UCI student reflects on interview with his mother

Narrato, Hue Minh Truong
Narrator, 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
Hue Minh Truong and son, Howard Diep

~Howard Diep

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