It’s hard to keep track of all the ways Monster Pho owner Tee Tran has helped his community in Oakland, California. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his restaurant donated almost 20,000 meals through World Central Kitchen, gave free coffee to health care workers and free produce to anyone in need, offered customer discounts for donated goods, held a backpack drive and started a yearly event giving free pho to anyone wanting a hot meal — no questions asked. In this edition of Voices in Food, Tran shares in his own words how his life as a Vietnamese refugee — and more pointedly, how his mom — has inspired his passion for helping others, even when he was struggling himself.
I have lived in the U.S. since 1989, specifically Oakland. This country is where I grew up with my mom and two older brothers. It’s where I started my own family; my two little girls were born here. It’s where I made my American dream come true, opening up my very own restaurant, Monster Pho.
I am an American, but I am also Vietnamese. My family are refugees, people forced to leave their country in order to escape war, natural disaster or danger because of their ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or political belief. In 1987, when I was about 3 years old, my mom took my two brothers and me and we fled Vietnam on a boat heading to Thailand, sneaking out in the middle of the night. There were about 50 other people on the boat, other people like us who were trying to get a better life. We were on the water for about two weeks and it wasn’t easy. There wasn’t much food and we saw pirates and dead bodies in the water. But eventually, we made it to Thailand, where we stayed in a refugee camp.
After a couple of years, we got sponsorship to come to America in 1989. When my mom, two older brothers and I landed in Oakland, we didn’t have much. We didn’t have a bed, pillows, blankets or even electricity. But my mom worked hard to take care of us. She worked four jobs and still cooked us…
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