Page 20 - South Mississippi Living - June, 2024

PEOPLE
Father Inspires All Eight Children to Pursue Doctorates story by Cherie Ward photos courtesy of the Nguyen Family
hen Anh H. Nguyen and his wife Anh T. Nguyen left Kien Giang, Vietnam 42 years ago, they hoped fortune would one day smile upon them.
And now with eight doctors in the family, that hope has become a reality.
In their early 20s and with two toddlers, Yen, 2, and Hoai, 1, the family fled their homeland in search of a life that was unconfined by communism the only way they knew how – boarding a 33-foot by 6-foot wooden boat on December 25, 1980.
They shared the vessel with 35 passengers, including Mrs. Nguyen’s parents and cousins, and spent five days and nights on the unpredictable ocean. They were boarded by fierce pirates who kidnapped a young woman but left behind the other passengers due to an approaching vicious storm. Mr.
and Mrs. Nguyen thought they would die on that boat but by fortune’s grace, they arrived safely in Thailand.
As refugees in Thailand and then Indonesia, they grew bean sprouts, made hammocks, and cooked and sold sweet rice or traded it for fish to sell. They left by plane from Singapore to California and in December 1981 arrived
in Houston. Unable to find work in Texas, they headed to Biloxi where Mrs. Nguyen’s uncle lived.
The couple took English Second Language courses and found work shucking oysters and in seafood processing plants. They were blessed with six more children, Thuy, Nga, Hang, Linh, Ha, and Lam.
Mr. Nguyen spent spare moments at shipyards learning how shrimp boats were built. He sketched plan after plan until he’d saved enough money in 1984 to build his first of
20 | June 2024
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