A Family Story of Freedom

Freedom has been on my mind more than ever. Watching the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk—an American voice who championed free speech and civic courage—shook me to my core. His death reminded me how fragile freedom truly is, and it brought me back to my own family’s story. In 1979, my parents fled communist Vietnam, surviving two years in a refugee camp on Bidong Island before coming to the U.S. to start over. My father built a landscaping business from nothing; my mother worked long hours in factories—both fighting for the life they had risked everything to reach. Growing up, I took that freedom for granted, never realizing it was bought with sacrifice. Now I see it clearly: freedom isn’t comfort, it’s responsibility. It’s the courage to live with purpose, to speak up, and to protect what generations before us fought so hard to gain.