Through Our Eyes: Thomas Nguyen

“Being blind has given me power.” – Thomas Nguyen

The plastics manufacturing department of Alphapointe (commonly referred to simply as plastics by those who work there) is a huge brightly lit room, filled with machinery, shipping pallets, and workers weaving efficiently between equipment.

It just so happens that many of the members of the team that comprise the Alphapointe Plastics Department are blind or visually impaired. One such staffer can be found bustling in between machines, as plastic pill bottles are cascading into a box, which he will then tape shut, arrange just so on a shipping pallet, and retrieve another box to restart the process. This man is 41-year-old Thomas Nguyen. He is completely blind and has been working in the plastics department of Alphapointe for 10 years. Before that he worked for another company while living in California.

Thomas is the oldest of three boys; he was borne in Vietnam. When I questioned him regarding his medical diagnosis, he responded with a dead pan tone, “I can not see nothing at all.” When I questioned further as to a medical term for his condition he responded with “totally blind” in the same dead pan tone. I could here the smile in his voice as he answered.

Thomas contracted measles at age 3. Due to complications caused by the measles, Thomas’s vision would slowly deteriorate until he was “totally blind” by the time he was 18 years old.

At age 23, Thomas had the opportunity to move with his mother and two brothers to the United States. Thomas would live in California for two years before relocating to Kansas City, Missouri, to work first for another company before joining the Alphapointe Plastics Department.

You’d think someone who spends all day moving quickly would be idle upon leaving the job. Thomas, however, is anything but when he’s off the clock. Thomas has been married to Trang Nguyen for 10 years, and together they have three small children. To some a young couple with three kids may seem like it is nothing out of the ordinary, but every day is an adventure, for both parents are completely blind and all three children are completely sighted.

Thomas met his wife Trang when he returned to Vietnam for a visit and convinced her to return with him. They work at Alphapointe together; Thomas working the morning shift, and Trang working second shift in the evenings. When they are not at work, the Nguyen’s lead a perfectly normal family existence, excluding the fact that both parents are blind and their three children can see. The three children are all girls, and are 8, 5 and 18 months of age.

“I am a very lucky man,” says Thomas about his family and his life. “God has given me three beautiful children.”

But, Thomas adds, “it’s not easy,’ when asked about the family dynamic with two blind parents and three sighted children. “All that sighted people can to, we can do, but we have to be tougher. Sighted people can change diapers, blind people can change diapers as well, maybe just a little more messy then sighted people.”

Thomas goes on to discuss the powers of stealth that his children have developed, as they hone these talents by sneaking around their completely blind parents.

“They are always sneaking over to do something,” says Thomas regarding his children’s ninja skills. “They will quietly mess with the phone, or the computer, and you have to be constantly asking them what they are doing or touching them to find out what they are up to or where they are.”

Thomas expands on his life and what he wants to convey to those who are sighted on the outside looking in.

“Sighted people look at my family, and they look at the blind community and they should know that we are very independent. We take the kids places, we go shopping and the kids help me pick out groceries, I take my kids to play at the park. We lead a perfectly normal life, things are just a little slower, a little tougher.”

Thomas explains some of the stresses of being a blind parent, describing how like all blind people he must be constantly aware of his surroundings when he is out in the world, but Thomas and Trang must also be aware of not only themselves, but their three children as well, making sure that their kids are always all safe and accounted for.

“Our kids know their parents are blind, and sometimes they will help us out, he says.”

As I shut off my recorder and shake hands with Thomas, he thanks me for the interview and says: “Being blind has given me power. We’re stronger and tougher than others, we do everything. Nobody thought that two blind people could raise three children, but we take care of them, feed them right, cook for them, we can do it all, we have that power.”