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A Refugee Family's Daughter
My story begins long before I was born, shaped by the courage and sacrifice of my parents, who fled their home because of war.
My parents were what many called "boat people," among nearly two million who fled Vietnam by sea after the fall of Saigon. That journey was harrowing. Refugees faced overcrowded boats, starvation, violent storms, and piracy. Historians estimate that between 200,000 and 400,000 people died at sea. My parents were some of the fortunate ones who survived.
They arrived in the U.S. at a temporary tent city built to process the wave of refugees, and were sponsored by a family in Minnesota through the federal resettlement program. Ordinary people, who didn't know my parents but welcomed them anyway, gave them food, clothing, job training, and dignity. That generosity changed the course of our family's story. It's also where I learned the lesson that has shaped everything I believe since: when public systems and communities show up for people, lives are transformed. Not charity. Not luck. Investment, and solidarity.
My parents met in Minnesota at 17 and 19, teenagers carrying unimaginable trauma. With the help of community, my dad trained as a machinery repairman and my mom became a seamstress. My dad later found work in Denver at Bar-S Foods, and through the resettlement network, my parents secured public housing in Sun Valley Homes, where I was born. Public housing didn't just give my family shelter. It gave us a foundation to build from. They worked long hours, stretched every dollar, and moved our family into the apartments above the old Federal Theater. Years later, through grit and sacrifice, they did what once seemed impossible: they bought their own home. Watching my parents work themselves to exhaustion is why I know in my bones that working families deserve more support than this city has ever given them. Public investment isn't a handout. It's the difference between a family surviving and a family building a future. Housing, healthcare, good jobs and childcare shouldn't be things people have to fight for on their own. They should be guaranteed.
The Community That Carried Us
My childhood was shaped by responsibility. Because my parents were still learning English, I served as their interpreter at doctors' offices, schools, and government agencies. By 15, the weight of it caught up with me, and I found myself couch-hopping, relying on the kindness of friends, their parents, and school counselors. Community caught me when other systems around me didn't.
Around that time, I met Josh. We were 15 and 17 when we became teen parents, and his family took me in as one of their own. Josh and I built our life together from almost nothing, working multiple jobs and leaning on community the same way my parents once had to. We know firsthand what it means to be a working family in this city: childcare that costs more than rent, the impossible choice between a doctor's visit and groceries, the exhaustion of building stability with so little safety net. That's why supporting working families isn't an abstract policy position for me. It's Josh's story and mine, and it's why caregiving, youth support, and housing stability sit at the center of everything I'm fighting for in District 2.
From Small Business to Public Service
For over 25 years, I've been a mother, wife, small business owner, and community advocate. My small businesses, retail shops, art galleries, restaurants, and one of the first non-toxic nail salons in the nation, were never just about profit. They were sanctuaries where neighbors of every background could work with dignity and build community. That experience taught me that when workers and neighbors hold real economic power, wealth stays rooted in community instead of flowing out to absentee investors. It's why I'll always fight for small, local, and worker-owned businesses over corporate interests looking to extract value from our neighborhoods.
When the pandemic hit, I didn't wait for institutions to act. I mobilized alongside my community: organizing food fridges, setting up vaccine clinics, and rallying support for small businesses on the brink of collapse. That experience confirmed what I already believed: survival and progress are always collective. It's the same principle behind my support for a public Neighborhood Center in District 2 and participatory budgeting that puts real power over public spending directly in residents' hands, not people with the loudest voices and the deepest pockets, but the people who actually live here.
Knowing City Hall, Fighting for District 2
Today, I work for the City of Denver, helping make sure residents who are too often overlooked actually get heard by their own government. That work has shown me both where our systems work well and where they still fall short. I work closely with departments across the city, which means I already know how City Hall works from the inside. I won't need time to learn the job. I can get right to work for District 2 on day one.
Everything I believe, that people deserve housing, healthcare, childcare, and safety without their dignity depending on income or luck, that working families and small business owners deserve real power over the decisions that shape their lives, comes from how I was raised, the family Josh and I built together, and the work I've spent my life doing. It's not a label I adopted. It's my parents' story, it's Josh's and mine, and it's the throughline of everything I'm fighting for.
Honoring the Past. Building the Future.
If elected, I would become the first Asian American and first-generation Vietnamese American to hold a seat on Denver City Council. But representation alone isn't the goal. My vision is to remake who holds power at the table, so that the communities too often pushed to the margins aren't just included, but centered, in shaping Denver's future.
My campaign is about building a city where no one feels invisible: where housing is a right, small businesses thrive without fear of displacement, caregiving is treated as public infrastructure, safety comes from investment and prevention rather than criminalization, and every neighborhood, from Mar Lee to Harvey Park, from Bear Valley to Fort Logan, finally gets its fair share.
For me, this is personal. It's the continuation of the courage my parents carried across the ocean, the resilience Josh and I built raising our family together in Denver, and the belief that a community, and a city, is strongest when it takes care of everyone in it. District 2 deserves a leader who knows firsthand what it means to struggle, to organize, and to build power collectively.
I am rooted in community, ready for change. Together, we will build bridges, create belonging, and shape a Denver that finally works for all of us.
Trần is more than a candidate for Denver City Council. She's a bridge-builder who believes housing, healthcare, childcare, and dignity are rights, not privileges people have to earn, and that District 2 deserves the same investment, resources, and beautiful public spaces as every other part of this city.