For many Americans, New Year’s happens when the clock strikes midnight on Jan. 1 and crowds of freezing people cheer in Times Square, New York.
Oanh Dinh rings in the Lunar New Year as visitors celebrate Tet 2022, Vietnamese Lunar New Year, at History Park San Jose Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022, in San Jose, Calif. Lunar New Year is celebrated across Asia, particularly in China, Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. In Vietnam, the holiday is called Tet, for Tết Nguyên Đán, which means “Feast of the First Morning” in English.
Nguyen, who sold orchids at the festival, said her father was an officer in the South Vietnamese military. After the North Vietnamese prevailed in the war, he was jailed for nine years. She and her sisters worked and struggled to find enough to eat. In 1990, the sisters and their parents came to America as part of a refugee program.