Tony Hornik-Tran: From Vietnam to American Diplomacy
Left Vietnam by fishing boat at fifteen, spent eleven months in refugee camps, and became a Diplomatic Security agent.
- Fled
- Vietnam
- Status
- Refugee
- Arrived in the U.S.
- early 1980s
- Service
- Diplomatic Security Special Agent from 2002; Regional Security Officer, Bratislava; Senior Regional Security Officer, American Institute in Taiwan
- Region
- Southeast Asia
In May 1982, at age fifteen, Tony Hornik-Tran and his brother were put on a fishing boat with 37 other people. Their parents had spent their savings to buy the passage. The brothers spent eleven months in refugee camps in the Philippines before he was adopted by a family in Madison, Wisconsin.
Years later he went back to the same camp system as a caseworker. He joined the Bureau of Diplomatic Security as a special agent in 2002. His assignments included the New York Field Office, Luanda, Shanghai, the East Asia and Pacific desk, Regional Security Officer in Bratislava, and Senior Regional Security Officer at the American Institute in Taiwan.