A LOOK AT THE BRIGHT SIDE…

Welcome to you new subscribers, and thank you for your support of the good news.

You know, one of the problems of guys like me who write newsletters, is sometimes we get so full of our self that we start pontificating and rambling on and on…This morning as I started to write this newsletter, I found myself starting to do that very thing.

Thankfully, I caught myself and tossed it in the garbage can!

Instead, I got my morning newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, and as usual, started digging through it to try and find one of what I call ‘buried treasure’..a good news story stuck in the back somewhere where no one ever finds it, or reads it.

I picked up the Front page. Forget it. Next, I looked at the front page of the Metro section. Here were the headlines:

4 SOUGHT IN SEXUAL ASSAULT AT COLLEGE

PLACER FORGERY RING ARRESTS

PROPOSED BUDGET DRAWS PROTESTS

RT WEIGHS HIGHER FARES, FEWER ROUTES

TRACKING COLLEGE NO-SHOWS

SENSELESS TRAGEDY RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT SPORTS FANS AND AGRESSION

AMERICAN DREAM COMES TRUE FOR VIETNAM REFUGEE

STOP! What was that? AMERICAN DREAM COMES TRUE? I couldn’t believe my eyes. A good news story. On the front page of the Metro section!

This made my day. And I hope it makes yours too.

The story was written by M.S.Enkoji, a Sacramento Bee Staff Writer. Here are the highlights, as I am contacting the Bee writer for permission to use this story in my upcoming book, LOOKING AT THE BRIGHT SIDE.
Van Tran’s Journey – A True American Success Story

In 1975, when Saigon feel at the end of the Vietnam war, Van Tran was a scared 10-year-old boy climbing onto an American C-130 airplane with his family of seven, with only 2 suitcases filled with everything they owned. He knew just two words of english.

You might remember the chaos and panic of that day 30 years ago on April 30th, when the communists captured Saigon, and helicopters landed on the roof of the American Embassy to rescue American Diplomats as thousands of South Vietnamese men, women and children were forced to say behind in utter fear and helplessness.

Over the next 20 years over 2 million Vietnamese refugees fled the persecution and communist rule, in makeshift boats, rafts, heading anywhere they could. It is estimated as many as 1 million of those perished at sea.

Van Tran and his family were among the lucky ones that day. His father was a college professor and dentist and was able to arrange evacuation on the American plane.

The Tran family arrived first in Arkansas, then Texas and Michigan before moving to southern California in 1980.

Van Tran was an excellent student ,and over the years he earned a law degree and opened his law practice in a l community in Orange County, California in what was knows as Little Saigon because of the over 100,000 Vietnamese-Americans.

He was elected to the Garden Grove City Council in 2000. He ran for the California State Legislature in November of 2004, and was elected.

He is the United States highest-ranking Vietnamese-American elected official.

On April 25th, Van Tran hosted a California State Capitol reception he helped sponsor to mark the 30-year anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

He took the opportunity to remark on what he called the extraordinary accomplishments of the 450,000 Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans who live in California.

“You contributed to this country, and that is what the American dream is all about” he said yesterday.

A dream Van Tran has lived himself.

How soon we forget that we are all the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of immigrants, who like Van Tran saw America as a land of freedom and opportunity and turned obstacles into accomplishments. We are a country with problems..but there is a bright side. This is just one story of thousands that happen every day.

Again, thanks for your loyalty, and I promise my new book, LOOKING AT THE BRIGHTSIDE, will be out by this fall at the latest, and all subscribers will get a special price and an autographed edition..more on that later. Please spread the word about Dry Creek Press will you? And send me stories and comments, I welcome them. Thanks!