Jill Nhu-Huong Miller, Vietnamese community leader, dead at 80
By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Staff Writer
Jill Nhu-Huong Miller, 80, Hawai'i's second Vietnamese immigrant, died of leukemia Thursday in Kaimuki, where she worked as a volunteer, one-woman Vietnamese social service bureau.
Miller taught Vietnamese women English and took them to vote. She checked on elderly Vietnamese to make sure they took their medication and drove them to see the doctor.
Jill Nhu-Huong Miller was a benefactor to Honolulu's Vietnamese community in many ways.
She arranged weddings and funerals for newly arrived Vietnamese who didn't know how.
Born in Hue on Dec. 20, 1920, she married State Department employee David Miller and came to Hawai'i in 1960. Miller immediately collected medicine and 25,000 pounds of clothing for victims of a fire in Saigon.
For several years, at the request of a general, she taught Vietnamese to GIs at Schofield Barracks who were bound for Vietnam, then taught Marines. During this time, she founded Operation School House for children of Vietnamese military.
When the new communist government of Vietnam ended the program, Miller in 1972 launched the Vietnamese American Association of Hawai'i.
Miller was called "the doyenne of Vietnamese culture" in Hawai'i for her activities that introduced Vietnam to people here at a time when the country was little known. Her daughter said that when she entered Roosevelt High School in 1960, the other students confused Vietnam with Vienna.
Miller wrote a Vietnamese cookbook and opened the first Vietnamese restaurant in Honolulu. Now there are more than 20. The association she founded sponsored Vietnamese fashion shows and food festivals.
Survivors are her daughters Olga Caldwell and Annie Fletcher, both of Honolulu, and grandchildren Miles and Minh Topping and Tahi Caldwell. Funeral services will be private. Donations may be made in Miller's memory to the Vietnamese American Association of Hawaii, 3173 Harding Ave., Honolulu, HI 96816.
