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WEST VALLEY CITY — From the day he arrived in the United States, Tom Huynh has been working hard to make a difference any way he can.
Huynh was 21 then, having escaped by boat from Vietnam to a refugee camp in Palawan, Philippines, two years earlier.
"I didn't want to be a burden in this society," he said. "I was so blessed to come here, and I needed to make a contribution."
Today, Huynh is giving of his time and talents to better the community he now calls home. Earlier this month, he became the first ethnic minority to serve on the West Valley City Council when he was sworn into office.
It's an opportunity, Huynh says, to serve his neighbors and thank them for welcoming him into the community.
"I really enjoy it," the 44-year-old father of two said. "And I get to do something for the people of West Valley City."
Huynh also has helped diversify what until now had been an all-white City Council throughout city's nearly 32-year history.
West Valley has grown increasingly more diverse in the past 20-plus years, seeing its minority population go from 9 percent in 1990 to more than 35 percent in 2010, according to U.S. Census Bureau and West Valley City data.
Huynh's presence on the seven-member council, he says, is a step toward better reflecting the city's demographics. And he said he's "very grateful" to be the first ethnic minority elected to serve in the city.
"The people, they are supportive and very kind to me," said Huynh, a commercial real estate agent. "They trust me and they believe in me, and I do all I can to maintain that trust."
But he also notes that it wasn't the minority population who elected him. Huynh estimates less than 5 percent of those who voted for him in November were minorities.
Huynh received 63 percent of the vote in his District 1 race Nov. 8, which he says tells him "the people support me," no matter their race.
Mayor Mike Winder calls Huynh's election "a milestone for our city's growing minority community."
"Tom personally will bring a perspective to the City Council unlike any we've ever had before, from his unique life story," Winder said.
Unique life story
Huynh grew up on a small island off the central coast of Vietnam. In 1972, his father was killed in battle while serving in the special forces in South Vietnam. Huynh was just 5 years old at the time.
About the same time Huynh had finished high school, local law enforcement began extorting money from his family, forcing his mother to pay them by threatening to send him to Cambodia for military service, he said.
"We had to do something," Huynh said. "They kept coming and asking for money. That wasn't good. We decided to send me out, to escape Vietnam."
I tried to tell them a joke. Nobody laughed. They didn't understand. My English wasn't good.
–Tom Huynh
At age 19, he fled Vietnam by boat and later arrived in Palawan, Philippines. For the next two years, he lived in a refugee camp there until a family in Portland, Ore., offered to sponsor him.
Huynh said he struggled in those early days, not being able to speak English and not wanting to be a burden on his sponsor family.
"One night we were having dinner, and I tried to tell them a joke," he recalled. "Nobody laughed. They didn't understand. My English wasn't good."
Huynh started taking English classes and later attended BYU-Idaho, then known as Ricks College, in Rexburg, Idaho. From 1990-92, he served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Washington, D.C., and his English continued to improve.
Following his two-year church service, Huynh enrolled at BYU in Provo and supported himself by teaching U.S. missionaries how to speak Vietnamese at the LDS Church's Missionary Training Center. He also was involved in translating LDS Church materials from English to Vietnamese.
Huynh graduated from BYU with a bachelor's degree in Asian Studies.
In 2002, he began serving as president of the Vietnamese Community of Utah, an office he held for four years. While in that position, Huynh got to know several elected officials along the Wasatch Front, including then-West Valley City Mayor Dennis Nordfelt.
And that sparked his interest in politics.
Politics
Huynh made his first run at City Council in 2009, seeking the at-large seat ultimately won by current Councilman Don Christensen. Huynh considers that campaign a valuable learning experience.
"At that time, I didn't know much about running a campaign," he said.
Running for an at-large seat in Utah's second-largest city was a huge task, Huynh said, and more expensive than he'd anticipated. He finished fifth among eight candidates in the primary election.
The second time around, he opted to run for office in District 1, which covers the east side of the city. He was the top vote-getter in the September primary on his way to a comfortable victory in November.
"In 2011, I knew how to do it," Huynh said.
And now that he's in a position to serve and lead, Huynh's colleagues expect him to make the most of it.
"Tom has a lot to learn, but he learns fast and he's not afraid of taking on new challenges," Winder said. "He will be a great city councilman."
Email:jpage@ksl.com
