Mau Duc Nguyen and his family were among thousands of people who escaped from Vietnam after the fall of the country to the communists. Having been a South Vietnam naval officer, Mau was sent to a prison camp but managed to escape. After months of planning, he and his wife Cuc and their three children, plus various family members and others - a total of 27 people - headed for Thailand in a 36-foot boat. During the four-day crossing, the group was attacked by a patrol boat, and twice by pirates who stole everything, including the boat.

The family spent over four months in Thai refugee camps before being accepted for entry to the United States. They were sponsored by a church in Poulsbo, WA and then moved to Alaska, where the couple worked in a cannery for four years. They gradually earned enough to buy a home in Bellevue, WA and also bought the New Saigon grocery store in Seattle, on Jackson Street near 12th Avenue South.

Here, Cuc (left) and Mau Duc Nguyen stand in their New Saigon grocery store. The young woman in the background may be one of the couple’s children, who worked in the store on weekends.

Caption information source: “Anchored in Freedom: Two boat families spared no effort to get back on course” by Don Tewkesbury, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 24, 1990, pages C1-C2.