In Conversation with Mary Hong
Thuy “Mary” Hong was born in the Go Vap district of Saigon in 1988. Her mother ran a pho noodle restaurant and her father drove cyclos prior to his death by motor accident in 1994. Mary grew up in Go Vap, attending public schools with an interest in mathematics and Japanese language. She spent her free time working, usually at her mother’s restaurant or other local food and coffee restaurants. Mary met and married her husband Stephen Le shortly after completing her secondary education. Stephen was visiting Vietnam from the United States where he had immigrated several members of his family under the Amerasian Act. The couple married in Vietnam and shortly after the birth of their first daughter, Mai, Stephen returned to the United States. Mary immigrated to the United States in 2013, leaving her second daughter Ngoc in Vietnam with her mother. She began working as a nail technician with the Le family initially in the Vietnamese community of Dorchester in Massachusetts and later in Hanover, New Hampshire at the Le family’s Nefertiti Nail Salon. Mary currently resides in Lebanon, NH with her husband, two daughters, and extended family.
Please click here to listen to my full-length interview with Mary. Click the link below to download a transcript of the same conversation.
