College Success Is Bittersweet to Viet Refugee

Nine years ago, Tamminh Tran and her family of seven were living among thousands of refugees in a hut on a remote Indonesian island, having bribed their way out of Vietnam. Last week, she graduated with honors from Los Angeles Valley College, one of two students selected to give commencement speeches.

In between, she worked full time to support her family while attending night school and taking care of her 4-year-old son, Timothy.

“I’ll keep on going until they have no more classes for me to take,” says Tran, 26, who received an associate’s degree in Spanish and has a year to go for a degree in business administration. Afterward, she plans to study business at Cal State Northridge.

Summa Cum Laude

In a class of 450 students, Tran was one of five to graduate summa cum laude, an honor given to those with at least a 3.9 grade-point average.

College administrators hail Tran as an “example of the American dream,” and while that may be an overstatement, her moment in the spotlight draws attention to a life of bittersweet accomplishment.

“She has achieved a lot under adverse conditions,” said Pauline Merry, Valley College dean of student affairs.

Tran arrived in Los Angeles in October, 1979, after an eight-month ordeal that brought her and her family close to death several times. In February of that year, the family had paid $25,000 for Chinese ethnic identification cards and room on a crowded boat destined for any country that would take them. At the time the communist government was allowing the Chinese to leave Vietnam, for a price.

After a week on the boat, the approximately 450 passengers--tired, hungry and fighting each other for water--jumped overboard and swam 100 feet to the Malaysian shore. “It was just desperate,” Tran says. “It was like living in a movie.”

The Tran family spent a month in a camp guarded by the Malaysian military, then bribed police to tow them in a boat to a refugee camp on a remote Indonesian island. They lived there for several months in wooden huts covered with plastic and palm leaves.

“When we came, there were 50 refugees there, and by the time we left, there were 20,000,” Tran says. There, Tran’s father--a former South Vietnamese legislator who had been jailed by the communists during the takeover--made contact with people he knew in the United States. Over the next few months the family got permission from the U.S. government to come to this country as refugees. In 1986, they all became U.S. citizens.

Tran says her experiences have caused her to take daily problems less seriously than others. “Once you’ve survived a situation when you could have died, nothing can be so devastating anymore. You tend to take things lightly. I have an optimistic viewpoint.”

Disappointments

Nevertheless, Tran has had her share of disappointments in this country. A top science student in Vietnam, she expected to continue her studies full time and eventually become a doctor. Instead, she and her brother have had to work to support the family.

When she first arrived here, Tran trained to be a medical assistant, then went to work for a doctor in North Hollywood. She began attending Valley College in Van Nuys at night, intending to major in biochemistry. “I was disappointed,” she says. “I thought I was wasting my mind--not being able to do what I’m best at. But there was no one else to work.”

Tran says she has been frustrated because she had such high expectations for the United States and for herself. “I expected that everybody was rich, and you could get anything you want,” she recalls. “Anytime you go to America your problems are over. We didn’t think about the actual details of daily life. . . . I know I could have done more, because I always excelled at academics.”

Chau Tran, her father, is proud of his daughter but shares Tran’s feeling that she could have achieved more if she hadn’t had to work full time. “I feel sad because I was unable to support her,” he says.

Postal Carrier

After a year and a half as a medical assistant, Tran became a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service office in Van Nuys. In 1983 Tran married a postal worker, whom she divorced in 1985. Two years ago, she was promoted to supervisor at the post office.

At that point, she abandoned her biochemistry major and decided to pursue business instead. “It would take forever to become a doctor,” she says. And while she hadn’t intended to get a Spanish degree, her interest in the language led her to take enough credits to qualify.

In addition to working full time, going to night school and taking care of her son, Tran also practices three times a week in a Polynesian folk dance troupe that has won national awards.

In her speech at graduation, Tran said that despite the obstacles she has encountered, she is glad she came to the United States and is grateful to have the chance to attend school here.

“As long as we take advantage of the opportunities, the freedom our country offers to us and invest in our education . . . we can better ourselves and better the world,” Tran told fellow graduates.