He also founded a wholesale grocery store, which he later sold. He eventually partnered with the owner to open hibachi-style Japanese restaurant Sakura Tokyo in 1991 it closed in 2016. When the family came to America in 1985, he found work at a Chinese restaurant, the original Chopsticks in Worcester. He discovered he had a real talent for cooking. He decided to open his own business: a Vietnamese restaurant. Because Huynh’s English wasn’t strong, he says, there were only so many things he could do. “We saw the state of the country, from the war to the hospitals - everything. After that happened, we were so heartbroken we had to leave,” he says through an interpreter. Because of the poor health care system, we lost our two children. “We had two young children already in Vietnam. His story, too, is one of success and deeply difficult experiences. In 1979, Khau Huynh of Kien Giang province also left Vietnam, relocating to Australia with wife Huong Huynh. “For the culture, I was really happy when the city approved the Vietnamese cultural district.” We always think about the good things, not the bad things,” he says. “When we came here, we kept the good culture and we forgot the bad culture. It was a watershed moment for the community, and for Le.
Last year, a section of the neighborhood was officially designated a cultural district called Boston Little Saigon. Fields Corner is the community’s hub, a living study in immigrant entrepreneurship, its streets lined with Vietnamese-owned restaurants, markets, tax consultants, electronics shops, salons, pharmacies, and other small businesses. Nearly a quarter of that immigrant population lives in Boston, mainly in Dorchester. Massachusetts has more than 47,000 residents of Vietnamese descent, about 70 percent born abroad. In the decade following the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asian refugees settled in the United States. Le’s story is unique in its details, but familiar in its outline. I worked seven days, 14- to 16-hour days,” he says. Pho Hoa is a pillar of the neighborhood, serving the steaming, fragrant noodle soup that is its namesake dish, along with other Vietnamese specialties, in a Dorchester Avenue storefront across the street from its original location (now Pho Le). This year, the restaurant celebrates its 30th anniversary.
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