On a blustery December Saturday morning by a strip mall in Garland, families, seniors, local leaders and veterans packed into an event hall belonging to a Vietnamese American community center to honor the Yellow Flag, a symbol of democracy and freedom for many and the Republic of Vietnam’s symbol during the Vietnam War.
In the front row, Jennifer Nguyen, 76, and her husband, Tom Nguyen, 83, sat stoically, listening to the American and Vietnamese anthems and remarks from other Vietnamese Americans honoring their past and celebrating their culture.
The community center used to be — informally — around the Nguyen family’s dining room table in their Garland home, where Vietnamese immigrants and refugees gathered, shared experiences and learned from one another.
Then Tom Nguyen came home from work one day in 1999 to his wife and four kids and said he’d signed paperwork for a $240,000 loan to buy a building on Belt Line Road. It remains open today, serving as a home for community events.
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Jennifer Nguyen holds a newspaper clipping with a family photo taken after their arrival in Arizona from Vietnam in the 1970s at her home, Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, in Garland.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
“The thriving Vietnamese community in Garland would not be where it is now if it weren’t for them,” said Denise Johnson, co-founder of the Dallas Asian American Historical Society. Johnson helped archive the Nguyen family’s story.
Since the couple arrived in Garland, they have fostered a community for the rapidly growing Vietnamese American population in North Texas — helping establish Garland’s Asian American Heritage Festival, the Garland community center and the DFW Asian American Soccer Tournament, among other involvements.
Dallas-Fort Worth led the country in the growth of the Asian American population from 2022 to 2023, with Collin County anchoring that increase, according to a report by Austin-based nonprofit Asian Texans for Justice. The report found the second-largest subgroup of Asian American residents in Dallas-Fort Worth was Vietnamese, at about 98,500 residents.
After surviving a harrowing journey from Vietnam just days before the fall of Saigon, raising four children in the U.S. and serving as a leader for the local Vietnamese American community, Jennifer hopes her story shows women that they can do anything.
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“A lot of female Asian Americans … don’t believe in themselves, because that’s our culture. They were born and raised to be a mother, a wife and grandmother,” she said. “I believe strongly that [we] women need to stand up and start to give [ourselves] a pat on the back.”
Path to America
Jennifer was born in 1949 in Vietnam, one of six children in a wealthy family. In her senior year of high school, war broke out, and after graduating, she went to work at a U.S. post office on a Vietnamese air base.
In the late 1960s, she saw a man drive through the base on a moped wearing Levi’s and a short-sleeve checkered shirt. She even remembers his license plate — EC4732, she said. He had graduated from fighter pilot training in Arizona and arrived in Vietnam to serve the Republic of Vietnam’s military.
Jennifer Nguyen shows a collection of her and her husband’s ID cards from their time in Vietnam at her home, Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, in Garland.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
Tom was gentle and soft, a quiet listener to her talkative self. Just seven days after meeting her, he proposed over a bowl of wonton noodle soup, she said. They’ve been married 59 years.
The couple had four children, three girls and a baby boy, while living at the air base. In 1975, a rocket hit the base daily, Jennifer recalls, and on one occasion, a piece of metal fell from a rocket on the playground of the base’s day care where her daughter stayed. The family soon moved to Saigon.
“I just tried to keep in mind my survival,” Jennifer said. “Don’t look back on your past. It’s already gone.”
On April 23, 1975, she was told to pack her bag — one small Samsonite briefcase for herself and children, her baby boy still in diapers. She was told she’d be sent to Thailand — without Tom, but with dozens of other wives of fighter pilots.
The lone suitcase Jennifer Nguyen brought with her and her four children when they fled Vietnam in the 1970s pictured at her home, Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, in Garland.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
Saigon fell to the Viet Cong seven days later, and she ended up in Guam with her children, unsure if she’d see her husband again. Against all odds, on May 1, Tom arrived by plane.
“He’s my life,” Jennifer said. “He’s my hope.”
They eventually found a family to sponsor their stay in Arizona. Jennifer set out to start life “all over again,” she said, ready to learn the “American way.”
“It’s not about abandoning anything. It’s not giving away my past, my culture,” Jennifer said. “We feel blessed that instead of one culture, one country, one parent, now we have two of everything.”
Life in Garland
Life in America was not easy. Jennifer got a job making just over minimum wage and her mental health took a sharp decline as she sought to raise her four children in a new country. Eventually, Tom took a job offer in Garland after attending Arizona State University. The family moved on Aug. 1, 1985, Jennifer recalls.
When they first picked the lot in Garland for their future home, the neighborhood was surrounded by fields and cows. The area has changed dramatically, now a growing suburb in a booming metro — Garland went from about 138,800 residents in 1980 to 246,000 in 2020, according to U.S. Census data.
Jennifer Nguyen looks through a family photo album at her home, Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, in Garland.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
The couple still lives in the house built for them 40 years ago. Jennifer worked for an insurance company before retiring in 2009. She has cancer, but is still actively involved in the community. In Texas, she volunteered for hospitals, churches, temples and to help refugees in the area just as she had been helped decades ago.
She has become a leader in the Vietnamese American community, bringing people together over food, connecting immigrants with resources in a new country, fighting for visibility and sharing her culture with others.
“What really stood out to me with their entire story is … the passion that they have [for] building a community,” Johnson said. “It was … their dedication to their culture and community that all of this just blossomed out of.”
Jennifer started Garland’s Asian American Heritage Festival to shine a light on the contributions and beauty of her community and highlight its diversity. She also helped establish a children’s fall festival in Garland and is an advisor to VN United, a nonprofit organization and soccer club that hosts the DFW Asian American Soccer Tournament.
Jennifer Nguyen holds a photo from when her family first arrived in Arizona after fleeing Vietnam in the 1970s at her home, Monday, Nov. 24, 2025, in Garland.
Elías Valverde II / Staff Photographer
“A lot of work that she’s done, like organizing the cultural festival, brings a lot of families together,” said Jimmy Tran, past president of VN United. “I believe that what she’s done has encouraged more young generations like myself to follow her steps so that we can have more Vietnamese, Asian Americans be represented in our community.”
Jennifer acts as a bridge to the Garland city government, he said, and encouraged Tran to run for City Council. She herself has been involved in Garland’s local government — including the city’s Community Multicultural Commission. She’s fought for representation and visibility, Tran said.
“This is the story to share when we are still alive, so our children will not ever forget their heritage and how hard it was for us to start our life at middle age,” Jennifer said. “So they learn a lesson, don’t take anything for granted, and don’t ever forget their culture.”
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