Twenty-year-old Kansas native Tom Nguyen has made history by becoming the first Vietnamese American and the first person of Asian descent to serve as a city commissioner in Garden City since 1949. Breaking barriers: Nguyen, elected to the position on Nov. 7, has since garnered recognition nationally and internationally, with calls from other Asian American city commissioners and media coverage in Vietnam. “I’ve felt such an honor that people placed their trust in me to lead them and that has garnered a recognition that I would’ve never imagined,” Nguyen told The Journal.