After spending her first two years without a job and looking for work, Mai found a full time job as an inspector in a local manufacturing plant. Work provided an opportunity to use English with supervisors and, less formally, with, as Mai put it, "Mexicans or American people". Interestingly though, Mai says that when opportunities arise to speak in English with her colleagues, it isn't structural issues with the language that prevent communication but rather, the lack of common topics. She found that after talking for a little while, there wasn't much to say to one another. Occasionally, she used Vietnamese at work when interacting with a Vietnamese colleague.

Mai and her family had little contact with communities (religious or civic organizations) where English was used as the primary language of communication. Having a job provided Mai with several motivators for learning English. One was the colleagues that she communicated with at work. A second is the fact that her workplace will pay the fees for ENL classes as she discusses in an interview from winter 2006.