Overcoming Obstacles An Inspirational Thai Immigrant Story

hello everyone

i’m glad to be here today and share my

life and lesson

experience my name is marisa viruhayan

i originally came from thailand i

married

and came to the united states in the

late 1983

with a very minimal language and no

working experience

today i am an accountant and a small

local business owner

despite any successes people may have

it is very important to remember your

roots

i would never have dreamed to be where i

am today

it took a village to set me to the right

path

i know i working hard but it was my

willingness

to lead me to the right people to propel

me

forward let me take you back

35 years ago it was

in the lane in the middle the night in

the late october 1986

i woke up to the knock in the front door

i rushed over to open the door

and there were two police officers

waiting for me

they told me my husband was deceit

i didn’t understand when i came to this

country

i speak very minimal language

i was afraid to look stupid i didn’t

even try to practice

i got by because my husband did

everything

for me but it didn’t help in this

situation

i knew one thing was wrong with him and

he was at the hospital

and i thought maybe he was sleeping or

passing out

i didn’t know what the word disease

meant

and i kept asking the police officer

when will he wake up

at the meantime i tried to get my

children

ready to go to the hospital with me the

police officer kept

trying to stop me from giving the

children a bath

and tried to stop me and didn’t

understand

what i was doing they just told me my

husband was dead

i felt so helpless they asked me

questions

but i didn’t know how to answer they

understand that i didn’t know in

english finally they called my

mother-in-law

and that’s when i learned the shocking

news

suddenly life was different

i have two young children to rest and my

life

to rebuild my father-in-law

asked me what do i want to do next

one thing i knew for sure was that

working at the minimum wage at 4.50 per

hour

would not be enough for us

i told him i have no working skill

no education only thing i can do

is scrubbing the floor or cleaning the

dishes

or sacking the food i have 35 years to

work before i retire

i need to do something better than that

so i decide that i want to go back to

school and get more education

he said okay marisa you can do it i step

back a little bit and say well wait a

minute

granddad i call him granddad because my

children call him that

i said wait a minute if i was lucky

enough

to go back to school just like everybody

else

normally and take four years to get

college degree

i would be 31 years old it was so old

when i think about it i said who’s going

to hire 31

years old lady to work he said

um you’re going to be 31 anyway

do you want to be 31 with the degree or

without a degree

of course i want to be 31 with a degree

so he took me to don bosco commodity

center to learn

english which is free since i have no

money

don bosco teaching english for refugee

and new arrival to basic living in this

country

but my goal was to get a college degree

so i expressed that to the teacher

and one of the teachers introduced me

to the basic adult education that offer

close to my house at pacquiao high

school

so i ended up taking the class english

class in the morning at don bosco

and evening class to prepare myself for

ged exam

i kept doing that until the fall 1987.

i took the ged exam and i passed it

so i went on to take community college

after two years i decided to go to an

accounting degree

because nursing and accounting pretty

good choice but

nursing i’m afraid of the blood and i

don’t like needle

until today i cannot look at when i give

blood

so i decide for the sake of myself

and somebody else i won’t hurt i go with

the accounting degree

i like the number i feel like i can talk

to the number

and i graduate from rockhurst in 1991

which is four years like my plan

it’s a lot of hard work every semester

time too

what i have learned through the college

i learned that the education extends

beyond the classroom

getting college degree it doesn’t mean

just to get the job and paycheck

i also learn along the way that

i learned the people skill analyzing

skill

and a little critical criticis

critical thinking that i learned and

everything else beyond which

that is my bonus no shortcut to college

one thing i learned

and if i put myself through that’s the

bonus skill everybody can learn along

the way

getting through the classroom

before i graduate i married my husband

he from thailand also i land my first

job in kansas city downtown

i felt different i feel like someone

news in me

i feel like i want to create things and

take control of my own life

i don’t want to be helpless anymore

my husband and i had a dream we want to

own our own business

and what we know best are food we want

to own taste

if we want to own thai food restaurant

we put proposal together

we went to the bank the bank turned us

down in no time

because we have no experience we don’t

have

enough money to back up for the question

and we also learned that restaurant

business is high fatality business

90 percent of the time never make it the

first year

but because the bank turned us down

disappointed yes but never give up

i believe in that if i have the will i

will find a way

with my paycheck is a good calculated

risk that my husband can give up the job

i still keep working full-time

for the back-up plan so we decide to

take out our credit card

and max it out buy purchase the

equipment

and set up the kitchens

don’t have money left so i have to take

all my hobbies

handcraft with cross stitches from the

house

rip everything from the wall and come

and decorate our restaurant

which turned out to be good because the

theme on those

cross stitch work is about thai culture

which is perfectly fine

so we work very hard because credit card

credit credit card interest is not

joking

they’re high so we work seven days a

week

he works seven days in the kitchen i

hold up day job

evening time i come to restaurant

serving table

and on the weekend we pay everyone first

before we pay ourselves in about four

years

when we pay off our debt

so we keep continue working and

ten years later we have opportunity to

open tessitai’s second location in

liberty

and in 2014 we opened another one

noodle shop big buffer with all this

restaurant i should be happy and relax

and kick back

but i never feel enough and i thought i

being silly

or regressed never never happy with what

i have

but no it’s not what it is

i am entrepreneur i like to keep

thinking creating what next

so the new challenge came

at the same time i lost my day job so i

have eight to five

what do i want to do remember

i am observant when i was

working in downtown i watched people

lighting up to um to buying lunch

and i start to calculate what the

revenue and expense to find break-even

points

so when i have my own restaurant i also

watch my customer

i talk to my customer i get the feedback

and they knew they liked my hot sauce

so i think about okay something new i

want to learn i want to try to bottle my

hot sauce

and that’s another whole learning

experience

i never know how difficult to come up

with the label

all kind of information on that little

paper

take a lot of work and research but i

like it because it’s fun i always want

to learn and try the new

things we put the bottle together

i make it i label it

packaging i put in front of my stove for

the testing

to start moving start moving so i took

the bottle to the first case to the

grocery store

locally and luckily they took it so i

start demoing

do the demo and sample and

expanding to the point that

is too much for one person to do so

then i start to have distributor and

co-packaging

in 2015 i add sweet peanut sauce on it

and then the new challenge with the thai

testy thai beef jerky

thai candy version

life is good and still learning

and i want to tell you kansas city

commodity has given me so much from the

beginning

i am paying forward and hope that this

message

will motivate you and help you move

forward

to overcome any challenges

this community we are lucky to be in

this community

that has a visionary and entrepreneur

to support the entrepreneur

there are so many resources that

we can reach out if you’re willing to

learn and try new things

it can be very exhausted

very hard work but

this community is very friendly and

people around here

always there to help you with encourage

and advice if it’s nothing else

and willingness are essential to

entrepreneurship

and in life in general

if you willing to work hard set up your

goals

i believe that you will overcome any

obstacle

and realize your vision for yourself

your family

and your community thank you

you