Photo by ELIZABETH A. MUNDSCHENK Kim Nguyen traveled from the southern part of Vietnam to Utica when she was 8 years old because her mother wanted a better life for the family,

A better life found

By COLLEEN PASSALACQUA
Observer-Dispatch

Kim Nguyen traveled from Vietnam to Utica when she was 8 years old, not knowing a word of English.

Now, at 26, Nguyen still remembers how happy her Columbus Elementary School teacher was when she wrote her first sentence.

"I kome from Vietnam," the young Nguyen wrote.

"I used a K instead of a C ... but the teacher was so excited," Nguyen says, smiling at the memory.

Nguyen came to Utica in 1984 with her mother, grandmother and two of her three older brothers to make a better life, she says.

Today, Nguyen is taking classes at Herkimer County Community College to become a paralegal and hopes to be a lawyer. She also wants to learn to translate legal terms into Vietnamese so she can become a legal interpreter.

She and her husband, Sean, also from Vietnam, have two children, Riley, 7, and Micaela, 6, and are teaching them to speak Vietnamese.

"They are learning Vietnamese with an English accent," Nguyen says. "It’s so cute."

Helping her children learn is a priority for Nyugen. She’s even thinking about bringing them to Vietnam for the summer to immerse them in the culture.

"Language is the most important," she says of keeping her heritage alive.