Another Battle in a Life of Struggles : Immigrant Hardships Helped Prepare UCLA Student to Take Public Stand Against Military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Sexual Orientation Policy

Huong Nguyen’s family had to leave its world, postwar Vietnam, to forge a new life in the United States. Now the UCLA senior has had to stand between two other spheres, torn between her identity as a bisexual and her commitment to the military.

On Feb. 1, Nguyen was dropped from the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps, nine months after she wrote to her commander, saying she is gay. (Although she used the term “gay” in her letter, she identifies herself as bisexual.)

Nguyen’s very personal decision to come out collided head-on with a decidedly political one. Because she went public, UCLA is the first California university to grapple with the Clinton administration’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. If service members acknowledge that they are gay, the military under that policy can start discharge proceedings against them.

Paul Kotakis, an Army ROTC spokesman, declined to discuss Nguyen’s case but confirmed that two other cadets who are gay have been dismissed nationwide.

Nguyen’s decision to discuss her case publicly reflects the self-reliance and strength she developed as a refugee from Vietnam.

Nguyen’s family was prepared to leave that country in 1975 in the closing days of the war, but her father, a member of the South Vietnamese army, came home late and the family missed one of the last airlifts.

In 1978, her father and sisters left on the family’s boat, carrying passengers who paid for passage. Nguyen, her brother and mother remained in Saigon.

The three of them tried to escape several times in subsequent years, only to be detained in refugee camps before being sent back to Vietnam. When Nguyen was 6, her mother sent her out of the country with her aunts, and she joined her father in Green Bay, Wis. Seven years later, her mother and brother left Vietnam and the entire family was reunited in Chicago.

From a very young age, Nguyen said, she has had to battle the system.

Put in a Green Bay kindergarten class for children with learning disabilities because she did not speak English well, Nguyen pushed herself to catch up academically until she was mainstreamed in the fourth grade.

“I couldn’t articulate what I was feeling, but I was really upset,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I had a learning disability--I just felt I needed to be taught English.”

The summer after high school graduation, Nguyen joined the National Guard, and she began studies at UCLA in the fall. She also fought for 18 months to gain citizenship, in part so she could qualify for an ROTC scholarship.

Nguyen’s friends have labeled her life an “American dream” story. But by coming out as bisexual, Nguyen has had to abandon her ambition of becoming an Army surgeon.

“To have such a courageous young individual be denied her life dream . . . is just unfathomable,” said David Mixner, a gay rights advocate with Freedom Project-Los Angeles. “She wants to serve the country that gave her freedom, and she’s being denied that.”

A year ago, Nguyen met a woman who was a campus gay rights activist and who would later become her partner. Once they became close, they decided to keep their relationship a secret.

Finally, Nguyen said her sense of honesty drove her to disclose her sexual orientation to her commander.

“I want to continue to serve--I really do--but I just want to tell them who I am,” Nguyen said. “I didn’t want to hide, I didn’t want to lie. . . . I didn’t want them to have control of my life.” ’

Nguyen said she could not share her difficult decision with her parents because of her lack of proficiency in Vietnamese and their limited English skills. Afraid her parents would see her on the news and not understand, Nguyen told her older sister who lives with their parents in Huntington Beach.

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Until she came out, Nguyen said, her ROTC experience was very positive. She received the Army Commendation Medal for aiding Vietnamese immigrants after the Northridge earthquake.

Two weeks ago, her commander informed her that she was being dropped from ROTC, although she will not have to repay nearly $6,000 in scholarship money she received from the program, she said. Nguyen, also a member of the Army Reserve, said she anticipates being discharged from that unit once the Reserve commander learns of the situation.

Nguyen says her frustration with the military policy on homosexuals has shaken her sense of justice but has not tempered her optimism about change.

At a Jan. 31 rally, she called on UCLA to take a stand opposing discrimination against gay cadets. Less than a week later, Chancellor Charles E. Young said the university will help cadets find financial aid if they lose ROTC scholarships because of their homosexuality.

Eventually, Nguyen believes, all gays will have to come out to change the military’s policy. But for now, her goal is to make the UCLA community aware.

“And I’ve changed people,” she said. “One cadet called me and said, ‘When I first came in, I did believe that gays weren’t supposed to be in the military. . . . But I think you’re really brave, and I’d like to have you back.’ For her and all my cadets to say, ‘I’d like to have you back,’ isn’t that a sign?”