Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9505010062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Trinh Mai arrived in Roanoke on her 16th birthday. That was not quite six years ago.
Since then, her days have been filled - mostly with work and study.
She's finishing up her second year at Virginia Western Community College. She takes a full load of classes and works 35 hours a week in part-time jobs as a waitress at a nursing home and the Jefferson Club. During the summers, when she's not taking classes, she works 70 to 75 hours a week.
She plans to transfer to Roanoke College after she gets her two-year accounting degree.
In Vietnam, getting an education was difficult because as the daughter of an American soldier, she was often ostracized.
"The children fight with me and all that stuff, try to make fun of me because I'm part American," she said. "That's why when I came to America, I wanted to learn whatever - just learn."
She does not know her father, who was transferred out of Vietnam just before the fall of Saigon. Her family destroyed papers identifying him and where he lived, for fear that they would fall into the hands of the communists. Trinh Mai knows little about him, other than the fact that he once lived in Michigan. "I wish one of these days, when I finish school, I try to find my daddy and see what he looked like."
She lives with her mother, her four younger sisters and a younger brother in the Indian Village public housing complex in Southeast Roanoke. Outside, their apartment is brightened by a splash of yellow, purple and red flowers. Inside, the living room is dominated by a bubbling fish tank.
Though she will turn 22 next month, she has no has plans to move out anytime soon.
"Because I feel like I'm the older daughter - that's why I have to help my mother. That's why I have to go to school and work."
She said most American children, once they turn 18, want to go out on the weekends, drink and party, and just get away from their parents. "To me I think the longer you stay with the family, the more you learn from the family."
If she were still living in Vietnam, she wouldn't be in college now. She said she'd be working hard, just as she does now, but she'd be "working hard without education, I think."
by CNB