and more wild. “This is what I remember and just talking about it makes me realize how much I miss it,” she says.
Remembering Vietnam also makes her miss her family. All of her friends are there too. She stays in touch via skype and checks in often to say hello.
“We are very close,” she says. “I’m very close with my mom’s side of the family, especially with my aunts, uncles and nephew.” Her mother’s side of the family was half hour away by motorbike from her home. Together with her mom, she would visit them two or three times a week and take a trip to the beach five or six times a year and stay there several days at a time.
America though, offers her more freedom and opportunity. Trinh feels that in America she can do whatever she wants. The U.S. dollar is worth a lot and it’s easier to make a good living. She also notes that being here, especially on the North coast of Oregon, is good for her health. She cites the air pollution in Vietnam as being so bad that every time she went back for a visit, she would get sick for a week or more until her body got used to it again.
Since moving to the Oregon coast, the friends she has made are all Americans. She has one close friend Quốc Dinh, prounounced Woke Din, who goes by his American name Tommy, lives in Phoenix. Trinh refers to Tommy as her best friend. In Vietnam, they were classmates at University Ton Duc Thang.
Tommy told Trinh about the internship at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Tommy encouraged her to come here. Without the internship, Trinh might not have had the opportunity to come to America. In America Tommy is my biggest support,” she says. “I am very grateful for my best friend.” She might have eventually come to America sometime in her life, but the internship is also what opened the door and made it possible for her to become a dance instructor.
“I feel like America is really a country of opportunity if you work hard, are dedicated and open minded, “she says. “There are so many opportunities here and I have met so many good people.”
Since moving to the Oregon coast in 2016, Trinh has been working in multiple restaurants. She knows she does not want to own a restaurant, but still likes to work in the business because it offers her the flexibility so she can pursue her dancing career. Aspiring to the highest level of being a professional, in January 2019, Trinh got her Zumba license, so she would have the opportunity to rise up the ranks of ZIN™ – the Zumba Instructors' Network. Originally created by the choreographer and fitness instructor Alberto “Beto” Perez in the mid-1990s, Zumba has become a global phenomenon. Over 14 million people now zoom, so to speak, in 185 countries.
At first, Trinh was teaching one class a week at Sunset Family Fitness in Seaside.