My parents become immigrants

Father went to the US. Mother went to Italy and later to the US when she married my father.

Once they resettled together in Los Angeles was when I was finally born.

My father’s family in the United States.

My father’s entire family (except for one son, who had a wife and child) swung from some vines onto a big US Marine boat.

This boat (or was it a ship?) took them to Malaysia first for some processing and paperwork before finally bringing them to America, where they arrived in Camp Pendleton (near San Diego, California). Camp Pendleton is on the west coast and basically opposite side of Ellis Island (where European immigrants usually came into the US).

From here the US resettlement program would purposely resettle refugees into different parts of the US to make them assimilate and prevent them from forming their own communities. My father’s family went to Sarasota, Florida (an hour away from big city Tampa).

In Florida, the family lived in a tiny studio apartment (or maybe 1 bedroom) for 7 people. Repeating their nicknames and what happened to them:

• Paternal grandfather “Bong” – lived in Sarasota for many years before moving to Orange County (1 hour away from us in LA) because my father did real estate and had a free house for his parents.
• Paternal grandmother “bitch grandma” – lived in Sarasota for many years.
• 1st daughter “bitch” – horrible negative attitude and takes after her mother. Would later marry a soft funny man with a gimp (named Minh)…and have 2 kids, older son Anthony and younger daughter Vy. Anthony would later commit suicide and to this day, I blame his wretched mother for it. And to this day, his parents have scraped his existence from their house…hiding all photos of him and acting like they never had a son, because it’s considered shameful in their culture to have a suicide.
• 1st son “James Bond” – he was the one with the wife and son (Jean-Marc), and later had a daughter “Thy”. When he felt ready, I think him and his wife paddled a small boat out of Vietnam to somewhere and then somehow rejoined his family in Florida. Will have to get details later. Once in Florida, he eventually opened a jewelry shop…that one day got robbed by thieves with a helicopter who dropped hooks through his glass ceiling and air-hoisted his jewelry case right out of the store and flew off like a movie heist. He’s also known as “the jeweler”.
• 2nd son “Scarface” – nickname because when he worked in the restaurant, a big pot of hot water exploded in his face and permanently scarred his face with severe burns. Despite being short, thin, and scrawny with a burned face…he wooed a young girl who worked in his restaurant because he was pretty much the only guy there and also funny. They later had 5 kids…Virginia (girl), Bill (boy), Annie (girl), Nina (girl), Anna (girl). And finally gave up trying for another boy. He never left the restaurant industry…working for Domino’s Pizza for pretty much the rest of his working life. His wife was a stay-at-home mom.
• 3rd son “Gorilla” (my father) – nickname cuz of his bigger muscular frame. Later he would be called “the Mexican” for his tan skin and working with Mexican laborers in Los Angeles.
• 4th son “Gambler” – handsome and tallest son of the family with highest education (bachelor degree in business administration). For many years called “Dr. Ban” because he had a bachelor’s degree and liked to carry himself as a man of education. He dreamed of being rich and flying a plane. He was a dutiful worker and saved up over $100k in his bank from his government office job and never spent anything because he was so clean and frugal, and also didn’t date (kinda shy). One day he randomly went to the casino and managed to win $5k so easily. He then got hooked and figured why should he ever work again? He also played the lottery religiously hoping to win millions. In the end, he gambled away his entire life savings. He later got married and gave birth to Nolan (boy) and Vina (girl) and became a house-husband taking care of the kids while his wife (worked as a pharmacist). When the kids were old enough, he went right back to the casinos gambling with the allowance his pharmacist wife gave him (losing $2k every month, as I was told). Recently, I hear something happened and he went brain-dead.
• 5th song “Crazy Bean” – young talented artist son, with a tragic ending. During his night-job at a convenience store in his early 20’s, some big guy came into the store causing trouble. Bean trying to offer all the cash but the guy was totally drunk and super aggressive. He attacked my uncle and smashed his head against the ice cooler leaving him unconscious in a pool of blood. The cops found the guy but my grandpa was too afraid to press charges, afraid that he was in a gang that would later come back and kill the whole family. (His thinking is from Vietnam, where people were afraid to snitch because of retribution from gangs.) My “crazy uncle” kept getting worse over the years and became one of the colorful characters of my crazy childhood. One Vietnamese family almost married their daughter to Crazy Bean for a green card but changed their mind when they saw how crazy he was.

My father’s move from Sarasota (Florida) to Los Angeles (California).

My father wanted to return to his dreams of being a performer. Back in Vietnam, he was everything…actor, singer, dancer, radio show host. Had he never left, he probably would have been a famous celebrity in Vietnam. He absolutely had the charisma for it.

Now that he was in the United States, he wanted to try his hand at “the Hollywood Dream”…which unfortunately wouldn’t work out. My grandfather gave him a Mercedes and $1,000 which he took and drove all across the US from east coast to west coast, to start a new life (a Hollywood hopeful).

Unfortunately, Hollywood wasn’t looking for Asian male actors at the time. At least not ones that were darker skin, short, and didn’t do martial arts. It was a bittersweet experience that left him feeling America was racist. He also denounced the entire entertainment industry as a whole, dismissing them as just as a bunch of party animals and cokeheads with no ambition in life.

The silver lining was that Los Angeles had lots of immigrants and many other Vietnamese immigrants there (also other asians), a whole community for him to make friends with and move towards building a family.

My father’s life, working, and partying.

Definitely the social animal. The type of dude who hosted a party or get-together at his house every night. Singing, dancing, playing cards, and drinking the night away. And everybody came cuz they loved meeting people and being part of his “cool crowd”.

He probably messed around with a lot of girls. We’ll focus on 3:

• Rich girl – this is a girl who he actually married because she was rich. Winning over her family with displays of grandeur and straight up lying about his work. Once her family got to know him, they (along with her) unanimously kicked him out and he had a divorce.
• Mai – a girl he really liked and wanted to be with, but ultimately decided she was too much of a party girl and decided he wanted to marry more of a stay-at-home type of girl.
• My mother – was living in Italy. How she meets my dad, we will cover soon.

My father was gardener and also construction jobs for money. Working with the illegal Mexican immigrants…mowing lawns and building houses and stuff like that. Many hours in the sun of hard labor. Through this he learned how to speak Spanish and also have many Mexican friends/acquaintances.

My mother’s family in Italy.

My mother’s family flew on a plane from Saigon (Vietnam) to Rome (Italy). There, my aunt Anna’s husband (Corrado) asked his cousin Leopoldo to help transport the 5 of them with big luggage from the airport to their apartment in Rome. Once in Rome, Anna and Corrado gave them food and told the family to stay in the house and don’t open the door for anyone. They couldn’t speak Italian and didn’t have any jobs or know anyone. Anna and Corrado were leaving for vacation and would be back in a month.

The family in the meanwhile stayed home in the nice apartment and kept to themselves. Much to Anna’s annoyance, they did randomly open the door a couple times. One time, it was some Jehovah’s witnesses who seemed really nice and left some papers. Another time, it was a group of Vietnamese students studying in Torino (northern Italy) who had heard about Vietnamese refugees and came to visit. These students took them to their house in Torino where they cooked Vietnamese food and spoke to them, everybody was so happy. I think for this reason, the family relocated to Torino…to be closer to the small Vietnamese community in Torino. Eventually, they relocated to the small town of Carmagnola (just 30mins outside of Torino). A small and friendly town with nice Italians.

Once in Carmagnola, their personalities quickly developed into the inter-family drama today:

• Maternal grandfather – nice man of calm demeanor, respected when he speaks. Thoughtful father and very tolerant of his god-awful wife.
• Maternal grandmother – super bitchy lady with terribly negative attitude. Would later pass away from diabetes. Despite the doctors telling her to watch her insulin and diet, she got lazy about it and ultimately said, “I don’t care. I want to eat rice.” and died from a diabetes-induced stroke.
• Anna (older daughter) – super bitchy negative aunt who takes after her mom. Never smiles, never nice, talks badly and rants all day long. Never worked a day in her life once she became a stay-at-home wife/mom. She is however very intelligent and self-driven, speaks good Italian along with 4-5 other languages. She and her husband Corrado gave birth to an only child, Giovanni. Fun fact…Corrado has a twin brother who was inspired by his brother to also marry a Vietnamese girl. They had a son who is also like Giovanni (half-Italian, half-Vietnamese), and he lives in Ireland now and married an Irish girl (they have 2 kids together).
• Vito (older son) – really sweet man, father of the year type guy who married Yao (a girl he knew from Vietnam). He was previously dating her older sister, the pretty girl of her family who never cooks or cleans (because she’s a princess). But when Vito tried to escape Vietnam with his friend (and Yao’s brother) from high school and got caught, both him and the friend went to jail. And in jail, his pretty girlfriend never visited him. It was Yao (the younger not-pretty girl) who came to visit Vito and his friend, going through all the trouble of transportation, bringing nicely-made home food, and waiting in line to speak with them. It was through her caring nature that he ultimately developed feelings for the younger sister. Vito and Yao worked in a chocolate factory together and had two kids, Lisa (girl) and Huito (boy).
• Annette (my mom, younger daughter) – sweet girl but too introverted and shy. Vito’s Italian friends tried to talk to her but she never felt comfortable with them. She would end up leaving Italy to be with my father before going to university or getting a job.
• Aldo (younger son) – really sweet and good father like Vito, but also intelligent and speaks the best Italian of the family (since he was youngest). Through a connection from Anna, he was able to win a difficult government job at the Comune di Carmagnola. Out of over 150 applicants and only 3 positions, Aldo landed a spot (much to the dismay of angry Italians seeing an immigrant win such a coveted job) due to the help of Anna’s friend who told him exactly what parts of Italian government process to study. Aldo married a Vietnamese girl (who the whole family hated) and had two kids…Andrea (boy) and a girl (whose name I don’t know).

My father’s 1st visit to Italy.

My father wrote her penpal letters with fancy words. One of them had an image of 2 birds sitting next to each other on a branch and him saying something like, “I wish that was us”. Although already in her early 20’s, she was really shy and really naive. Never even kissed a boy or anything like that. So he was her first romance of any sort. (I can’t say the same for him as I imagine him sending the same letters to a bunch of girls as if swiping through Tinder.)

My father then visited her in Italy, much to her family’s disapproval. It was pretty much their nightmare come true…”oh my god, not this guy again”. But my mom was an adult, and she thought she was in love. Him and my mom had sex, and he decided to just leave and return home to the US soon after. The family was shocked he would leave so quick, but also happy that he left.

My mother got pregnant from that time they were intimate. She was so scared and didn’t know what to do but good thing she said something. Her mother and sister, without telling her father, took her to a clinic to get an abortion. Although they never confessed anything to him…they always felt that he intuitively knew something was up.

My father’s 2nd visit to Italy.

The whole abortion ordeal didn’t change my mother’s emotional attachment to my father. Despite feeling used and abandoned, she still had feelings for him. A year later he came back to Italy and this time said he wanted to marry her. Of course they would have preferred anybody else…but he was probably the only guy offering marriage to their daughter.

My dad told them he had a big house in Los Angeles, nice car, and a high-paying job in an office with a title. They still didn’t approve the marriage but it happened. Both aged 25, my parents went on a little honeymoon around Europe and then returned to Los Angeles.