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As a Vietnamese American working in San Francisco this fills me with pride in the strength of our Vietnamese people to persevere. My mother nearly died trying t
by stephenitis 11y ago
As a Vietnamese American working in San Francisco this fills me with pride in the strength of our Vietnamese people to persevere. My mother nearly died trying to escape Vietnam and through a successive string of luck ended up immigrating to America and opening a small business in our home state of Virginia.
The article unfortunately skips from Vietnam -> Indonesia ->Maryland in a few short paragraphs. There is likely some amazing depth to this story that is not being surfaced here. I would love for a more in depth interview to be done al la Kevin Rose style.
- evmar 11y agoMy college roommate for a few years was also Vietnamese, born in a refugee camp. He went on to a top medical school and today is a specialist doctor. I often think about how I slacked my way through college, and how hard my friend worked. For me, I figured people were hiring programmers without college degrees, and I could always fall back on my middle class parents; for him and the sacrifices his family made, failure was not an option. It's a real reminder of what privilege means.
- stephenitis 11y agoIt's easy to forget sometimes even as a child of a immigrant parent who gave their sweat, tears, and all they ever knew for a better life. The further away you get from a real struggle story the more important I think it is to travel, give back, and volunteer. Walking the streets and living in San Francisco can really distort reality sometimes making a reality checks very much important.
- anpk 11y agoThank you. I've been trying to come up with a good way to describe privilege and 'having the option to fail' is an apt way to describe it.