ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 6, 1996 TAG: 9610070075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
TAM PHAN thinks jealousy may have prompted the vandalism to his wife's car. And his family doesn't need this grief.
Tam Gia Phan, 20, got up early Friday morning, Sept. 20. He climbed into his pickup truck and took his wife, Thy Than, to her job at Halmode Apparel Co. and one of his sisters to school, and then he drove home, where he saw his wife's white, 1995 Toyota Corolla, parked behind his house with its door ajar.
Tam stopped his truck and went to investigate. He smelled gasoline.
"When I opened door and put my head in, it blowed up," he said, "and the fire."
His hair singed, Phan backed away from the smoking Toyota, ran into the house and dialed 911. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out the blaze before the fire trucks arrived.
At first, he was frightened. Then he felt "happy - not injury." But one night recently, as he sat with his family at the dining room table of their home in Southeast Roanoke, "I very sad."
He doesn't need this grief.
It started with a phone call, a month or more ago. The caller sounded American, male and "older, about 30-35," Tam said, with a voice "too fast and too strong" to be a young person's. The message was short but not sweet: "Be careful, your truck and your car."
Tam, who works at National Linen Service, said he has no idea who the caller might have been - not a co-worker or anyone that he can think of in the neighborhood. Nor does he know why the car was tampered with.
But he has a theory: "I think I work hard and work good and get money and buy these cars. That's why they don't want me living here." Jealousy, in other words.
Seated around the table, his younger sisters, his wife and his mother, Em Kim Nguyen, agree: They don't need this grief.
The Phans moved to Roanoke five years ago. Before that, they spent seven months in a Philippine camp as refugees from Vietnam.
"They came here with absolutely nothing," said Vince Joyce, who was their sponsor from Our Lady of Nazareth Catholic Church. "They had the clothes on their backs, period."
"They are a very stable, very hard-working family," said Barbara Smith, director of the Refugee and Immigration Services office in Roanoke.
After they arrived, Tam's father, Hai Van Phan, and mother got jobs at National Linen. They bought a house and a car, Joyce said, "and when they eat, they eat small."
Two years ago, Tam's mother developed a brain aneurysm. She has had three operations since then, and she no longer works. Tam, who had been living and working in Lancaster, Pa., came home to help with the children.
His father had an auto accident, for which he is being sued. The family is still paying off the airfare - more than $4,000 - for the flight that brought them here.
In February, Tam's father's car was stolen from behind the house. Police found it in North Carolina, wrecked.
Life in America, Tam said, is a "very hard time. We can't speak good English. Too hard everything. We can't talk."
"Everything new," his mother said.
They don't need any more grief.
"Sometimes I tell my children, `We have to behave. We no want no trouble. We came to America. We lucky. You save your life,''' Tam's mother said.
But sometimes, trouble comes.
Jerry Percell, assistant fire marshal for the city, investigated the explosion and fire in Thy Than's car. Someone had poured gasoline on the floorboards, he said.
"Apparently fumes had filled the car, and somewhere near the dome light it had reached the explosive stage."
Percell doesn't know whether someone wanted to hurt Tam or Thy Than, or only to trash the car. Police are investigating.
A look inside the car shows a charred dashboard, roof liner and trunk - and an overpowering smell of gas. Tam was lucky he wasn't hurt. Insurance will cover the damage, but he must pay the deductible - $500.
The Phans may struggle with English, but they know sense from nonsense, and right from wrong. This is Tam's message to the person who's giving him this grief: "I say if he get mad at me, he come to see me. He don't have to do stuff like this."
And, after a pause: "Please leave my family alone."
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