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DONG-PHUONG NGUYENSome Vietnamese immigrants are years younger on paper than they really are, and now they must work long beyond retirement age.
TAMPA - Long Duc Mang stands nine hours a day, snipping and shearing at his family-run barber shop on Gandy Boulevard. Mang used to coif 30 to 40 customers daily, sending locks to the floor like falling leaves from a tree.
But in recent years, the $7 haircuts have taken longer to finish.
His chin stubble is white. Strands of gray highlight his otherwise jet black hair. With his 10th customer, his knees begin to tremble.
At 67, Mang is past retirement age. He wants to switch off the clippers for good and turn over Saigon Barber Shop to relatives. But he can't.
Officially, Mang is only 58 years old.
Mang, of Town 'N Country, is among a large number of Vietnamese immigrants whose listed ages are false. On paper, they are three, five, and even 10 years younger than their true ages.
Their fake ages date back to wartime Vietnam, when they were teenagers hoping to avoid the draft and make up for an education that was constantly interrupted.
When they arrived in America, they kept their false birth dates, believing that employers found younger workers more attractive.
Today, their bones ache and their eyes blur. The date that helped them seek employment now won't let them retire.
So they continue to toil away, well past the time they really reach 65.
They wait for the day they can reap the full benefits of Social Security and rest their hands for good.
Han Duc Nguyen's roots are embedded in war. As a young boy, his family fled from village to village to escape battling Viet Minh guerrillas and French colonialists.
He would attend school for a month, then run again. Nguyen kept his birth certificate in his back pocket. He remembers the scroll. It was written in French, Chinese and Vietnamese: Jan. 20, 1938.
Because they were constantly hiding from gunfire, he ultimately misplaced it.
Back then, families hid in remote villages in the jungle for years. When they returned to the city, their children were too old to re-enter school at the level they last completed, yet they were not educated enough for the grade level assigned to their age, explained Anthony Hy Hoang, a former president of the Vietnamese American Association of St. Petersburg.
When the French were defeated and the country was split in half in 1954, Nguyen's family resettled in the south. Like many other parents, his mother wanted her children to be educated.
So they lied.
Nguyen's mother filed for a new birth certificate, deducting three years from her son's age. Nguyen, then 17 years old, was able to enroll in the equivalent of middle school, essentially getting a fresh start.
Hoang estimates that as many as four out of every 10 Vietnamese in their 60s are older than records indicate.
He is frequently summoned to translate for Vietnamese American families at bay area hospitals. Most of his older patients all bemoan their predictment.
"They're in limbo," Hoang said. "They just live day to day."
Called rut tuoi (pronounced zuwt thoo-oy), it was common practice even before the war, Hoang said.
One man, Hich Van Nguyen, who lives just outside of Brandon, is listed in records as 10 years younger than he is.
Nguyen was born in a small village in north Vietnam in 1905. No one recorded his birth because his family did not have time to go to town, which took several days to reach on foot.
Only 10 years later did they have occasion to visit the downtown area. So that's when his birth was recorded - Oct. 10, 1915.
Nguyen came to America in 1975 and was hired by Hillsborough County's fleet maintenance department. He was already 70 years old, 60 on paper.
He fixed cars for 10 years, until he was 80 - 70 on paper. He is now 97.
"If he had corrected his age when we came to America, he never would have found a job," said his wife, Tue Thi Pham, now 92. "Without a job, how would we have survived?"
Establishing new lives with honorable jobs was the main goal for Vietnamese immigrants who flooded America's shores in the 1970s and '80s, said Mang's wife, Thu, also a hairstylist.
Word quickly spread that there was work for young, vibrant men. The false age was proving again to be a blessing. Employers were more apt to hire younger workers, they believed. Everyone wanted jobs to provide for their families.
"Nobody wanted to accept food stamps and rely on government money," Thu Mang said. "With seven children to support, he needed a job. We didn't dare change his age back. We were scared."
The Mangs, who came to America in 1979, kept Mang's birth certificate tucked away for many years.
In June 1998, when Mang was 53, but really 62, they took it out and sought the help of a lawyer. He was not able to help, Mang recalled. Mang is now appealing to the Social Security Administration for help.
While rare, it's not impossible to get an age changed.
The Social Security Administration does not keep records on the number of claims processed involving proof of age discrepancies from the Vietnamese community, said regional spokeswoman Kimberly Anderson.
"However, when making a date of birth determination, Social Security considers all evidence submitted including statements from claimants, family records, and any early records from Vietnam that will show the correct date of birth," Anderson said. "The final determination will be based on the best evidence presented. An allegation alone will not be sufficient unless corroborated with some other form of evidence."
For eight years, Han Nguyen, the immigrant who is three years older than records indicate, worked as an electronics assembler. When his bones hit 60, something happened.
"All of a sudden, for some reason, you just go downhill," he said. "You can't possibly understand the feeling until you go through it. Oooh, you are just so tired. It's not just the human body that is so tired. Even mentally, you are exhausted."
Each year crawls by and 65 seems a lifetime away, he said.
This past January, at 65, Nguyen took early retirement. He is 62 on paper, so he is collecting about 75 percent of his Social Security. He now tends to more than 300 bonsai plants in his back yard in St. Petersburg.
The decision didn't come easy. Nguyen encountered resistance from his wife and children because they wanted him to stick it out. He just couldn't find the strength to continue.
"They don't understand," said Nguyen, who hopes to visit Vietnam in December and search for his original birth certificate. "I want to enjoy the rest of my life."
Six months into his retirement, Nguyen has a new life.
"I don't belong to anyone but myself," he said. "I feel young again."
Mang, the barber, is not as lucky. He continues to cut hair.
"Had I known, I would have changed (my age) back when I came to the U.S.," Mang said. "All I wanted to do was work. I didn't think this would happen. No one thought it would end this way. Who knew?"
- Dong-Phuong Nguyen can be reached at 813 226-3403, e-mail nguyen@sptimes.com