May 5, 2025 — Aboard his boat in Moss Landing harbor, Tai Huynh, 71, bent over a pile of grenadier, then flung one of the deep sea fish into a large bin. Next to him, Tham Vo tipped them into a 500-pound crane lift box, swigging glass bottles of Heineken between loads.
In just over two hours recently, the pair offloaded 3,854 pounds of fish after spending 24 hours at sea and another 12 guarding their haul until daybreak.
These men are some of the oldest working refugees known as “boat people,” who fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon 50 years ago and once in the U.S., got right back on boats to fish. From California to the Gulf Coast to Boston, they faced grueling labor, competition, racism, terror, climate change, the collapse of fisheries and ever-evolving regulations.
In Monterey County, they now stand alongside fifth- and sixth-generation Italians in a long line of ethnic local fishermen in a declining industry that just may rise again.
Huynh’s father taught him how to fish in the waters off Da Nang in central Vietnam when he was 12. He left home in his early 20s on a raft to avoid compulsory enrollment into the Communist military and entered the U.S. in 1978, sponsored by a church in Chicago. His wife joined him there.