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In an unlikely field, dream comes true american dream
Bach Cao, the daughter of an American GI and a Vietnamese entrepreneur, left her country at 19 and now owns South Vietnam House restaurant in Central ParkDate published: 1/26/2008 BY CATHY JETT Bach Cao's world turned upside down when the United States pulled out of South Vietnam in 1975. North Vietnamese communists labeled her mother, a prosperous entrepreneur, as a capitalist and sent her to a re-education camp. Cao, whose father was an American soldier, and her brother moved in with their grandmother in Gò Công. "After the North Vietnamese took over, my mom was afraid for us and wanted us out of the country," said Cao, who now owns the 3-year-old South Vietnam House restaurant in Central Park. The siblings' chance came when the U.S. government began allowing the children of American soldiers and Vietnamese women to emigrate to the United States in 1988 under the American Homecoming Act. Cao, then 19, and her 16-year-old brother Tung Cao, decided to leave, even though it meant their mother and grandmother had to stay behind. Thus began an odyssey that would take the teen-agers from refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines to low-paying jobs and English as a Second Language classes in Texas and, finally, to ownership of their own restaurants. "Most Vietnamese people, we don't like to work for somebody else," Cao said while sitting at the tastefully decorated South Vietnam House one recent afternoon. "We want to own our own business." The majority of Vietnamese-Americans are, in fact, small business owners, as are those from many other immigrant groups. Typically, first- and second-generation Vietnamese-Americans open auto-repair businesses, barbershops, beauty salons, and ethnic restaurants or supermarkets, according to Wiki-pedia. Cao learned some English during the six months she and her brother lived in a Philippine refugee camp, but the Filipino-accented version she picked up did nothing to prepare her for the twang she encountered when they moved to Arlington, Texas, under the sponsorship of a Baptist church. "I had to go back to square one," Cao said, "but I picked up English very fast." She got a green card and a job working for a dry cleaner who had a hard time believing she was 19 because she was so skinny. Then she met Buu Phan, a Vietnamese man who had been living in Texas since 1979. They married, and Cao began working as a seamstress at home after the birth of their daughter Sandy.
Date published: 1/26/2008
It's one of those ..
(posted by
Ranko
, Jan. 26, 2008 3:39 pm)
fell good stories. I like the fact that she never gave up and looked out for her family. But what about her father? There should be a way to find him & finish the story.
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