When Duy’s first child was born in 2013, he was shocked at how expensive it was to give birth and how difficult it was to navigate the complex healthcare system, even with a full-time job and company-sponsored health insurance. The entire process was scary, confusing, and overwhelming—as was his first child, who was born with the condition that required a one-week stay in the NICU before being able to go home. He felt lost in trying to figure out what resources were available to him and what would be covered—even with insurance; he still had an outrageous hospital bill to pay afterward. Truly equitable access to healthcare means more just affordability but peace of mind. We should not have to worry about the bills, paperwork, what will be covered, and what resources are available to us when we seek and use health services. Accessible, navigable, and affordable healthcare should not be a luxury; it should be a standard.

Duy has a small-business background and married into a family of small-business owners—his wife’s family owns several Vietnamese restaurants around the Valley. Having been involved in a startup before and having served as the former executive director and board member of multiple chambers of commerce, Duy understands that the small business is the backbone of the Nevadan economy. Knowing that mom-and-pop and other small businesses are often left out of the conversation, Duy’s two nonprofits held an Asian Restaurant Week and Asian Small Business Week during the pandemic to bring awareness to and bring the community out to support Las Vegas’ small businesses. We need to future-proof Nevada by preparing our workforce to attract new industry, technology, and jobs to our state. Innovation and technological advances will drastically impact our two largest industries—gaming and mining—so we should prepare our workforce for this innovation through re-training, vocational pipelines, and improving our education system at all levels.

The American promise of a better life brought Duy’s family to the US. Growing up Duy and his family struggled in an unfamiliar country where they did not speak the language. Starting from nothing, he and his family believed in the American dream of bettering oneself—becoming “successful,” whether that meant becoming a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, so they would not have to struggle. Duy has seen and experienced first-hand how policies that affect immigrants, particularly those in lower-income areas with limited English proficiency, often do not consider the needs of these communities at all—often, these decisions lack the perspective or representation of immigrants when they are made. Representation, language access, and cultural competency matter. In order to best serve our New American and immigrant communities, we need to not only create services and solutions that serve their needs but do the work of providing in-language materials and outreach to ensure awareness of and education on how to use the resources available to them.