Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2022
Jacob Jack Le Van Sach and his wife, Pham Ngoc Diep, were born in Vietnam. Jack was born in Saigon, which became Ho Chi Minh City when the communists took over in 1975. Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in Vietnam, situated in the south. In the southeastern region, the city surrounds the Saigon River. Pham Ngoc Diep was born in Mỹ Tho. It is a city in the Tiền Giang province in the Mekong Delta region of South Vietnam. It is the regional center of economics, education, and technology.
Jacob was forty years old, and Pham was 43 years old in 1975. They had three children, according to an article in the Shakopee Valley News on Sept. 3, 1975. Their oldest child was Le Nghi Nguyen, who was a 12-year-old son. Their only daughter was Le Thuy Kieu, who was born in 1965. And their youngest, another son, Le Nguyen Nghi, was born in 1970.
Jack received a baccalaureate degree from the University of Saigon in 1953. In Vietnam, he was a secondary school teacher, according to the article “Parishioners welcome Jacob Le Van Sach family.” He authored several books as an area developmental specialist. And in Vietnam, he was a U.S. Embassy liaison translator. In fact, during his liaison with the Vietnamese government since 1968, Jack authored several textbooks for teaching languages.
Large-scale immigration from Vietnam to the United States began at the end of the Vietnam War, when the Fall of Saigon in 1975 led to the U.S.-sponsored evacuation of Vietnamese refugees. As the humanitarian crisis and displacement of people in the Indochina region (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) intensified, more refugees and their families were admitted to the United States.
Like government and military officials, urban professionals and well-educated South Vietnamese people who could speak English and were familiar with American culture were the first immigrants to arrive in America in 1975. South Vietnamese left because they feared that their way of life would not be the same with North Vietnam in power.
Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota was significantly involved in the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees in Minnesota after the Fall of Saigon.
When Jacob Jack Le Van Sach and Diep Phan Ngoc Sach, along with their three children, arrived in Minnesota, parishioners from St. John’s Lutheran Church in Shakopee, including Pastor Walter Johnson, greeted the new immigrants at the Amtrak station. According to the Shakopee Valley News, the family met the people from St. John’s Lutheran Church as well as parishioners from St. Mark’s Catholic Church including Duong Manh Hung and Pham Thi Hoa, who had just moved to Shakopee a few weeks before.
It worked well to have people who had recently arrived there to help the family as they all could speak Vietnamese. It also was helpful because Jack and his family knew more English.
Eventually, Jack and Diep ended up in Hennepin County. Jack received a doctorate degree and worked as a refugee relocation specialist.
Dr. Jacob Jack Le Van Sach died Oct. 29, 2013, in Blaine, Minnesota.
He was 78 years old, and a widow who never married after the death of his wife a few years earlier. He was cremated and buried in Brooklyn Park.