She has been doing this work for a long time.

Tram Nguyen's family arrived in Lawrence in January 1992 with $100 to their name. They settled in public housing directly behind the Lawrence Public Library.

Her father had survived eight years in a Vietnamese re-education camp after serving in the South Vietnamese army alongside U.S. soldiers. By the time the family was finally allowed to visit him in detention, young Tram did not recognize him.

The Lawrence librarians became her after-school caregivers. They set books aside for her every day so a five-year-old who knew no English could learn to read.

Her parents worked two to three jobs each, including delivering pizzas, while taking English classes at Northern Essex Community College. A Vietnamese neighbor drove the Nguyen kids to school in exchange for gas money.

Lazarus House Project Bethlehem in Lawrence gave the family their first Christmas presents. Tram and her sister now donate gifts back to the same program every year.

The family eventually saved enough to buy the Methuen home where her parents still live.

Tram entered Tufts wanting to be a pediatrician. She volunteered with Jumpstart, teaching local kids in Boston to read.

Then she discovered the sight of blood made her dizzy. She pivoted to policy and law, with the same instinct that had pulled her into Jumpstart: the people closest to a problem usually have the closest read on its solution.

After Northeastern Law, Tram joined Greater Boston Legal Services as a staff attorney. She became a member of UAW Local 2320, the union that represents legal services attorneys.

She led the Nail Salon Initiative, a wage-theft and workplace-rights program for low-wage immigrant women working in nail salons across Massachusetts. She built a Vietnamese-language outreach program for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

It was the policy version of the legal aid her family had needed when they first arrived in Lawrence.

She was outside a Boston courthouse, speaking Vietnamese to a client. A man approached and told her to get out of his country.

Five years later, when the Atlanta spa shootings made anti-Asian violence a national headline, this is the moment that pushed her to file Massachusetts's hate-crimes statute reform with then-Attorney General Maura Healey.

Tram challenged Republican State Representative Jim Lyons in the 18th Essex District (Andover, Boxford, North Andover, Tewksbury). Lyons had held the seat for eight years.

Certified results: Nguyen 11,663 (53.6%), Lyons 9,587 (44.0%). Margin: 2,076 votes.

Eight days after the Atlanta spa shootings killed six Asian women, Tram filed HD.1653 / SD.972 with then-Attorney General Maura Healey and Senator Adam Hinds. The bill was the first comprehensive update to the Massachusetts hate-crimes statute in decades.

She also filed H.93 (cybersecurity), H.275 (child-care transparency), and H.1107 (debt collection fairness) in the same session.

Tram secured a $65,000 state grant for a memorial honoring six North Andover servicemen lost in Vietnam. She spoke at the unveiling in October 2022.

Tram spoke at the Vietnamese American Community of Massachusetts's Black April commemoration in Fields Corner, Dorchester. As the first Vietnamese American woman elected to the Massachusetts legislature, she spoke to a packed room about the 49 years since the fall of Saigon.

After a patient stabbing, MNA and SEIU nurses picketed Tewksbury State Hospital. Tram joined the line. The picket pairs with her receipts: a $100,000 state appropriation she secured for hospital transport plus funds to keep beds open.

H.4744 was Tram's marquee bill, drawn directly from her GBLS casework with survivors who could not get restraining orders because Massachusetts courts did not recognize nonphysical abuse.

It expands the legal definition of abuse to include coercive control: a pattern of behavior used to harm, intimidate, or punish a partner. It passed the House 151-0 and was signed by Governor Healey on June 20, 2024.

It is now used as a model in other states.

Tram cut the ribbon on the new Merrimack Valley YMCA child-care center at South Church in Andover. The center opened 36 new infant-care slots in a region with one of the most acute child-care shortages in the state.

Speaker Mariano named Tram chair of the House Committee on Climate Action and Sustainability. She is the first Asian American woman in Massachusetts history to chair a House committee.

The portfolio: clean energy, climate adaptation, environmental justice, the buildout of the state's transition economy.

A folding table at the senior center, days before a town election. Walk-in constituent service, the kind every State Rep claims to do and few actually do at this cadence.

Tram filed H.449 to end the practice of forcing renters to pay a broker's fee they did not hire the broker for. The substance of the bill was enacted as part of the FY26 budget Governor Healey signed on July 4, 2025.

It saves Massachusetts renters an estimated thousand dollars per move at a moment when the state's housing market is the most expensive in its history.

A fatal crash at Route 125 and Vine Street in Andover on October 4, 2025. Within four days, Tram co-signed a letter to MassDOT demanding a Wildwood Road traffic light, citing fatalities at the same intersection in 2012, 2017, and 2020.

Tram formally entered the race for the open MA-06 House seat with a written statement and a first-day video, then visited ten communities across the district in a week.

UAW Region 9A endorsed Tram for Congress. She has been a UAW Local 2320 member since her work as a civil rights attorney at GBLS.

Twelve days later, all four MA UFCW locals (329, 791, 1445, 1459) issued a joint endorsement.

Speaker Ron Mariano endorsed Tram in late January 2026, framing the choice as one about who fights for working families.

By the end of April 2026, the count of Massachusetts state representatives publicly endorsing Tram for Congress passed forty. Speaker Mariano leads the slate. Aaron Michlewitz (Chair, Ways and Means) is on it.

At the 6th District forum in Swampscott, Tram spoke about her own family's path through public housing and food-pantry lines, contrasting her record with her competitors'.