Miranda Du

A Vietnamese-American lawyer from Reno, former boat-people refugee, has been nominated by President Obama to be a federal judge for the District of Nevada, the White House announced Tuesday.

Miranda Du, a civil litigator, had been recommended by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. If confirmed, she would be the second Viet federal judge in the country after the Central District of California’s Jacqueline Nguyen. Du would also be the first Asian-Pacific American federal judge in Nevada.

Du’s father had served in the South Vietnamese army. In 1979, when Du was 9, her extended family including aunts, uncles, cousins, fled the country by boat – as she told superlawyers.com in 2009, here.

The boat got to Malaysia, but at first it was turned away. They then did what many other boat people also had to do: They sank the boat, and everybody had to swim ashore. ”If we swam to shore, we couldn’t be turned away,” Du recounted.

Du’s family spent a year in the refugee camp before coming to the United States. She graduated with a double major in economics and history from UC Davis and received her law degree from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall in 1994. She then joined McDonald Carano in Reno where she has been ever since, making partner in 2002. The firm’s web site lists Du as head of its Employment/Labor Law Group.

In a statement announcing the nomination, Senator Reid said, “Miranda Du is an experienced practitioner with extensive litigation experience and a deep understanding of, and dedication to, the Nevada community.”

“From a young age,” Reid added, “Du has met every challenge she’s faced and exemplifies the immigrant success story.  I’m confident she’ll make an outstanding federal judge, and I look forward to her swift confirmation.”

A federal district judge has lifetime tenure. Du’s nomination requires Senate approval, which is usually a two-step process: A referral from the Judiciary Committee, and a vote by the full Senate.

People accessing the Cal State Fullerton home page today saw a happy Viet face smile back at them.

That would be Annie Nguyen, a graduating senior who just won the Miles D. McCarthy Health Professions Award, presented annually to the outstanding health professions student who demonstrates high academic achievement and integrity, as well as a commitment to serve humanity, says the CSUF in a press release here.

Nguyen has been raising funds for the American Cancer Society, running food drives, helping children at the Thai-Lao Mission Church, and volunteering 1100 hours at a hospital in Long Beach.

She chairs the chemistry course section of the Student Science Alliance, which promotes interest in all science courses, and last summer did research at Yale Med School on West Nile and dengue viruses, while on a Howard Hughes scholarship.

While piling up a 3.92 GPA.

Wait wait wait. Not done yet.

“Nguyen has studied how iron is transported in rat liver cells with Maria Linder, chair and professor of chemistry and biochemistry; received a National Science Foundation-Research Experiences for Undergraduates program stipend to support her research; and garnered the Doris A. Howell-California State University Program for Education in Research and Biotechnology Award — an honor that fosters the development of young investigators,” the press release continues.

“Growing up, medical offices and hospitals were not unfamiliar. Health problems plagued my family,” Nguyen said.“What I saw is through it all, at least one person in each of my family members’ lives worked constantly to restore their health: their physician. Now I am driven to help those who suffer.”

Nguyen is going to Harvard Med School next year. That is also her mentor Dr. Linder did her graduate work.

“I accepted Annie into my lab early in her undergraduate career because I was impressed with her enthusiasm and intelligence,” Linder recalled. “She has developed into a highly accomplished and capable young woman, performing at the highest level academically, and powering through some hardship to get there. I did my doctoral work at Harvard Medical School and I’m so glad she’ll be going there, too. It will be a portal to a bigger world.”

Since 2008, Nguyen served as a student assistant in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Transfer Student Services Program. “I was highly interested in a program that promotes student success as this one does. I can contribute ideas on program development and can organize workshops. And I’ve learned from other students’ life experiences.”

Nguyen will be honored during the university’s annual honors convocation Friday, May 21, and will be taking part in Cal State Fullerton’s commencement ceremony May 22.

A Vietnamese-American captain in the San Jose Police Department has been named one of the four deputy chiefs, reports the Mercury News here.

The promotion of Captain Phan Ngo, who received his golden captain’s bars just last year, is particularly timely given the severely strained relations between the police and the Viet community over allegations of brutality and the perception of coverups in those cases.

In fact, Captain Ngo, 43, will be the only nonwhite member of the department’s top command staff – which will, however, remain all male. He will be the head of the Bureau of Technical Services,  overseeing such areas as dispatch, communication, fingerprints, records, and the IT people, among other things.

A long drawn-out controversy over the shooting death of mentally ill Daniel Pham, and the still ongoing lawsuit over the beating of San Jose State math student Phuong Ho, have made the normally tolerant Viet community vocally distrustful of the police. (When the Bolsavik first reported the Phuong Ho story for Nguoi Viet Daily News, numerous SJ residents, ranging the gamut of age, gender and political views, gave highly negative comments about the police. The Bolsavik ended up publishing only a couple of them.)

In the aftermath of the beating, Captain Ngo was dispatched to speak to community groups and temper their anger. It worked. The case did not generate the same public protests as either the Pham case or the earlier police shooting of Bich Cau Pham.

As an 8-year-old, Ngo was airlifted by U.S. military helicopter out of Vietnam at the end of the war, and landed in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas with aunts and an uncle. His father, a soldier in the South Vietnamese army, had died in combat. Ngo never met his father.

Reached at his son’s elementary school basketball game, Ngo told the Mercury News, “I am very honored and very humbled.” He said one of his first calls after being promoted was to his aunt and uncle who raised him. They were, he said, “ecstatic.”

Police chief Rob Davis, who was Ngo’s sergeant when Ngo first joined the force in 1989, said of the promotion: “I picked him for his loyalty to the organization, his loyalty to the community and his loyalty to what our mission is. He gets the big picture of what we are trying to accomplish.”

Dat Nguyen has elected not to sign a contract extension after serving as the team’s assistant linebacker/defensive assistant from 2007-2009.

He was not in Fort Lauderdale as the team was getting ready for the Pro Bowl on Sunday. Earlier in the day, the team’s owner Jerry Johnson had offered all assistants the same extension to 2011 that he had agreed with head coach Wade Phillips.

In a later story here, the Morning News reports that Nguyen left to find an opportunity to move up to linebacker coach.  The paper quotes coach Phillips: “He just felt like he couldn’t move up the way he wanted to with us. He wants to coach linebackers himself.”

Which makes sense. The current linebacker coach Reggie Herring is doing just fine, and Nguyen is not getting that job any time soon if he’s staying with the Cowboys.

A former standout at Texas A&M, , where he led the Aggies in tackles for four straight seasons, Dat was drafted by the Cowboys in the third round in 1999. He played for 7 years before knee and neck injuries forced him to retire in 2005.

The Morning News is speculating that Nguyen may be heading to Buffalo.

Pope Benedict XVI elevated Father Nguyen, 43, whose Vietnamese name is Nguyễn Mạnh Hiếu, to the episcopal rank in November of last year (read here). He was made bishop after only 12 years as a priest, an advancement considered speedy in the Catholic hierarchy.

Fr. Vincent, who came to Canada when he was 18, is currently the Chancellor of Spiritual Affairs and Moderator of the Curia, according to a press release by the Archdiocese of Toronto here. He once was in charge of the Vietnamese Catholics in Toronto, at the Vietnamese Martyrs Mission of Toronto.

The live streaming of the ordination is carried by Salt & Light TV, the archdiocese’s media arm, starting at 3pm Toronto time on Wednesday. That’s 12 noon California time.

A former boat-people refugee, the bishop has selected a coat of arms that features a boat. His chosen motto is “ego vobiscum sum” meaning “I am with you,” from the longer phrase Christ said in Matthew 28:20: “And behold I am with you all days.”

Judge Nguyen’s confirmation vote came up shortly after noon today, here.

She previously received also unanimous approval by the Judiciary Committee, see here.

On the floor, Senator Diane Feinstein made the following statement:

“Judge Nguyen is a tested judge with a track record of success as both a judge and a federal prosecutor.

“Judge Nguyen was born in South Vietnam. She came to this country at the age of 10 during the final days of the Vietnam War. The Nguyens spent several months living at a refugee camp in Camp Pendleton, San Diego before moving to the La Crescenta neighborhood of Los Angeles.

“She was naturalized in 1984.

“Judge Nguyen’s parents worked two and three jobs at a time in Los Angeles, and Judge Nguyen and her siblings worked side-by-side with them — cleaning a dental office, peeling and cutting apples for a pie company, and finally managing the donut shop that their parents bought and owned. ”

A native of Dalat, Vietnam and a daughter of a South Vietnamese colonel, Judge Nguyen came to the U.S. in 1975 when communist forces overran the country. She was graduated from Occidental College in L.A. – the same school where the President spent his freshman year before transferring to Columbia. (Young Obama had left just when young Nguyen arrived.) After Oxy, Jacqueline Nguyen went to UCLA Law.

She joined Musick, Peeler & Garrett, one of L.A.’s top firms. After four years in private practice, Judge Nguyen moved to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Central District of California, where she eventually became a deputy chief of the General Crimes Section.

Originally named by former Governor Gray Davis, Judge Nguyen is presently sitting on the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Judge Nguyen now fills the seat made vacant when U.S. District Judge Nora Manella left to join the California Court of Appeals. Coincidentally, Judge Manella was the U.S. Attorney for the Central District when the young litigator Jacqueline Nguyen joined the office.

Judge Nguyen would be the first Vietnamese-American federal judge. There have been Vietnamese-Americans working as judges in the federal system. They are, however, not “federal judges” the way the term is commonly understood – i.e. they are not judges covered by Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

Christian Nguyen (pictured), from Gilbert, Arizona, was chosen to be one of 13 performers from the world over to join the International Junior Original Concert.

His composition “Dragon Keeper” was a winner chosen from among 35,000 entries from Yamaha Music Schools in 41 countries.

On Saturday, Nguyen performed his composition with Phoenix Symphony Orchestra member Michael D’Avanzo on the cello and Arizona State University music professor J.B. Smith on the marimba.

In the audience were his parents Andy Nguyen and Vienchi Tran, his 3-year-old sister Courtney, and Heidi Grimes, one of his teachers at East Valley Yamaha Music School in Chandler.

“I was so stunned, I didn’t even, like, feel anything. As November came close, I became more and more excited and happy,” said Christian, on the eve of his trip to Tokyo.

His teacher said of his piece: “It’s a very energetic piece, with lots of rhythm. The middle is very emotional, almost romantic. It’s not what you’ll expect from a young boy – it’s tender, sensitive and has a very mature melody.”

Grimes has taught music to Christian since he was 5 years old. Currently, he studies repertoire, technique, improvisation and composition with several teachers.

Grimes said “It’s a joy to work with him. He’s very creative and very bright.”

At home, Christian also takes private lessons in piano and composition. He also plays guitar and drums. At Tempe’s Gethsemane Lutheran School, where he studies, he also plays softball, soccer and basketball, does cross-country running and track and field. He enjoys video games and online social networking.

How does he find the time to do everything?

“It’s pretty complicated,” explained Christian. “I really don’t know.”

Dr. Long Nguyen is the founder and CEO of Pragmatics based in McLean, Virginia, a leading information technology solutions provider with more than 500 employees.

The 180,000-square-foot building formally opened this fall. It is also the university’s first LEED-certified green building.

Dr. Nguyen currently serves on GMU’s Board of Visitors. He actually did not go to school or teach there at all. Dr. Long Nguyen came to the U.S. as an exchange student in 1960, received his B.A. in physics from North Carolina State University, his M.A. also in physics from the University of Virginia, and his Ph.D. in computer at Iowa State University, according to the bio posted on his company’s web site.

The GMU Board of Visitors’ web site says that Dr. Nguyen has taught as professor in computer science at Georgetown, Indiana, and the Bolsavik’s alma mater, Purdue.

Dr. Nguyen is noted as a “frequent giver” in the Greater D.C. area. He has established 9/11 and Katrina relief funds, and funded endowed chairs at Iowa State University and at George Mason University.

He once hosted a dinner for 80 wounded soldiers, and gave phone cards to the patients at the Walter Reed Army Hospital.

In 2008, Dr. Nguyen was named one of Washington Business Journal’s 2008 Minority Business Leaders.

GoldSea, the Asian American daily newspaper, ranks Dr. Nguyen among the 100 Top Asian Entrepreneurs. At no. 83, Dr. Nguyen is 10 places ahead of famed designer Vera Wang.

Dr. Nguyen is also active politically. In 2005, when Tim Kaine was elected governor of Virignia, he picked Dr. Nguyen to serve on his transition team.

Dr. Nguyen has donated frequently to political causes. Most of the recipients have been Democrats. In 2008, Dr. Nguyen gave $28,500 to the DNC and another $28,500 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The year before, he gave $26,700 to the DNC.

The Pragmatics Inc. PAC also made donations to mostly Democratic candidates. Joe Biden received $2000 in 2008, and the same year Jim Webb got $1000. Two Republicans received donations from the Pragmatics PAC in 2008: Congressmen Virgil Goode Jr., and Frank Wolf, who frequently joins Rep. Loretta Sanchez as a co-author and/or co-sponsor of several bills and resolutions in support of human rights in Vietnam.