There is a story Hieu Pham Stuart tells about her early life in Tuy Hoa, Vietnam. Like many of the stories from her extraordinary life, it is at once joyful, tragic and ultimately reaffirming.
Stuart’s father, a mechanic who amassed a small fortune trading in cars, was well known and well regarded in the tiny village.
Every New Year, the Pham clan would harvest corn and rice and slaughter pigs and chickens to serve to all of their friends and neighbors.
"My parents were always very generous," says Stuart, the eighth of 12 siblings. "I love that about them."
In 1978 the communist government seized the family’s assets and property and effectively blacklisted Stuart’s father for his past business dealings with Westerners. Shortly after, Stuart’s father suffered a debilitating stroke.
"How did we survive?" says Stuart, 41. "Our neighbors took care of us. Karma. Payback. It was a big lesson in my life."
Stuart’s father was a patriot. He loved his country and didn’t want to leave, but over the next 15 years it became increasingly obvious that the family had no future in their native land. Some of Stuart’s oldest siblings were stranded in refugee camps. Others found themselves blocked from going to college or pursuing a meaningful profession.
And so in 1993, Stuart, then 20, her parents and four younger siblings immigrated to Hawaii.
Stuart promptly took a job at DFS in Waikiki to help support the family.
"I learned Japanese before I learned English," she says, laughing.
While pressured by her parents to marry and have children, Stuart was restless to explore her new freedom.
Unwilling to enter into an arranged marriage, Stuart instead married a fisherman, and the two later started their own limousine service. But the marriage only delayed what Stuart knew to be her real destiny.
Stuart divorced her husband and flew to the East Coast with $800 in her pocket and no clear plan for what to do next.
After stops in New York and Boston, Stuart settled in Virginia and got a job at a Vietnamese restaurant, where she hoped to learn a little English and earn some money for school.
During one afternoon shift a man named John Stuart walked in. He’d never been to a Vietnamese restaurant before, so Hieu helped him with the menu. The two chatted for a while, and when John left he attached a $20 tip to his $8 tab.
"He was just a great, nice, genuine guy," Hieu says, her voice trailing.
Though she had no idea at the time, the chance meeting would be the start of the most significant relationship of her life and a prelude to tragedies and triumphs she never could have imagined.
Continued next week.
Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.
