DENVER — History Colorado earlier this week unveiled its newest exhibit, “Big Dreams in Denver’s Little Saigon,” a celebration of Vietnamese contributions to the Denver metro area. The exhibit showcases the foods, traditions, fashion, history and memories of the community that began emerging in Colorado in the 1970s and 1980s after the end of the Vietnam War and the mass exodus that followed.
For Mimi Luong, the public display is one more dream realized for her family. Her dad and his family escaped communist rule in Saigon in 1975 and came to America in haste, eventually establishing several businesses in Denver, including two grocery stores, a gift shop and the Far East Center, a Vietnamese outdoor shopping mall in Denver’s Westwood area. Her family, once successful bank owners in Vietnam, were among the first Vietnamese refugees to step foot in Denver and came with nothing but what they could carry on their backs.
“This feels like a full circle moment for me and my family,” she said at the exhibit’s opening night…