On a section of Federal Boulevard in West Denver, it may seem that something is missing.
Aside from a taco bell at one end, there is a notable absence of corporate channels along the section of the Federal of Alameda avenues in Mississippi.
There is no Starbucks, no Buffalo Wild Wings and certainly nothing like a modern market restaurant.
Instead, almost all businesses here are detained locally. Some have been transmitted for generations. And they are a key reason why this part of the city is known today as little Saigon.
The district center is the Far East Center, a Shopping center in Alameda and Federal which has become the center of Asian culture in Denver since it was founded by a family of Vietnamese immigrants In the 1980s.
“I grew up in progress in this place with my brothers and sisters and my cousins,” said Mimi Luong, the eldest daughter of the founding family of the center of Far East.
These days, Luong runs the family’s gift shop, Truong in Gifts. But during all their decades of success, she and many owners of district companies have a dilemma: who will take up family businesses that form the backbone of Little Saigon?
Families want the best for their children.
For consumers, small Saigon businesses are a place to find cheap and authentic foods or a place to find dark goods. But, for many families, the Federal Boulevard has represented a much necessary opportunity.
Although each company is different, basic stories are fundamentally similar – immigrants from Asian nations, most often, Vietnam, came to Denver for a better life and have opened small businesses at the service of other immigrants.
Many have been well since then.
Ngân Ngô and his wife have changes in Tài, a tailor in a strip shopping center on the federal and the Mississippi who specializes in Áo DàiVietnamese -shaped clothes in fine silk. Their business is one of the few in Colorado that specializes in Vietnamese clothes and other Asian clothes in similar materials.
Their two daughters are too young to take over the business, but Ngô and his wife have already decided the future of the store. Since leaving their old life in a city near Saigon 20 years ago, they have found that their daughters were “more likely and opportunities to do better” in the United States
Kevin J. Beaty / Denverite
“Parents like their children to follow their steps, but I think their freedom is more important than us,” he said. “They live their own life. If they want to follow this thing, we will be happy. But if they do not want and they like work, the pastime they follow, we support them. ”
They are not alone. According to a study of the family process of the university journal evaluated by peers, Only 30% of companies are transmitted to the next generation.
Some companies already have a clear succession plan. Lauren le, whose family has the Saigon supermarket, said they had tried to follow the path of the college, but discovered that it did not work for her. Instead, she returned to work in her family supermarket.
She expects to take over the business when her parents retire, allowing her brother to continue other ways in life.
“We want him to go to university,” said it. “He can enter the trades or anything, but we just want him to live a life he built by herself that we could never dream.”
Managing a family business often has a price.
While many members of his family and childhood friends have since left Little Saigon to pursue other careers, Luong made the decision to return to the business of the family’s gift shop at the Far East Center – despite his history in mode and makeup.
Luong had started his current career in various shopping centers instead of working for his parents. But she discovered that it was a huge commitment of time.
“I was 22 to 25 years old, and it was my great listening time to party and spend time with friends,” she said. “And I never had the chance to really do that.”
She ended up closing the stores and returning to help her mother run gifts. This decision allowed them both to take a leave, a rarity when Luong grew.
Finally, she took the coat of the family business (and becoming the de facto chief of the district of Little Saigon). But today, she recognizes that her two pre-adolescent sons may not take the same path.
“If they want to help me, they can, but I don’t know how much the life of a gift shop would be, in particular a Maman-et-Pop gift shop,” said Luong. “For me, I just want to teach social skills to my children, people’s skills, be responsible and have this skill to create the passion they want.”
Some who left remember their family business with emotion.
Luong’s younger sister Cici established herself, realized at the beginning of her childhood that the trade in the gift shop was not adapted to her.
“All my friends met on weekends, then I was stuck in the store, and I think I had the impression of losing typical American childhood,” said Strabbing.
Strabbing, who now lives in Austin, said that she felt a certain anxiety in her youth about the commitment of her family to the company. She remembers having had to go to her grandparents after school because her parents had to keep the store open until 7 p.m.
But now she has a new perspective on the business. Being a parent himself changed his perspectives on his childhood.
“(My mother) worked 10 am and had to go home and prepare for dinner for us,” said Stabbing. “And that thought about that and how I can feel this difficulty now being a working parent.”
Strabbing is now operating in architecture. She reflected that without the affairs of her parents, she would probably not have had the means to continue her career.
“When you look at it now, they did it just so that I could live this American dream,” she said.
Even if children stay in the company, a diversifying Denver means that they do not have to stay in the neighborhood.
Little Saigon has always been known as the place to be for good Asian cuisine in Denver. But lately, it has changed.
Recent companies outside the neighborhood, as Makfam on South Broadway and sắp sửa on East Colfax, were nationally To serve high quality innovative meals while keeping the sight of their inheritance. Dim Sums and Nana dumplings Quickly became a multi-employment success, the restaurant should open its 7th location later this year.
Duke Hyunh, whose family has the small Vinh Xuong bakery of Staple Vinh Xuong, decided to open its new cafe, Dandy Lion Coffee, outside the northeast district of Park Hill. For him, it was just a commercial decision.
“From the company’s point of view, do federal people want a craft coffee or not?” He said. “If I could find a cheap rent on Federal and I knew I was going to succeed, then I would totally envisage to open a store at the bottom federal, to keep this idea (from Little Saigon).”
Hyunh has also rejected the idea that Little Saigon needs to remain “authentic”. He stressed that his family business is far from authentic – the Bánh Mì sandwiches were invented in Vietnam due to French imperialism.
He said that the next generation of business owners – whether new in the district or have family ties – are faithful to themselves, the spirit of Little Saigon will continue.
“If it’s an evolving idea, culture,” said Hyunh, “I don’t see the problem of the region evolving with it.”
