Filipino Richie Fernandez, a new entrepreneur, was able to launch a business venture that now generates a five-digit income with the help of $100 in financial aid from the government.

During the height of the pandemic lockdowns, Richie and his family chose to grow the help by opening Manong’s Fishball Sauce, “We thought of how to grow and prolong the money,” Richie said.

With his family’s fondness of eating street food fish balls but at the same time considering the limitations posed by the pandemic at that time, the family decided to sell bottled fishball sauce so people could just enjoy it at home with their own-cooked fish balls.

The modest family business prospered through hard work and perseverance. Not only do they sell their product in the Philippines but they now also export to Japan, Australia, Austria, and the US.

The number of Asian American immigrants in Folsom multiplied five-fold from 2000 until last year as found out by the US Census Bureau.

Among them are Chalamcherla of India, Steven Wang of China, and Marcus Yasatuke of Japan.

51-year-old Chalamcherla long decided to come to Folsom after falling in love with the city while attending the birthday celebration of a friend’s son, but it wasn’t until 2006 that he actually did so after spending two years in Singapore and the Bay Area.

Nearly ten years after arriving in the country, Steven Wang, who is currently Folsom’s city attorney, became a citizen.

Back then, it was hard for tourists to enter the US but Wang, together with her brother and mother, swiftly passed the immigration after saying that they would be visiting Disneyland, the only place he knew. 

Wang, who is now a lieutenant colonel, has been a member of the US Army Reserve since 2004. During that time, many of his fellow soldiers were losing their lives while serving, and Wang felt in danger.

Because of this, he worked in Folsom city before finishing the necessary time to serve in his Afghanistan deployment, and he told The Sacramento Bee, “I don’t know if every company is like this, but Folsom has been quite supportive of the military.”

Additionally, in 2003, Marcus Yasutake, 45, moved to Folsom with his wife after receiving job offers from Placerville and Roseville. They were able to reside there and raise a family of three children.

Communications director Christine Brainerd of the city of Folsom said that Asian Americans are likely attracted to the area on the same note as why many citizens choose to call Folsom home.

The head of the Sacramento Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce’s economic development team believes that the tech-based companies in Folsom may be one factor for the recent increase in Asian residents.

Marcus cited the excellent school system in Folsom as one of the reasons why he came there, whilst Chalamcherla claimed that technology plays a significant role in the city’s increasing Asian population.

Racial discrimination is far from nonexistent in Folsom. That’s why Chalamcherla urges other Asians to immerse them in Asian culture.

Because of the chaos that was happening in their homeland in the 1970s, thousands of Vietnamese fled and some, later on, found a home in Colorado.

The melancholic memory is still fresh for Nga Vương-Sandoval, who, at the age of three, had to temporarily stay in refugee camps in the Philippines, Guam, and Arkansas.

She was with the about 2 million people who were unhoused and still have from within the shock of their suffering. 

It had been very challenging for them as they had to leave behind the good life they have in Vietnam and even depart from their relatives in order for them to leave safely.

Starting their life all over again, Denver has become a home to the 24,000-man Vietnamese Americans.

After being able to establish their community and found a home in the place, Nga said “I’m proud to say that it’s the city that I love, it’s the state that I love.”

Meanwhile, Vo, a 21-year-old grandchild of a Vietnamese who grew up in Aurora after his grannies and parents left Vietnam in the 1990s to seek a better life, had the experience of living in “a very diverse place.”

Knowing very little about his family’s past in Vietnam, he conducted a research project to unleash an “inherently American story,” according to him. 

Enabling people to have a glimpse of the refugees from a different perspective, Vo made use of his relatives as objects of his photography.

“Even though we moved here, they still lived a very Vietnamese life,” Vo said in Denver Post, 

It was also in his research that he found out how the majority of his family members were able to escape Vietnam while being robbed of cash and gold on their way.

He also mentioned how his family kept their culture by still practicing them in Denver which contributed to what America is, a place with diverse cultures. 

Despite having to start from scratch, they were able to begin life anew and even owned an Asian supermarket, Asian cinema, and Truong An Gifts.

His family also started the Far East Center shopping mall in 1987, home to him and his cousins and even to the Asian community.