Diligent. Extraordinarily intelligent. Meticulously wired to solve problems. These words don’t even compare to Truong Nguyen and his achievements. In 1968, he was born into a family of four children. But he is now a brilliant engineer as well as a dedicated father.
When you first look at him, you wouldn't see much but a tall figure in his late forties, with a bunch of kids, with his intellect hidden in silence. But despite all his achievements, I had the privilege of sitting across from Nguyen as he told me his life story.
As the second eldest child, he had to watch over his younger siblings very often. But when he was just six, due to unfortunate events of the Vietnam War, his family was forced to move out of Vietnam and enter the safe…show more content… His mother took an occupation of assembling things in a 3M factory and his father worked as a school teacher. The pay of these jobs may have been measly, but they were the basic building blocks of Nguyen’s new future.
He started with nothing. As he moved to America in 1975, he shed his previous life from Vietnam. All his memories, belongings, family, friends. They were all lost back in the place he once called home. About forty years ago, six year old Nguyen worked hard on transitioning lifestyles. He could easily fit in with all of his peers in first grade. However, as he grew older, he was often picked on for reasons he didn’t even have control over. As Nguyen leans forwards and crosses his arms, he says “Some kids in school, when I was younger, they were picking on me just because I came from a different country. I learned that you can’t influence people and they are just going to think whatever they originally thought. Instead, you should be confident, and be proud of your origin. This made me work harder want more for my own kids someday, and be more ambitious.” Nguyen did too, stand by his wise words and had confidence in himself in school. He didn’t come by many friends, but when he was thirteen, he had a best friend, whom he did everything with. However, his best friend had…show more content… These problems that occurred in her lungs and heart forced her to stay in the hospital for over a week. Wrinkling his eyebrows, Nguyen explains his experience of becoming a father “She couldn’t breathe, so she had to get special treatment, and we couldn’t stay there. She also had a heart defect, and it just seemed like one major problem after another. We were expecting her to come home on the first day, but she didn’t make it out until after eleven days. That’s not you expect from your newborn baby, and it was really risky.” Although things looked grim in the beginning, she eventually outgrew the wounds she was born with. However, not all of Nguyen’s achievements had grim beginning. His career started like fireworks and is still currently going. He is highly recognized at work, and all his coworkers look up to him. Although this is a big accomplishment, he wouldn’t say that it’s the thing he’s most proud of. What he is most proud of lies in his children’s accomplishments. Smiling, he remarks “I got the engineering excellence award at work, but I am most proud of my kids. They exceed at music, and at school.” But not only can Nguyen’s undying love lie in his children, it also lay in his parents. Recalling a melancholy me memory, he says “The saddest thing that ever happened to me was when my parents passed away, because they were a big part of my life, and it reminded me that we