How 3 People Built 7 Houses Before They Turned 30

Who are we?

My two sisters and I resettled from Vietnam to the USA in the early 2000’s with no money in our pockets. Leaving behind family members, community and our homeland came with costs and sacrifices. At the time, my sisters Nina & Rebecca were in their early twenties and I was just seventeen years old. We were determined to change our stories, to work hard to support ourselves and uplift our family members who stayed behind out of poverty.

We arrived to a whole new world. It was certainly full of adversity and change. We quickly learned to adapt. We applied our undeniable good work ethic into the workforce and placed our best foot forward. We felt like oddballs, new kids on the block and experienced massive culture shock. Navigating the system wasn’t at all easy and adjusting to this new world extremely difficult.

Our hope has always been to have a better life than what we were born with. My two sisters work as manicurists. They spend thousands of hours of their lives working, as well as raising and providing for their children, meanwhile supporting family and the community overseas. I went to 3 different high schools and graduated in 2005. Soon after that, I attended Appalachian State University. Due to financial hardship, I took some time off and then re-enrolled, but eventually dropped out in 2010. Instead, I primarily worked 3 to 4 jobs to make ends meet, and to help family across the sea. 

I have had many different jobs, such as server at restaurants and cashier at grocery stores. I also worked at multiple factory jobs, in the beauty industry as a manicurist, a personal care assistant for private residential homes and non-profit organizations. Later on, I moved to Massachusetts and worked as a language interpreter for medical & educational facilities, in cannabis grow facilities and have followed my passion to become an infant & childcare specialist. 

How did we build 7 houses?

By now you’ve probably figured out that the houses we built were in Vietnam, not in the US. Each house was built at separate times based on what we could afford that year. My second-older brother is a self-taught builder and contractor. He influenced and inspired the community of villagers to come together in order to make these projects successful. My brother and the villagers combined their strength & knowledge to accomplish the amazing feat of building 7 houses in less than 10 years. The three of us in the US saved bit by bit from $20-$70,000 dollars.

The materials that they used are bricks made by the local community, metal rods, cement, tiles and odds and ends purchased in the village. These homes provided labor work for villagers, supported local merchants and increased the safety, sanitation and security of our family members. When we would send money, the building would begin right away. Sometimes my brother and his team were able to build a house in as little as three months. The lands were sometimes small and my brother, the master architect, designed them to be beautiful and functional. Sometimes they would be forced to take on loans for materials while building and we would have to pay them back later. These loans were of high interest, so we worked as hard as we coud in the US to be able to send more money as quickly as possible.

My two sisters mainly have worked as manicurists and have both owned their own salons in the past. I look at their lives and how hard they work to support their 4 children, and they inspire me to push through hardships and obstacles. 

We understand the importance of hardwork and have perservered and sacrificed to accomplish our goals. Together, we are committed to our family and the indigenous community in Vietnam. We are humble and genuinely grateful to everyone that helped us to make our journey to the USA possible: the UNHCR, World Relief Organization, International Organization for Migration, Doctors without Borders, Human Rights Watch, and the US Embassy. The overabundance of choice in this country calls us to take action toward making not just our own lives better, but those we left behind.