Orange County's Vietnamese homeless people feel like outcasts in a culture of family, achievement
LOS ANGELES — The bargain buyers drifted out of a popular Little Saigon fruit shop with tote bags full of pale brown longan and hairy red rambutan, barely glancing at the dirt-smeared face of Duc Tran.
Tran hovered near a door, hinting to passers-by that he was thirsty with a drinking gesture and a finger to his throat. In Vietnamese, he asked for "tien mua mi" — money for a bowl of noodles.
He was a car salesman until chasing the high of methamphetamines took over his life.
For the last five years or so, he has been roaming outside Little Saigon's fabric stores and takeout eateries.
He is part of a ragtag group, many of whom lived through the devastation of the Vietnam War and came to the U.S. as refugees in their teens. They have converged on Little Saigon from the rest of the state and beyond, drawn by familiar foods and the ease of communicating in their
