Episode Details

In this episode, Ken travels to the Arrowhead Country Club to sit down with Helen Tran, the historic Mayor of San Bernardino. In 2022, Helen smashed barriers to become the first Asian American mayor in her city's history, and the first Vietnamese American woman elected mayor of any American city.  

Helen shares her jaw-dropping family legacy: her father surviving a blindfolded firing squad in a Cambodian camp by digging his own grave before being saved by the Red Cross. She traces her unusual journey from an aspiring third-grade teacher to entering City Hall via a temporary placement agency, eventually rising to become the youngest HR Director during the city’s infamous bankruptcy. Helen pulls back the curtain on the raw mechanics of running a massive 65-square-mile city, the transition from a "strong mayor" system to a city manager charter, and why she is laser-focused on local results as she charges toward her June 2026 reelection primary campaign.  

Inside this deep dive into localized power and grit:

The Gravitational Pull of Family History: How her parents arriving with nothing—and her father’s near-death survival—recalibrates Helen's threshold for political stress.

The 2016 Charter Trap: Why residents mistakenly believe the mayor can wave a magic wand, and how the modern Council-Manager system forces coalition building.

The Inland Empire vs. Orange County: A raw breakdown of why neighboring cities took off while San Bernardino lagged behind, and her blueprint to capture a direct seat with the governor.

The "Trash into Beauty" Strategy: How the city secured over $300 million in grant funding and utilized the Bloomberg Love Your Block program to rebuild local pride.

The Disneyland Contender: The mind-blowing statistic behind the Yaamava' Tribal Casino as the second-highest tourist destination in California next to Anaheim.

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Many of you still have the chance to record and preserve the legacies of your own families. I’ve sat with families now for interview sessions to record the rich histories of parents and explore the lives of the generations that preceded them. Don’t let your family stories go untold! Take a moment to reach out and together we will bring out your family’s story on a recorded journey. - Kenneth Nguyen

Visit https://www.vietnamstorybank.com/ today for more information!