A harrowing tale of survival and success

When she fled Vietnam as a young girl, running across a beach in the middle of the night and jumping into a small boat, she did not feel the bullet at first.

Her adrenaline was pumping and shouts of “stop” echoed from armed Communist police.

She did not stop. When she landed in the boat she tried to lie down flat, wanting to make room for the others. It was then she realized she could not move her leg.

Nearly 40 years later, Tanya Tra remembers the details as if they happened yesterday. Her dramatic history is what forged her determination, arriving in the United States with nothing yet slowly building a business portfolio of real estate and restaurants.

Today, she owns the Wharf restaurants in Laguna Beach and Garden Grove, along with the highly rated Wild Crab in Garden Grove. She also owns residential properties throughout Orange County and North Carolina.

But when she tells her story, she’s not convinced it’s that special.

“I don’t know if this is a story,” she said, reluctant to put herself first. She agrees to retell the compelling events of her life if only to help others.

“I want to tell all the young kids out there, never, never, give up,” she said. “A lot of people told me, ‘No, don’t do it; there’s no way you can make it happen.’ But somehow I make it happen.”

It didn’t happen the easy way.

In 1975, after Communists took over South Vietnam, Tra and her family lost everything. She had 12 sisters and brothers, many were in prison after trying to escape. By age 9, she was selling used goods on street corners to help put food on the table.

“We barely had anything to eat,” she said. “We tried so many times to leave. But we got caught all the time.

“For me, I was in prison at least eight times, at least, but because I was very young — I was only about 9 or 10 — so they only keep me for sometimes two weeks, sometimes a month or two. But all my brothers and sisters would be in prison for three or four years.”

Even with the arrests, her father kept trying to get the family out of Vietnam. By the time she was 16 years old, after years of failed attempts, her dad finally got her and a brother to Cambodia on that fated beach.

“We could see the beach, but we have to hide in the forest until we see the signal from the boat,” she said. “It was late at night. So the boat gave the signal and it was time to go, and then we ran.”

Despite the chaos and bullets, Tra, her brother and two other families made it on the boat. She was the only one who got shot.

“I was in and out of consciousness. Honestly, I don’t know much about what happened after that. My brother told me, and everyone thinks, there’s no way I could survive because I lose a lot of blood.”

The Royal Thai Navy picked them up and took her to the hospital. Her right thigh bone was shattered. She had five operations.

“I stay in the hospital for about six months,” she said. “I couldn’t speak Thai, I couldn’t even speak English. I’m there by myself. But the Thai people were very nice. They know I have no family. I have no idea where my brother is.”

Vulnerable and alone, Tra said she was relieved when a Vietnamese woman started visiting her in the hospital, mysteriously.

‘Something didn’t feel right’

“A beautiful Vietnamese woman came in and she wanted me to run away with her. Then one night she came in with two guys and say, ‘Let me help you, let me take you.’”

The men started to lift Tra out of her hospital bed.

“Something didn’t feel right, so I yell out loud, and all the nurses and everybody came and rescued me,” she said. “If I listened to her, who knows what would have happened to me? In Thailand, they have houses for young girls, and I could become like one of those.”

Tra finally left the hospital and was reunited with her brother and some family. She applied for immigration to the United States and eventually made it to Long Beach, where two older sisters were waiting.

She went to school, a junior high in Long Beach, a high school in Orange, some college classes in Pomona. Along the way, she met a young man. They bought a house and had two daughters.

But the climb into a more stable, suburban life did not give Tra a complete sense of peace. She was restless, knowing deep down that she needed to take more control of her destiny. So she resorted to the only thing she really knew how to do: sell.

“I went door-to-door selling videotape, Spanish movies,” she said, smiling. “I was 22. It was hard. But I enjoyed doing business and wanted to have my own schedule so I could take care of my daughters.”

She hustled the videotapes, graduated to selling the tapes to larger discount stores, and even hawked Pokémon cards on the side.

After two years, she was finally able to cobble enough money together, along with some family help, to buy one of the small discount stores that she had been doing business with.

She started making other investments. Her model: Save as much as possible, get a loan, buy something promising, work hard, then sell it for a profit.

For the most part, the model has worked. There have been challenges along the way — a divorce, COVID-19, some family tension. But given her background, Tra has learned not to wilt under pressure.

“When I believe something, I will just go out there and do it,” she said.

With her restaurants, she honors her Thailand saviors by offering several Thai dishes, along with Asian fusion and Cajun.

“This concept is the concept that I think I can do. One thing I’ve learned in the restaurant business is if you don’t know about the thing that you’re doing, then you will suffer.”

Suffering and survival are in Tra’s DNA and yet she is still quick to smile. Often, she can be seen at her restaurants sitting next to regular customers and catching up on their lives.

Laguna Beach business owner Heidi Miller is a regular at the Wharf and marvels at Tra’s background but is more impressed by how Tra handles it now.

“She’s a complete American Dream story with a bullet in her leg,” Miller said. “But she doesn’t let that define her. A lot of people let their hardships define them. She’s the opposite.”

Miller said Tra has an infectious, warm personality that is not often seen.

“She’s got a quiet strength, and I think it’s a result of that fierce, fierce, fierce determination,” she said. “When you’re a good person like she is, people gravitate toward her and want to support her. She’s doing a fabulous job.”

Tra admits that her past life will continue to shape her future, so she tries to make the best of it, knowing things can always be worse.

“My whole family was on the blacklist,” she said. “We lost everything. But everyone has a story. Every day we need to figure out how to survive.”

DAVID HANSEN is editor of Under Laguna in Laguna Beach. He can be reached at david@underlaguna.com.