All month long we're showcasing
some of the different ethnic groups
from all over the world that make
up San Diego's large Asian American
and Pacific Islander community.
58,000 Vietnamese Americans call
San Diego home, making up more
than 13% of our API population.
CBS's Heather Hope shares some of
their incredible stories of survival.
Overcoming incredible odds we
hear from three former Vietnamese
refugees who wouldn't let poverty,
a communist regime or lack of education.
Stopped them from coming to San Diego
and achieving the American Dream.
For the boat people,
refugee, we all sheriffs
very similar stories.
These three Vietnamese
American business leaders have
found success in San Diego,
but the long road to get
there started in Vietnam,
where they were all born in
poverty amid political turmoil
and were desperate to get out.
I witnessed the the harbor police shot and
killed my brother right in front of me.
After the Vietnam
War, Jimmy Tye was just a teenager
when he tried to escape 15 times,
but I'm determined. I told mom.
If none of them want to go.
Give me a chance to keep
going and keep trying.
Jimmy says the dream of going to college
motivated him to continue to flee by boat.
You tried to survive.
You know the 20 years old rickety
boat in the middle of the ocean,
and that's why I went so many time
when out there a couple of days,
the boat just completely.
The engine just stopped,
stranded in the ocean with no GPS.
Jimmy's boat was captured
and all were sent to prison,
where he also escaped and
has the mug shot to prove it.
Extremely daunting Jimmy's wife,
Lily Thai says her family fled their
Vietnamese fishing village when
she was nine years old with just
the clothes on their backs, Lily
left her only sweater
and it got caught in on the bamboo.
And I have to let it go,
because that's the only thing
of my private possession.
And, you know, you know.
At the same time I heard gunshots
look like Bang Bang bang.
Lily's family was chased by police until
they made it aboard a boat to China.
I could see I still have motion
sickness that today and I vomit.
I eat everything in that hole for two weeks.
Mindy, Folka's father was a South
Vietnamese officer until 1975 when communist
detained him in a reeducation
camp prison for seven years,
leaving Mindy's family on their own.
Poor too with my sister and my mom
who worked everyday to support us.
Mindy made it to America 1991.
Jimmy arrived in 1984 and Lily came in 1981.
After surviving several months in a
Hong Kong refugee camp filled with
prostitution and gangs at young age,
I learned very quick and fast.
How to fight to fight for my
spot, to cook for my family.
With sponsorship from an aunt in San Diego,
Lily was grateful to reach dry land in the US
when I landed here in San Diego.
I was so mesmerized by
how much concrete we have,
she held a pencil for the first
time at Euclid Elementary School,
learning English and how to read and
write at 10 years old to later graduating
at the top of her Hoover High school
class to meeting her husband Jimmy as
a volunteer teacher to now working as
a mortgage broker for 30 years, Mindy.
Now an award winning real estate broker
who says she worked hard to learn
English when she was 18 years old in
college while also working as a retail
manager and being a single mom of two.
Very proud to be Vietnamese and
I'm proud to be American too.
Jimmy chronicled his journey from
Vietnam to Thailand to San Diego
in his book 5 Secrets to the
American Dream Stories of a boat,
people refugee.
He went from being a janitor
at Miramar College to the vice
president of a Fortune 500 company
who now builds schools and.
Vietnam and Cambodia.
To me there's no better statement to
describe America as the land of opportunity.
Heather Hope CBS 8.