SHARE
their socioeconomic backgrounds differed, shared one powerful belief: They could never, ever, live under the rule of Communism. Many had lived through Ho Chi Minh’s often brutal land reforms that confiscated land from wealthy landlords and redistributed it to peasants in exchange for their loyalty in fighting the French.
Villagers saw neighbors dragged out of their homes, forced to confess to stealing from the people, then buried up to their necks and left to die. They saw teachers treated the same. Public squares held mock trials in which children bore false witness against their own parents. An estimated 10,000-15,000 people were executed, and 50,000-100,000 people were deported or imprisoned.
When people were allowed to escape Communism, about 1 million trekked through jungles for days to escape south. This was in 1954, under the Geneva Accord that divided Vietnam along the 17th parallel. The same group rebuilt their lives in South Vietnam, and they did well. They worked alongside American allies, learned English and thrived. This group of people, the ones who escaped in 1954, were the same people who fled the country in April 1975.
The ones authorized by America carried visas and were flown out. These included high-ranking officers, embassy and consular personnel, doctors, journalists, military contractors, politicians, and Vietnamese spouses and children of Americans.
They represented a small sector of refugees. Others stole, bribed, begged or jumped aboard whatever vessels they could to get away. Boats loaded with people followed the crowd, not even sure they would be rescued or by whom. They found strength in numbers. The misery and trauma of their plights were somehow tolerable because they were not alone in their experience.
No matter how refugees got out – by boat or by plane – their process for entry into the U.S. was the same. Their initial evacuation led to the Philippines en route to Guam. In Guam, rows upon rows of tents were pitched for temporary housing. People lined up for food, for vaccinations, for paperwork. They relied on one another for information and based many decisions on what other Vietnamese people were doing.
From Guam, refugees were flown to Camp Pendleton in California, Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania, where they awaited sponsors. The wait often took months. Many were homesick for their children and grandchildren built dwellings on the land. When they bought land, they negotiated directly with the owner and worked out payment terms. They detested paying interest. That was money thrown away.
So, in America, where home ownership was essential to building financial stability and wealth, many Vietnamese pooled money from multiple family members or borrowed money from neighbors to pay off their homes and cars, putting down roots one to two years later after they were sponsored.
They also called friends and relatives who had already settled in other states with their sponsors and convinced them to move here. Vietnamese moved here from Colorado, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kansas and other states.
Except for Vietnam, Oklahoma City was the closest place in the world that felt like home for the refugees. Oklahoma City in
TOP LEFT: Ma Uro makes baguettes on April 9 at Lee’s Sandwiches in the Asian District in Oklahoma City.
RIGHT: Parishioners attends weekday Mass on April 3 at St. Andrew Dung-Lac Catholic Church in Oklahoma City.
BOTTOM LEFT: Anastacio Rayes bags fish on April 9 at Super Cao Nguyen in the Asian District in Oklahoma City.
PHOTOS BY NATHAN J. FISH/THE OKLAHOMAN
SARAH PHIPPS/THE OKLAHOMAN their land, food and country.
Many Vietnamese from Fort Chaffee, which held 25,000 refugees at one time, ended up in Oklahoma City. Gov. David Boren wanted to relocate 300 families to Oklahoma, so he set up a resettlement office inside the camp. The governor’s leadership trickled down to business leaders, who hired Vietnamese workers, and families and churches, who sponsored Vietnamese families.
The refugees found Oklahomans to be friendly, welcoming and kind.
The first 300 families were recruited based on their ability to fill manufacturing jobs that paid above the minimum wage of $2.10. The elites of Vietnamese society – architects, homebuilders, politicians, military officers, engineers and the like – now found themselves working in plants for General Motors, International Environment Co. (makers of air conditioners), Western Electric, Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. and Coca-Cola.
They spoke English, and so did their wives. Their wives, who in Vietnam had nannies and servants, were now forced to leave their children with family members while they went out to find similarly menial jobs. Many worked on the assembly line at the Bunte Candy Co.
The refugees quickly learned that they needed multiple sources of income to qualify for mortgages to buy homes. However, in Vietnam, rich or poor, people did not carry bank notes on their homes with monthly payments of principal, interests, home insurance and property taxes.
They lived off the land of their ancestors;
1975 was about half the population it is today. Houses around the area that would become the Asian District were often empty, for sale and affordable.
By 1978, about 4,000 Vietnamese had settled in Oklahoma City, and 3,000 more were expected to arrive. They were not all well-educated. Many did not speak English and had not worked directly with Americans during the war. They included fishermen who got away because they had access to large boats. Most of this group were part of the roughly 1 million who migrated south in 1954.
Keepers of the faiths: St. Andrew Dung-Lac Catholic Church
The refugees were Catholics, Buddhists and ancestral worshipers who experienced persecutions based on their religious beliefs.
Vietnamese Catholics of Oklahoma City settled many around Our Lady’s Cathedral of Perpetual Help on NW 32nd Street and Lake Avenue. Archbishop James Quinn recognized the need for the new refugees to celebrate Mass in their language because most of them did not know English, so he assigned Father Can Dinh to serve the Vietnamese community.
The first 30 Vietnamese families registered at Our Lady’s Cathedral shared a strong belief that without teaching their faith, culture and language, their children would lose their roots. They created a Vietnamese Catholic Community to promote what it meant to be Vietnamese Catholic through action. The men belonged to the Society of St. Joseph, the women belonged to the Society of Mary, and young children had Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Young adults sang in the choir and had their own social activities.
Homes around the cathedral and surrounding areas were available for $5,000 to $30,000, so many Vietnamese bought them because they wanted to be in walking distance to the church. In Vietnam, churches were central to daily life, so homes were often built in walking distance of them.
As the number of Vietnamese Catholics grew, so did their desire to have their own church. Going door-to-door to raise money, their desire was realized in 1994 with the completion of St. Andrew Dung-Lac. Named for a Vietnamese martyr, St. Andrew Dung-Lac, the church was on SW 59th Street a block east of Interstate 44 on a large campus with open land held for future growth and development.
Today, a vibrant community of 1,600 members worship at the church in Vietnamese, with one Mass said in English. Growing up, I remember the presidents of the Vietnamese Catholic Community coming to my house with their notepads to write down my family’s financial commitment to the church.
Like the Catholics, Vietnamese Baptists and other Protestant denominations found existing churches in Oklahoma City that aligned with their beliefs. Because of the different sects of Protestant groups, their numbers are not as concentrated as the Catholics.
Buddhist temples, the first in Oklahoma history
Vietnamese Buddhist monks had a steeper hill to climb than Catholics because there was no Buddhist temple in Oklahoma City in 1975. With the help of Lydia Gills, founder of Friends of Refugees, a task force of the Agency for Christian Cooperative, Vietnamese Buddhists found temporary places of worship that included individual homes. More importantly to them, Gills located the Venerable Thich Giac Duc, also a refugee who earned his Ph.D. in the United States. Duc was flown to Oklahoma City to lead Vietnamese Buddhists in their worship and build their own temple. The Vietnamese Buddhist Association was established in 1978 to raise money for the temple.
By June 1979, the temple Giac Quang Pagoda on 516 SE 17th St. was officiated by the Venerable Thich Giac and attended by 200-300 worshippers. The Vietnamese Buddhist Association purchased the site from the Church of God mission for $10,000. Like the Catholics, their numbers outgrew their spaces as more Vietnamese settled. Twenty years later, they broke ground on the 7,200 square-foot temple and activities building that is also home to monks.
A second temple, the Vien Giac Temple at 5101 NE 36th St., was built in 1982, and more have followed.
Vietnamese American Association (VAA)
A leader emerged to help Vietnamese adjust to their new lives, Nguyen Dinh Thu. Charles Watts, the son of Brig. Gen. Clyde Watts, knew Thu from Vietnam and said he was a successful businessmen who built a major portion of the Saigon air base. Watts helped Thu establish the Vietnamese American Association of Oklahoma City. The group raised money to host major holidays like Tet (Vietnamese New Year) and occasions for Vietnamese to gather to lessen loneliness and isolation.
Growing up, I remember watching live concerts with lots of other Vietnamese families at the Myriad Botanical Gardens. It was an all-day affair listening to Vietnamese singers, seeing the New Wave musicians alongside traditional music of Khanh Ly, Elvis Phuong, Thanh Tuyen, Che Linh, Hoang Thi Tho – glamourous and definitely hip.
Vietnamese food was served and women dressed up in ao dai walked along the streets of downtown. The dragon dance was thrilling to kids and brought such laughter. The entire program was spoken in Vietnamese, which was a core mission of VAA, to strengthen Vietnamese language hence its history and culture.
For me and so many in my generation, it was an affirmation of the beauty of the culture we had left behind and what we were reestablishing here. Just being around other Vietnamese in these gatherings alleviated the loneliness of everyday work life many of us felt in America.
Vietnamese businesses: Food, pho, markets
Many wealthy Vietnamese carried gold out of the country and opened savings accounts in foreign countries. They were surprised that the Americans did not confiscate their gold and goods. After they settled in Oklahoma City, the movers and shakers used their savings to open businesses that still exist today, including several in the Asian District.
Vietnamese refugees desperately needed, wanted and prayed for fresh Vietnamese food. Cheese, pastas, pizzas, cokes, cookies, chips not so much. Not the adults anyway.
When the one and only major Vietnamese food store, Cao Nguyen, opened on 2502 N Military, not far from Our Lady’s Cathedral, in March 1978, the 5,000 Vietnamese living in the area at the time felt revitalized.
At last, food from home. They crammed in tight aisles, filled their carts with herbs, rice noodles, bean sprouts, cilantros, basils, fresh fish, dried shrimps and rice papers: so many imported goods not seen in supermarkets at the time. And the community has never been the same.
Yen Tan Pham and his wife named the store Cao Nguyen, which translates to “high country,” in remembrance of their province in Vietnam. They worked with Lloyd Leonard, one of 70 volunteers of the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) to create one of the most successful and enduring businesses in Oklahoma City. Although they sold their store to Tri Van Luong and his wife, Kien, the store that they started has grown into a 40,000-square-foot building aptly named Super Cao Nguyen at 2668 N Military.
Vietnamese real estate/ restaurants
About and before 1975, Vietnamese people did not often eat out at restaurants. If they were poor, they cooked their own foods, and that was boiled vegetables with steamed rice. On rare occasions, they would split an egg with family members. In order to open restaurants, Vietnamese had to learn to cook as professionals, and they had to run businesses.
Nguyen Thi Bich spent six months in California learning to cook pho and many authentic Vietnamese dishes. She opened a successful Pho Hoa, a franchised restaurant – one of the first and most enduring restaurants that still operates today.
Many Vietnamese run solid businesses that survive hard economic times. Family members often work and run the businesses, thereby eliminating the costs of labor.
They do not pay for outside services such as HR or accounting if they can do it themselves. They also save money when the businesses profit, and spend money to keep them afloat when business is slow.
Jimmy’s Egg owner Loc Le, his wife, Kim, and their four children subscribed to that business model. At the time of Loc Le’s death in 2020 and Kim’s shortly after, both from COVID, the family’s restaurant empire had expanded to 60 Jimmy’s Egg restaurants in Oklahoma City and the surrounding states of Texas, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas.
The second and third waves of Vietnamese refugees
Many did not leave Vietnam right away. They lingered. They needed to locate their families and were afraid of being separated. Some had parents who were too old to leave, so they stayed. Or they wanted to leave, but they had no way of escaping. They saw others leave in a frenzy. The war was over, and they were relieved.
And then everything changed. Their money was worthless. Fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, priests, monks disappeared without a trace. Women and children were sent to the new economic zone. Rice fields lay fallow, machines stopped running. There was no incentive to grow, make, produce or assemble anything.
Post-war Vietnam transcended into further conflict and misery. Homes, businesses, land and assets were confiscated by the new government. Rice and food commodities were rationed. Vietnam shut itself out of the world’s socio-economic markets. America severed diplomatic relations with Vietnam. People starved to death. Hospitals had no doctors, so children and elders died. Medication was in short supply. So were men, many of whom were sent to reeducation camps or drafted to fight in Vietnam’s war against the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
In retaliation, China, who backed the Khmer Rouge, attacked Vietnam in 1979, sending 200,000 troops across the border.
Though China had supported Vietnam in the war against the U.S., the two bordering countries had historically been adversaries.
The conflicts would lead to successive waves of people fleeing or being expelled from Vietnam and a global migration crisis as hundreds of thousands of men, women and children crowded onto flimsy fishing boats, or sampam, and drifted for days and weeks to the surrounding shores of of Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines or Indonesia.
These were the boat people. Many included Chinese Vietnamese, who had been successful business people in Vietnam. They had owned bicycle shops, noodle companies, supermarkets, and fabric and textiles industries before the new government took their homes and businesses and expelled them from the country. Over half a million Chinese Vietnamese were kicked out.
The crisis led to second and third waves of migration to the U.S. and Oklahoma.
The Vietnamese population in Oklahoma City increased from 2,000 in 1975 to 10,000 by 1990, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Children of the dust
Many of the new migrants were disenfranchised Vietnamese who were persecuted or treated as second-class citizens in Vietnam. They included Amerasians, the children of American servicemen and Vietnamese mothers. They call themselves “Children of the Dust,” because they have no place in Vietnamese or American societies. Many Vietnamese saw them as an aberration.
Their mothers were condemned for having children out of wedlock with foreigners. Many of the children were left to fend for themselves, forced to beg on the streets, some were raped and killed because they were Amerasian, and few defended them.
It was not until America opened the door for them that they could hope to find a life where they were not scorned. But even in the U.S., they often experienced rejection from their biological fathers and their American relatives. The Vietnamese migrants in the U.S. were not always welcoming either.
But eventually they formed groups among themselves to find support.
Today, in Oklahoma City and elsewhere, Amerasians have become much more accepted and integrated into the larger Vietnamese communities.
The evolving Asian District
The Chinese were the first Asian immigrants in Oklahoma to work at the Central Pacific Railroad, constructing the western section of the transcontinental railroad.
They participated in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889. The 1889 Oklahoma City directory listed five laundromats owned by Chinese, and as far back as 1910, they celebrated the Festival of the Full Moon in Oklahoma City.
When the new waves of Chinese Vietnamese immigrants arrived beginning in the 1970s, they were welcomed by the Chinese people already here.
The new migrants found work in their restaurants and businesses, learned from them how to navigate the Oklahoma business landscape, and started their own eateries and companies.
The second Asian supermarket in Oklahoma City was an example. It was built by Chinese Vietnamese who took tremendous risks buying properties around the Classen area when they came up for sale. Chinatown Supermarket, 1228 NW 27th St., opened its doors June 24, 1999, right around the corner from Cao Nguyen.
Owners Vicky Hua, Soi Ma and Larry Lee invested $2 million to open a 23,000-square-foot market with a barbecue stand that later became the Golden Phoenix restaurant.
The supermarket attached to it emerged twice from fires and is in the process of expanding.
A third Asian supermarket called Hong Kong Market, 1648 SW 89th St., opened in 2002, also owned by Vicky Hua. Later, the market was bought out by Quan Nguyen and Thanh Truong, who renamed it Saigon-Taipei Market. Not long after, the team shut Saigon-Taipei to open World Fresh International Market, 10700 S. Pennsylvania Ave.
I remember growing up on the corner of NW 28th Street and Classen. South of the street was an old gas station, and to the north was a Del Rancho restaurant. Today, that corner is a busy strip mall featuring Asian Bistro Pho 7, Connie’s Hair Salon, Tuyet Mai Videos and Hanh’s Tailor.
Another strip mall called Little Saigon was developed by Tri Van Luong, owner of Super Cao Nguyen, which features Lido Restaurant and long-standing businesses, including Lang’s Bakery and Luxury Hair Design.
We are home
Fifty years later, thousands of Vietnamese call Oklahoma home.
When asked where we are from, we proudly say we are from Oklahoma City.
We say this with pride and deep gratitude. We do not listen to public sentiments or public opinions. Whatever people in other parts of the country think about Oklahoma, we know the truth that we found.
We know and have experienced Oklahoma gentility, a people with grace and class who treated us with great kindness and generosity.
We know a people who treated us with respect. Their tolerance for a people of a different culture, language, ideology and language allowed us to grow, to thrive, to build, to worship and to recreate our culture and history in our own image.
Today, we are proud Oklahomans who wish to embody the spirit that makes this state welcoming of others.
Nguyen Thi Mai Thuy is a local historian of Vietnamese in Oklahoma City. Her Ph.D. dissertation, titled “In Silence, I Struggle: Voices of South Vietnamese Living in America,” was accepted in 2004 at the University of Oklahoma. She is a proud Vietnamese Oklahoman, a daughter, mother, sister, aunt and grandmother.
SHARE
