Mrs. Hang Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American, the wife of a shrimper, and a resident of East Biloxi, Mississippi. She was the only child of Binh Nguyen and Nhung Nguyen, born in 1968 in Can Tho, South Vietnam. Her father, who passed away in Seattle, Washington in 2009, served in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnamese Army). Her mother worked in the home. After the fall of South Vietnam, Mrs. Nguyen’s father was sent to reeducation camp. It was then that her mother had to go to work selling fish, coffee, and fabrics in different places. Mrs. Nguyen escaped Vietnam at age seventeen with her father. After a brief stay in Malaysia, then attending school in the Philippines for six months, they arrived in Tampa, Florida, where she met her husband, Cui Nguyen, a fisherman. In 1996 Mrs. Nguyen and her husband moved to Biloxi. Mrs. Nguyen worked as a seafood processor from 1998 to 1999, then as a prep cook at Beau Rivage Casino for five years. Together they have four children. She worked in seafood processing.

Scope and Content Note:
She discusses growing up in Can Tho, Vietnam; father fisherman and soldier, mother housewife and seller in market; fall of Saigon; father sent to reeducation camp; impact on family of Communist takeover; escaping Vietnam with father by boat; journey to Malaysia; time in Philippines; adjusting to school and life in America; language difficulty; meeting fisherman husband in Tampa, Florida; moving to Biloxi to shrimp; working at Lesso Seafood Company and Beau Rivage Casino; raising 4 children; marriage to fisherman; riding out Hurricane Katrina on boat; shrimping after Katrina; Buddhism and family altar; BP oil spill impact; work for Vessels of Opportunity program (VOO); oil in Louisiana; buyer smelling oil on fish; no shrimp in Mississippi; children.