Colorado honors the historic story of Denver’s Far East Center

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston only had to travel 4 miles from his downtown office to attend the Saturday, Feb. 10, Lunar New Year celebration at the Far East Center.

The close-knit Luong family, which has run the food-and-retail complex at Federal Boulevard and Alameda Avenue since opening it in 1988, traveled many thousands more.

“Back in the (late 1970s) there were not a lot of resources for immigrants and refugees in Denver,” said Mimi Luong, whose family fled North Vietnam for a refugee camp in Guam, and eventually, Denver during the fall of Saigon in 1975.

“Three or four years later, my dad and his brothers were making weekly trips to California to buy Vietnamese staples. For the first time since we arrived, our family was able to find seasoning, rice, and all the dishes w...