Fifty years ago, Huy Nguyen and his family fled Saigon as refugees, eventually settling in Iowa, where they became the first Vietnamese American family in the Quad Cities. Huy’s father, a former lieutenant colonel in the South Vietnamese army, worked as a security guard and earned his high school diploma at 45 before becoming a chiropractor in 1981. Inspired by his father’s journey, Huy pursued surgery and now has three children aspiring to become doctors themselves, with two graduating from Kansas City University.
Initially struggling, the Nguyen family relied on welfare, which led Huy’s father to seek repayment options to give back to the system that helped them. This gratitude shaped their approach to life in America; Huy’s father emphasized the importance of hard work and education. The family’s first stop was California before they moved to Iowa, where Huy assimilated into American culture and learned English through television.
Huy graduated from St. Ambrose University and opened his private practice in San Jose, a large Vietnamese American community, in 1997. He achieved milestones as a surgeon, becoming the first in the U.S. to perform a single-incision laparoscopic colon resection and the first to use single-site robotic surgery in the California Bay Area.
Reflecting on their journey, Huy says, “If you think about the American dream, we are it.” He credits the support from the welfare system and the American government for their achievements, recognizing that hard work was essential to their success. Today, the Nguyen family embodies resilience and the pursuit of dreams across three generations of medical professionals.
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