Lyceum founder and Executive Director, Dr. Anhlan Nguyen joins Kimchi Chow and the Asian Women of Power Podcast for a glimpse into her inspiring story and how she became the person she is today, plus topics that include Emotional Intelligence, her involvement in non-profit organizations (ICEVN, VCSA), young Vietnamese-Americans, the GRACE model, and much more.

Here’s a brief excerpt on Dr. Anhlan Nguyen’s past from the beginning of the podcast:

Let’s give the audience some background on where you have been in the past 50-plus years of your life?

I was born in Hue, which he is a city in that central region. I belong to a royal family. In the old days, people would call me Princess Anhlan. I belong to the last Nguyen Dynasty. My grandfather has seven wives and two concubines. My grandmother was the third wife. I was born in Hue but actually grew up in Saigon. My father is a civil engineer and my mother is the mathematics teacher at a very famous school, Trung Vuong High School. I had a third peaceful childhood until, 1975. After 1975, the South lost to the North, Vietnam was united but it started the exodus of Vietnamese refugees and our family belonged to the same group. We tried a lot but that’s a lot of hardship. My dad was put in a re-education camp. He tried to plan a lot of escaping.

It took him nine times and I was a teenager back then. I was put in jail twice because of the escapes. One of the most significant experiences that I got was one time I was escaping with my brother. I was nineteen years old and it was a boat that’s fifteen meters long but with 300 people. Imagine 300 people stuck in a boat of only fifteen meters. When we arrived at the international border, the boat starts sinking. The captain decided if we continue to move on the boat will sink and everybody could die. He made the decision to drive back to the shore. About 300 meters from the shore, the boat started sinking. It was the worst tragedy that I witnessed. Luckily I was able to swim. My brother and I were able to swim into the shore.

That night, half of the people on that boat didn’t make it. After we get to the shore, then there’s a possibility to be caught by the local police. We somehow miraculously escaped all of that and come back to Saigon but I lost four pounds within that couple of evenings of that experience. After several other escapes, we ended up going to Canada according to my father’s sponsorship. My father tried the ninth attempt and he was successful. He got the sponsorship for the Canadian government and he lived in Montreal because he spoke French. He prepared a sponsorship. We ended up in Canada as an immigrant. I always consider myself as a boat person because I had those experience.

From experiencing more than half people died from your boat, what did you promise yourself to do or achieve to live up to that blessing that you got the second chance in life?

Actually on that boat, I have a very dear teacher. My mom asked my teacher to take care of me and he died right in front of me. He was not supposed to die because he knows how to swim. He died because he tried to help other children. When he was helping them, he flipped and he fell into the water and he hit something and then became unconscious. I remember I cried, I yelled, “Somebody help.” It was very chaotic at the time. I remember before he was falling into the water, he told me, “If you live, you’ve got to do what is right.” I could have stayed here but I came back and helped this kid because we need to do that. I remembered that for the rest of my life. Seeing the people die in front of me searching for freedom, it’s so tremendous. When I arrived in America, I promised myself I’ll never take this for granted. Living in a free society like America, we are given the privilege that millions of people do not have. I promised myself I would do my best to serve. That’s the reason why I volunteered a lot. I do a lot of volunteer work to serve, to help other people, to feel that I deserve the freedom that I’m living.

To listen to the podcast, follow the link below by clicking on the image: