Orange County's first Vietnamese-American clerk-recorder hoping to find biological father

SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) -- Among his many duties as the Orange County Clerk-Recorder, Hugh Nguyen often works alongside his staff officiating weddings at the old Orange County courthouse.

Yet the man responsible for keeping the history of everything from births and deaths to property records is himself missing a part of his own past.

"I've always thought about my dad. That was the void in my heart," Nguyen said.

The 47-year-old has only one black-and-white photo of his father which was given to him by his mother.

Nguyen says his father was a U.S. Serviceman who met his mother, a 17-year-old Vietnamese girl, during the Vietnam War. His name and his birthplace remain unknown.

"When she found out she was pregnant with me, she went to look for him and his friend said that a few days ago, he was driving his jeep and it blew up and he died," said Nguyen, who still holds out hope he may be alive.

During the fall of Saigon, Nguyen, just 7 years old, his 2-year-old sister, his aunts and grandparents escaped on one of the last helicopters, landing on the USS Midway.

They lived in tents at Camp Pendleton for two months until the Grace Lutheran Church in El Centro sponsored them, but being Amerasian was not easy for Nguyen.

"It was hard. I had to learn how to speak English because all I spoke was Vietnamese and it was hard going to school because I would get picked on because I was different," he said.

His family moved to Orange County in 1979. His aunt and grandparents raised him.

Nguyen worked his way up, becoming the first Vietnamese-American clerk-recorder. He made big changes in the office, including opening on Saturdays to perform weddings to help out working families unable to visit during weekdays.

Nguyen achieved the American Dream, but the question of who his father was always remained.

"Even if I can find a family member of his just to know what type of person he was," said Nguyen, a husband and father of two.

Nguyen plans to submit a DNA sample in September to begin a genealogical search.

"That would be a dream come true if I were able to find my dad," he said.