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Oral History of To Tien Dung
No full textAn oral history with Mr. Dũng Tô, born in Đà Nẵng, Vietnam. He has thirteen siblings who all currently reside in the United States. His father was a police officer, an investigator, and had a criminal justice background. The most valuable object that he brought to America was a filmstrip, which maintains pictures of his ancestors. His family has resided in many different areas throughout their lives. He later attended San Jose State University and also worked throughout his studies. He met his wife who partnered with him to open a Vietnamese language school that charges no tuition. They hope to preserve Vietnamese heritage in the US.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Thomas Quach
No full textThis is an oral history of Mr. Thomas Quach, a physician from Orange County born in 1974 in Saigon, Vietnam. Quach is a practicing OBGYN and active member of the Vietnamese community. He is the eldest son of pharmacists Danh Quach and Xuan Nguyen. Quach emigrated from Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975 as a young child. This interview describes his coming of age and journey towards becoming a physician.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Ngoc Hoa Lam
No full textOral history of Ms. Ngoc Hoa Lam, born in 1942 in Saigon, Vietnam. Her father was an officer in the French military, so she grew up exposed to both French and Vietnamese educations. She married in 1965 and worked at the military and had four children. After South Vietnam fell, she escaped by boat in 1979 with two sons and arrived at Pulau Bidong, Malaysia. They decided to resettle in Germany rather than endure the hardships of camp life for much longer. Once in Germany, she sponsored her husband and remaining two children with the help of a German diplomat. For more educational opportunities, she and her family moved to the United States and settled in Orange County.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Que Tho Tran
No full textOral history of Mr. Tran Tho Que, born in 1942 in Nam Dinh, Vietnam to a family of eleven children. In 1954, his family moved to Gia Dinh in the South when the country was partitioned and his mother provided for their family with a business. He joined the Air Force and spent two years training in the United States from 1965-67. He married and had eight children. The last child was born after they escaped from Vietnam in 1975 and arrived in Minnesota.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Truong Le Chi
No full textAn oral history of Truong Le Chi, born in 1940 in Soc Trang, Vietnam to a father who was a photographer. She is the middle child with an older brother and a younger brother. Although born and raised in Soc Trang, she lived in Saigon where she attended Gia Long, a school for girls. She married her tutor who was an engineer and had 6 children. Her husband passed away in 1969 and she gave 5 of her 6 children up for adoption. They were sent to the West and her eldest remained with her until he escaped to Cambodia as an adult. She traded medicine on the black market, married a South Vietnamese veteran who had been released from reeducation prison, and left Vietnam with him and his children through the Orderly Departure Program. Once she arrived in the U.S. she reunited with her children. At the time of interview, she is retired and living alone in Garden Grove, California.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Hoang Dai Hai
No full textOral history of Hoang Dai Hai (first name Hai, surname Hoang), born in 1963 in Saigon, Vietnam. He is the eldest child in a family of 6 children. His father passed away in 1969 and his mother gave his 5 siblings up for international adoption through two programs called Friends of Children of Vietnam and Welcome Home. He helped his mother run pharmaceuticals on the black market and attempted to escape the country by boat at least ten times without success. In 1986 he went to Cambodia and made a living by selling medicine, doing acupuncture, and being a healer. He met his wife there and the two of them escaped Cambodia by boat. They arrived in a refugee camp in Thailand and then sent to the Philippines before resettlement in the United States. Once in America he went to dental school and practiced dentistry in the Seattle-Tacoma area before moving to Orange County, California where he lives at the time of interview with his wife and three sons, who were all born in the U.S.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Annthy Thao Nguyen
No full textOral history of Annthy Thao Nguyen, born in 1956 in Saigon, Vietnam. She is the seventh child in a family of 11 children and her father worked for USAID. She describes her childhood in Saigon attending school up until her second year of college, when South Vietnam collapsed. During the final days of South Vietnam, she was separated from her parents and siblings who escaped the country at that time and thought she had died. Four years later she escaped Vietnam as a boat refugee, passed through Pulau Bidong, Malaysia and resettled in Orange County, California. She put herself through ESL and community college courses and then transferred to Cal State Long Beach to complete her degree. She hopes to retire at 62 and focus on her photography hobby.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Tom Phan
No full textAn oral history with Mr. Tom Phan, born in 1955 in Nha Trang, Vietnam. In March 1975, Mr. Phan was a teenager attending boarding school in Da Lat when Vietnam fell. On April 27, 1975, his family flew from Saigon to the United States. Mr. Phan enrolled in the local university majoring in computer engineering, and worked minimum wage jobs. In 1978, he was the first Asian hired at Electronic Data Systems, where he worked for eight years. On December 15, 1978, he married his wife. In 1988, he formed his own company, Customer Focus International, which developed software. In 1998 he sold the company and retired. During his retirement, he spent more time with his family and took them on many vacations, including taking his entire extended family to Vietnam for a month in 2000. In 2007, his son approached him about opening a Vietnamese restaurant, which is now called Phans 55. It currently has two locations in Irvine and Fullerton. He has children and lives in Irvine, California with his wife.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of William Nguyen
No full textAn oral history with Mr. William Nguyen, born in 1952 in Ha Noi, Vietnam. He was a young medical student before April 30, 1975. After the collapse of South Vietnam, he left his family behind to flee Vietnam by boat. He discusses the troubling times during which he had to move from Ha Noi to Saigon to flee from the communist regime. In addition, he discussed his medical school experiences in Saigon. He shared memories of migration to the Americas and his time in Canada to continue his education. After coming to the United States, he became a family-practice pathologist. He explains his involvement in a medical clinic organization called MEMO in which health fairs for the community is organized to maintain community health. He has two children and lives in Anaheim Hills, California with his wife.Recorded Digitall
