Can Van Nguyen

Although our father, Nguyen Van Can, was not a man of large stature, he was indeed a great man with a huge heart of gold. He was dearly loved by our mother, his three children, our spouses, and his four grandchildren. He came from simple beginnings, worked extremely hard, lived a rich, wonderful life and in his later years, he returned to his simple beginnings. He was a highly intelligent, ambitious, self-sacrificing Renaissance man, who believed that education was an invaluable investment and imparted in us a lifelong love of learning and self improvement.

Our father was born to a large catholic family by Nguyen Van Khoi and Pham Thi Luyen in Bao Dap in Northern Vietnam. His childhood and early adult life was heavily invested in formal education. At the same time, he had also developed an early interest in business as he worked alongside his brother, Nguyen Van Thanh, in the textile industry while he was still attending high school. Although his high school and college education was in Vietnam, he developed a strong proficiency of the French language. He moved to Laos and taught the French language to privileged patrons for a few years. He was very much a renaissance man who later moved to Paris and Marseilles, France to deeply immerse himself in the French culture and attain mastery of the French language. He returned to Vietnam and settled in Saigon, where he continued to teach the French language.

During his career in teaching, he sought higher education earning certification in accounting and even managed to begin training in law school. It was during his law school training that he was introduced to our mother, Diem Thi Do, and within 7 days, they were married and within a year, they happily welcomed the birth of their first child, Maria Phuong Thi Do. Our father promptly shifted his focus from his law school training to whole heartedly dedicate his life to his family. Despite his new family responsibilities, he continued to teach the French language while supplementing his family’s income buy trading rice and other commodities.

He subsequently rejoined his brother, Nguyen Van Thanh, to a successful career in the textile industry. As a spin off of his experience in the trading and textile industry, he and his brothers invested in a large commercial ship to trade rice and other commodities on an international level. Because of their success, he and his brothers had even sought to establish ownership in Vietnamese banks.

Their successful careers were prematurely thwarted by the fall of Saigon on April 28, 1975. Our entire family was extremely fortunate as the commercial ship used to trade commodities was promptly converted to a large transport vessel used to escape Vietnam. In total, nearly 1000 refugees were assisted in leaving our native country using this commercial ship. The very next day on April 29, 1975, his second son and last child, Derrick Dai Duong, was born on international waters. The large ship transported our families and the other refugees to Malaysia, where it was sold. Our family arrived penniless in the United States via a refugee camp in Palo Alto, California approximately a month later.

Despite being completely stripped of all his prior successful career establishments and wealth and not knowing but a few basic English words, he relied on his intelligence, resourcefulness, and diligence to re-establish himself in a new country as foreign to him as the moon. He quickly attained a working knowledge of the English language and sought employment in humble minimum wage positions to support our family. He even managed to resume a career in education as a teacher’s aide.

It was at a very early age that our father imparted upon us children his deeply held belief that a strong education was the key to success in life. He believed deeply in self sacrifice for his family and worked extremely hard at times holding two or three jobs simultaneously to make ends meet. He had managed to adjust from a life of opulence in his native country of Vietnam to life of simplicity and poverty here in the United States all the while doing everything he could to help support his children and encourage us to work hard, pursue education, and establish for ourselves a better life than he could have hoped to achieve for himself here in the United States.

We could all remember specific instances when he would come home late at night after working long hard hours at or below minimum wage and embark on teaching us reading, writing, math, and science. As we progressed in our educational careers, he continued to support and encourage our education by enrolling himself in classes in English, higher math, and science at local community colleges and purchasing books and other learning materials with his hard earned money so that he could help us become successful in our educational careers. At the same time, he would continue to work to support us.

At home, he wore tattered clothing that was usually bought at a thrift shop and rarely if ever purchased anything new for himself, but he would always make sure that we were properly fed and clothed. This was in stark contrast to his earlier years of opulence when he would have silk and wool suits custom made in France and sport Rolex watches. He and our mother continued to provide loving support to each and every one of his children in college at UC Irvine by driving on an almost daily basis to bring us home cooked meals.

After our sister, Maria, finished medical school in St. Louis, he abandoned with our family the comfort of Southern California so that he and our mother could help support Maria during her rigorous residency training in pediatrics. He and our mother would go on to support both of their sons, Derrick and Dominic, similarly as we embarked on our educational careers in medicine. One of his greatest sources of pride and joy was not derived from the successes he achieved during his lifetime, but in seeing his children successfully achieve their education and careers in medicine. But in the end, he realized that his absolute greatest source of pride and joy was in experiencing the birth of his beloved grandchildren and spending time with them.

Even when he was recently overtaken by devastating illness, he would emphasize to our mother that he wanted to make sure that his grandchildren were well cared for and fed. All of his higher education and experiences in life lead him to a simple truth that life is about working hard and loving your family. His last wishes for his children were that we take good care of each other, our mother, and his grandchildren and we have made a solemn vow to honor his wishes. Our father, who truly has a heart of gold, will be dearly missed by all who were fortunate enough to have gotten to know him for the wonderful man he will always be.