My Quang Cao, father of U.S. Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, dies
October 21, 2010 Times Picayune
Submitted by N.O.V.A.


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My Quang Cao, the father of U.S. Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, died Wednesday at Canon Ochsner Hospice in Jefferson
Parish after battling diabetes and post-traumatic stress for several years. He was 78.

Mr. Cao, who was born in Vietnam on Jan. 21, 1932, enlisted in the military right out of high school,
joining the officers training program.

When South Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1975, Mr. Cao was taken a prisoner of war by the North
Vietnamese Army.

He spent the next seven years in Communist re-education camps, where his family said he was subjected to
physical and psychological torture. His wife, Khang Thi Tran, was allowed to visit her husband only four
times a year during his imprisonment.

Joseph Cao said concentration camp survivors told him of how his father "helped them get through the
struggles and suffering'' of life in prison by spinning tales of Chinese history.

"Late in the afternoon after a day of hard labor, he would tell them stories, funny stories,'' the
congressman said. "I never knew him to be funny. But the survivors told me how grateful they were because he
would help them get through each day.''

As Saigon was about to fall to the Communists in 1975, Mrs. Cao sent two of her small sons, including 8-
year-old Anh, and one daughter to Guam before they eventually found their way to the United States.

Mrs. Cao remained in Vietnam to raise her other daughters and wait for her husband's release.

While he was in the Communist-run camp, the elder Cao wrote his son in America. "He told him to do something
to help society, " said Thanh Tran, Cao's sister of Falls Church, Va., who left for America with Cao in
1975, though they were soon separated.

Tran said her parents' highest ambition for their son was that he become a priest, an even more exalted
status, in their mind, than a member of Congress. Cao studied six years to be a Jesuit priest before
choosing politics.

After Mr. Cao was freed from the prison camp in 1982, he worked for about nine years on farmland in Vietnam
owned by other family members.

Still suffering from post-traumatic stress, Mr. Cao reunited with his wife and children in 1991. The Caos
lived for a short time in Fairfax, Va., and Houston before moving to New Orleans in 2003.

While he lived in Texas, Mr. Cao worked as a clerk and a butcher in his brother-in-law's grocery store.

Mr. Cao spent the last seven years of his life battling diabetes and stress, residing with a daughter in her
eastern New Orleans home.

He lived to see his oldest son become the first Vietnamese-American ever elected to the United States
Congress in 2008.

In addition to his widow and the congressman, survivors include another son, Khanh of Philadelphia, and five
daughters:, Thu and Van of New Orleans; Thanh of Virginia; Yen of Houston; and Oanh of Vietnam. Funeral
arrangements are pending.