Nany Evans oral history.indd - Washington Secretary of State

Washington. And that’s exactly what happened. And of course now we know what it was
like for these people because they had left Saigon in the clothes on their backs, and they
came to California where they were put into sort of this large camp, warehouse sort of a
thing, wondering what was going to become of them. Ralph did a terrific job of putting
together the plan to bring them to Madigan (at Fort Lewis). And Dan and I went up to greet
these people. It was a huge, swarming group of these Vietnamese people – cold, shivering.
Then we tried to find families who would sponsor them. Many of them were sent to live
with people for a time until they were settled and got jobs and could communicate better.
Evans: We got a letter from our friend Colin Nguyen just yesterday.
Hughes: My Vietnamese is fractured. Is it pronounced “New-gen”?
Evans: You pronounce it “Win.” Actually, I don’t think I have ever said it right, but they let
me get by.
Hughes: Well, the story gets better because among the people you greeted that day was a
young Vietnamese man, Chuong Huu Nguyen, and his pregnant wife, Xuan Hoa Pham, and
their five children. The Nguyens were so touched by your gesture that when their son was
born a few months later they named him Evans.
Evans: Correct, yes!
Hughes: And when Evans graduated from the
University of Washington in 1998, I understand that
Dan was in the audience. Were you there, too?
Evans: I was, but Dan was up on the stage. He was
a UW regent. But a lot goes on before that: Yes,
we met Colin, who is the father – he and his wife
both assumed American first names – and his wife,
Mary, and these wonderful five children. There was
no contact for a time. So then we finally received a
letter from Evans inviting us to come to his school
in Renton. The papers were there and they took our
Dan and Nancy with their namesake immigrant son,
Evans Nguyen. Evans family album
pictures. That’s when we first met Evans. He was
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