Willy Lo was born in 1953 in Cho Lon, Vietnam, a Chinese ethnic enclave in Saigon, the capital of the former state of South Vietnam. He has two siblings, one elder brother and one younger sister. He and his family are ethnically Chinese, though his family has resided in Vietnam for a significant period of time, and both he and his sister were born there. Because his father had died before his birth and his mother subsequently found work as a housekeeper in Laos, he and his siblings were primarily raised by their grandmother. The Vietnam War began in autumn of 1955, soon after his birth; however, Mr. Lo was able to escape the country in 1968, prior to the Fall of Saigon in 1975. He fled to a refugee camp in Vientiane, Laos, where he was reunited with his older brother and mother. Following two years in the refugee camp, he was offered an opportunity to move to the United States through a connection in a Christian church in Laos. Mr. Lo settled in Toccoa, a small town in Georgia, where he attended a local Christian high school, and later a local Christian college, Toccoa Falls College, until he learned of new opportunities for work in Houston, TX. After obtaining a degree in Automotive mechanics from San Jacinto College and establishing himself in Houston, he was able to successfully sponsor his entire family, his mother, brother, sister, and grandmother to come to the United States. Mr. Lo currently owns and runs a small furniture business in Houston with his wife. He and his wife live with their two children and her mother.
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