Road from Vietnam Brings This Grad Many Firsts

Life in the United States has brought many firsts and many challenges for Khanh Dinh, 24, a native of Vietnam who will graduate June 9 with a degree in mechanical engineering technology from UC's College of Applied Science.

Dinh's journey to Cincinnati from the farming community of Binh Loc at the age of 15 brought him the first meeting (that he could recall) with his father, Khai Dinh. It also brought him his first ride in an automobile, and it brought him a new life through hard work and education.

"My father picked my mother, my older sister and me up at the Cincinnati airport. I had seen pictures of him but had no memory of him. I remember I had a slip of the tongue and called him 'uncle.' My sisters laughed at me for that...That was my first ride in a car. I felt like a rich boy," laughed Dinh, now a resident of Pleasant Ridge. "It was night, and I saw the lights of the city, the bridge, and the river. I thought, 'I'm in a movie.'"

Well, if so, it's a movie with a happy ending for Dinh and his family who are all together in Cincinnati after spending years apart. Dinh's father was forced to flee Vietnam after the U.S. withdrawal because he had served with the South Vietnamese navy. He came to Cincinnati in 1980, but it wasn't until 1991 that he could send for his wife, son and for three daughters. And it was only last July that the remaining two daughters could join the family here in Cincinnati.

Determination, according to Khanh Dinh, is what brought the family together again, and what has helped Khanh and his sister, Trang Dinh, during their years at UC. "I think of how my Mom (Gion Dinh) raised me and my sisters by herself. She did it all by herself in Vietnam.... Determination is the word I think of when I think of her," said Khanh Dinh.

It's a word that could describe Khanh as well. He arrived in Cincinnati speaking no English and enrolled in Withrow High School's special English as a Second Language program. On the first day when the teacher asked him, 'How are you?' Dinh answered with the only English word he knew: 'Yes.'

Within a year, he was setting his own academic schedule with classes in grammar, mathematics, physics and chemistry, eventually graduating high school in the top ten percent of his class.. He attended a UC summer camp in engineering during his sophomore year in high school and decided he wanted to come to UC to study mechanical engineering technology. "I love machines, fixing cars. I like to design and fix things. Even as a boy in Vietnam, I built my own toys," recalled Dinh.

Like his sister, Trang Dinh who graduated from UC's College of Applied Science two years ago, Khanh Dinh has been active during his student days. While at UC and making the Dean's List every quarter, Khanh Dinh served as a member of the Golden Key National Honor Society and as vice president of the Tau Alpha Pi National Honor Society. He's tutored fellow students in calculus, trigonometry and other courses in addition to help with special events at the college.

Dinh doesn't plan to slow down after graduation. He'll go to work full-time with General Motors Truck & Bus Group near Dayton, Ohio, (where he co-opped and currently works part-time). He's also planning to set to work immediately on a graduate degree in engineering. Dinh said his life in America is a "dream come true...In Vietnam, I would never have been able to attend high school or college."