Born in Hoi An, Vietnam to parents who were language professors, Duong and her family escaped the Communist siege of Saigon on a U.S. cargo plane three days before the collapse of the Republic of (South) Vietnam. Then a 16-year-old about to graduate from high school, she in March 1975 had just won South Vietnam’s Presidential Honor Price in Literature, and was expected to be designated as National Valedictorian by the Ministry of Education for her perfect GPA and national ranking.