Scholar Huynh Sanh Thong is the first Vietnamese American 
who was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship in 1987.

Scholar Huynh Sanh Thong (15/07/1926 - 17/11/2008) was a scholar specializing in Vietnamese literature. He was born in 1926 in Hoc Mon district, Ho Chi Minh City and settled in the United States since 1948, after he was arrested and confined for one year by the French authorities for operations against the colonial government. 

He graduated in economics at the University of Ohio in 1951 and became a Vietnamese language lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State. From 1957 to 1972, he taught Vietnamese literature at the Yale University. During this time he wrote a number of books on teaching Vietnamese for English speakers.

Huynh Sanh Thong was best known through the English translation of “The Tale of Kieu” by great poet Nguyen Du. This work was released by the Yale University in 1973 and was later reprinted several times.

Another work by Thong that is also well known in American literature is “An Anthology of Vietnamese Poems: From the Eleventh through the Twentieth Centuries”.

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Dr. Huynh My Hang.

In addition, he was the founder of the Lac Viet book set and Vietnam Forum magazine. The magazine had 16 editions from 1983 to 1997. The Lac Viet book set has many valuable translation works from Vietnamese into English, such as “The Song of a Soldier's Wife” (Chinh Phu Ngam) and “The quarrel of the Six Beasts) (Luc Suc Tranh Cong). The Vietnam Forum magazine introduced to English-speaking readers a variety of features of Vietnamese culture and literature as the love poems by Xuan Dieu.

Thong received the Harry J. Benda Award in 1981 and McArthur in 1987 for his achievements in the field of translation, bringing Vietnam's literature to the world.

20 years later, scientist My Hang became the second Vietnamese-origin person who received the MacArthur Fellowship in 2007. 

Dr. Huynh My Hang lives in the state of New Mexico. She works for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the state. Dr. Huynh My Hang’s achievement is to find a technique to synthesize substances of strong energy. Many types of explosives, substances with strong energy are commonly used in many areas but they leave very negative consequences on the environment and global warming. Dr. Hang’s invention helps resolve both of these factors.

She created the chemical reaction mechanisms based on the thermal properties of the substances with strong energy to help them aggregate to form a new compound that can be heated at the highest level, and the structure of the new compound will replace the heavy metals containing many toxins, such as mercury or lead, by less toxic substances, such as copper or iron.

Photographer Le My An.

 Dr. Huynh My Hang was born in 1962. In 1991, she graduated with two bachelor's degrees in humanities and engineering at the University of New York, the town of Geneseo. In 1998, she obtained a doctorate in chemistry at the University of New York, the city of Buffalo. Since 2002, she has worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

5 years later, Le My An is the third Vietnamese name being honored. She is a professional photographer, focusing on the subject of war. An settled in the US in 1975. The works by this 52-year-old woman are mainly inspired by the theme of war, by her own experience of the big changes in the lives of small fates where the war spilled over.

One of the most famous photo sets by Le My An is “29 Palms” that was made in 2003- 2004 at a military base in the southern California desert, where U.S. soldiers were trained before going to Iraq.

Born in Saigon in 1960, emigrated to America in 1975, An received a Bachelor of Science in 1981, a Master of Science from Stanford University in 1985, a Master of Contemporary Arts at Yale University in 1993. 

Since 1998, she was a lecturer at the Department of Photography of Bard College. She is currently living and working in New York.

The MacArthur Foundation is a non-profit organization operating in the United States. Every year this organization selects 20-40 U.S. citizens to award the MacArthur Fellowship. The winners are those who have the creativity in many fields such as science, education, literature, photography, music, cinema, etc. 

The winner will receive $500,000 in a funding package within 5 years. The award winners are nominated. The jury board consists of 12 members, secret identity. They will consider and select from thousands of nominees to find 20-40 winners each year.

Source:Vietnamnet