As a young boy, Andrew Do recalled the surprise of seeing spaghetti replace pho noodles on his dinner plate after his family fled to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon.
It’s a story Do has told many times — how his family first moved to an Arkansas refugee camp. They later settled in Alabama and his parents found work in a cotton mill. Finally, the family moved to Orange County.
He would tell his audiences the culture shock and hardships of his childhood had an upside. It allowed him to understand “the suffering of immigrants and the disadvantaged” because of his own immigration experience, and the anti-immigrant and racism his family experienced…