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454 - Why Was Becoming The First Vietnamese American Politician Important? Tony Lam · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast today.
0:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a guess that I have been waiting many, many, many years to sit and interview.
0:09
[SPEAKER_01]: First off, I want to shout out to Kathy Lump, Tony Lump's daughter for setting up this interview.
0:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And today, thank you for coming on the Vietnamese podcast.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
0:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very happy that I have a shin even caught briefly about my life to you.
0:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I've been three-time refugee in my life.
0:38
[SPEAKER_02]: At the age of 10 years old, in 1946, by December, when the French wanted to invade by to Vietnam after the World War II.
0:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And then,
1:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Our families gather all over, run away from the city dwelling of high-found port.
1:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And we run into a neighbouring district of Kinnan, and I got lost by myself, how old were you?
1:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I was then only here, 10 years old, and, um,
1:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I caught a family friend of my parents.
1:37
[SPEAKER_02]: She, the lady, lost her husband as well.
1:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a flock of refugee running at the whole city of high-fowned port running away out of high-fowned port into the countryside to avoid bombardment by the French.
2:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I was stuck there with the family, but all I had was a jacket, a shirt, a jacket, and a short, and it's getting colder, but every other day I washed my clothes and then hang up.
2:34
[SPEAKER_02]: at the roadside house, but behind is the rocket mountain.
2:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So I stay up in the bike over the rocket mountain and way until my troll gate dried up and after staying there for
2:57
[SPEAKER_02]: three days, then the lady told me that I got to go and look for my family because she cannot afford to give you.
3:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a walk by to that township walking by passing a cemetery where the resistance force at that time, the companies called themselves resistance force and then
3:53
[SPEAKER_02]: most of the body they killed was decomposed.
3:58
[SPEAKER_02]: The smell terrible.
4:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I get scared.
4:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I walk by myself and walking into the town of Kenan.
4:13
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a group of three, four people.
4:22
[SPEAKER_02]: uh, looking for the resident force and I was so ghosty and hungry at that time looking at them taking the breakfast, um, I look at them finally they say,
4:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So they offer me some glutinous rice, soy, and then they say, then they say to me, if you mind to take care of cattle, well, so no, I don't mind, so they put me there.
5:23
[SPEAKER_02]: My second brother, I mean, I have two, three older brothers, our family of
5:48
[SPEAKER_02]: was able to get my mother from the hospital, she got a miscarriage, and she found Heath for some reason, he found me, right at the township, and then I was with my mother
6:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Highway number five, from high found to unknown, at that time, the French already took the position that mean they already
6:32
[SPEAKER_02]: in command of the whole area.
6:36
[SPEAKER_02]: But we are so afraid we walk into a temple but we stay there until four or five o'clock in the morning so then we walk across.
6:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So can I ask you something?
6:52
[SPEAKER_01]: In your mind, now, at 10 years old, was the French, the enemy, or the resistance, the enemy, or how did you feel about these people?
7:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, at that time, uh...
7:09
[SPEAKER_02]: we were told that we have to stay away from our void of French invasion there, plus the fact that we were also propagandized for the fact that the resisting force are the one that defends the national
7:34
[SPEAKER_02]: integrity and that's the reason that at my age that's all I know because also there's the bunch of patriotic song that we learn and bring and sing elsewhere.
7:55
[SPEAKER_01]: The resistance taught you that.
7:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, because they spread all over, and a lot of activity, prior to that, the Chinese come to Vietnam to disarm the Japanese.
8:19
[SPEAKER_02]: when Japan lost the war, so anyway I can witness all these activity, but of course as a Vietnamese, we care for Vietnamese national.
8:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
8:38
[SPEAKER_02]: We will believe in the existence of Vietnam.
8:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We believe that we have to protect Vietnam from foreign invaders.
9:03
[SPEAKER_02]: The highway, and finally, end up in our friends, my father's, my parents' friend who live in King Morn, it's a northern part of a high-zoon city.
9:21
[SPEAKER_02]: High-zoon is a city in between high-fowned and unknowingly.
9:31
[SPEAKER_02]: just about a couple of weeks, and the first thing I did with the kind of a very special like a worm, but they call it Zui.
9:50
[SPEAKER_02]: and very colourful, but they make it with egg.
9:56
[SPEAKER_02]: It cooked with egg, are so scary, but what can I do?
10:01
[SPEAKER_02]: My mother would say that you go ahead, try it.
10:07
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, that is the first kind of food that I try in my life.
10:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Then, we'll have King Moon.
10:19
[SPEAKER_02]: find a way back to my mother's native town of Teng Wan.
10:30
[SPEAKER_02]: On the way, we had to make the local authority for the subsidy, the support in order to get back to Teng Wan.
10:44
[SPEAKER_02]: we walk empty and that means no money alone and so three of us we finally
11:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Vignal, formerly in Fu Guang, where my mother had to make the Jailam before, they called Jailam
11:34
[SPEAKER_02]: and peanut, but then make it the cake, it's the flat, and a big one, the heat of the sugar.
11:48
[SPEAKER_02]: and makes with the powder of glutinous rice powder.
11:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean the one that we co-powered and then spread it on the table with a big one but they cut it in a square piece like that.
12:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But then once we go back there, my uncle, native town, so he's there, but he couldn't help us finally, my mother's got her old friend, who was the wife of a own fool.
12:38
[SPEAKER_02]: for her, they call, so she offers to stay at her ranch in non-cognaria.
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So we move ourselves to non-cogn, and stay at her ranch, they call up, up the one,
13:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, we stay there for almost a year and we finally got all the my sapling together.
13:15
[SPEAKER_02]: My eldest brothers was able to be with us, but he flowed around later on and so as my second brother.
13:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Only my next brother, my three sisters, with me and my older sister, I all the brother and myself, we work, we pound the rice, the we pounding the rice, to make it, it's good rice for our family,
13:59
[SPEAKER_02]: fish in the pond, it's a lot of rice we grind the patty into rice and we pound the
14:27
[SPEAKER_02]: My mother's the cook, some kind of boon, zeo, to sell to the farmer around the neighborhood, but we do not have a good business at that time.
14:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So eventually, the food getting dry,
14:54
[SPEAKER_02]: the city of Tengwa, whereby
15:00
[SPEAKER_02]: The whole city was demolished, they followed the Russian war against the German during that time.
15:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So the visit and forth, all the everybody to destroy their home.
15:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So we stayed in a makeup shelter,
15:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We, you know, can I ask you, when did you move to Saigon?
15:33
[SPEAKER_01]: What year did you move to Saigon?
15:36
[SPEAKER_02]: What year?
15:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
15:39
[SPEAKER_02]: We went to Saigon in 1954.
15:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So, as I told you, I've been a three-time driver's machine in my life.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: The first one was in 1946, sorry, the second one in 54, the third one in 75, so
16:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to ask you about quickly about 1954 and then quickly about 1975 because we need to get to America to hear the story of how you got into politics.
16:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do want to hear the 1954, I want to spend a couple of minutes and 1954 and a couple of minutes in 1975 and then I want to hear.
16:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, I moved south earlier with my next brother, not the one next to me, but the one older, because he was in the army, artillery, and he was the officer.
17:01
[SPEAKER_02]: now on an LST to the South.
17:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so you went with him?
17:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I went down with him and then he put me at my form of teachers home and he said that he paid for my, you know,
17:32
[SPEAKER_02]: and then I get into a high school but I was there only three months then I was so home sick because my parents still be high.
17:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to go back I decide to go back so at that time my
18:00
[SPEAKER_02]: a parent had to write a letter to authority so that I can go back, go back to North Vietnam, and at that time my father's move back to Hanway.
18:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Later on, they set up a supply to Knut
18:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Prior to that, he worked for the French company as a cheap accountant for the dredging company.
18:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, they moved it by two hand-knows and they opened up a
18:54
[SPEAKER_02]: by the resistance force, over big tax, they were so upset, my father was so upset, and later on, he found out that very critical to stay with the Communists at that time.
19:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important to stay with the Communists.
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It was important to stay with the Communists?
19:23
[SPEAKER_02]: They go back to Annoi, working in a business, and they were imposed with a very high tax, and then apparently they'd lose so much money due to that.
19:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And they learned from my uncle.
19:53
[SPEAKER_02]: punished by the Communist Party in Tenghua, he advised my father to move away from the move away and don't leave under their yoke.
20:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Also the former
20:23
[SPEAKER_02]: a very high ranking in a government.
20:28
[SPEAKER_02]: He also, a victim of the communist at that time, he moved from South Central, Tenghua.
20:39
[SPEAKER_02]: He and his wife and two girls.
20:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all grown up.
20:54
[SPEAKER_02]: and at that time I was a little bit more than 10 years old, but I was able to tell them that
21:13
[SPEAKER_02]: when we go through the control port of Hanoi gas train station, I got to make sure that they can sneak in because they control them, but
21:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I played the game with the control people.
21:40
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, like, you know, all kind of stuff.
21:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I, so that they can sneak in my parents and my friends, family, can sneak in.
21:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And even by the high zoo, it's a city in between high fowl and I know, I told them to get out because they go back and check up everything.
22:12
[SPEAKER_02]: and I was able to get the whole family in covering the family of my fathers.
22:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the gentleman later on is a head of civic action, department under the Zim region.
22:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, he's a higher, but anyway,
22:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So you got out of Tanghua around 1954 to go south, right?
22:44
[SPEAKER_02]: No, not from being like, from getting to know the sound, to the sound.
22:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, to the sound was when we moved to Hanhai, Hanhai down to Haikfal.
22:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Got it.
22:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I was able to talk to the French to have a flight from Haikfal to the sound.
23:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I got the whole family on the flight.
23:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
23:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Down.
23:20
[SPEAKER_02]: At that time, I was very an outstanding student in senior high school.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Which high school did you go to?
23:31
[SPEAKER_02]: They called private school called G-G-G-N-H-E-Vam.
23:37
[SPEAKER_02]: T-R-I-T-R. G-G-G. And
23:43
[SPEAKER_02]: But then once we live in the south, we had to check up with the family of the one that was my adoptive son by my father.
24:04
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's a drinker all the time.
24:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, he is a family of family.
24:13
[SPEAKER_02]: for five children.
24:16
[SPEAKER_02]: We stayed there for at least for the first sick or two, eight months until my brothers was able to save up in up money and we bought a whole house in Chile.
24:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
24:42
[SPEAKER_02]: that way which had a house to stay, but I had to quit because very odd for my father to support so I joined the Navy.
24:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Where did you learn English?
25:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I learned English when I was in high school and I was an excellent one because of a friend of mine, he gave me an English punk pen, this and a book
25:27
[SPEAKER_02]: He moved, he got the whole family moved to France, so he gave it to me.
25:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I learned that one, but I was an excellent student in all subject matter, except I'm not that good in mathematics.
25:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when I was in the Navy, I was to be sent to America for study, but then they put me in English school for another three months, but
26:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have a chance to go to USA at that time.
26:22
[SPEAKER_02]: They'd write on in the Navy.
26:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I finally get out of the Navy after serving the Navy for three years.
26:43
[SPEAKER_02]: The first thing I got is I work for the Johnson-Drick and Piper as interpreters for the man who's the diver.
26:54
[SPEAKER_02]: They build a Saigon bin Hoa Highway and he is the diver to build the British department.
27:04
[SPEAKER_02]: He got to
27:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Died, you know, with all the gear, we have a feels hand to help him with all the gear so that before he died, he got a radio to hook up and I recall that this guy is
27:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I was kidding with my friends, I said, if he don't say God damn to me, at least 20 words of God damn, today I cannot take my lunch.
27:50
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, one day after working for him for about five months
28:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I lend myself to work with a Chinese technical mission from Taiwan, of course, as in a interpreter, but then one day he was diving and he cursed me and I told him, his name
28:32
[SPEAKER_02]: No more God damn word from you.
28:35
[SPEAKER_02]: If you curse it me again, I cut you, got them old.
28:39
[SPEAKER_02]: The oxygen holes.
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And they quit the minute he said that, Poem up, had the crew, poem up.
28:51
[SPEAKER_02]: We were on a boat, you know.
28:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Poem up, and then he was about
29:00
[SPEAKER_02]: He was so mad.
29:01
[SPEAKER_02]: He was about to curse at me again.
29:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I say, Bob, this is my last word.
29:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm quitting.
29:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And then...
29:12
[SPEAKER_02]: He turned out one me to stay with him and he promised no more cursing.
29:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, I don't care now, I'm fed up, I'm sick and tired, I stood under the heart
29:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Every at lunch time, I brought along a bow, I mean, the governor, the compressor rice, with some movable.
29:56
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all I did.
29:58
[SPEAKER_02]: The movement is the pound sesame with salt.
30:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's all I had.
30:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I am the guy that is the quick learner and smart enough when I work for a Chinese technical mission.
30:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I became a system to the mission director.
30:22
[SPEAKER_02]: and, but anyway, I travel a lot on a few trips, on to help, on planting, on helping the farmer association.
30:39
[SPEAKER_02]: to do a method of cultural, I mean of planting petty fields as well as the planting watermelon,
31:09
[SPEAKER_02]: after working for them for a few, for almost a year, then I moved to USAID Rural Affairs.
31:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But working as an area specialist, but I got promoted later as assistant executive director
31:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, anyway, I spent at first in 2-1, working for one provincial rep.
31:48
[SPEAKER_02]: He's named Robert Bern.
31:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But later on, when I'd become a successful businessman, I hired him as my assistant in Vietnam.
32:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So what business did you do after USAID?
32:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I do the contracting business with my brother.
32:10
[SPEAKER_02]: The brother likes to me, he died, I also accidentally not with me before the fall.
32:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I before we move south.
32:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, the one that, you know, senior.
32:28
[SPEAKER_02]: and he, he and I, we do a lot of contracting, it's a small, we got a small contract and bigger, finally got a 25 million dollar contract, to overload cargo in what year that was in
32:51
[SPEAKER_02]: sixty seven.
32:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, you had a twenty five million dollar contract in 1967.
32:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, at that time I, you know, it it really had a tough time to build up all the
33:11
[SPEAKER_02]: we call out facility and running over hundreds, long shawman, working for us, we will
33:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So this was all off-loading and cargo for weapon.
33:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, the commanding office, the transportation or the high-up, uh, logistical support commander.
33:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh.
33:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Kono, full birth Kono in the Army.
33:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that time, you know that Camerang Bay was had a stationing of 50,000 US troops.
34:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So the way Lemian so much was contracting that the best contract we had was that the 25 million dollar contract we ran for two years and
34:18
[SPEAKER_02]: that the end of how contract only for Khofer 2 years, that they bid again, we lost the second one, lost the chain for the second one.
34:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and we'll draft it back to the army to the navy again because the world did them.
34:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I was so mad, but anyway,
34:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to go back there and luckily, I had a lot of up and down, I don't want to go into detail to you.
35:05
[SPEAKER_02]: However,
35:10
[SPEAKER_02]: we finally got out by having a man off of to rip my ear to make it like I'm blind so that they can pass the medical to get each charge.
35:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I got these charge from the navy.
35:30
[SPEAKER_02]: From the army, the navy, I switched it to the army.
35:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you got out of the army?
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when did you
35:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that was, at that 1975, but I've been in the state so many times and I travel over the war when I was well-operated.
36:00
[SPEAKER_02]: during the contracting business, the small one, the medium side, or the big one.
36:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I mean after the, after I get out, we build three industry, a fish mill, a dehydrated
36:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my brother assigned me to handle the bill up all the, the stuff in the delta and others.
36:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a, I'm like a gung-ho type, always do it and I never care for how much money in the buying is something.
36:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Even my brothers and I, he has 51% of the company, I have 49% of the company, we form the Lambra, the corporation.
37:05
[SPEAKER_02]: However, he got all the upper hand, he used 12 million, 12 million to buy a big home, a 16 bedroom villa, across from the vice president Palas and his house of 6 million
37:35
[SPEAKER_02]: He turned it over to me.
37:37
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a corner of funding for him.
37:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And hey, by cue.
37:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care.
37:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not.
37:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not hot.
37:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Or earning for more money is something.
37:57
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the kind of person that I don't care, a lot.
38:02
[SPEAKER_02]: He, in Saigon, I spend my time in the Delta to be what the industry, but to be short, then when come to evacuation, I've fallen
38:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I went to the airport with my wife, sick children, my brothers with sick children.
38:29
[SPEAKER_02]: We were able to get the DAO to sign up so that we can, if I could, manifest it on the fly out.
38:44
[SPEAKER_02]: When my wife plus six children and three children of my friend, I help them out too.
38:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So, to get the airport, I put my family out first and I stay behind to volunteer to manifest the people out.
39:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Do I spend one day the next day my assistant, Bob Bern, he advised me by my own means getting critical.
39:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You better go.
39:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went to Clark Airfield instead of looking for my family.
39:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I spent another six.
39:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Our working at the Ten City for the refugee then finally go look for my family.
39:43
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife thought I was left behind and we finally get the family there was another
40:05
[SPEAKER_02]: we were there.
40:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so chaotic at that time.
40:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I find it a little volunteer along with many people, but I was the one that stand up because they know that I did the work at the.
40:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Then she
40:33
[SPEAKER_02]: As a volunteer, why all the baractyl leaders get a minimum pay?
40:40
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife volunteer, now she, not volunteer, she worked for the Red Rock to distribute milk to the newly born baby.
40:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So, she got minimum pay to minimum wage and
41:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But Edvin, can I ask you what happened to the house?
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you get to sell the house before you left?
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You lost everything.
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I lost everything.
41:14
[SPEAKER_02]: My brother lost everything.
41:17
[SPEAKER_02]: On the 21st day, we left, let the house and I bought a car in 1972.
41:29
[SPEAKER_02]: for 6 million piers, the only car that we had in the country, the four doors, they then it's beautiful.
41:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I got for 6 million when after I left my mother law sell it for 100 dollars world.
41:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, what loss, I lost the three industry, I lost completely everything.
42:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was so stupid when I had 400 tales of gold at the house.
42:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But I saw that because I need the more money to pay for the my car.
42:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I also, instead, so I actually have only a couple thousand.
42:27
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife had it, not with me.
42:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not a caring for so much about money.
42:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And then,
42:38
[SPEAKER_02]: So, actually, we tacked out empty-ended, and after serving in one for three months, I spent another month as volunteer before being spun out by the former commanding officer of transportation
43:07
[SPEAKER_02]: every single party they invite me because I own the friendship with a big, big one and they like me, that kind of a person, a very friendly of them.
43:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I became a line-club president of the whole Camerang Bay.
43:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, I'm over acting.
43:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And when back in America, the first job that Bob Bernin introduced me to his friend as a pumpist, service station agenda for the first 15 days.
43:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And how did that feel?
44:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I say, I accept my destiny, I am so concerned about the livelihood of my family, so I, you did it.
44:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I did it anyway.
44:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes, when I go home, at both of us, we cry to myself and my wife, for the kind of suffering we had to accept.
44:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But then I say that, bear this in my, we are safe, lucky to be in his country.
44:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that's why I paid her on the bike and we come forth each other's, after that, my wife landed a job as a caterer for the company, make a caterer for the heart, for the heart.
45:15
[SPEAKER_02]: She worked there as a sampler, and the first car that I got in an old beat-up car anyway, then eventually my brothers.
45:34
[SPEAKER_02]: he had about $10,000, so he bought a car too.
45:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Later on, he's going to give it to me.
45:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And then after looking for another company making bomb, my brother told me to work for the
46:05
[SPEAKER_02]: life insurance agent.
46:09
[SPEAKER_02]: We worked there for a few years, then I was on my own.
46:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I work with my brothers on a mortgage company we set up
46:26
[SPEAKER_02]: for a while.
46:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I got a contract with their friends as a marketing guy for a friend.
46:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had a $10,000 dollars with the air friend.
46:47
[SPEAKER_02]: However, I spent so much money for the
46:55
[SPEAKER_02]: working, I have a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a,
47:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And then my wife and I, we decided to set up a restaurant.
47:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, what year was that?
47:25
[SPEAKER_02]: 70's.
47:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: That was very early.
47:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, early.
47:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Three years into the United States.
47:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the first restaurants in Orange County.
47:36
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
47:37
[SPEAKER_02]: The restaurant, my wife.
47:40
[SPEAKER_02]: She is good at cooking and she introduced all the Northern Vietnamese style and eventually we got a flock of customer a lot of time they stand in line to get it so that how successful we were.
48:04
[SPEAKER_02]: for 16 years, well, we ran that restaurant, and we were victim later on in 1992, when I got elected,
48:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Not that easy because there's another Vietnamese running for that kind of position as well.
48:37
[SPEAKER_02]: They have an open seat, only one seat available, but there was four people running for the same seat.
48:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And...
48:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I worked very hard, but thank God, I saved his, had saverals, a system to help me as it on my camping, but none of them worthy until I got Ryan Huvery's one.
49:15
[SPEAKER_02]: He's the one that a very dynamic.
49:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Guy preparing his master with USC.
49:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Can't believe him, he laid it on graduated with Master Degree, but he's very smart, young man.
49:35
[SPEAKER_02]: He volunteered to help me as a campaign manager.
49:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a few others, volunteer as well, but I also look a line of six or seven car with the loudspeaker to call Vietnamese out to vote and at that time, not the majority of Vietnamese
50:17
[SPEAKER_02]: and care about election and others.
50:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I had less than, I mean, approximately 3,000 vote, totally, about maybe 2100 Vietnamese, they got others, ethnic group too.
50:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So wait, let's go back to why you decided to run for office.
50:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
50:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Because during the time that I very much involved with Vietnamese, I organized three different festivals.
51:03
[SPEAKER_02]: and very much helping Vietnamese to stand on their own feet as well, helping them to get a city's ownership and all kind of stuff.
51:16
[SPEAKER_02]: However, I found that the Vietnamese business people get
51:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So I say that, and then few friends say that unless there is some representation with the city, it is hard for the Vietnamese to grow up and that's why.
52:02
[SPEAKER_02]: was a good friend of Frank Giao, he's a successful real estate guy, and I have been a lot, but not during the last
52:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Kenny is, I, at least in myself, because he seemed to be a selfish bastard.
52:28
[SPEAKER_02]: You're saying that on public, you're saying it publicly.
52:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Does it matter?
52:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
52:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
52:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I hate people.
52:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Selfie, not have a heart for other blue.
52:43
[SPEAKER_02]: The same way.
52:45
[SPEAKER_02]: when my daughter's got the learn to be caring for community.
52:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm always active as I told you.
53:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I work in I-3 Vietnamese festival for take festival.
53:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of a guy that
53:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I am the one who always working hard active in order to help whoever can I can.
53:29
[SPEAKER_02]: to 10 on their feet and the one even when I get elected, I pushed a city to devote more to spend more budget for little sagan as well.
53:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me ask you something.
53:50
[SPEAKER_01]: We as a Vietnamese community, we are in politics now a lot.
53:55
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think of the political landscape today?
54:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I believe very strongly.
54:07
[SPEAKER_02]: we had the foot in the door and earned the respect of the local and the landscape of the political
54:33
[SPEAKER_02]: They, of course, I was the first Vietnamese American elected into office in America.
54:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So are the place, they do follow my footsteps, and there are so many outstanding Vietnamese get-a-breaths.
54:54
[SPEAKER_02]: get elected as well, as well as joining the army, they get high ranking position in the navy or army or air force.
55:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm very proud of those, the outstanding individual
55:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Reputation whereby the American, the Native American or the American as a whole have a very high esteem for Vietnamese.
55:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you think it's still going?
55:56
[SPEAKER_02]: We do want to see our community grow up and you see the little siren growing up like the way it is and a flock of people from one to another.
56:24
[SPEAKER_02]: you mandatory in operation of the former army people that
56:33
[SPEAKER_02]: They suffer in Vietnam were able to migrate to America.
56:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I help them a lot and even get the rice and milk mum when they first arrived.
56:48
[SPEAKER_02]: A more way and I organize the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce become instead of taking the presidency of the Chamber of Commerce
57:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I pass it on to adopt the name from that local.
57:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I keep the vice president position, but it's always, my life never sees, never rest myself.
57:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And why working for my restaurant?
57:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I work with my brothers in a life insurance, did I tell you, but just for a few years and then I move to another thing and the most I spend is at my restaurant.
57:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But I become a victim by the man that I allow him in the bike of my office.
57:59
[SPEAKER_02]: His name was Wokey, and he was just a flunky, but allowing him in the bike above it, he brought Wokey, he brought dreaming, and he messed up my office, so I kicked him out.
58:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I become his enemy, when there was a gentleman demonstration, he was the one poor bunch
58:29
[SPEAKER_02]: That no, nothing, no, they don't know anything about me, but he said that because Tony Lamb is the Vietnamese household, how come he did come to the demonstration again, a gentleman.
58:57
[SPEAKER_02]: The city had shown me none of us participating that one and I followed through, I comply with that.
59:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was a victim of that situation, my son-in-law, that Kathy's husband, Mike, he had
59:27
[SPEAKER_02]: a law forms who help me and to chase those bastards away from my restaurant, it really tough, but I spend close to
59:43
[SPEAKER_02]: 100,000.
59:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I saw my investment house.
59:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It didn't appoint to pay for and I suffer one end to another.
59:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, after the thing died down with several sessions at the courthouse,
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_02]: They finally gave up and I also, at the end of my leaves, the one that compete to get the whole shopping.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_02]: She got it because she put it under the table to the landlord and she became my landlord.
1:00:34
[SPEAKER_02]: She teem up with them and she don't want to sign up a new Lee.
1:00:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So I moved to another location that the kind of a suffer.
1:00:46
[SPEAKER_02]: But we killed work for another two years as a new location.
1:00:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I finally solved the whole restaurant to my lease and her partner.
1:01:05
[SPEAKER_02]: and I spent the next three years helping another guy who's in compatible of that tank son, so full the landlord.
1:01:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was upset about that tangsul tofu.
1:01:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So I helped him.
1:01:30
[SPEAKER_02]: He also set up a don't-flung tofu.
1:01:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And I helped him to build up, get licensing, everything.
1:01:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
1:01:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And until council member, a fuse.
1:01:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I got 3,000, 2022.
1:01:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't know, 2002.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You retired in 2002.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_01]: From city.
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But what about working at?
1:02:01
[SPEAKER_01]: What did you do after the restaurant?
1:02:03
[SPEAKER_01]: The restaurant?
1:02:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:02:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd run the restaurant the front then.
1:02:07
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife run the bike in.
1:02:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But you kept going?
1:02:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah.
1:02:12
[SPEAKER_01]: All the way to you retired?
1:02:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah.
1:02:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So, for don't flu, then finally, my wife said, she get bored at home, so we've got a franchise with least and once I am in my position as a councilman.
1:02:31
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not an easy job, a lot to learn why I am working as a council member.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of things to do with my colleague as a council.
1:02:44
[SPEAKER_02]: They still look down kind of person like me getting to that.
1:02:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been through a lot of U.S. agency and I know to stand up like a man.
1:03:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I know how to stand up to face these people that create a kind of a unfriendly atmosphere.
1:03:18
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what it, I know.
1:03:22
[SPEAKER_02]: The majority don't really care about putting a lot of budget for a little cycle.
1:03:35
[SPEAKER_02]: During my time, the first thing I did, my target, was to encounter the game problem.
1:03:53
[SPEAKER_02]: The crime rate was over 70% or how.
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But when I get elected and give more budget to the tacit team of the police department, it eventually dropped it to 48.
1:04:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it's so many things I want to do, not only just for the little side on itself, I do care about business development for Westminton more for example.
1:04:35
[SPEAKER_02]: for the Westminster Centre used to be a dealership dealer centre there, so when they develop we help them a lot and it becomes a little side gone become one of the four corners of the city.
1:05:00
[SPEAKER_02]: that become a developing area.
1:05:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And let me ask you about your idea about politics in America today.
1:05:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that now we have more power as Vietnamese people in the United States?
1:05:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't think we have more power, but I believe that we earned a respect, co-work from all what's apply, from all nationality.
1:05:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And I owe it advice to the youngsters that before we involve in politics,
1:05:54
[SPEAKER_02]: you must be financially sound, able to take care of yourself, your family, then involve in, of course, in community work in many type of a non-profit organization in order to
1:06:20
[SPEAKER_02]: be able to recognize, to be recognized by your effort and you want to run for office, you have to learn from one end to another, you have to learn the kind of
1:06:46
[SPEAKER_02]: position that you are looking for and very much that the vote days and day and night for that kind of particular position and build up a core of support.
1:07:17
[SPEAKER_02]: other ethnic, from you need the support of the American, the local, your neighbour.
1:07:31
[SPEAKER_02]: That is my advice.
1:07:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And once you are elected
1:07:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You are not sitting like a mandarin there.
1:07:43
[SPEAKER_02]: You are, you are, you are what I call a servant of the community.
1:07:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:07:45
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how I feel.
1:07:46
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I feel like, you know, I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel like I feel
1:08:04
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that is a good point.
1:08:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, when you look back on your life, what do you think you could have done differently or better?
1:08:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I do not regret all what happening in my life.
1:08:17
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the destiny that lead me one way to another.
1:08:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And even now, I've been regretting that don't spend time to write my life story alone.
1:08:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm lazy, they're always busy.
1:08:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Even now, I'm completely retired, after I saw my least and my friend Chai's
1:08:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a franchisee for Lee, that was almost four years ago.
1:09:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I spent more time teaming up with a group of friends, then spend more time on playing
1:09:21
[SPEAKER_02]: or whatever it is for building up my house.
1:09:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm always known as Mr. Plene in order.
1:09:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Even at my restaurant, it's always clean up all the condiments, care for, and that's how I build my reputation.
1:09:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not a pessimistic guy because nobody help you if you are pessimist like, I always jazz people up, make them feel happy, smile with me, along with me.
1:10:11
[SPEAKER_02]: enjoy life, that's what it is.
1:10:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I'm always tell them, you gotta be thankful to be in America, you gotta be thankful that you are safe and healthy and no place in the world that have the
1:10:40
[SPEAKER_02]: in, in place every single thing, it's happened.
1:10:47
[SPEAKER_02]: For example, we don't throw trash on the street.
1:10:53
[SPEAKER_02]: They provide bin, they have a scenic, meat way, cenotary, district, handle all these things.
1:11:01
[SPEAKER_02]: The water, so clean and everything.
1:11:07
[SPEAKER_02]: If you don't respect, you don't have a tough time that you got to worry about these things.
1:11:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And once you drive a car, there's a stop sign, by your own mean, you got to stop it.
1:11:28
[SPEAKER_02]: You see, that kind of...
1:11:33
[SPEAKER_02]: of setup, this kind of a law that America already created to build up, that's how America's grow up like it is, and I see that
1:11:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Without the early time, help, it's not that easy for Vietnamese Americans to melt into a melting party.
1:12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So, let me ask you, how do you feel about President Trump today?
1:12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I feel about Trump, the presidency Trump?
1:12:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I, I know.
1:12:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it's a lot of thing he did, he, I think that he created a lot of stuff, but even I am a Republican, sometimes I still upset, I prefer.
1:12:52
[SPEAKER_02]: not to see him stir up a lot of the steps.
1:13:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And now he's now can grandstanding on the peace in Gaza, but many others, I still do not agree with him.
1:13:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a revetic and well, you know, I am not in tune with the whole thing he does.
1:13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I'm going to guess that your political movements come from community, your political political bond with your constituents come from this idea of let's make it all work together.
1:13:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that you can be a Republican, you can be a Democrat.
1:13:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that's sort of like the division that we're really experiencing in America now, you know, politicians like you on the Republican side should be able to work with somebody like me on the very progressive liberal side, right?
1:14:10
[SPEAKER_02]: We should be able to get things accomplished.
1:14:19
[SPEAKER_02]: see me as a politician, but I see myself as a community leader, right.
1:14:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I hate politics in a lot of boy.
1:14:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So the kind of a feeling I say that possibly, from going through up and down,
1:14:46
[SPEAKER_02]: all my life.
1:14:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I just celebrate my 89 years old last Saturday.
1:14:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So we can tell that with my from the age, I can count from the age of 10 years on.
1:15:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That means for the last
1:15:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I earn a lot, I earn the experience, I earn the reputation, I also suffer so much in my life.
1:15:29
[SPEAKER_02]: But I never complain about that.
1:15:44
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how I feel.
1:15:46
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel about the new Vietnam?
1:15:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever been back to Vietnam?
1:15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been back several times.
1:15:54
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel about young people like me who is born in the United States?
1:15:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a disconnect with the previous generation of a war about all of these ideas.
1:16:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And we want to move on.
1:16:08
[SPEAKER_01]: As a senior elder men in our community, how do you feel about people like us?
1:16:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I said that Vietnam need a lot of youngsters who've been educated, grow up in America, and learn the good thing from America, and try to influence those in Vietnam.
1:16:37
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of young still in Vietnam, they learn it, how bad the communist is.
1:16:44
[SPEAKER_02]: and how bad the government run the country is, so many things that need to be improved, but the rich and the government official just try to pop at themselves.
1:17:04
[SPEAKER_02]: That's like in the United States.
1:17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think there's a difference.
1:17:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I think human beings do that.
1:17:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a tendency to block law, to train people, regular people.
1:17:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, exactly.
1:17:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that's why I don't know when Vietnam can at least, follow the kind of a progress that USA,
1:17:36
[SPEAKER_02]: has established for 250 years in its history.
1:17:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Vietnam have gone through so many war, been dominated by Chinese, by French,
1:18:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Japanese and all kind of old going on, but they're very odd for them to learn the good things.
1:18:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And the rich step on the poor, the authority step on the...
1:18:25
[SPEAKER_02]: the populace themselves, and that's why I say that I just expect the younger generation learn it and wash away the kind of influence that the older generation had put on their shoulders.
1:18:53
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, I think today I got a real good understanding of who you are and I'm going to ask that if I can come back in November when Kathy comes back or maybe set up an earlier time, I actually want to do this interview again in Vietnamese because I want to have my mom understand what we just talked about and her friends and her generation.
1:19:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's okay with you.
1:19:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:19:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't mind on anything.
1:19:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
1:19:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever is good for the younger generation, I would do it.
1:19:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I am the kind of person that very open-minded.
1:19:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you are very open-minded.
1:19:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there are generations in Vietnam that are listening to this in Vietnamese too.
1:19:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll do it in both, because you know, like, yeah, there's something I got at it to do.
1:19:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I only expect that a young young generation in Vietnam can learn the good things.
1:19:54
[SPEAKER_02]: not only from America, they can learn good things all over the world itself, and you know that that will bring about a better understanding, a better improvement, and they make Vietnam grow because Vietnamese
1:20:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I say, very intelligent, smart, and they can really, even they are smart in character, they must follow the rule of the law, Tony, thank you so much for today.
1:20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll do it again in Vietnamese.
1:20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, thank you.
1:20:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
1:20:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
1:20:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie and Crystal Tran.
1:20:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.