Every morning and evening, the kitchens at the dining halls are humming with activity as hungry students pour in by the thousands. Employees work incessantly to put out more hot trays of food, gathering all the dirty dishes and utensils, cleaning the premises and swiping Wolfpack One cards to let students in.

 While students are rushing in and out of dining halls, the faces under NC State hats that serve their food and wash their dishes can become impersonal blurs. Under those hats lies a culturally diverse and hard-working staff of people from all walks of life.

 Clark Dining Hall is home to many immigrant workers, some of whom were generous enough to share their stories and feelings with me.

 Srikanth Katabathula is one of the many graduate students from India at NC State and also a cashier at Clark dining hall. He is studying industrial engineering.

 “Oh, yeah, it’s a good place to work, the managers are really cool,” Katabathula said. “The other Indians I work with here, they’re really helpful and I like working with people from all over, you know?”

 Among the workforce are several Vietnamese immigrants who have held their jobs for many years. The dish room that is constantly buzzing as hundreds of dishes come in and out is where these employees keep the action going.

 Quy Tran is a 64 year-old Vietnamese immigrant and has worked at Clark for a year, having only been in the U.S. for three years. Despite speaking very limited English, with the help of Google translate from both of our iPhones we were able to communicate comfortably. He told me he didn’t miss Vietnam, and that he came to the country when his daughter got married here, which made it easier for him to move.

 When Tran is on break having lunch, he is often sitting at a table talking and laughing with his fellow countryman Thai Nay in their native language.

 Thai Nay, who is 71 years old, is a Vietnam War veteran and a grandfather of three with a rich history he was open to sharing.

 Having lived in the country for seven years now, his English is good and he told me he enjoyed working with other Vietnamese employees like Tran.

 “You’re from India?” Nay said to an employee who had immigrated from India in the dish room. “You speak well American.”

 “He’s from Mexico, but he speaks well American,” Nay said about me, laughing behind his big glasses while wearing a gold watch that shined and stood out in the dish room.

 He joined the U.S. Army in 1962, and served until 1969. He shared with me the chronology of his military service — explaining how he was first a radio operator, then a medic, then in basic training. He trained new recruits afterwards, and then he was a company commander. He wrote down “Detachment 224 – Strike Force” to show me the specific unit he served in.

 I asked him if he saw any combat during that time.

 “Oh yeah, a lot,” Nay said. “I saw many bombs. I went into the jungle to go and fight and I would be in there for sometimes three or five months.”

 His experiences didn’t end there. Nay described how he was imprisoned after the war for nine years in Vietnam by the government for assisting the U.S. Army in the fight against the Viet Cong. He was gone from 1975 to 1984. Despite the shocking nature of the story, he remained lighthearted. He was able to immigrate to the U.S. through the Human Rights Resettlement Service and under recognition as a veteran.

 “Dish room is easier than the war,” Nay said jokingly.

 When asked more about his family, he told me his wife was in Vietnam, but it was difficult and expensive to go and see her.

 “No money, no nothing,” Nay said about the situation, smiling still.

 Nay joyfully recalled being able to meet in North Carolina with nine Vietnam veterans he had fought with, and how happy he was to see them.

 Hoang Nguyen is another Vietnamese employee who works only the morning shift. Also the same age as Nay, he described his past working in restaurants in Vietnam and being an elementary school teacher. He has been in the United States for 14 years now, and came with his younger sister, Loan Thi Vo, who also works at Clark with him and shares a past as an elementary school teacher.

 I asked him what he liked about living here.

 “Freedom,” Nguyen said. “Vietnam is communist. I don’t like, no good.”

 Randy Jaouhari, a sophomore studying computer science, works at Clark and talked about working at with diverse employees.

 “I enjoy it because you get to see different people often, and you don’t see the same type of thing everyday,” Jaouhari said. “I hear different languages, I hear different stories from different backgrounds so it’s more interesting than everyone being the same.”

 The conversation extended to two Latina women employed by the dining hall. Maribel Guzman, 49, is a Salvadoran immigrant and has been working at Clark for 12 years. Any skepticism she had about being interviewed disappeared when I began to speak to her in Spanish.

 Guzman — in Spanish — said living in the U.S. has given her a better life and future than the one she had in the conditions of El Salvador.

 Guzman said she thanks God for her job, since the managers are excellent to her and she enjoys the teamwork present there. When asked what she liked about working there, she brought up the students.

 “I get to see all kinds of students from different countries,” Guzman said. “When I hear students speaking Spanish, I get excited. I don’t know English perfectly, but I know how to do almost everything here.”

 Guzman immigrated alongside her friend Diamantina Argueta, who is 50 years old and works the same shifts as her.

 Argueta said she is also very happy with her job and how she is treated there. Argueta brought up some concerns from her own perspective as an immigrant.

 “I don’t feel very well about what people in the Latinx community here are feeling right now,” Argueta said. “In that aspect, I don’t feel comfortable.”

 When asked if there was anything she wanted people to know about her, Argueta said she is proud to be Latina.

Gallery • 2 Photos

Kyle Canter

Maribel Guzman and Diamantina Argueta, both Salvadoran immigrants, work the same shift. They came to the United States together.