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Right around the corner from Neighborhood Alliance’s little firehouse, Thuan Nguyen runs an insurance company in the heart of the Asian District. The average Oklahoma City neighbor has probably passed by his office near NW 23 and Classen, unaware of the remarkable advocate within. When he isn’t running a successful small business, Nguyen is busy building a thriving community in the heart of Oklahoma City.  

Nguyen is a founder of the Asian District Cultural Association, a former city council candidate, a dedicated brother, son, and uncle, and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Asian District Cultural Association.  

Thuan started his life in Vietnam, before he found his home in Oklahoma, and told us of his harrowing journey here and his mother’s profound impact on his life.  

“I came here with my mom when I was four years old. I’m an immigrant, a refugee,” Thuan recalled. “My mom and I escaped Vietnam by boat. We left behind my family, and at the time, we didn’t know whether we were going to live or die. And, you know, it was just her, her strong will, willpower, belief and faith, just blind faith. We got to Indonesia, on a boat. A U. S. Navy ship rescued us, and they took us to Indonesia. And shortly after that, we were sponsored by Meadowood Baptist Church in Midwest City to come to Oklahoma City. So, I’ve been in Oklahoma for over 44 years of my life… I remember coming to America with my mom, arriving at Will Rogers- we just arrived with nothing but the suitcase we had. And my mom’s flip flop had broken. So, she’s actually barefoot. We arrived here in the winter, no coat, no nothing.” 

To add to the difficulties of being a refugee in a new country, Nguyen arrived in Oklahoma with a severe case of pneumonia. “If they didn’t rush our case, I would have probably not be alive to this day,” he told us. Thuan reports that adversity followed him throughout his childhood. 

 “Going to school here was really different,” Thuan said. “I was always smaller than everyone else. You know, I was picked on as a kid. In the Mid-Del Public Schools system, there were less than 50 Asian kids. So, we were really the minority. And in that school, it’s probably less than 10 Vietnamese kids. I grew up in, we call it, I guess, the ghetto? An underserved area- I got my lunch money stolen, my bike stolen, and beat up every day.” 

Nguyen is an inspiring case of what it means to defy the odds. He went on to be a National Science Foundation Summer Scholar, earned his Bachelors in Biochemistry from the University of Oklahoma, worked on the Human Genome Project, and worked in epidemiology.  

“In my prior life, I was a researcher after I graduated with my bachelors. I was offered a job at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. I worked there for about a year and a half, and then I was offered another job opportunity where I moved to Penn State’s College of Medicine.”  

When asked how he made his way back to Oklahoma?  

“At the time my dad was months away from dying,’ Thuan said. “His oncologist called and said, ‘Hey, whatever you need to do, you need to decide and come back.’”  

Nguyen’s father was terminally ill with lung cancer. He told us that his father had “never smoked a day in his life” and suspects the cancer was caused by secondhand smoke or Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. 

Thuan remembers this time with both sadness and fondness, telling us, “What’s wonderful and cool is during the duration we were reunited as a family, right? My mom and I came here first and were separated from my family. I did not meet my dad, brother, or my sister until I was 16 years old… I grew up without my dad and siblings. And when they came, we all lived as a family. We bought our very first house, so even when we were in college, we kind of still stayed together.” 

After his father’s death, Thuan went back to OU and earned a Masters in Biostatistics and Epidemiology. So how did he end up a small business owner? 

While in his masters program, Nguyen was told by a professor that he was “not Ph.D. material”.  

“That kind of shot my confidence,” he replied. “A lot of life happened during that time. One of my best friends from college, he’s like, ‘Thuan, you’re so good with people, and you speak two languages, why don’t you try insurance?’ Yeah, completely different path… Sure enough though, here I am today, doing insurance.”  

However, it was through working in insurance that Nguyen found his current passion, building community for Asian Americans in Oklahoma. Thuan has been running his business in the Asian District since 2009, which was not anything like the area residents know today. 

“It’s like ghost town and so dark. And it’s even scary for me… I’m like something needs to change about this area. It’s such a beautiful area. It’s a gem of Oklahoma City,” Nguyen recalled. “I knew that our area in the Asian District really needed more activities, more things to do. And so, I got a committee together and I formed the Asian District Cultural Association. I founded that, and I founded the very first Asian Night Market Festival in Oklahoma City.” 

Meetings about the Asian District Cultural Association began in 2017, and ADCA was officially formed in 2018. Since forming, though the Association and Asian Night Market Festival have encountered obstacles like COVID-19 and what Nguyen called “city involvement.” 

“The very first years they wouldn’t let us close down Classen, and I mean no one believed in us,” he said. “Getting sponsorships was hard, convincing the city that this needs to be an area where we really focus on a good district was hard…  But I eventually convinced the Commercial Development Revitalization Program committee, Economic Development, and the Councilman Larry McAtee, who was in office at the time,” Nguyen told us.  

Since then, the Asian Night Market Festival has grown more than anyone could have imagined. In 2024, both sides of Classen were shut down for the festival for the first time.  Building on the success of the ADCA and the Asian Night Festival, Nguyen has a vison for new project in the district.  

Along with others, Thuan would like to see an art installation insulation in Military Park commemorating the journey refugees from Vietnam took to make it to OKC. Nguyen envisions the installation of an interactive boat sculpture representing the Vietnamese boat people, which has been approved by the city’s Arts Commission and City Council. 

“New Year’s [2025] is going to be our 50th year anniversary of the Vietnamese boat people,” he explained excitedly. “People need to know why Oklahoma has such a large Vietnamese population of people, where we came from, and how we got here. Just like mine and my mom’s story, we’re boat people. But few people knew that there’s a million people that escaped Vietnam after the Vietnam War. And over 300, 000 of those people- men, women, children- were either molested, eaten, or died in the ocean and never made the journey. People need to be aware of that. That’s why the Vietnamese population, the people here. We come here and we start our lives over.” 

Nguyen’s passion for the project was palpable in the room that day. He showed NACOK staff a detailed model of what he imagined the boat to look like. Along with his collaborators, Thuan aptly named the project We Have Arrived, explaining that, “We Have Arrived has not only meaning for the Vietnamese American community, but it actually has so much more meaning for all of our immigrant community, our refugee community.”  

We Have Arrived is just another example of Nguyen’s ongoing dedication to education and placemaking in his community. He truly lives out the Asian District Cultural Association’s mission of promoting and preserving the diverse culture of the Oklahoma City Asian District. Bridging and building community across generations by engaging and empowering the next generation of Asian Americans Oklahomans.  

When asked about what he wants his legacy to be?  

“You know, I don’t have any kids. But my nieces, and my nieces’ kids down the road, I want them to know who they are.  They’re Asian Americans… And that’s the legacy that I’d like to see for our younger generation of leaders as well. In our future, I’d love to see more representation on city council, on county commission, on more commissions, on more boards.”  

Nguyen’s hard work has built a foundation that will continue to uplift Asian Oklahomans for generations to come. At Neighborhood Alliance, we know that his work is not done, and we are excited to see what comes next.