Hoa Ly’s interest in medicine began as a 15-year-old diagnosed with dengue fever for the second time — a diagnosis that’s fatal for about 30 percent of people.
Hoa was taken to an overcrowded children’s hospital in Vietnam. The entire hospital was in quarantine, with armed guards at the doors. There was no medicine, no IVs.
“The kids were just waiting to die,” Hoa said. “My room had 20 kids in it. Every day, they replaced about five of them.”
Hoa’s mother sold everything the family owned and planned her son’s escape. She told Hoa — who didn’t look as sick as many of the kids — to walk out of the hospital and tell the guards he was going to get food for his younger brother.
Hoa collapsed as soon as he stepped outside of the hospital gate. His mother, waiting in a nearby car, took Hoa straight to the country’s elite hospital used by its communist party. She slipped envelopes of money to every person they encountered until Hoa had a hospital bed and medication. He was in a coma for 10 days, but he survived.
Being surrounded by so much suffering and premature death shaped Hoa’s future. He purchased used medical books and tried to teach himself about medicine. But few believed a young man with only a fifth-grade education could go on to become a doctor.
But Hoa did just that. He began his pursuit as a 22-year-old refugee in the U.S. who had taught himself English but had no formal education after elementary school.
Today, Hoa, 50, is a medical director at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center. He and his wife, Chi, 50, recently purchased a restaurant, and their two teenage daughters have aspirations of joining the medical field themselves.
They wouldn’t be where they are, they said, if not for the open arms that greeted them when they entered the country more than 25 years ago.
“We are very appreciative,” Chi said. “We’re very happy with our lives. This was a big opportunity for us.”
“We really appreciate the opportunity, the people and the culture that fosters unconditional love for people like us,” Hoa added.
Escaping Vietnam
Hoa and Chi both came to the U.S. as refugees after the Vietnam War. As the war escalated in 1972, the fighting became particularly fierce in Hoa’s hometown of Da Nang in central Vietnam.
“The city where I lived was like Aleppo every day,” Hoa said. “We have no idea who’s fighting what, we just hear sirens.”
Hoa’s family spent the next several years moving from city to city, running from the war. When the war ended in 1975, the country was in chaos. There was economic upheaval. Anyone with a military background was put in labor camps. Families were stripped of their belongings and given $200 to start over.
Hoa’s family planned to escape the country in 1979. The family split in two groups; his teenage brother and sister were in the first group and made it safely to a refugee camp in Indonesia. Hoa, who was 13, and his parents were in the second group. They were caught and jailed and stripped of everything they owned except the clothes on their backs.
“We went through government robbery about four times,” Hoa said. “They robbed us until we didn’t even have shoes.”
After the failed escape attempt, Hoa started peddling cigarettes and doughnuts at the train station to help his family. He never returned to school.
Hoa’s siblings received a sponsorship and left the refugee camp for the United States. They were eventually able to secure a sponsorship for Hoa and his parents, who left Vietnam for a refugee camp in the Philippines in 1988. Finally, in 1989, Hoa reunited with his family in Los Angeles. He was 22 years old.
Unlike others in his family, Hoa decided to go to college. But as a young refugee whose formal schooling ended in the fifth grade, Hoa didn’t know how or where to start. He heard about Pasadena City College and met with a guidance counselor there who helped Hoa begin his 11-year journey to becoming a doctor.
Opportunity
Chi, the youngest of 10 children, arrived in the U.S. as a refugee from Vietnam in 1992. She was 25 years old.
Just 14 days after arriving in the country, Chi attended a wedding, where she met Hoa.
“We met each other and fell in love quickly,” Hoa said.
Hoa helped Chi learn English. She enrolled at Pasadena City College and then a vocational school, where she took English and accounting classes. When Chi’s parents moved to Sacramento, Calif., Chi decided to go to Los Angeles with Hoa, who was working on his bachelor’s degree at UCLA.
They rented half of a garage for $235 per month and struggled as they both tried to attend college and work part-time jobs.
“Life became a little more difficult,” Hoa said.
Chi’s parents eventually moved into the small garage with the couple, who married in 1994. While Chi worked various jobs, including manicurist and sales manager at a fashion boutique, Hoa went on to attend medical school at the University of California at Irvine.
Shortly before Hoa graduated medical school, the couple welcomed their first child — a daughter named Nhi-Nhi. Hoa finished medical school in 2000, and completed his internship and then his residency. Chi went back to work, opening her own beauty salon, and their second daughter, Vi, was born in 2002.
They moved to Las Vegas and, after five years, relocated to the Northwest. Hoa began his career with Legacy Salmon Creek in 2009 as the medical director of the hospitalist program. He has 24 physicians under his leadership.
Chi obtained her nursing assistant certificate and real estate license, but it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that Chi’s longtime dream to open a restaurant came true.
“The ‘Chi’s kitchen’ we joked about became a reality,” Hoa said.
The successful life the Vancouver family has built wouldn’t have been possible without the opportunities they received in the U.S., Hoa said. That’s why they find it so disheartening to see refugees and immigrants targeted out of fear and frustration, he said.
“Regardless of what’s happening politically, each of us has a responsibility to continue to teach love and teach kindness and teach tolerance,” Hoa said. “Recognize we’re in this together. We’re either part of the problem or part of the solution.”
