Community turns to Asian stores as cultural cornerstones
The earliest memories of human rights advocate Nga Vuongsandoval include waiting in food lines on naval bases that served as makeshift refugee camps.
At age 3, she and her family fled Vietnam — or Viet Nam, the correct spelling, she said — on a cargo ship as Saigon, or Sài Gòn, fell in the mid 1970s. They were among around 2 million Vietnamese refugees forcibly displaced from their homeland.
With so much turmoil, Vuongsandoval and some of her relatives were forced to separate. “To be able to leave safely, to be able to leave with everyone from your family, was a luxury — an absolute luxury that most could not afford.”
Her family stayed in refugee camps in the Philippines, Guam and Arkansas before arriving in Colorado, where she started kindergarten in Denver. To this day, many refugees still struggle with their trauma and, sometimes, with the lifestyles they’re forced into in their host countries, Vuong-sandoval said. Back home, “many of us led very good lives.”
The Vietnamese community has cemented itself into “a permanent fixture” in Denver and Aurora. Over the past few decades, supermarkets offering familiar vegetables, fruit and other foods cropped up “to connect us back to our homeland.” Places like Little Saigon Market, Pacific Mercantile Company, H Mart and other Asian grocery stores.
Vuong-sandoval described “smelling those herbs, smelling the produce” as a tangible link to her identity. “I remember, when we first arrived, no one even knew what sriracha was — much less how to spell it.”
Today, she still lives in Denver. “I’m proud to say that it’s the city that I love, it’s the state that I love,” she said. With great strides made, “there’s still much more we need to do to welcome other groups that are newcomers to Colorado.”
Around 24,000 Vietnamese-americans call the state home, with many concentrated in the Denver area, according to the Action Against Hate campaign created by the Asian Roundtable of Colorado. Although the state’s Asian Americans celebrate their diverse heritages at events like the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival and the Asian American and Pacific Islander+ Festival, it’s the markets that serve as the daily cultural touchstones for their communities.
Denver’s Little Saigon Business District, established in 2014, runs along South Federal Boulevard between West Alameda Avenue and West Mississippi Avenue.
Visitors can peruse several menus to find pho — the Vietnamese soup dish — or the iconic sandwich, bánh mì, at area restaurants, alongside dozens of other Asian-american businesses. At 2200 West Alameda Ave., national chain Great Wall Supermarket can now be found in place of Pacific Ocean Marketplace — once called “Denver’s largest and best Asian supermarket” and Peter Vo’s mom’s favorite for grocery shopping.
Vo, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Denver, grew up in Aurora alongside his sister and cousins, describing his adolescence as a positive experience in “a very diverse place.”
Raised in a Vietnamese church, many members became local entrepreneurs, with Vietnamese stores “always” accessible in the area, he said. Vo notes that social life in Vietnam is often oriented around markets and businesses, “and that’s kind of what we do here as well.”
He estimates that his grandparents moved from the Southeast Asian country to the U.S. in the late 1990s, “seeking out a better life than they had.” As a former captive in the Vietnam War, Vo’s grandfather “had a lot of distaste for his home country and just the way things were.”
Vo — a first-generation Vietnamese-american curious about his family’s upbringing — started a research project at DU to explore that history, which he called an “inherently American story.”
He used his relatives as photography subjects. “The goal of the project was just to get people to kind of see immigrants in a different light.”
“Even though we moved here, they still lived a very Vietnamese life,” Vo said, pointing to the stores his family members frequent and food they cook. But the blending of cultures is “what makes America America.”
The legacy of Mimi Luong’s bloodline centers around markets. Born and raised in Denver, she’s the co-owner of Truong An Gifts, alongside her mother, Fawn. It’s situated in Denver’s Far East Center, which is owned by her family.
Her paternal side escaped Vietnam in 1975 by plane, while her maternal side left in 1977 by boat.
Because her paternal grandfather owned a bank in the Southeast Asian nation, his children and wife didn’t have to work, Luong said. Her great aunt — an English translator at the embassy — married a U.S. general, so all 19 family members were able to secure spots on a flight and escape Vietnam when the time came.
They traveled to a refugee camp in Guam first, and were robbed of their cash and gold. Luong’s father was left with $10 in his pocket, she said.
From there, they flew to Oklahoma, then Colorado, where a great uncle already resided. King Soopers employed the men as stock boys, butchers and more, while the women worked as motel housekeepers. “This was a really hard change for all of them,” Luong said.
Her father and uncle road-tripped to California and found a grocery store that sold Asian seasonings, rice and other goods. “For a long time, they weren’t able to taste the flavors of Asian food,” Luong said. “The thing that you miss the most is always food, right?”
The pair brought some products back, and decided to start an Asian supermarket on Colfax Avenue — Thai Binh Supermarket, named after their fathers Luong Qouc Binh and Luong Qouc Thai.
Eventually, Luong’s mother launched her own business venture: “The very first Asian Blockbuster,” with films from Hong Kong, China and more available to rent. Eventually, it morphed into Truong An Gifts.
The relatives rarely saw each other and proposed the idea of the Far East Center shopping mall, which could, “at the same time, be a hub for the Asian community.” It opened in 1987 at 333 S. Federal Blvd.
Luong recalls childhood years spent running around the Far East Center after school with her cousins. “This was our home.”
She is quick to note that the surrounding area is made up of more than Vietnamese-americans, but also residents with Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai and Latino roots.
She clarifies that her family is Chinese born in Vietnam, and they speak five languages in her household: Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, English and Korean.
Luong said her mission is to bring more awareness to the Little Saigon Business District and its “heart,” the Far East Center — continuing her parents’ legacy in the process.
“I don’t want it to go away. I don’t want it to fade,” she said. “I don’t want people to forget their roots of where their parents and their grandparents came from.”