Tribute to Hanh Thai Duong

TRIBUTE TO HANH THAI DUONG

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Hanh Thai Duong, a woman who epitomizes the American dream. Duong is the owner of a restaurant in my hometown of Louisville, KY, The Lemongrass Café.

Duong's journey from Vietnam to America is a miraculous one. In 1979, when she was only 10 years old, the Vietnamese government told her family that they would be able to leave Vietnam because of her father's Chinese ancestry, but only if they gave up all of their possessions and paid a sum in gold to the Vietnamese government. They decided the trip would be worth the risk, so they left everything behind and boarded a fishing boat that took them to a new life in Hong Kong.
A year later, with the help of a relative in Louisville and a number of Catholic charities, Duong and her family left Hong Kong for Kentucky. Duong's unwavering determination and a belief in the importance of an education, helped her work her way through the University of Louisville and earn a degree in finance and international business.

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After her parents retired, Duong followed in their footsteps and opened her own restaurant, The Lemongrass Café;, bringing a taste of her native land to her new home. I ask my colleagues in the Senate to recognize and pay tribute to this remarkable woman.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article, "Restaurant a testament to Vietnamese family's drive" from The Courier-Journal, be printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

[From the Louisville Courier-Journal, Feb. 22, 2004]
RESTAURANT A TESTAMENT TO VIETNAMESE FAMILY'S DRIVE
(By Byron Crawford)

The Lemongrass Cafe in Louisville's Highlands neighborhood is more than a quaint oasis for Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese cuisine. It is a monument to one Vietnamese family's appetite for freedom and opportunity.

The cafe's proprietor, Hanh Thai Duong, 34, was 10 years old in 1979 when the Vietnamese government told her parents that because of her father's Chinese ancestry the family would be allowed to leave Vietnam-if they gave up all their possessions and paid the government a sum in gold.

"You really leave empty-handed, but my mom and dad were thinking for a better future for their children," Duong said. "My parents always said that the United States was the land of opportunity. We left on a fishing boat for Hong Kong."
Such voyages were treacherous. The boats were small and often unsafe.

The trips sometimes took weeks. Twenty to 30 passengers jammed into tight quarters and often went days without food. Pirates roamed the South China Sea, sometimes boarding the fishing vessels, killing, raping and taking women and children captives.

"We were lucky. It only took us four or five days to reach Hong Kong, but my aunt and her twins did not get to Hong Kong . . . for like a month or so, and one of the twins died of hunger and they ended up burying her out at sea," Duong said. "As soon as my aunt stepped on the ground in Hong Kong, she passed away, too."

Duong's baby sister was badly burned in an accident soon after the fishing boat reached Hong Kong Harbor and was taken to the mainland for treatment. The family lost track of the child for months but finally found her in a refugee camp. Duong's mother, not having seen the baby for months, did not immediately recognize her.

Another of Duong's aunts, who then lived in Louisville, sponsored the family to immigrate in 1980, and they were flown to America by Catholic Charities, which they later repaid. Duong's father, Trung Thai, had owned a successful grocery-supply business in Vietnam, and her mother, Nga, was a good cook. They opened a small restaurant from which they have since retired.

Duong married at an early age but was determined to get an education, and she worked her way through the University of Louisville to earn a degree in finance and international business. She and her husband, Edward Duong-who had twice been captured while trying to leave Vietnam in violation of government orders-later lived in New York City. But they soon decided that they preferred Louisville, where Edward Duong now works at Ford's Kentucky Truck Plant.

Hanh Duong's older brother and younger sister both earned degrees from UofL and are working in business. Another sister owns a nail salon and her youngest sister is working her way through college.

"You think about your parents' sacrifice for you and you don't want to fail," she said. "You don't take things for granted and you don't give up easily."

Duong has forgotten much of her early life in Vietnam, but a few vivid memories remain: one of her parents running with her for shelter as bombs exploded nearby, and her mother being wounded by a stray bullet near their home in Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City).

Today, Duong works hard in the Lemongrass Cafe, on Bardstown Road to make happier memories for her children-a daughter, Cheryl, 17, a senior at Male High School and a Governor's Scholar who will enter the University of Kentucky next fall, and a son, Nick, 9, a student at Greathouse/Shryock Traditional Elementary School. Many of their grandmother's favorite recipes are helping to lure customers to their mother's cafe.

"Other than the delicious food, I guess it was just the simplicity of Lemongrass and the personality of Hanh that I like about the place," said Jeannie Treitz, a frequent customer.

A few years ago, Hanh said, she took her children to Vietnam to show them the country their parents and grandparents had fled.

"They were raised here and they don't know how people have to struggle in Vietnam," she said. "I took them back so they could understand that they have bundles of opportunities here, and that they should work hard and never give up on anything."