Narrato, Hue Minh Truong

The Vietnamese American Oral History Project at UC Irvine has had a
tremendous impact on my growth as a scholar and as an individual.
Throughout this project I have learned a lot and have gained a better
perspective on the experiences of many Vietnamese immigrants and refugees.
My experience conducting my interview for the project was also very
insightful and humbling experience. I conducted my interview in my
hometown of San Diego and the narrator was my mother Hue Minh Truong. She
is currently fifty-four years old and is ethnically Chinese (Hakka). She
immigrated out of Vietnam and to the United States in nineteen eighty-five
and was the first person in her family to immigrate over to the United
States. She first came to San Francisco when she arrived in the United
States and had to work relentlessly in multiple jobs in order to provide
for herself and sponsor the rest of her family. She then moved to several
different regions within California and finally settled down in San Diego
after the rest of her family was sponsored over to the United States. She
has eight other siblings including three brothers and five sisters. She is
the second oldest child and she is the oldest daughter. During the
interview process I learned more about her four-day journey across the
Pacific, her stories in the refugee camps of Indonesia and Singapore, and
her assimilation process enduring discrimination and unequal opportunities
as well as her successes in adapting to U.S. culture and attaining
citizenship.  My mother was interesting to conduct my Oral History Project
upon because my mother has suffered so much throughout her life. She had
to work hard in order to provide for her family and still does. She also
had to endure the passing of her husband in two thousand and five, and she
had to raise my older brother, my cousin, and myself. I’ve learned a lot
from my mother and from the Vietnamese American Oral History Project. I am
glad to be taking part in the creation and preservation of conscious
history.

Hue Minh Truong and son, Howard Diep

~Howard Diep