13499 research outputs found
Sort by
Oral History of Alexander Linh Van Duong
No full textAn oral history with Mr. Alexander Linh Van Duong, a graduate of University of Southern California where he received his degree in pharmacy school. He is currently a Pharmacist and residing in Westminster, California. This interviewed focused on his experiences on immigrating to the United States as a boat person. The interview also focuses on his family’s struggle in America and how they turned it around.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Maria Nga Chau
No full textOral history of Maria Nga Chau, born in 1945 in Nha Trang, Vietnam to a well-to-do Catholic-raised mother and working-class Confucian-raised father from Hue. She is one of six children. She was sent to school in Da Nang, where she lived in residence with nuns in her childhood until her family relocated to Saigon. She studied to be a veterinarian and ended up teaching the subject between 1968 and 1975. She married a man who was a soldier in the South Vietnamese army. After the communist victory, she was required to teach on agriculture and husbandry while her husband was sent to reeducation camp. After 1977 she did not have any information about her husband, presumed to be dead after an unsuccessful attempt to escape camp. She described the hard years living under communist scrutiny after 1975. In 1991 she and her children were resettled to the United States through the sponsorship of relatives. She worked as a seamstress, then got her cosmetology license and worked in a nail salon.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Thuan Tran
No full textAn oral history with Mr. Thuan Tran, born in 1965 in Vung Tau, Vietnam. He and his family left Vietnam in 1975 and spent five years in an Indonesian refugee camp. He shares his memories of discrimination and adjustment to life in the Indonesian refugee camp, where he also resumed his Vietnamese education with the resources that were available for young people there. Mr. Thuan Tran also discusses his experiences with acculturating to high school in the U.S. after 1980. From 1984-1988, he attended the University of California, Irvine as an Electrical Engineering major. He shared his memories of campus life and being part of the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) on campus. After he graduated, he was accepted into a position with Southern California Edison, where he continues to work as the Manager for Protection Engineer to this day. He currently lives in Diamond Bar, California with his wife and daughter.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Tom Truong
No full textAn oral history with Mr. Tom Truong, born in 1940 in Ninh Binh, Vietnam. He shared his experiences with the Viet Minh and reeducation camp before he and his family migrated to South Vietnam in 1954. In 1963, he joined the Navy division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and served until 1975 when he and his family resettled in the United States. He extensively discussed his memories in North Vietnam before the 1954 migration as well as his experiences with the Navy before the end of the Vietnam War. He also briefly shared his experiences with acculturation in the United States.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Annthy Thao Nguyen
No full textOral history of Ms. Annthy Thao Nguyen, born in 1956 in Saigon, Vietnam. She is the seventh child in a family of eleven children, and her father worked for USAID. She described 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 Hue Pham
No full textAn oral history with Dr. Hue Pham, the current Dean of Counseling & Special Services Program at Orange Coast College (Costa Mesa, CA) and radio talk show/T.V. host for the Vietnamese community in Orange County. The interview focuses on her early life experiences during the Vietnamese war along with her journey to the United States as an international student. She shares with us her continuous involvement in the Vietnamese community as well as her dream career encouraging Vietnamese youth to become educated as a counselor.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Chau Nguyen
No full textAn oral history of Ms. Chau Nguyen, born in 1962 in Chau Doc, Vietnam. She migrated to Saigon in 1963 and grew up in Phu Nhuan District of Saigon. Her father worked for the US government, and her mother was a homemaker. She, along with her parents, both paternal grandparents, paternal aunt, and three siblings, left Vietnam on April 22, 1975 before the Fall of Saigon. After being processed in Camp Pendleton, they were sponsored by a Catholic church and settled in Anaheim, California, where she lives to this day. She received her B.S. in Biology from the University of California, Irvine in 1988. She went on to receive her doctorate in optometry from the University of Southern California in 1992. In 1994, she was a founding member of the Social Assistance Program for Viet Nam (SAP-VN), a yearly mobile health care project based in Garden Grove, California that provides free health and dental care to many poor villagers in Vietnam. She continues to lead the organization to this day.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Phi Long Mai
No full textOral history of Mr. Phi Long Mai, born on March 3, 1966, in Saigon, Vietnam. His father was a marine major in the South Republican Army, and his mother was a housewife who became a businesswoman after 1975. Around 1971, at the age of five, he started following his mother to preach with the Jehovah's Witnesses. He talks about how his family received the news that they got accepted to go to America in 1991. He studied at Cypress College and describes how he stepped into the business industry as well as the media industry.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of Nhan Thi Nguyen
No full textBorn in 1934 in Hanh Thien village in Nam Dinh province in Vietnam, Nhan Thi Nguyen resides in Tustin, California at the time of interview. Her father was a businessman and her mother passed away when she was one. Her early years of schooling was disrupted due to Japanese occupation and Vietnamese anticolonial struggles against the French. In 1954 she migrated south and married Duong Dinh Thu, a military man who later became a colonel in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. They had nine children. After the war ended in 1975, her husband was sent to reeducation camp for four years, but she was able to escape the country with her nine children who ranged in age between one and 18 years old. They came to Camp Pendleton in May 1975 and then were resettled in San Clemente initially. She was reunited with her husband after his release from reeducation prison. Their family moved to Tustin. Nhan Thi Nguyen worked as a seamstress for 18 years to support her children, six of whom work in the medical field.Recorded Digitall
Oral History of David Tran
No full textAn oral history with Mr. David Tran, born in Soc Trang, Vietnam in 1945. The interview focused on his experiences with migration and business. He is of Cantonese descent, but lived most of his life in Vietnam. He was drafted into the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) at age 20, and after the war ended, returned home to help with the family business. He and his family eventually left Vietnam as boat refugees and migrated to the United States in 1979. After relocating from Boston, Massachusetts to Los Angeles, California in 1987, he and his family built and expanded their company. The company is known as Huy Fong Foods, Inc., and is most renowned for its Sriracha products. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his family.Recorded Digitall