C. Tran

Ms. Tran was born in 1962 in Vietnam and lived in the coastal city of Nha Trang with her parents and five siblings. She recalls enjoying school, the outdoors, and many childhood friendships despite the war. But that changed on New Year’s Day 1975 when bullets penetrated the family compound. In late April 1975, she was told the family was going on a picnic, but instead the family drove to Saigon and shortly thereafter were taken to the airport to escape the country. With the sights and sounds of nearby bombing and under the darkness of the night, her family, along with nine other families, boarded a cargo plane on the unlit runway. Her journey continued through the Philippines, Hawaii, Wake Island in the South Pacific, Fort Chafee, Arkansas refugee camp, and eventually to the San Francisco Bay area. As a teenager, she excelled in her English language acquisition, joined the high school tennis team, and then attended and graduated from UCLA. Ms. Tran has worked in the healthcare industry for many years and currently enjoys taking long walks with her dogs in the Bay area. Robert Eskanos is a junior majoring in Economics at USC. Victoria Berggren is a Sophomore majoring in Broadcast Journalism at USC. Piyounik Hakopian is a Senior majoring in Civil Engineering at USC.