Florida restaurant owner recalls family’s bold escape from Vietnam

SOUTH DAYTONA, Fla. ― The family-owned Leanh’s Chinese Restaurant has been through a lot in its nearly 40 years: a high failure rate for restaurants, recessions, hurricanes and the global COVID-19 pandemic.
All pale compared to what the family overcame in the late 1970s: escaping the Communist regime in Vietnam.
Current owner Leanh Pinto was just 4 years old and her sister Leigh only 3 when they and their parents fled their native homeland, the country formerly known as South Vietnam.
“I remember being very hot, thirsty and hungry,” Pinto recalled of the harrowing night in 1978 when she woke up on a small fishing boat bound for Malaysia. Her late father had carried her to the boat while under fire.
Pinto’s mom, Nancy Truong, and sister weren’t so lucky. They were captured and imprisoned that night, the first of two times, before finally managing to escape.
Pinto and her family were among the nearly 2 million refugees who fled the country by boat after Saigon fell to the Communists.
The United States’ troop withdrawal to end the Vietnam War in 1975 triggered one of the largest mass migrations of asylum seekers in modern history. Over a half-million Vietnamese who fled by boat died or disappeared, according to a 2022 report by the National Bureau of Asian Research.
Pinto and Truong recently shared their story with The Daytona Beach News-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network. They expressed concern that anti-immigrant sentiment is once again on the rise, just as it was when they came to the U.S.
In a Gallup poll in February, Americans listed immigration as the nation’s biggest problem. A record 55% consider “large numbers of immigrants entering the United States illegally” a critical threat.
Those findings echo a poll Gallup conducted in May 1975 when 54% of Americans said evacuated South Vietnamese should not be allowed to live in the U.S.
In defiance of that sentiment, a small church in Daytona Beach in 1978 sponsored the resettlement of nearly 30 Vietnamese refugees in central Florida. Those refugees included Pinto, her sister and her parents, who opened their restaurant in 1985.
Today, the second-generation family business employs nearly two dozen people and draws customers from as far away as Jacksonville and Miami.
Before their country fell to the Communists, Truong and her late husband Tom enjoyed an idyllic life in Saigon, despite the backdrop of the Vietnam War. The former South Vietnam capital is now called Ho Chi Minh City.
Truong was a stay-at-home mom while her husband owned a thriving auto parts store in Saigon’s Cho Lon District. Before 1975, the district was a major commercial hub predominantly populated by ethnic Chinese. Truong and her husband were born in Vietnam, but their families came from China.
“Neither of my parents cooked. They had people to do that for them,” said Pinto.
Truong recalled a “relaxing life,” with her husband closing his shop daily for an afternoon nap. They spent many happy evenings with family and friends.
That lifestyle evaporated when the U.S. withdrew the last of its troops on April 30, 1975.
Truong said her husband closed his business and started hawking goods on the black market. “We don’t want (the Communists) seeing us selling them,” she recalled.
The Communist government in 1978 enacted laws specifically targeting Chinese Vietnamese. The new laws allowed the government to seize Chinese-owned businesses, according to a National Geographic report on the migration.
The Communists’ resentment toward ethnic Chinese stemmed from that group controlling more than 70% of South Vietnam’s commerce despite only accounting for just over 5% of the population, said Quynh H. Vo, a professorial lecturer on Asia, Pacific and diaspora studies at American University in Washington, D.C.
“Ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam experienced suspicion from the Vietnamese government because the majority owned companies and were considered part of the capitalist class,” said Vo. “There was a lot of anti-Chinese sentiment.”
When the Communists took over, they sent 1 million people to “re-education camps” where many were tortured.
“We were scared,” Truong said. “We had to go.”
Truong and her husband planned to make their clandestine escape by traveling at night to a salt field along the South China Sea. There, they would hop a boat bound for Malaysia. The fee had to be paid in gold.
They turned back the first time when a government patrol began shooting.
On their next try, the couple split up. Truong carried Leigh while her husband carried Leanh.
Truong and her husband gave their daughters sleeping pills to keep them quiet.
Confusion ensued when gunshots again rang out. This time, there was no turning back.
Truong said the plan was for her husband and Leanh to go first with the boat’s captain, to be followed by her and Leigh. “I was sitting there, but I heard gunshots so I run,” she said. “That time they catch me.”
Pinto woke up on the boat feeling uncomfortable because she and her dad were crammed in with dozens of other refugees. “I remember being snuggled between the legs of one of my parents’ friends,” she said.
Pinto and her dad landed at a refugee camp on an island off the Malaysian coast. Within days, they were on a plane headed for America to be greeted by members of the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Daytona Beach.
Meanwhile in Vietnam, Truong and her daughter Leigh were imprisoned the first time for 10 days. When they were captured a second time, their stay behind bars lasted 15 days.
“They tie you up like a criminal,” recalled Truong.
Truong and Leigh escaped on their fourth attempt, but the sea journey was no joy ride.
“The boat was not too big, only a normal fishing boat. There were more than 200 people,” said Truong. “We were only halfway when the boat started leaking.”
Fortunately, they were rescued by a larger boat.
It took over a year for Truong and her youngest daughter to reunite with her husband and Leanh in Daytona Beach.
In Daytona Beach, First Christian sponsored Vietnamese refugees through the Church World Service, according to Ginny Billingsley, a longtime church member. Billingsley helped welcome the Truong family to town.
The pastor at the time, the late Rev. Merrill Hershberger, later became refugee coordinator for the Florida Council of Churches. He also co-founded Halifax Urban Ministries in Daytona Beach and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Volusia County. He died at age 83 in 2006.
Dave Troxler, current pastor at First Christian, wasn’t around when the church sponsored the Truongs but said, “It was, and still is today, in keeping with our mission which is to serve God and spread love.”
Truong said she will never forget the church’s act of kindness. “I am very grateful,” she said.
Billingsley was glad to help. “What we did was small,” she said. “Am I surprised by their success? No. Their work ethic is something else. It’s the best Chinese food in town.”
The church helped Pinto’s family rent an apartment in Daytona Beach above a frame shop and used-appliance store that has since been replaced by an Advance Auto Parts store.
“It was a very seedy part of town,” recalled Pinto, noting an adult strip club across the street.
The church provided the family with food and helped Tom Truong register to attend classes at Daytona Beach Community College, now Daytona State College.
“Dad realized he needed to work so he started washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant off of Ridgewood,” recalled Pinto. “It was very humbling for him to wash dishes after having enjoyed a leisurely lifestyle in Vietnam. He used to say, ‘If your horse dies, you just get down and walk.'”
Nancy Truong began waitressing at another Chinese restaurant. Pinto recalled her parents did not have a car at first so both walked to work.
Truong said her husband dropped out of college after tiring of juggling morning classes and his night job.
The couple saved their money and learned how to cook Chinese dishes in hopes of someday owning their own restaurant.
With a friend’s help, they opened a restaurant in Daytona Beach in 1985. They named it the Omei Inn, a reference to the highest of China’s four “sacred mountains.”
When the friend quit, Truong and her husband became sole owners, operating the restaurant seven days a week.
“I am amazed at their persistence and hard work and putting all their efforts into my sister and I to achieve the American Dream,” said Pinto. “We didn’t speak Chinese at home because they wanted us to learn English.”
After graduating from Daytona Beach’s Mainland High School in 1992, Pinto earned a degree in business administration from Stetson University in DeLand. She got hired as a manager at Red Lobster in Daytona Beach Shores. She helped out at her parents’ restaurant in her off hours.
After her dad died in 2001, Pinto agreed to take over as owner. She renamed the restaurant and guided its turnaround by putting into practice lessons she learned in business school. “The keys were improving service and consistency,” she said.
Pinto also incorporated specialty dishes her mom cooked at home into the menu.
“We started by adding Vietnamese dishes because there weren’t a lot of Vietnamese restaurants in town at the time, whereas there were a lot of Chinese restaurants,” said Pinto. She said her mom has a real talent for replicating dishes after sampling them elsewhere.
“In Vietnam, I never cooked, but I watched some of my mother’s cooking,” said Truong. “Then when I came here, I compare this restaurant and that restaurant and think, was it good or not? Nobody teach you the recipes. You have to taste it and then have it in your memory.
“The first time we go out to eat Korean food, my daughter really liked the kimchi stew. So I tried to make it one time at home. The second time, I thought, it’s very close. The third time, she said, ‘Mom, it tastes exactly right.'”
Pinto said the Thai and Korean dishes at Leanh’s may not be 100% authentic, but they are “real Nancy food.”
Leanh’s also benefitted from not losing power when hurricanes swept through Daytona Beach in 2004. “We stayed open. That’s how the word of mouth started growing,” said Pinto.
Strong customer loyalty helped Leanh’s survive in 2020 when restaurants in Florida were only allowed to offer take-out service because of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Pinto.
That an independent restaurant like Leanh’s is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary is remarkable in an industry where the average lifespan is only 15 years, said professor H.G. Parsa, chair of the School of Hospitality Management at the University of Denver.
The decision by Pinto’s parents to open a restaurant of their own is not unusual for first-generation immigrants, Parsa added. “New immigrants start restaurants because they don’t know the English language,” he said. “The restaurant jobs they create are good for the local economy.”
The employees at Leanh’s include Truong’s younger sisters Marjorie and Hanna. Another sister, Mary, worked for the restaurant until recently. Truong’s older brother Albert lives in Delaware. None of Truong’s other siblings escaped Vietnam by boat.
John Hinton, owner of the John’s Appliance & Bedding retail chain, became a regular customer at Leanh’s when it was on Beville Road. When he built Portofino Square in South Daytona in 2008, he asked Pinto to become a tenant.
Leanh’s quickly became a customer magnet benefitting the center’s other businesses.
“It’s become a busy little square,” said Hinton. “I’m a customer at Leanh’s all the time. I’ve eaten Chinese and Vietnamese food all over the world. I’ve never found better, even in Asia.”
Pinto said she didn’t realize until moving to Portofino Square that the appliance shop below the apartment where she and her family once lived was Hinton’s first store.
Pinto and her family achieved the American Dream through hard work, perseverance and innovation, “but not every Vietnamese refugee is successful here,” said Vo, who co-authored “The Making of Little Saigon” about Vietnamese refugees who resettled in Los Angeles. Some still suffer from the trauma of fleeing their homeland.
Pinto said she and her family are grateful to have become U.S. citizens.
“While I feel like there has been a backlash against immigrants by some Americans, I don’t see any other other place in the world that has been as welcoming as the United States,” she said. “I am very patriotic. I would do anything for this country. Whenever they play the National Anthem, I tear up.”
Truong agrees. “People say to me, ‘You’re Chinese, aren’t you?’ I tell them, ‘I’m American.”
Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY