Omaha family earns 13th degree
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OMAHA, NE (WOWT) — “I just want to make sure all my kids have a job to do you know…so it’s now a loss here and a loss there. You know I don’t want my kid like that because in this country you have a lot of opportunities but a lot of people don’t see that. They take it for granted,” Said Niachue Vang.
Vang is from Laos and escaped the Vietnam war by coming to America. In Omaha, he met his wife and raised nine children all with the same expectation…you must go to college.
“I’m the oldest of that family so just having me go through it first was amazing for my parents and then to see each of us graduate on down to the youngest has been an amazing feeling,” Oldest daughter Panyoua Yang said.
That’s right, as of Friday number nine, Samantha, walked the UNO stage earning her degree in business administration.
“I kinda always felt a little pressure because they are all outstanding, but I just kept pushing through,” Samantha said.
She had sat through so many college graduations she didn’t even want to walk when it came her time. But in the end, she became the seventh sibling to cross UNO’s stage.
“I guess it didn’t hit me that I was graduating and being the last kid too,” Samantha said.
It’s a family now filled with teachers, a pastor and business people. And, they aren’t done with graduations yet.
“From a very young age out parents always instilled in us the importance of education and moving onto the next step. Now that you have you’re bachelor’s degree who’s going to go for their masters, who’s going to go for their doctorate,” Panyoua said.
You can imagine, this has bread some friendly competition between the siblings.
Their father said their success took his dream and made it a reality.
“I’m from a country that has very little education…education is always on my mind,” Vang said.
Vang didn’t let his children fulfill that dream alone. He too is a college graduate, setting an example for his family.
“With the language skills, he never felt as confident to truly use that degree so he always instilled that into us where you don’t have that barrier of the language, you are born here, raised here, you can make so much more of yourself,” Panyoua said.
For this family unit, the found success through teamwork, encouragement and the promise of a better life.
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