, Thailand, and we experienced all that. We&#039 ; ve experience culture. We experience the economic, the food, the infrastructure, road--nothing compare to the US. You&#039 ; ve got so much opportunity, so at the time when I was natural, I don&#039 ; t feel like that. But now, you--I&#039 ; m so proud because you go everywhere, you cannot have the same experience. It&#039 ; s just amazing. You go to France or Europe--we haven&#039 ; t been there. That&#039 ; s our bucket list. But from what my father-in-law--nothing. Traffic, nowhere to have the car, the freedom to do anything--it&#039 ; s all great. Very good. We&#039 ; re lucky to be here. |01:16:14| BRODY: So back to that blended identity that you have ; what does it mean for you to be Vietnamese American? NGUYEN: Very proud. We have the heritage. We have the Vietnamese heritage, food-- food is the best. When you get older, that&#039 ; s all you think. (both laugh) It&#039 ; s good. I feel that&#039 ; s the best part is to be Vietnamese American, is that we live in this world of freedom and a melting pot of diversity. You can&#039 ; t go anywhere and have the diversity that we have. I mean, now, we&#039 ; re going backward. Look at Donald Trump about all this immigration things that he do, and you think back and you say, &quot ; This country was built on immigration.&quot ; This part is not all American. It belonged to American Indians, then we came and we conquer, and we are American. But that, because of the immigrant, create all this diversity. You name the food, you go out there and you get it. Vietnamese food is more(??) because of (??) one of the best one, but yeah. I&#039 ; m so proud to be an American--Vietnamese American because to be here and to have that heritage is great. |01:17:56| BRODY: So a hundred years from now when you&#039 ; re great-great-great-great-great- grandchildren might listen to this interview or read the transcript, or future scholars, is there anything that we haven&#039 ; t talked about today yet that you think should be included or you think that they should know? NGUYEN: Don&#039 ; t forget your heritage. Don&#039 ; t forget your heritage. Open mind. Experience your heritage. Experience your Vietnamese culture as well. That&#039 ; s the best thing that I want my kid to experience. We go back a whole lot to Vietnam, and they like it. I think my oldest son--he speak better Vietnamese when we went over there. We come back and know he get it. He can write too. So he&#039 ; s just also the talented kid, but at least give it a chance and don&#039 ; t forget your heritage. Give it a chance, because you see some kid that doesn&#039 ; t have that. I&#039 ; ll give you example. There&#039 ; s a little kid, eleven, twelve years old. He&#039 ; s Filipino and he think he&#039 ; s white, and he&#039 ; s making fun of--&quot ; Oh, you&#039 ; re a ching-chong, right?&quot ; So it&#039 ; s like, &quot ; Yes. You&#039 ; re also Asian though!&quot ; (laughs) So I don&#039 ; t want the kid to have that. Know where you&#039 ; re from. |01:19:33| BRODY: That&#039 ; s beautiful. Thank you so much for your time and for your story. It was wonderful to hear, and I&#039 ; m very honored to be able to record it for this collection, so thank you very much. NGUYEN: (both speaking at once) I mean, at this time, I have a little bit more that comes up, but--yeah. No problem. BRODY: Okay. Thank you so much. NGUYEN: Okay. end of interview All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0 OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://becomingtexansbecomingamericans.org/OHMSviewer/viewer.php?cachefile=2019oh011_btba_011.xml Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Chad Nguyen Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 2019oh011_btba_011 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018-06-29 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio