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Bach Cao came to the U.S. in 1988 from her native Vietnam as part of the American Homecoming Act after living in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines. She owns South Vietnam House in Central Park. |
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.
"I knew how to make things when I lived in Vietnam, and I learned [more about] sewing at the dry cleaners," she said.
Life was good until Phan was killed in a car accident when Sandy was only six. Cao, who had depended on her husband for everything, was suddenly a single mother who still didn't speak English that well. Junk food was a source of comfort at first--until the day she looked in the mirror and realized she'd gone from a size 2 to a size 12.
"I had to get out of the house," Cao said. "I wanted to learn a new skill."
She decided to become a hair dresser, and signed up for cosmetology classes during the day when Sandy was in school. At night, she earned a living assembling cable television boxes at a Tandy plant. By that time her mother, Bich-Ngoc Chung, had emigrated to America and could baby-sit.
Cao, who soon slimmed down, got her cosmetology license and a job as a hairdresser 10 months later. But she began noticing that many of the girls Sandy went to school with were getting pregnant as early as 12 and 13. She began to fear the same fate might await her daughter, and decided to move in with a friend from her Philippine refugee camp days who had become a hairdresser in Northern Virginia.
Even though Cao had never driven outside of Texas, she packed up her car, handed 10-year-old Sandy a map and started driving. They made it in two days, stopping only to eat at McDonald's and spend the night at a Holiday Inn.
"After that, no more fast food," Cao said with a laugh. "Sandy said, 'Mom, please, no more McDonald's!'"
Cao quickly discovered that competition for hair-stylist jobs was fierce. She found work at a barber shop, but switching from scissors to clippers wasn't as easy as she'd hoped. Two months later, she was let go.
But Cao didn't give up. She got a job at a unisex salon, and starting saving money to go into business with her friend, Hong Le.
"We thought, 'Why not? Why work for somebody else?'" she said.
They opened and ran American Hair in Centreville for two years until Le decided she was no longer interested in it. They sold the shop, and Cao used the profits to make a down payment on her first house and buy an old barbershop.
Nguyen Trinh, the contractor she hired to renovate it, suggested she open a spa in the fast-growing Fredericksburg area. They found a space near Total Wine in Central Park, but decided it was better suited for a restaurant. So Cao, who had never run a restaurant, hired a chef and opened South Vietnam House, which specializes in the tropical dishes of her homeland.
The management skills she's learned owning her salon and barbershop served her well in her new venture, but there was one problem. She didn't cook, she had a hard time keeping chefs.
"The first year was really scary," Cao said.
Eventually, she realized she'd have to learn to cook so she could fill in whenever a chef refused to work if he didn't have the right spatula or simply didn't feel like coming in. So she started watching, tasting and fine-tuning her menu. Eventually she got to the point were she could take over if necessary.
Today Cao is an American citizen and has considered the United States her home ever since Sept. 11, 2001. Her relatives live in Texas, where her brother runs a French bakery and cafe. And Sandy is majoring in biology and psychology at the University of Virginia, and plans to work for a pharmaceutical company after graduation.
"Whenever I get lazy, I see my mother's determination. I see her working," Sandy said. "What's stopping me from achieving my dreams, too?"
Cathy Jett: 540/374-5407
Email: cjett@freelancestar.com
This is the first of an occasional series featuring immigrant entrepreneurs. |
