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Fifty years ago, at the age of 12, Huy Nguyen fled Saigon with his family as a refugee. Today, after a long road, the Nguyens boast three generations of medical professionals who say they are grateful for the chance to achieve their dream.
When they first arrived in the U.S., they settled in Iowa and became the first Vietnamese American family in the Quad Cities, according to the Davenport Public Library. Nguyen’s mother worked as a house cleaner. His father worked as a security guard and eventually got his high school diploma at age 45. He went on to pursue a bachelor’s degree and became a chiropractor in 1981.
By then, Huy Nguyen was already set on becoming a surgeon.
Now, Nguyen’s three children are working to become doctors as well. Two of Nguyen’s children graduated from the same medical school as their father — Kansas City University.
As refugees in the 70s, the family went through a difficult time and started out on welfare. Once a chiropractor, the older Nguyen decided he wanted to pay back all the help they got from the welfare system.
“What my dad did was, when he became a chiropractor, he and my mom, they went to the social security service. And my dad asked that — since when he was in school, we were on welfare … if he can put in payment and they could pay off the help,” Nguyen said. “He was very proud that he received the help, but at the same time, he would pay that help back and contribute more to that.”
Nguyen’s family first stop as immigrants was California, where a church sponsored them to move to Davenport, Iowa. While there, Nguyen and his father established themselves in health care. Nguyen eventually had three children of his own — two resident physicians and a current medical school student, now ages 27, 26 and 18.
Five decades after the fall of Saigon, which effectively ended the Vietnam War on April 30, 1975, the day is known as “Reunification Day” in Vietnam.
“If you see the Afghanistan evacuations, it’s very similar to Vietnam on that at the end of a war,” Nguyen told NBC News. “There was a bombing on the airport, and we were lucky enough to get in the military airplane, and we were airlifted out of Saigon,” Nguyen said.
“My dad in Vietnam — he was lieutenant colonel in the South Vietnamese army, which fought along with the Americans, and so, last minute, he jumped on the plane and he left with us.”
Nguyen said he assimilated to the American culture while living in Iowa — especially as there were no Vietnamese people, foods or languages around him. He fell in love with American football in fifth-grade and learned English by watching TV.
Once the family settled in Iowa, Nguyen’s father pursued his studies and later went to chiropractic school. While in school, he worked as a museum security guard to make ends meet. Nguyen’s mother brought the kids back to California, where she worked cleaning houses. Nguyen would help her clean after school, he said. Once Nguyen’s father graduated, he returned to the family in California and opened his own private practice.
Nguyen eventually got his bachelor’s degree at the same university as his father, St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Nguyen’s older sister became a chiropractor and then a lawyer; Nguyen became a surgeon; two of Nguyen’s brothers became surgeons and another became a lawyer. Nguyen opened up his own private practice in San Jose, California in 1997 — one of the largest Vietnamese American communities in the U.S.
In 2008, Nguyen became the first surgeon in the U.S. to perform a single-incision laparoscopic colon resection. Four years later, Nguyen became the first in the California Bay Area to remove a gallbladder using single-site robotic surgery, with his brother Nang assisting the surgery.
“If you think about the American dream, we are it,” Nguyen said. “If it wasn’t for the people that helped us, and also the American government helping us through the welfare system, we would not be where we’re at right now. Of course, working hard and everything else comes with it, too.”
