Maggie Duncan, Staff Writer

 

If Reckers were a person, he/she would be bipolar.

During the week, Reckers is a place for students to study or catch up, or to grab food and dash.  But when 2 a.m. rolls around on Friday, Reckers becomes an entirely different, much louder place.  A man who sees Reckers at its quietest and its loudest is Linh Tran––a staple of this popular campus hang out.

Tran has worked at Reckers for the past four years and his road to Notre Dame has not been a short one. Originally from South Vietnam, Tran came to South Bend in 1988.  He worked as a machinist before he was hired at Reckers in 2009.

Along with his interactions with students during both day and night shifts, Tran also uses his background to help teach students about life outside of the Notre Dame bubble.  Also, Tran says he often helps political science majors with questions about his home country, Vietnam.

 

Tran smiles and says, “If they have any kind of question about world history or if they have something that involved Vietnam or the Vietnam War, they ask me.”

I asked Tran why he chose to come to South Bend.  He said: “I came to South Bend because I had a sponsor.  It was an American family, [the father] served in Vietnam for the US Navy.  He wanted to reach out and help [Vietnamese] people, and I was a lucky one that he picked.”

 

“My American father and American mother [have since] passed away, but I lived with them for a while.  They were the ones who helped me start my life here,” Tran explains.

He continued, “At that time I had no clues about Notre Dame.  I just knew that Notre Dame was ranking as one of the biggest universities in the United States, and it’s local.  I wanted to get involved and understand more.  So I think I was lucky I got the job at Reckers—it’s exactly what I really wanted.  I get to interact with the students, I get to learn a lot from the students, it gives me an experience on how I can help my kids and how I can inspire my kids.  It’s good.”

 

In addition to his American foster family, Tran has biological family around the globe, from the United States to Vietnam, and even in Australia.  Tran also has three daughters of his own here in the United States.  One of the key points Tran emphasized while speaking to me was that being around Notre Dame students helps him raise his own children.  Working at Reckers has shown him much about kids and college life.

 

“I happen to learn so many different ways how students live their life in college.  It’s very interesting,” he says of his interactions with students.

 

When Tran elaborated, he touched on the dual personality that Reckers, and sometimes students, have.

 

“You see a lot of students with different characters [at night].  The next day when you see them they are a completely different kid.  They don’t even remember who they were last night.  Some of them realize what they did and they come to me and apologize.  I think when I saw the student I saw myself.  Even though I wasn’t that bad, when I look at the student, when I interact with the student, I think, ‘That could be me.’”

 

Tran’s advice for students here at Notre Dame is quite simple:

“The students need to focus on why they came to the University of Notre Dame.  What’s the reason why they choose the University of Notre Dame?  From that perspective, they can guide themselves.  Coming to the University of Notre Dame was the big dream, for most of the students.  When they came here and they interacted with all their friends, sometimes they sidetrack.  Coming to Notre Dame is a big decision.”

 

Tran would be happy to stay at Notre Dame and Reckers for a while, building up relationships with students and learning from them.

He also has one important message to convey to Notre Dame students: “I love the students in so many ways. They are the future.  Notre Dame is the future of the country.”

 

It seems that Tran is part of the future of Notre Dame, too.  Whether Reckers is your spot for studying or for questionable cheese fries at 3 a.m., stop in and see one of the people who makes Reckers a popular place for students.  Stop in to learn a little from Linh Tran.

 

Maggie Duncan is a freshman who has never actually had the cheese fries at Reckers. If you have particularly strong feelings towards cheese fries and would like to advise her about their consumption, you can contact her at mduncan5@nd.edu.