Help Suni pay off family loans, go to grad school
Summary
My good friend Suni* is the hard-working daughter of Vietnam War refugees. Both her parents passed away due to cancer and left her with $680k in loans & mortgages. Suni is close to losing her childhood home and is trying to move into an apartment as soon as she can. For now, she needs to pay a few months' worth of loans while waiting for legal proceedings to get the house in her name. Please consider donating to help keep her housed -- especially as the pandemic is still ongoing.
Along with money, if anyone knows a good SoCal lawyer who is patient with first-generation immigrants going through hard times, is familiar with debts & mortgages, and is willing to work pro bono, please put them in contact with me, and I will help set y'all up. The same goes for any life/career mentors and sponsors who would be compassionate to Suni’s situation.
*Suni requested a pseudonym for this campaign because her father's acquaintances started hounding her for money as soon as he passed away. This is also why I have not included any photos of Suni as an adult.
How I know Suni
My close high school friend Suni (baby photo above, she is the child on the left) is the strongest woman I know. She has been working under the table since she was less than 15 years old to help support her family. I remember she often fell asleep in class and her hands were shaking all the time; she never told anyone that it was because she was exhausted from delivering supplies and giving pedicures at a nail salon on weekends.
Suni’s family history
Suni's family fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon during the Vietnam War. Her parents (pictured above along with Suni and her little brother) arrived in America as refugees with nothing. Suni’s mother was a savvy entrepreneur who helped run her family’s furniture business. They were able to take out a mortgage and buy a house… But then, Suni’s mother was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. Suni was only 4 years old.
Suni's father acted out. He stole Suni’s mother’s savings, spent it all, and drove their business into debt. All the while, Suni’s mother was still working, managing a household, and driving herself to chemo every other week -- desperately trying to hold the family together for young Suni and her little brother. In the meantime, Suni's mom’s medical expenses got worse and worse; above is a photo after Suni's mom had spinal surgery. Suni stepped up to take care of everyone. No one else was coming to help.
Since 2015, Suni has been working 1-3 jobs simultaneously without a break, while juggling school. (Above is a picture from her college graduation day). She fast-tracked her college education because her mother didn’t have long left. Suni’s mom wanted to see both her kids graduate from college, and even picked out dresses to wear to the ceremonies. Unfortunately, after fighting cancer to the bone for 16 years, her mother passed away just 4 months before Suni’s graduation.
Suni’s aspirations
Despite her grief, Suni kept going. Her dream is to advance sustainable architecture. To that end, she’s won awards in her department, and her professors have often praised her work and her portfolio. She started baking to heal from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), to preserve memories of cooking with her mother, and to pay homage to their Vietnamese-French heritage. She developed this passion into a side hustle, starting her own all-organic pastry business and dreaming of founding her own bakery or cafe. She's sold tens of cakes and hundreds of cream puffs (above), and a portion of proceeds go to Camp Kesem, an organization dedicated to supporting children impacted by a parent's cancer. She has so many aspirations, and I know that she has the hustle and the skill to realize them.
Suni’s father’s debts
Then, two months ago, her father passed away from pancreatic cancer -- one day before Suni’s birthday. While trying to settle her father's accounts, Suni discovered that (1) he had bankrupted the family and gambled away her mother's life insurance; (2) he had neglected payments on his own life insurance, car, and nail salon; and (3) he had not been paying off her family home's mortgage. Suddenly, Suni was saddled with $680k in loans. Because the house isn't in her name yet, Suni doesn't qualify for COVID mortgage relief. The banks called and threatened to foreclose. Her father's acquaintances harass her trying to get any piece of his non-existent life insurance that they can.
When Suni sought a lawyer to help her deal with all this, there were complications and she could not secure adequate legal counsel. At the same time, her employer nearly refused to give her bereavement pay, despite having already exploited her for a year & a half, refusing to pay overtime while simultaneously demanding more hours. After much haggling, they offered a measly $500 -- in Amazon gift cards, no less! -- for 2 weeks of bereavement.
Thankfully, Suni was able to leave her exploitative job and is now working part-time as a junior architect in a much nicer workplace. However, it’s still not enough. Even with her pastry business and side hustles, her income isn't enough to juggle the family’s debts -- Suni has had to neglect her own expenses, such as food and car maintenance. She doesn't want to foreclose on her childhood home -- the garden is full of flowers that her late mother had tended since the first day they moved into the house, like the one above. But even if she wanted to abandon it, there are legal proceedings that the county requires that could take up to 6 months before she can actually leave.
Why we should support Suni
Suni is diligent, careful, and lives frugally, but she’s already had to burn through her carefully managed savings to pay for her father's funeral, miscellaneous debts, insurance, and leftover mortgage payments. She's also still trying to put herself through graduate school. To say the least: Suni is in a tight financial situation.
Despite these hardships, Suni has never stopped trying to help other people. She has helped so many friends find jobs, volunteers in her free time, and is everyone's biggest hype man. I had to fight for a long time to even get her permission to set up this fund, because she believes that other people in the world need it more.
Her whole life, Suni has been weighed down by illness, debt, and remnants of intergenerational trauma from the Vietnam War. She was dealt an unfair hand, but she is trying so hard to break out of the cycles of misery that her family was forced into. I am amazed by all she has accomplished. I know Suni has the skills and the hustle to make her dreams come true. But she has never had the real freedom to do that. Though I said she is the strongest woman I know, no one should be required to be this strong all the time, all their life. I know she would benefit immensely from friendly folks helping to clear the roadblocks in her way, so she can finally have room to breathe.
Financial breakdown
I sat down with Suni and did the calculations, and here are the tiers of what could lighten Suni's load:
1. With $6,500 and the condition that Suni converts to full-time soon: we can supplement her income so she can pay her family's debts and legal fees for the next 6 months while legal proceedings go through.
2. With $11,500 and the condition that Suni converts to full-time soon: we can not only cover her debt payments for 6 months, but also replenish her emergency fund. (Her car has required maintenance for a long time because she previously had to drive 1.5 hr to work -- I'm worried it may break down again soon.)
3. With $17,000: even if Suni is unable to convert to full-time, we should be able to cover her debt payments for 6 months. If Suni converts to full-time, this would help her save up again for graduate school; Suni wants to get her Master’s in Architecture from USC while minoring in building science or urban planning.
4. With $23,000: Suni could not only make her payments and have her emergency fund, but also consider pursuing some of her leisure dreams for the first time in her life.
5. With $100,000+: Suni could do everything above and more! In particular, her goals are: to find life and career mentors; to learn how to invest so she can achieve financial stability; to have an extra room to upgrade her pastry side-hustle; to go to graduate school; and to work internationally with non-profits, devoting herself to humanitarian work.
A pipe dream would be helping Suni pay off the entirety of the loan; I haven't completed the calculations for what it would take (other than the full $680k!), but if this campaign does well, I will work diligently to figure out what we'd need.
As I noted earlier: along with money, if anyone knows a good SoCal lawyer who is patient with first-generation immigrants going through hard times, is familiar with debts & mortgages, and is willing to work pro bono, please put them in contact with me, and I will help set y'all up. The same goes for any life/career mentors and sponsors who would be considerate of Suni’s family’s intergenerational trauma.
Finally, some words from Suni herself: “There is no other option for me but to continue to strive upwards, to devote myself to helping others, and to navigate the world with my heart and mind making justice for what was lost -- for helping those like me.”
Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Suni and I hope everyone else is taking care as well. We know it's hard out there right now.