ORLANDO, Fla. — Hung’s Tailor Shop in Orlando’s Mills 50 District is open six days a week, but owner Jenny Smith says sometimes, she’s there for all seven — even Sunday, the one day the shop is closed. 

She says her uncle, who founded the business in 1983, was exactly the same way when he ran the shop: so busy that he rarely even stopped for lunch.

But all the hard work of being a seamstress doesn’t seem to stress Smith out.

“I love it, I just love what I’m doing,” she said.

It’s in her blood, Smith said, explaining that she learned how to sew when she was 5 years old and still living in Vietnam.

She stayed there until her late 20s before moving to the United States, following two of her aunts who had married American soldiers they met during the Vietnam War.

Smith said those aunts emigrated to the U.S. first and later sponsored citizenship for her and several other family members.

Like so many other immigrants, Smith said her family came to the U.S. chasing a better life.

“America’s like a dream country — everybody wants to come here,” she said. “Right now, I think it’s better, but before we left Vietnam, it was very difficult to get a job.”

She said her parents struggled in Vietnam to find employment to support their large family, but in Orlando, where the family settled, business is booming.

So much so that Smith and her four full-time staff members stay busy just about every day of the week. Hung’s Tailor has a loyal fanbase, with some customers driving an hour or more to bring their clothes to Smith.

“There's a difference between an alterations and a tailor’s — this is a tailor’s,” said Kissimmee resident Duncan Wardle, who has been coming exclusively to Hung’s for 10 years. “They care, that’s the difference."

Hung’s Tailor isn't the only Mills 50 business attracting visitors from near and far. Some folks will drive several hours just to eat and shop for rare Asian herbs in the neighborhood informally known as “Little Saigon,” according to Ricky Ly, a first-generation Vietnamese American who runs Tasty Chomps, an award-winning local food blog.

Although there’s no official roster of Asian-owned businesses in Mills 50, Main Street Coordinator Joanne Grant estimates there are “dozens and dozens” spanning several blocks near the busy intersection of Colonial Drive and Mills Avenue.

Like Hung's Tailor, many of the businesses are owned and operated by Vietnamese Americans.

For Smith’s family, Central Florida’s warm climate was attractive, reminding them of their native Vietnam. According to the Orange County Regional History Center, that’s one, but certainly not the only, reason Vietnamese people chose to resettle in this region after the war.

“Hung and Kim Nguyen are believed to have opened the first Vietnamese-owned business in the area, which was a grocery and jewelry store,” a spokesperson from the Orange County Regional History Center wrote in an email to Spectrum News 13. “They said that they liked the Mills and Colonial location because the rent was reasonable, traffic was heavy, and it seemed central to most parts of the city.”

That last part is especially key, because Central Florida’s Vietnamese American community is uniquely dispersed throughout the region, setting it apart from other immigrant communities in places like California and Texas. 

“Vietnamese families didn’t move into the same neighborhoods, so the influence of Vietnamese refugees and families was primarily seen in the business district that formed in Mills and Colonial,” the email said.

And several decades later, the area’s Asian influence remains a welcome source of comfort and familiarity for immigrant business owners like Smith.

“It becomes like a community,” she said.

Following family ties

Not quite 17,000 Vietnamese Americans live in Central Florida, making them the region’s fourth-largest group of Asian Americans, according to the Pew Research Center. Although immigrants choose to resettle for many different reasons, experts say they’re often motivated by family or friends who make the move first.

That was the case for Smith, who followed her aunts and uncle to the U.S. back in the 90s. Since then, she’s never been back to her native Vietnam.

“I’d love to go, but I’m too busy,” she said. “Maybe later, when I'm retired.”

In the meantime, she’ll keep proudly carrying on her family’s legacy — diligently sewing, mending and pinning clothes to help her loyal customers look their best.