Couple who fled Vietnam 40 years ago now call Texas home

Hanh and Tina Do were desperately looking for a way out.

As a captain in the South Vietnamese army, Hanh Do felt he would be imprisoned once the North Vietnamese took control of Saigon.

But with four children and a captain’s salary, he wasn’t sure his family could afford to pick up and leave.

It was April 29, 1975, and the fall of Saigon was just a day away when Hanh Do found a ship that was about to depart. He raced home and gathered his family members. The seven of them piled atop a motorcycle and rushed to a nearby seaport.

Tina Do said: “I locked the door and I left the house. We thought we would come back. We left everything behind. We were very, very lucky.”

The Dos would never see their parents again, and Tina would return only once — after her brother died.

Their second-oldest son, Binh Do of Mansfield, said it was chaos at the port as his father frantically fought to get them on board.

“I remember him trying to find a way to get on the ship,” Binh Do said. “There were thousands and thousands of people trying to leave.”

With the help of friends, Hanh Do secured passage, and the family sailed to the Philippines, housed in the bowels of the ship for a week. Then the Dos traveled to Guam before being flown to Fort Chaffee, Ark.. They came to Texas after getting sponsors at the Forest Hill Alliance Church, who eventually helped them find a mobile home in southwest Fort Worth.

Forty years later, Hanh and Tina Do live in Grand Prairie and call Texas home.

‘Felt kind of lonely’

But when they arrived, they felt alone: North Texas had few other Vietnamese families.

They had left a comfortable life in Vietnam to start over in the U.S., which meant working multiple minimum-wage jobs to get by.

“At that time, they never let us know how hard they were working,” Binh Do said. “I didn’t realize my dad was doing two jobs. I only found that out in later years. They made life good for us.”

Hanh and Tina Do downplay the early struggles but acknowledge that they got homesick.

“It wasn’t that hard for us, but we just felt kind of lonely,” Hanh Do said. “There was not so many Vietnamese like there are now.”

The Dos were part of the initial wave of 130,000 Vietnamese immigrants who came to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon.

Now, the Vietnamese-American population numbers more than 1.5 million in the U.S., and Texas has the second-largest Vietnamese-American population after California. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington has the fourth-largest Vietnamese population in the country, at 71,839, according to the 2010 Census.

Haltom City and east Arlington have significant communities, complete with restaurants, shopping centers and churches. The 2,000-seat Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church in Arlington is the largest Vietnamese Catholic church in the U.S.

Vietnamese-American elected officials include Arlington’s Andy Nguyen, who just began his second term on the Tarrant County Commissioners Court, and An Truong, a member of the Haltom City Council.

Creating successful careers

The Dos immersed themselves in the community.

They own KRVA/1600 AM, a Vietnamese-language radio station in Dallas, and contribute to the Vietnamese-language Saigon Broadcasting Television Network, which can be seen online and on cable and satellite carriers.

Their oldest son is a doctor and an Army colonel, and their two other sons and one daughter have successful careers.

While the move to the U.S. came with hardship, it also brought opportunity. Hanh Do worked as a produce manager at a Winn-Dixie store until it shut down, and he has worked with the radio station and SBTN.

Tina Do worked at Chase Bank in downtown Fort Worth for 28 years before being laid off. Her focus is now on the radio station and an SBTN talk show. She has written four books and two Vietnamese-language movies.

In Vietnam, Tina Do said, she would have never had such a career.

“It’s easier for the women to adapt to the new life than the men because the men over there they are the head of the household,” Tina Do said. “They’re like a king, so when they came over here, it’s kind of hard for them. When I was in Vietnam, few women worked there. They usually stayed home, took care of children.”

Out of necessity, Tina Do went to work when they came to Texas.

“I loved it,” she said. “I’m a workaholic. I’m hyper. I’ve got to be doing something.”

‘Did what they needed to do’

In a 1995 Star-Telegram article marking the 20th anniversary of their departure from Vietnam, the family outlined the difficulties of those early years.

Six months after arriving, the Dos moved from a mobile home to a house on 29th Street on Fort Worth’s north side. They made a $10 down payment on the $9,000 house, which they bought from one of their sponsors.

They sold that house for a profit and moved to a nicer house in west Fort Worth two years later. With the help of their two oldest children, they moved to their Grand Prairie house in 1993.

“For years, we never took a vacation,” Hanh Do said in 1995. “I worked several jobs. We eat cheaper cuts of meat, and that way we save. That is the only way.”

The children assimilated fairly easily. In 1995, Binh Do said they “learned 90 percent of their English by watching Electric Company and Sesame Street.”

Binh Do, who works in information technology for the eyeglass manufacturer Essilor, is still amazed at his parents’ ability to adapt.

“I think what they did is typical for the Vietnamese community of that generation,” he said. “They did what they needed to do to survive.”

But while they worked, they stressed the importance of education to their children. Expectations were high, and the children responded.

“I’m so thankful for what they’ve done for us, just to get us to where we are,” Binh Do said. “I’m impressed with all of the hard work. I know it’s difficult. I know if I was in the same shoes, I don’t know if I could have done it.”

This story was originally published February 25, 2015 at 9:45 PM with the headline "Couple who fled Vietnam 40 years ago now call Texas home."