By Tony Vu
As part of our ongoing series of equity articles, Tony Vu—restaurateur, nonprofit-preneur, and journeyer—shares a poem he wrote that reflects on his Vietnamese-American roots. We send the piece today in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.—J.S.
| This year, fifty years since Saigon fell, I think of my parents boarding a plane, my brother and sisters in tow, with nothing but each other, a single suitcase, and the weight of everything they left behind. My father was born in Thái Bình, a boy when the Japanese invaded. His family fled to Hanoi and started over. Then the Communists came, and the country split. They fled again, this time to Saigon, and started over once more. Then came the war. Three times, he lost his home. Three times, he rebuilt. I don’t know what kind of strength that takes— only that I come from it. In Saigon, he became a doctor, flight surgeon, chief of surgery. My mother, a pharmacist trained in France. They had built something beautiful, gave my brother and sister a world of possibility. And then the sky cracked open. My father fought to defend his home. They left two days before the city fell. They ran because they had to. Because to flee meant to survive. |
| From left: Tony Vu’s father during flight training in Texas. Arriving in the United States after the fall of Saigon. Being welcomed in Millington, Michigan. Arkansas. A refugee camp. Then Millington, Michigan. A town with more cornfields than people, where a small-town doctor and a faith community heard a story about a family, and chose to make it their own. They extended a hand and gave my family a lifeline. The kindness of strangers. That’s where I grew up. Where my father traded medical checkups for milk. Where everyone remembered your name and moms showed up with casseroles and prayers. There, I learned what it meant to be held by a village. Later on, I followed the scent of asphalt and grit to the city of Flint, a land of cracked pavement, empty storefronts, and full hearts. I played in bands. Hauled drums. Organized shows in abandoned warehouses and damp basements that smelled like beer and youth. That was where I first learned, to build from what was broken, to find shape in the wreckage, and make it feel like home. Growing up, I was always in between. At home, we ate with chopsticks and fish sauce. Outside, I walked with English in my mouth and uncertainty beating in my chest. I was never just one thing. Always two. Always neither. Eventually, I left. I ventured south, where the Andes pierced the sky and the sun burned clear. Peru gave me silence. The mountains didn’t care about where I was born. I was a tiny speck, floating in their ether. Small, but still breathing. A meditation of steps carried me upward, into remote corners where the air thinned and the world stood still. In places where I couldn’t speak the language, music and food spoke for me. They always have. That knowledge was my gift from the Apus. I then went to Vietnam thinking I would find home. Instead, people looked at me and didn’t see one of their own. French. Or Japanese. Certainly not Vietnamese. Laughter would ensue, and something in me cracked. Then softened. And I found something else. Because I realized, I had spent all this time chasing identity when all along, I was already living it. I was free to be me. That was my gift from the motherland. When I came back, I started cooking. First a pop-up. Then a food truck that barely ran. But people came. And kept coming. And something new began to grow. From sidewalks and street corners, it grew into food stalls and shared tables. I opened MaMang, then The Good Bowl— places rooted in the flavors of home, where each dish carried the memory of my parents, and every bowl served helped feed someone else. Everything evolved around a simple idea: that food could nourish more than hunger. That it could offer dignity, fund hope, and hold space for stories that often go untold. |
| From left: Tony in his boyhood kitchen. Climbing in the Andes. With The Good Bowl business partner Soon Hagerty. From there, the work deepened. Mentorship. Access. Flint Social Club. Teaching others how to turn recipes into resilience. Opportunities to build a life through food and connection. The same opportunities I had to fight for. My work became more than business and restaurants. It became a way to give back what was given to me. My gift, rooted in gratitude. Now in Traverse City— all my lives converge. I’m back in mother nature’s embrace, surrounded by the quiet of country, but in a space where the world comes looking. It’s a big small town. And in it, I’ve found a community of care. People who show up and look out for each other, the way folks did back in Millington, and still do in Flint. Same dish, different flavors. There’s that familiar sense of knowing your neighbors, of helping without needing to be asked, of believing that we rise and fall together. I don’t take any of this for granted. Not the chances we had. Not the luck. Not the kindness of strangers. For my very existence is an act of radical resistance. Not the kind that drops bombs or burns flags, but the kind born from those ashes— that chooses love over vengeance, a hand extended over a clenched fist. Friend over foe. Grace over fear. A lot of people never got that. Some are still running. Some are still falling. And some found rest too soon. Flint has taught me that suffering doesn’t separate us. It binds us. The people there are real. Gritty. Not perfect. But honest. And oftentimes, that’s more than enough. I see the fear. The struggle. People who try to do good in a world that stacks the deck against them. But I still believe in kindness. I still believe in each other. And I believe in the disarming power of food. Not just as nourishment, but as language, as memory, as connection. Love, made tangible. A way back to ourselves, the way it brought me back to who I’ve always been. Food doesn’t care where you were born. It just asks you to sit down. To taste. To share. To find joy. Much like my parents did. And like I try to do, every time I light the stove and say, quietly, Thank You 
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