MINH NGUYEN- A FILMMAKER

Minh Nguyen, a 40-year old filmmaker based in Los Angeles, arrived in the US from Vietnam in 1982 when he was 9 years old.

His travels began a year earlier as one of the Vietnamese boat people.

Nguyen’s parents lost their business and home after the fall of Saigon.

The decision was made to flee and done in secret.

“Somebody would get a boat, and would calculate how many people would be on it, and at night you kind of sneak out and get on that boat,” Nguyen said.

“You get out to sea and you try to reach one of the refugee camps in Thailand, the Philippines or Malaysia. We actually got to Thailand.”

It took Nguyen five attempts before finally getting away.

“We tried to go all as a family and then we got caught,” he said.

“My dad was in jail for 85 months.

The women and kids, like me, were in the jail for about 2 weeks before we were let out.”

Nguyen remembers living conditions in the refugee camp were crowded, and families split up.

Men worked in the field while the women and children performed other jobs.

“My mom was doing cooking duties and things like that.

We all had to sleep together in this really huge barracks like a warehouse - like hundreds of people,” Nguyen explained.

After spending a year in a refugee camp off the coast of Thailand, Nguyen received sponsorship from a Catholic group in the United States.

He was later flown to San Francisco and settled in San Jose, California.

Transition to a new American way of life    was   difficult.

Nguyen started  fourth grade and was scared.

“I went to school and I didn’t speak or write English very well.

So for the first few months the teacher just put me in a corner until I was able to get caught up with English and was able to join the other students,” Nguyen said. 

He admitted being frightened, but said watching television helped him learn English.

Nguyen went to the University of California-Berkeley where he received a degree in molecular biology degree, and followed that with a job at the U-S Department of Agriculture. But Nguyen said he was bored.

He recalls writing short stories at night and later taking creative writing courses. 

“I remember I was enjoying watching movies and going to see plays, so I tried writing fiction and that really opened the world for me,” Nguyen said.

Several of his short stories were published in literary journals.

He attended film school and ultimately switched careers.

His feature-length directorial debut is the movie “Touch” - a romantic-drama about an unlikely friendship between a shy Vietnamese-American manicurist and an auto mechanic who is trying to keep his crumbling marriage alive.

The film has won a number of awards on the independent film circuit.

Looking back on his life and professional path, Nguyen advised:

“With hard work you can follow your dream.”