My Grandma–Liên–has had a very unique life. She was born on July 25th, 1946 in Haiphong, Vietnam. She is one of twelve children, part of one of the most wealthy families in Vietnam at the time. To start, you must know a bit about the history of Vietnam. Around 1770, the Nguyen brothers captured central Vietnam and in 1783, captured Saigon. Nguyen Hue defeated the Chinese and in 1802 declared himself emperor, united all of Vietnam for the first time, and started the Nguyen Dynasty. There is a small chance that my Grandma’s Mother is a descendant of this dynasty which ended in 1883. In Vietnam, the class system was strict and people could only marry within their class.

The true story starts even before she was born in 1900 when her Mother–Ty Nguyen–and Father–Teo Le– were born. Teo was an industrial businessman who sold rice, farm produce, coal, and construction equipment, he also had a concrete company as they owned a cement factory and more than half of the town’s citizens worked there. The family also owned a shipping company on the Haiphong River where Teo had eight sampans which are small Asian boats. When the pair were only seventeen they were arranged to marry and ten years later, when they were twenty-seven, they had already had seven children; my Grandma was born eighth. Their family was so incredibly wealthy that each child had their own personal maid who raised and did everything for them. Her Mother was very uninvolved with her children and didn’t even know how to change her children’s diapers. My Grandma said that she felt like her nanny, who was named Nanny Liên, (every maid was named after the child they looked after) felt like her real Mom and they were fed by their nannies too. Her Father, on the other hand, was addicted to opium and, as she described, would lay on their couch all day, making his ‘servants’ light his pipe and put it to his mouth. He became disabled from his addiction and Ty ran the company. On the side, she rented out eight houses that she owned to citizens and would drive around to collect rent money all day because there was no other way to retrieve it. Their family had many cars and chauffeurs at their disposal, Teo being the second person in the whole country to own a car, the first being the ruler of Vietnam.

In 1930, the communists came to Vietnam, and the Capital, Hanoi, Vietnam–my Grandma’s home city–was being flooded by communists trying to take over. By 1954, they had taken control of North Vietnam, and the country separated. Most importantly, they had taken over Hanoi and my Grandma’s home was seized by the communists and turned into a government building. Her family, except one brother, had fled before that to Saigon as the people of the North were given a year to move to the South if they desired. The brother, Thê, was half-communist as he agreed with how they felt and claimed that he would stay, protect, and run the house because they wouldn’t boot him out. The communists, however, did not care and kicked him out anyway. He had tried to escape three times by swimming and by boat but was arrested twice until he successfully came to America in 1982 on a boat smuggled out to Hong Kong. Their home is still there today despite the destruction that had happened around it as the communists use it still as a Federal Building and despite attempts, they are not allowed to go inside.

During the Vietnam War, 1965, my Grandma was in Pleiku with her own laundry and alteration place. Her store was a place where American soldiers frequented to alter their uniforms and other accessories they needed to fix. That was where she met my Grandpa—Bob—who was going to get his helmet bag altered and they fell in love. She moved with him to the United States of America and they bought a home in Sandusky, Ohio in December 1969, the same year they married. A year later, they had my Father, Francis, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Close behind was my Uncle Andrew, the same year my Grandpa was honorably discharged from the army in 1972 in Corpus Christi, Texas. They then moved to Toledo, Ohio for four years and spent another four years in Orlando, Florida. Around ten years later, they had my Uncle Patrick and my Aunt Mai a couple of years after in Orlando, Florida. Then they moved to Novato, California, and a couple of places in South California until finally staying in 2000 in San Diego, California.

Despite Liên’s successful life, you may be wondering what came of the rest of her family. Of the fourteen of them, ten of them have passed away. She had seven brothers and twelve sisters. The four oldest siblings were in arranged marriages. Teo did not come to America, he didn’t even want to leave their home as he didn’t believe Saigon had opium, he passed in 1979. Ty came to America in 1975 and passed away in 1992. Thê, the half-communist, was a mechanic in the US after his escape until he died in 2012. One of the brothers, Liem, was in the army and came to America in 1964 to go to West Point, sadly, he had Leukemia so he was sent home early and passed away not long after. My Uncle Tung died in 2021, a significantly long life considering he was in the army during the War, got shot in the arm, lost it, then came to the US in 1975 where he then went to college, got a job, retired, and passed. Her brother Loc came to the US in 1982 and worked for the post office until his death in 2018 and her sister Dung, who had a Vietnamese restaurant in Orange County, passed away in 2007. Another sister–the oldest girl–with a food business was Cu who had opened a bagel store and passed away in 2020 at ninety-five years old. The last sister who passed was Thao who passed in 2015 from cancer. Finally, the first brother to pass was Hung who worked in the family’s concrete factory where he was working with a concrete machine when it chopped his leg off and was rushed to the hospital. However, the hospital gave him a blood transfusion with the wrong blood type and he died in the hospital at the age of seventeen in 1947. The last four, her brother Bao is 93 and living in Huntington Beach, her brother Quang is traveling the world, her sister Hien is a business lady, and Liên is retired and happy in San Diego, all are alive and well.

My Grandma’s life was very unique. When I was interviewing her about it, she spoke so fondly of her family that she has not been able to see frequently, or at all. However, she lives with vivid memories of them in her head and her heart. Despite her different childhood, one in which she felt that she and her siblings “were lucky in a way, but not lucky, not happy,” she survived and succeeded in living a content, happy life. It is for this reason I feel quite lucky to have such a strong, intelligent woman as my Bà–‘Grandma’ in Vietnamese–and to have such a rich history running through my blood.