Oral History Archive

Biography

Cathy Linh Che is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press, 2025), a Finalist for the National Book Award, Split (Alice James Books) and co-author of the children’s book An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books). Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed NY, and her film We Were the Scenery won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. She teaches as Core Faculty in Poetry at the low residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles and works as Executive Director at Kundiman. She lives in New York City.

 

Thematic Overview

The interview begins (00:00) with a discussion on what inspired Cathy Linh Che to be a writer which leads to her describing her family’s refugee story (1:03) and how it affected her parents. Later, (6:00) she talks about the different types of community organizations she is a part of, like Kundiman and DVAN. Cathy then illustrates her experiences growing up in LA (8:30) compared to now in New York, and the differences in environment. This leads to her reflecting on her works (15:35) such as Asian American A to Z, Split, Becoming Ghost, and We Were the Scenery and what they mean to her and what she hopes audiences can take away from it. Towards the end of the interview, (27:30) Cathy gives advice for young poets and how you can use art to express yourself.

 

Oral History Transcript 

Interviewee: Cathy Linh Che (CC)

Interviewers: Ethan Alfonzo (EA)

Date of interview: December 9, 2025 

Location: Remote interview via Zoom 

Collection: DVAN@SFSU Oral History Archive, Fall 2025-Spring 2026 

Length of interview: 00:32:54

Overseen by: Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau 

 

(00:00) 

CC: Thank you. 

 

EA: Our first question is, how did you become interested in writing? What or who inspired you? 

 

CC: I would say that it's unknown how exactly I got interested in writing itself, but I was always inspired by my family stories. They are amazing storytellers, and they would tell me about their lives in Vietnam and the aftermath in the Philippines. That's something that I really wanted to take up. I know there's background noise, but that's part of the texture. Is that okay? 

 

EA: On our end, we don't hear any background noise, so I think you should be all good. 

 

CC: Okay, cool. Let me know if you need me to answer again, just in case I get interrupted with whatever. 

 

EA: All good. The next question that we have is, can you tell us about you and/or your family's refugee story? 

 

CC: Yeah, my parents left Vietnam in 1975, which is now 50 years ago. My dad had been a soldier in the Army and the Air Force for 12 years, even though he didn't want to be. So much of his adult life was spent in the military just because of wartime conditions. As a result, he didn't feel like it was safe to stay in Vietnam, necessarily. My mom met my dad while he was in the military and they escaped together on a boat after the war ended in 1975. They tried to leave several times. One of their attempts to leave resulted in my dad going one way, my mom ending up in jail for a night. When I think about it, what would my life be like if that were my life? When I'm thinking about my mother in particular, if I were 22 and arrested and trying to leave a whole country and trying to get on a boat to leave–it would be really terrifying, I think. She was she wasn't sure that she would make it out alive, and not everybody did. My dad had total confidence. He came from a fishing village, so he felt very comfortable at sea. He ended up being the kind of the person who navigated the boat to the Philippines. When they ended up in the Philippines, they were in the refugee camp for 11 months. During the time, they were actually about 8 or 9 months in, they were used as extras in the filming of Apocalypse Now, which was being done in the Philippines at the time. Then after that filming, they received the notification that they could come to the United States, so they came to the U.S. after that, in June, I believe, of 1976. 

 

EA: Okay. I know you mentioned that your father was in the film called Apocalypse Now. Is that correct? 

 

CC: Both my parents were. 

 

EA: Gotchu. Could you expand more on that? 

 

CC: Yeah. My parents were in a refugee camp with all of these other Vietnamese refugees who were escaping from Vietnam after the war. It's unclear to me exactly how many people there were–it was probably between50 and 100 refugees who were in that camp. From that camp, they were told one day, “Hey, get all your stuff. Let's get on this bus.” So they boarded the bus, they were told that they could be in a movie. All the people–there were children, there were babies, there were adults, there were older people. All the people ended up playing extras in the filming of Apocalypse Now, which is a Vietnam War epic that was very expensive. It was actually a critique of the Vietnam War in many ways, but it also glorified it so it's complex. But it's a film that won a bunch of Oscars. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. So my parents played people who were the enemy or prisoners of war or interpreters. They played a variety of characters, but you can't really see them visually. You can see my father in a helmet, or you can see  

(5:00) my mom maybe in a hat, or you can see little people in the distance, but you can't really see the people up front–their faces or their voice, you can't hear their voices. But there was some people in the refugee camp where you can see them and they're recognizable. But again, they're playing spies and enemy people, or people who get shot and killed, you know? So it's not really a full portrait of Vietnamese people. It's just Vietnamese people in some ways as props to tell a story about the United States. 

 

EA: Awesome. Thank you. The next question we have is, have you worked with community 

organizations that support Asian American and/or diasporic Vietnamese writers? Why? And then obviously expand on that if you can. 

 

CC: Yeah. I am currently the executive director of Kundiman. We are a literary nonprofit for Asian American writers. I started working here because I was a fellow as a poet. I applied to this program. They have an annual summer retreat, so I came there as a retreat fellow. I guess I entered the community because my friend Ron Villanueva. R.A. Villanueva was a fellow and he said, “You got to apply.” Over the duration of time, I had met different people who have been involved in Kundiman. So I kind of felt like, oh, this would be a good set of friends to be a part of, a good community to be a part of. So most everything else stems from that friendship. I'malso an advisor for DVAN, which is a Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network. Because I know a lot about literary nonprofits for Asian Americans, I am an advisor to just–they had some advice they sought early on about, “How do you do the nonprofit thing?” They’re very, in my mind, their programming is so robust, and they do so many great things that they probably can advise me at this point. They are up and running. Really amazing work that they're doing. I'm excited by all their initiatives. I believe in these spaces. I know that right now they're really important to have just because people do need a community. Just because the work that we do isn'talways understood in classroom spaces or in spaces that aren't specifically among Asian diasporic people or Asian or people of color spaces or Asian Pacific American spaces or Vietnamese spaces. So each, each of these spaces, offer something that's important and interesting as well. 

 

EA: Thank you. The next question we have is, tell us more about how it was growing up in Los Angeles? 

 

CC: What's interesting is because I'm sitting outside of a coffee shop in Long Beach right now, California, where my  parents now live. There’s–you can't hear it now, probably on zoom–but I can hear it there. Sirens in the distance, right. There's something about growing up in LA that is very marked by police presence. You always had helicopters flying overhead, you always had police officers. But you also have–so that's one aspect of it,it's so layered. You also have a lot of people of color. It's like, LA was Mexico and before then it was indigenous folks. My parents, when they came to the US, they came to northeast LA and found a group of Vietnamese refugees they went to a church with. They also connected a lot, because my parents were Catholic, they also connected with a lot of Mexican American Catholic folk. Both my brothers have Mexican or Salvadoran godparents, for instance. I feel like I grew up into a very immigrant working-class LA that was really full of love and support and liveliness and people feeding each other and taking care of each other. That's how I would strongly describe my experience of growing up here. 

 

(10:00) EA: Awesome. I know we did some research that you also lived in New York City. Is that correct? 

 

CC: That is correct. I currently live in New York. 

 

EA: Gotchu. How is the environment different compared to Los Angeles? Or how would you say growing up in Los Angeles compared to New York? Or what is the best of both worlds, you would say, in your experience of living there? 

 

CC: Yeah, definitely. Because I think that New York is the center of a lot of things. New York is a center of publishing, for instance, in the United States. Not to say there aren't other spaces that do publishing, but all the big publishing houses are located in New York. There’s so much funding for literary nonprofits, as well as just generally arts. The arts is well funded in New York, and unfortunately it's less well funded in California. Which is a shame because California has so much money. It's like what, the fourth biggest economy in the world? But one thing about New York that is different is the racial hierarchy, because there's a sense that a lot of the institutions are still like–you look at, oh, who's the executive director here? It's still a white person, right? Then you look all the way down. Oh, your program person is a person of color or your youth coordinator or something like that. There's a deeply entrenched racial hierarchy that I didn't grow up with in the same exact way in LA. I'm sure it exists, but in my circles it's just not as common, I feel, to see the executive directors all be white people. There’s something that feels lived-wise, very different in that regard. But in terms of the benefits of New York, I did grow up as a poet there. I have an amazing community from my MFA as well as Kundiman, where I was a fellow. Over the years, all of the spaces that support artists get funding in some way from the government or get funding from collectives. Yeah, it brought me up as a writer, and I still feel connected to it as a writer in New York, even though LA has plenty to offer. Because when I'm here in LA, I feel it, this amazing community of people who are people of color. Who grew up as immigrants or children of immigrants working class. That really feels heartening in all these ways. I feel seen in that way here specifically. 

 

EA: Thank you so much. Our next question we have is how has your family's history shaped your values and sense of identity growing up? In what ways can you expand on that? 

 

CC: Yeah, it's really interesting because of my parents and their lives under war. I mean, both of my parents, kind of the day they were born. They were born into a war and the day they left Vietnam, they left at the end of a war. But it's not really over yet because there's reverberations. The war ended April 30th, 1975, and they left in end of June. They’re still under this space that's very unsafe. There's political realities that go with it and so much of Vietnam’s history is really of a history of colonization. I think that story of power is something that I feel in my bones. I feel that story of all kinds of power because it's not just one specific power exchange. I have a very unusual Vietnamese last name. It's Che, right? In Vietnamese, it's actually Chế, and it's an indigenous people's last name. It’s people who don't look like Nagin, which is the majority of Vietnamese people. They are a little browner–this is on my dad's side–they’re a little browner, their faces just look a little different. They look religiously of extreme religious minority, like Muslim or Hindu, completely different language, right? Sothere's a way where I would say my upbringing has led me to very easily connect with and identify with, people who are historically oppressed. It’s not hard for me to understand my Asian American identity as one that is tied into international forms of oppression. When I say oppression, it's all kinds of stuff, like  

(15:00) governments maiming and stealing and unaliving people. So all kinds of things that I don't feel so naive in a way. I don't feel naive about American innocence, America has never been innocent. It's built on a foundation of genocide and enslavement, so it's not hard for me to understand that. 

 

EA: Awesome. Thank you so much. Our next question that we have is, what inspired you to be a co-author for “Asian American A to Z?” 

 

CC: Sure. Yeah. I would say part of my work at Kundiman, as the executive director, meant that I really wanted to understand where does creative writing in this space come from? And even the term Asian American is a political identity that was invented in 1968. So not even that long ago, right? Like at San Francisco State, at UC Berkeley. It felt like an awakening to some degree where I was like, oh, the poetry that I write that I care so deeply about actually has a root in the space of Kundiman. It has a root in the Asian-American movement and so I felt like it was a revelation. It wasn't a shocking revelation, but just a joyful revelation to understand that our histories are naturally, explicitly political, explicitly brought about by activism. And so, at least within Asian-American studies, these circles will kind of talk about–what is the first Asian-American literature and where does that come from? Okay. There’s like Angel Island, just one that you can trace it to, or you can also trace it to the movement. I wanted children to have a sense of where they came from, because I didn't have that. I had the very specific sense of my Vietnamese identity, but not my Asian-American identity. And the other amazing thing is, so much of the Asian-American movement came about because of the Vietnam War. We wouldn'tnecessarily have the way that it was shaped or brought about or galvanized without the war kind of showing people in the United States that the United States is completely happy to just kill as 

many Asian looking people, Asian people, as possible. I think that really shook a lot of people to their core. Similar to the way that Palestine is for a lot of people, for the last two years, just unbearable and has created for them, a sea change in how they see themselves and their own responsibilities. So I guess some of it is just the desire to bring knowledge that I learned to young people and to make it accessible. So that was a primary impulse for making that book. 

 

EA: Gotcha, thank you so much. I know you have a piece. I think it's called Split. Could you expand more on what that means to you? 

 

CC: So my first poetry book is called Split, and it's about my mother, who–I mean, that poem is specifically about my mom. She was 13 years old, and she lived with–during the war, she was living with her family. Then the United States, the CIA, John F Kennedy staged a coup to take out the South Vietnamese president, remove him from power and kill him, basically. That created a power vacuum, that created a lot of ripple effects. Soripple effects include unrest in the villages. So where maybe there was a little bit of a strong ruler in place, so things aren't so chaotic, when he was killed, then things became chaotic. It meant the rise of what my parents would see as the enemy. That meant, therefore, the introduction of American troops into her village. That introduction of troops into her village meant that she was a 13 year old girl, she was very beautiful. And they were these 18 year old boys coming up to her and talking to her and wanting a piece of her hair just to put on their helmets. Almost, which is so creepy, I have to say, but that created this separation between my mother and her mother. So they were split  

(20:00) at that moment, and she was sent to live with other family in the larger city for safekeeping. Because at that time, it was more like the villages that the troops were in, and they hadn't yet gone into the big city, which is Da Nang. So that's the kind of origin story that I've heard thousands of times from my mom and she really does blame America for rupturing her familial relationship between her and her mother. So I think that poem is really about that story and about the fear, you know? So it talks about that intersection between war violence and gender based violence in terms of sexual assault or rape or any type of boundary that is crossed. So that would be the origin story of that specific poem, but there's a lot of ways poets like to think about every single meaning that a word has. So, Vietnam was split into North and South, there’s a lot of ruptures in that book. That book is about–it thinks a lot about, what people do to other people. So there's all types of splits and ruptures in that way in that book. 

 

EA: So thank you so much. I know as a poet there's some pieces that are released and that aren’t released to the general public. Is there any pieces that you have that are in, I would say, like in the dark that you haven'treleased to the public yet? Or are there any that you want to share to highlight one of your favorites? Or is there any pieces that are even unfinished that you would like to share? 

 

CC: Yeah, that's a great question. So I published my second book of poems this year, it's called Becoming Ghost. It really was focused on my parents' lives as Vietnamese refugees who were extras in Apocalypse Now. I'vewritten over the years so many love poems or like longing poems. And so some part of me thinks, well, I would like to explore love and rage and that whole space. So I have a writing practice that–I’m on hiatus–but generally I have a daily writing practice and sometimes I write like I’m–it's like a play–it’s like a sandbox. It’s like you get to build structures and then whether or not people get to see it, it's a way to push against,  expandwhere I–my own capacity. So I have these poems that have dollar signs all across and they go in this way just to think about “what is money?” thinking about money. I'm thinking about, I'm also pushing to think about poetry as this political act. So thinking about what are the–how do you continue to creatively think about poetic possibilities? Cause, poiesis means “to make,” right? And so it's like, how does a poem make a world? How does a poem make a world more just or different? So that is something I'm pressing a lot against and wanting to read more about and just continue to feed. The other area is I just want to write, start writing simple love poems. Because I think that even though I'm a deeply politically inclined person and that's my root, the whole of humanity isn't just fighting the power. It's also being a person who falls in love. So that is also a componentof where I'm trying to write more into because any place that feels like a limitation, I'm trying to just step by step or inch by inch see what's possible. 

 

EA: Awesome. Thank you so much. That follows up with my next question: is there any work that you're working on to this day or what is next? What is the next step for–I would say, Cathy, what–if people are interested in your journey, what could they look forward to? 

 

CC: So it's interesting because I am currently–because there's phases where you just write, and then there's phases where you share things out, and there's phases when, where you share things out and you really try to make sure that your work needs an audience. So, I also made a short documentary film called “We Were the Scenery”. It's about the same story as the poetry book and it's a companion story. It was Oscar eligible in January when we won a prize at Sundance. So that means-I was like, why not? Let's see if we can get on the Oscar shortlist, which means the 15 films that are nominated for the Oscar. So a short documentary film. So next Tuesday is going to be when that's revealed.  

(25:00) Usually for that, it's like, what does that do? And in some ways these institutions, they raise the visibility of a project. Even if we don't win that, get on the shortlist, I feel very proud to try because I do want this story to be able to be something that everybody has access to. So that's happening, I want to write prose about the same topic. I want to write potentially a feature length scripted narrative about the same topic. So I feel like the reason why I'm exploring it through different genres and media is I think of the story as not able to be contained in one genre. Because what is genre anyway? Right? So it's just a way to make sure that there's different sides in all of these ways because every genre offers some new possibility. I want to make possible every aspect of this story so that as many people can know it and experience it. And the aim, I think, for me is just–growing up, I didn't see Vietnamese voices in the library or the radio or film, media, and that's changing a lot now. Thank God. But I want to be part of that so somebody else coming up can have access to this history and this set of possibilities where Vietnamese people aren't just the victims or the enemies, but just whole, complex messy people. 

 

EA: Gotcha, gotcha. Thank you so much. The next question I do have is, what is some advice that you would give to any young poets or people who would try to put their mind onto a piece of paper or try to express themselves, but they're having a hard time to? Or if they're going through something, what advice coming from a poet would you give the youth or someone who's looking to just express themselves other than inside the mind? Kind of like in a physical form in a sense.What would you say would help them? Or just overall help them express themselves if they're going through anything? 

 

CC: Yeah, I would say one. Is that everything that you make, it's yours. It's your decision what you do with it. So sometimes writer's block comes from the feeling that it has to be perfect or that somebody is going to judge it. So if you give yourself the space to make mistakes, the space to just express purely and to know that it's not an end goal, it's a process. There's a lot of freedom to make as much of your creation as a space of freedom as possible, like exploration, play. So just approaching the page and identifying within yourself: what are your fears? So I used to have this fear that I was being melodramatic. If I was telling my parents' story in a particular way. I told my workshop that and my friend said, the next time you write a poem, at the top write, “be melodramatic” up top. I did that, and it opened up this whole universe for me because I gave myself permission to do something I was afraid of being judged for. And it wasn't that I was afraid of being judged, I was afraid that I would disrespect my family story by making more of it than it was. But then it's like being that reserved, created this wall that meant that I wasn't actually–and it wasn't just my family's stories, it was my own story. It set up a wall that actually, if I went further and I went further, I can decide where it can go, but to pre-censor myself felt like a disservice. So I would say just-just make it a space of freedom, play, exploration. If that's the thing that you want to do is too big, and you feel like you have to figure it all out, just start somewhere. Start somewhere small and know that whatever, wherever you are, wherever you doing, that's more than enough. Because the world needs your voice and you need your voice more than anything. So making it a personal, positive, good relationship and not one that's punitive or stressful, that will free you a lot. 

 

EA: Gotcha, thank you so much. And then, with the last question that I do have is,  

(30:00) what advice would you give to someone youth, old, any age, that's just going through any type of trauma? Maybe it's generational trauma, trauma right now, some type of form of oppression or anyone who's just going through this struggle–anyone that's going through some type of stress, micro and macro and, no matter the size. What would you–what type of advice would you give to someone that wants to just overcome what they're facing, either from the past, the present, or something that they're stressing about in the future? 

 

CC: Well, there's a lot of ways to think about it because it's never easy, right? But when my friend gave me this great quote by Rilka and said–I was going through a really sad time in my life. She said, “no feeling is final.” What that meant was you might feel heartbroken now, you might feel sad now, you might feel stress or trauma or in high pain or depressed. But no feeling is final because there could be possibly–the self is a process–a day when you're not going to feel this way. So that is really helpful to think about, that there could be a day when you wake up and it feels completely different. You feel completely different without having to try to find a solution for it all the time, because sometimes it's just the natural process of being alive. We have–it’s so dynamic. You're out in the sun, you're feeling bad but then you eat a sandwich. So I would say that's one piece of advice. The other piece of advice is there are things that we know would be helpful and sometimes you can't do it all on your own, so get people around you to help you. Sometimes it's physical, it's like you don't feel good, you need more sleep. Okay, set yourself–life up to sleep better. But also talk to your friends about it. Talk to your friends about it and they'll give you advice because everybody's going through it, you know? So if you'renot eating enough, you're not eating well, you're not eating healthy, try that. If you're not exercising, just recruit some friends, help with that. So all of these things cumulatively give you the possibility of feeling better and moving through things. There's no one way to move through pain. There's many ways and everybody has found something. I'm giving one piece of advice, but I'm sure ten people, 20 people in your life that you know cangive you all kinds of good advice. So just try one thing, see how you feel. 

 

Biography

Monique Truong is a Vietnamese American novelist. She’s also an essayist, lyricist/librettist, and intellectual property attorney. Truong is the author of the bestselling, award-winning novels The Book of Salt, Bitter in the Mouth, and The Sweetest Fruits and the co-author of the children’s picture book Mai’s Áo Dài. She’s a co-editor of the anthology Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry & Prose. 

 

Thematic Overview

(0:00) In the first part of the interview, Monique Truong discusses her family’s migration story. She explains that she was born in South Vietnam and came to the United States as a refugee in 1975, just before the fall of Saigon. She talks about staying at Camp Pendleton in California and how that moment marked the beginning of her life in the U.S. (5:00) Monique explains how migration affected her language and writing. She talks about learning English at a young age, mainly through television, and how switching languages made her more conscious of words. This experience influenced how she approaches writing and self-expression. (10:00) The conversation focuses on the challenges she faced as an Asian American and Vietnamese American writer. She explains how the publishing industry had narrow expectations and how her work did not always fit the stereotypes people expected, even though her book later became successful. (15:00) Monique talks about the impact of COVID-19. She explains that while the pandemic increased anti-Asian hate, it also gave her space to reflect creatively. During this time, she explored new genres and wrote a children’s book, something she had not planned to do before. In the final part of the interview (20:00), Monique reflects on what writing means to her personally. She talks about the magic of storytelling, connecting with readers, inspiration from other writers and everyday life, family influence, and why she left law to become a writer. She emphasizes creative freedom and the deep fulfillment writing gives her.

 

Oral History Transcript

Interviewee: Monique Truong (MT) 

Interviewers: Ruby Ma (RM)  

Date of interview: December 4, 2025  

Location: Remote interview via Zoom 

Collection: DVAN@SFSU Oral History Archive, Fall 2025-Spring 2026  

Length of interview: 00:30:00  

Overseen by: Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau 

 

(0:00) 

RM: John Gonzalez and Monique Truong. All right. So, Monique, can you tell us more about–can you tell us about your family’s migration story and your background?  

 

MT: Sure. First, I’m going to say my name so that you have the correct pronunciation of my last name. Okay, so it’sMonique Truong. Okay. 

 

RM: All right.  

 

MT: Great. Okay. Migration story. I was born in South Vietnam in 1968, and my parents and I came to the U.S. as refugees from the Vietnam War in May of 1975. Actually, we left–my mother and I left in April of 1975. April 22nd, to be exact. That was a couple of days before the fall of Saigon. And we, like the refugees at that time, we were held in a relocation camp called Camp Pendleton. That was in San Diego, California and that’s where our journey in the U.S. began. 

 

RM: All right. So with your experiences with the Vietnam War and your family’s migration, did it have an effect on your writing as an Asian American writer?  

 

MT: Yes, I would say so. I think the first sort of thing that I would cite is that it changed my primary language to come here. My first language was Vietnamese, and when I was young, I also went to a French preschool. So, in a way, that was myfirst sort of second language I was learning, you know? So, [when] I came here, I turned six years. I was six. I turned seven in Camp Pendleton and from that point on I think I was trying to learn English. But I would say that I learned English by watching television. Even though I was very, very lucky in the sense that I came over at such a young age solearning, acquiring a new language was almost a seamless sort of experience. But at the same time, it affected, I would say, my writing and what I wrote about. Because language was never again something that I didn’t have to think about, you know? It is always something that is a self-conscious act, you know? And so I think that really affects the way that you approach words and writing and expression in general. 

 

RM: With all this in mind, did you face any challenges as an Asian American writer? 

 

MT: Oh, of course. I mean, my first book was published. My first novel was published in 2003. At that point, I could count on one hand the number of novels and memoirs that have been published in the U.S. There was quite an expectation of what Asian American authors in general, but specifically Vietnamese American authors, would be writing about. That our work would be primarily centered on the refugee experience, the war, etc. For me to have written and try to publish a book that was that instead

(5:00) in the years prior to the American [involvement] in Vietnam, something that was set in the late 1920s, early 30s in France, I think that was very unexpected. And frankly, I’m surprised it got published, and I'm surprised that became a bestseller.  

 

RM: I’m happy to hear that.  

 

MT: Yeah.  

 

RM: In the era of COVID-19, were you ever affected by it and your [publishing] of books or the banning of books? 

 

MT: Hmmm. Where–how are you making the connection between COVID-19, publication and banning of books? 

 

RM: I’m speaking about as, an experience as an Asian American. As I understand, as during the era of Covid-19 it affected a lot of Asians.  

 

MT: Well, I mean, COVID-19 certainly brought in a tremendous amount of anti-Asian hate and violence. I’m not quite surethat I saw how it might have affected publishing. But perhaps people did have that experience. I can tell you, for me, what it did was that it just sort of, it kind of freed me up to kind of think about other genres to work in. You know, I think a lot of people during COVID-19 were reassessing our lives and spending a lot of time on our own, etc. It brought out sort of unexpected motivations and points of interest. I mean, so for me, I–during COVID-19—I  wrote a children's book, which was something that I had no interest really in before. Except for the fact that I do love children's literature;it meant so much to me to have been a young reader. Yeah. But I never thought prior to that: “Oh, I’m going to write a children’s picture book.” And that’s what I did.  

 

RM: That’s really heartfelt how you’re explaining more cultures. During these experiences, what do you find most meaningful as being a writer? 

 

MT: You mean, is your question about just life? In my life, what has been most meaningful about being a writer? 

 

RM: For example, when you were exploring more genres or you’re rooting for self-expression as a Vietnamese South[east]Asian Writer. 

 

MT: I think you’re going to have to, perhaps, rephrase that question for me one more time. I’d appreciate it.  

 

RM: Sorry, okay. When I was asking, what do you find most meaning of being a writer, personally for you was it expressing your experiences as a Southeast Asian writer? Or what you find most meaningful about it? As in the self-expression that comes with it when writing about your stories. I'm talking about your experiences, your personal experiences.  

 

MT: Okay.  

 

RM: Sorry.  

 

MT: Okay.  

 

RM: Question is confusing I'm so sorry. 

 

MT: It’s okay. I think I understand what you’re asking now. I think for me, first and foremost; I think about what it felt like to be immersed in a really good story and a really good book as a reader. From a young age going forward, to me, that has always seemed magical, that you could create this work that could affect someone so. Could make them cry,

(10:00) could make them laugh. You’re no longer there. All you have are the words on this page, on the screen, and yet you know that someone was able to achieve that. To me, it really is a magic act. So I’ve always wanted to be kind of aparticipant in that. So the fact that I’ve had an opportunity to do that now, I think that is the most meaningful thing to me. Of course, there’s also the other side of it, right? When I get feedback from readers and when they say to me, you know, this moved me or this made me want to write my own book or write my own story. I think of it as a—this continuing sort of—handing off of the baton. So that’s I would say that’s the most meaningful thing. 

 

RM: Hey, that’s good to hear. For your writing and your books, is there ever anything you wish more people knew about that you have in your books. 

 

MT: That’s a really good question. Let’s see. I think. Hmm. I think the thing that sometimes sort of amazes me and frustrates me about when I hear from readers and what they take from books, mine in particular, is that they’re always trying to find that…sort of the “autobiography” that is somehow hidden in these works of fiction. They look for it in very, in the most obvious ways, like, “Oh, there’s a female character so you must be the female character in this book. There is a Vietnamese character so you must be the Vietnamese character in this book.” I would say that the reason why I write fiction—and probably I’d say a good number of fiction writers do it—is because we can leave our bodies. We could leave our identities and sort of morph into other beings and imagine what it’s like to be in this world and in this society as someone else. That, again, it’s also kind of the magic, right, of fiction. And so, I would–I am certainly in every single one of my novels, but not in the ways that people would expect. So, yeah, I think the answer would simply be: Don’t go for the obvious connections, you know? Yeah. Yeah.  

 

RM: All right. Is there any Asian authors also inspired for your writing? That inspire you for your writing?  

 

MT: Sure. I mean, many. But I'll just share with you one name whose works have really—I find so just spectacular. And she is a Japanese author who lives in Germany, and she writes in Japanese and in German. Her name is Yoko Tawada, T-A-W-A-D-A. And I think the reason why I find her work so just thrilling is that she deals with all the topics that interestme and I think interest a lot of Asian American authors. But in sort of—not head on, you know? She, for example, has a fantastic novel that’s called, Memoirs of a Polar Bear, and that’s the English translation. And that was translated by Susan Bernofsky. It 

(15:00) tells the story of migration and immigration, but not through the bodies of humans, but through polar bears. There’s something so—there’s a whimsy to it, but there’s a poignancy as well. And a kind of a—it’s just…again because it’s not so straight on, it allows her actually to be, I think, more truthful. Get more to the truth of the experience of being displaced and trying to find a home, which is really what is often the core and the heart of her work. But you wouldn’t know it if you just read “three generations of polar bear.” But that, that is I would say one of my absolute favorites right now. Yeah.  

 

RM: That’s good to hear. I love that as metaphorical. Going more into depth about what inspires you, is there other things that inspire you as the Asian American writer other than other Asian American writers?  

 

MT: Of course. I mean, the first writers that I read were not Asian Americans. The first writers whose works I saw a version or a part of myself in were Black writers. Toni Morrison, yeah. The Bluest Eye, one of my favorite books. But when it comes to the question of inspiration. I think that, I mean, I don’t think I'm just inspired by writing. I’m inspired by all sorts of creative acts, you know? You may know that a lot of my books have to do with food or flavors and taste. To me, cooking is a creative act, you know? I am particularly inspired not by celebrity cooks or by things that are shown on TV and that sort of thing. But it’s really about the day-to-day act of nourishing yourself, your family, your community. That is particularly strong, I think that that theme of—or that bread or food as nourishing not just body, but community and soul is particularly strong in communities of immigrants and migrants. Because it’s one of the very concrete and first things that we can do once we arrive at a new place to provide us with some semblance of home. I think about what my parents were able to sort of gather and shop and kind of mimic in a tiny rural town in North Carolina, which was the first place we lived in the U.S. Something that was like a Vietnamese meal and how that comforted us. And I know that it’s not just my family. It’s almost, I would say, every single migrant, immigrant, refugee, not just here in the States, but elsewhere. This is one of the first acts of self-care. So that’s inspirational because there’s a lot of things that are not the same. We have to find substitutes. We have to find things that are just 

(20:00) even barely similar. Yet we do it and that’s not often celebrated. So those are the kind of the day-to-day acts of finding home and community and self that I think are inspirational. 

 

RM: All right. Speaking about talking to your family, do you think that your family took a big impact in your writing. 

 

MT: Uh. Um. Mm.  

 

RM: I can go more into depth, like your culture and your family background and your origins.  

 

MT: Ah, okay. Well, I mean, I grew up knowing that my grandfather on my mother's side was a bookstore owner, a book publisher, a literary translator. So I kind of knew that we had that sort of, kind of part of our family. But I didn’t really have a very close relationship with him once he was able to come to the U.S. But I suppose that in itself is important to know. That somewhere in your family line was this; just knowing that there’s the possibility of being something other than what is being presented to you in your present life? I think that surely sort of, affected my decision to or my desire,maybe, to be a writer. But my parents were very much like many refugee families, which is that they wanted stability for me. They wanted me to have a career that had a daily pay, had a monthly paycheck. It was very scary and disappointing to them once I had gone to law school, started practicing law, and then left to become a writer. That was not a decision that was applauded or welcomed. But, I think, they maybe—they felt at least that I had the law degree. I was a member of the bar. I could go back and earn a living if I needed to. Yeah, I mean, I think the desire to be a writer is a very…I don’t think anyone around you can make you be a writer or encourage you to be a writer. It has to come from so deep inside, I think. Yeah. So I suppose to answer your question, I didn’t become a writer to tell their story. I became a writer because I wanted to be part of the project of just telling stories. Of course, the folks around me and what I’ve observed and seen and experienced, they become part of the vocabulary of what I am able to use and access. But I am not the kind of, I’d say, refugee writer who was motivated to tell my family’s story. But I do. But not in the ways that you would think. You know, again: Don’t go for the obvious connection. It’s all there, though. 

 

RM: As you were talking about your story and how your family wanted to have a specific career for you, like from within. You said that being a writer comes deep within. 

(25:00) Did you always feel like you knew you wanted to be a writer, or was there a career that you wanted to pursue before that? 

 

MT: Mhm. No, I don’t think I ever had another career in mind. But it didn’t mean that as a little kid or as in high school, I knew I was going to be a writer. Because even though I have—I've shared with you, that I had this maternal grandfather who was in the literary arts—I mean, that was back in Vietnam. I did not know anyone in the U.S. who had this career that I could say: “Oh, I want to be like this person! Or I want to model my trajectory after them.” No, I just knew that there was nothing else that kind of moved me in the same way, you know? And once I was able to, started publishing little short stories, that sort of things, it kind of—it fed me in a way that nothing else has. 

 

RM: All right, so now for the last question. What do you love most about being a writer? 

 

MT: What do I love most? I love that I have the entire day to myself. When I was a lawyer, I practiced law in a large law firm in New York City. That’s how I began. We had to account for our time in increments. It used to—it began with 15-minute increments, and then eventually it went down to six-minute increments. Do you know what that means? It means that every 15 minutes—and then later, every six minutes—I had to say I was doing this kind of work and therefore, you can charge my time to this client. To live your life that way is to be owned by someone and I—There was the point in my life when I was thinking through what it would mean to leave the law, and why it was so important for me to leave the law. I thought this is not what my parents had—this cannot be what my parents had in mind for me to be owned by someone for the rest of my life. 

 

RM: That is so powerful. It must feel so freeing going from a lawyer to being a writer, to be able to self-express and all those things. 

 

MT: Yes. Thanks.  

 

RM: Right. Thank you for interviewing with us, Monique, and giving us your time.  

 

MT: Thank you and good luck with your project. And I think you’ll be sending me a transcript. Is that right? Or, yeah, is that how this works? 

 

RM: Yeah. 

 

MT: Okay, great. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, John. Thanks, Genry. Thanks, Ruby. Bye bye.  

 

RM: Bye. 

 

GD: Ruby, can you, um. Can you stop the recording? All right. I got it. 

Biography

Hoa Nguyen is a Vietnamese American poet born in 1967 in Vĩnh Long who grew up in the United States after leaving Vietnam as a child, an experience that shapes much of her literary voice and thematic focus. Raised in the Washington D.C. area, she studied at the New College of California where she earned her MFA in creative writing and later became an influential teacher and mentor in various community-based poetry programs. Now in Canada, she continues her work as a writer and educator while engaging with Vietnamese diasporic communities and conversations about cultural inheritance. Her oral history often focuses on themes of displacement, hybrid identity, and the ways personal and collective histories intersect through language.

 

Thematic Overview

In this interview, Hoa Nguyen discusses how her early love of storytelling and the musicality of poetry shaped her lifelong commitment to writing. She reflects on her family’s migration from Vietnam, her mother’s journey from farm life to circus performer, and their eventual settlement near Washington, DC, where assimilation brought both opportunity and isolation. Nguyen describes growing up mixed race without a Vietnamese community and how this sense of disconnection later informed her return trips to Vietnam. She also recounts finding cultural and artistic belonging through work with Vietnamese youth in San Francisco and through co-founding the poetry journal Skanky Possum, which emphasized community-driven literary practices. She also explains how losing her first language influences her poetry, her ongoing role as a mentor, and her collaborative work with the Vietnamese women’s collective She Who Has No Masters.

 

Oral History Transcript 

Interviewee: Hoa Nguyen (HN)

Interviewers: Sacha Besson (SB) 

Date of interview: December 4, 2025 

Location: Remote interview via Zoom 

Collection: DVAN@SFSU Oral History Archive, Fall 2025-Spring 2026 

Length of interview: 1:00:48

Overseen by: Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau 

 

(00:00)  

SB: Hi. Can you hear me? 

 

HN: Yeah, I can hear you. 

 

SB: Okay. Nice. Hi. My name is Sasha. I'm French, so I'm going to be sorry for my accent because I'm not native. So, if there's something you don't understand, just tell me and I'm okay. Yeah. 

 

HN: Accents are good. Also, I live in Canada, so we have francophones and anglophones, so.  

 

SB: That's good. Thank you. So I've seen you sign the paper I've just sent you yesterday and so we, that's just what I needed. Uh, so that's okay. We, did everything we just need to do to the interview now. 

 

HN: Okay. I’m ready. 

 

SB: Okay. So, I've seen you write a lot of books and times, but I have a few questions about that. How did you become interested in writing poems and do you have any sources of inspirations? Any models that convinced you to become a poet today? 

 

HN: I was always drawn to poetry. Specifically, I was always drawn to writing. I was always drawn to storytelling. I was one of those kids that would write comic kind of stories with drawings and words. Usually animals, you know, having some kind of adventure. And when I was in grade school, I would spend a lot of time at the library, and it was partially a way, I think, for my parents to just get us out of the house, not be on TV, in the front of the television, but also we could be supervised.  

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: But it gave me–then it gave me access to all these books. We didn't have a lot of books in my house. We had old encyclopedias back in the days, the 26 volumes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.  

 

SB: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.  

 

HN: Yes. And that my father was very thrifty. And so, he bought those used. So they were, they were probably like 40 years old [laughter] with names of countries that don't exist anymore. But anyway, but at the library, of course, you get new books. All the books, you could even request books. And I was always drawn to poetry, I think because it is a form. It's a short form.  

 

 SB: Yeah. 

 

(05:00) HN: But it's also musical. And it takes you to another kind of experience. You know, it's the most sort of artistic of the literary arts in that it's visual. It's also time-based. It also speaks across time. Like we–I was always fascinated by understanding that we have poems written by anonymous. We don't know who they were, but we have their stories or their yearnings. Their experiences encoded in these poems that exist, that are passed person to person. So there's something about, I think, the chain of meaning that became one of the elements that drew me to poetry. I think its musicality, for sure. When I was 12 and in the poetry section of the library, they had a volume of poetry translated by the American poet W.S. Merwin, of Vietnamese poems. So there was a bilingual edition and I remember being really drawn to seeing evidence of a part of me that had been held at a distance. Because being raised, when I was raised in the United States–I was born in Vietnam, raised in the US–I didn't have a lot of connection to my culture. Because my mother had married a white American who spoke terrible Vietnamese. Apparently, his Vietnamese was bad and my mother's English was pretty good. But she also wanted to get fluent. It was also during a time when it was difficult to be racialized as Vietnamese, because the war in Vietnam was ongoing, and it was such an unpopular divisive war. Anyway, so when I saw this volume of poetry from Vietnamese into English, I could read it even though I didn't have Vietnamese language since my mother just chose not to share it with me growing up. In the introduction, it said something like, the Vietnamese believe they have always been poets. And I think that's the sense I had. I justwas always a poet, you know?  

 

 

SB: Okay, okay.  

 

HN: It was always the art form for me. But of course, I think because of its relationship to music and people have more ease and access to popular music. Right? Which, of course, has an ancient relationship to poetry.  

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: Poetry and music pretty much arrived at the same time. And so I've always was drawn to song lyrics that were really poetic. So, I think that was sort of the beginning part. But yeah, I remember writing poems.  

 

SB: So it’s the musicality for you that was very important in your poems at first.  Seems like it was.  

 

HN: Yeah, and also that they're transportable. 

 

SB: Yeah. Okay. 

 

HN: Yeah. You memorize them, you share them. Yeah. And when there is a great difficulty, the things that people turn to are poetry. Right?  

 

SB: Yeah.  

 

HN: And music. But often people will share a poem when there's been a death or there's a particular thing to mark. They turn to poetry, not a novel. [laughter] 
 
 

SB: Yeah. [laughter] When you talk about your dad and your mom, can you say more about your migration story if you would like to? Your mom came to the U.S, arrived at the U.S.? If you have any stories from your parents that have stayed with you right now still if you can share with me. 

 

HN: Yeah of course. You know in the Vietnamese diaspora, we often trade in the stories of, “how do we arrive?” Because our diaspora was so marked by this war and people were displaced by it. My story is a little unusual in that my mother, didn't have a big extended family. She was kind of an orphan. And then she was raised by her grandparents and uncles and aunts. But she didn’t have protectors, you know, her parents weren'tthere.  

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

(10:00) HN: And, as a girl, she understood as a poor girl, she just grew up on a farm. She understood that she didn't have any options left to her except for to be married to, promised to some man that she didn't care about then have 13 children. And so she's being treated poorly on the farm, and she said, “I'm out.” She ran away from home when she was 15. Then by sort of luck and circumstance, she  joined a circus and became a motorcycle stunt woman in the circus. And by doing so, she had her own freedom. Right. She was making great money. She was celebrated and famous and she could choose her own life, which is all she ever wanted.  

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: So, because she could choose her own life, she dated foreigners, you know, including my biological father. That relationship didn't work out. So after I was born, she was single again and she met my new father–the person who raised me–who was in Vietnam. He had been a former Peace Corps volunteer. So he was working for an NGO in Vietnam. Working in communities to help with their water systems or whatever. And they met. They fell in love. They had to endure some pretty intense war situations. There was a big offensive called the Tet Offensive that happened… 

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: …Where they weren't sure that they were going to survive, that I was going to survive. Part of the problem was that because I was racially marked as mixed, my mother–because the war was going so badly, there were so many attacks where she was against people who thought that the northern armies. If they suspected you of collaborating with Americans or with the Westerners, you would be targeted.  

 

SB: Okay. 

 

HN: As a traitor or as an enemy. So her just having a mixed child would have marked her in those ways. So when I was born, she wouldn't take me around outside. She just kept me in the house. [laughter]  

 

SB: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I see. [laughter] 

 

HN: So anyway, she–Edward was my father's name. So she and Edward married and we left Vietnam.We were in the South. We were about two hours from Saigon and we settled in the Washington, D.C. area because he started working for the government in the State Department. The department was called the Agency for International Development or AID. And so that's where I grew up. It was 1970, so there was not a lot of community for my mother.  

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: She had no family. So she just threw herself into becoming an American. Which meant learning how to drive a car, learning English. She didn't go to traditional school. So the first time she was in a classroom was to learn English, some English skills.  
 
SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: Even though she hadn't been sent to school, she taught herself how to read and write so that she was very willful that way. So, unlike some people that might be interviewed for this history, we didn't have the very difficult voyage. We didn't have refugee camp and all that stuff. We flew and we were received by my father's family, until we settled. And then they just started having their life in the United States. And my mother kept some contact with her family. The aunts and uncles and her grandmother, who was still alive at that time for about two more years. But then she stopped communicating with them.  

 

SB: Okay. 

 

HN: And then Saigon fell in 75’. Right? But she had already stopped because they were asking for money all the time. 

 

SB: Oh, okay. 

 

HN: She didn't have any. She was struggling and her husband wasn't wanting to send money home all the time. And because she had been an independent person for so much of her adult life, she was 27 when she moved, when she immigrated. And they didn't approve of my mother's choices, her older family members. The grandmother and her aunts and uncles. When she first started being a circus performer, when she first started dating whoever she wanted to.  

 

SB: Oh yes, yeah.  

 

(15:00) HN: Or yeah, foreigners. And also, having children outside of marriage, that's a big no. [laughter] Back then, and in Vietnam in particular, but even in the United States or maybe even in France. I don't know. 

 

 

SB: Yeah maybe sometimes, can happen. [laughter] 

 

HN: You know, in the 60s, that it was not that advanced, not that modern. So she was very bold. But it cost her a sense of ever being able to return home. And she never went. She never went back.  

 

SB: Okay, and so you arrived in Washington, D.C. You say in the DVAN oral research project that being from Vietnamese descent at that time in Washington, D.C. was difficult to carry around. So did you encountered any difficulties to arrive in the capital of the United States? Of course, at that time, as Vietnamese refugees? 

 

HN: Yeah. I mean, the refugees didn't start coming until several years after we had arrived. So by the time the refugee sort of wave started coming, my mother was already working in restaurants. She was very proud of the fact that she could work in restaurants run by white people. She didn't have to work in the restaurants that were run by Vietnamese. [laughter] 

 

SB: [laughter] Like Vietnamese restaurants, okay. 

 

HN: Yes. Because, well, not that there were very many then. But to say she really, really wanted to assimilate but she…as a child, I didn't really know all of her difficulties. But we would talk about it later and she said, “yeah, you know, it was really hard.”  Where they settled was a suburb outside of Washington, D.C. It's like there's this, they call it the Beltway that goes around the District of Columbia. It's a highway. So sometimes in politics, they'll say like inside the Beltway, outside the Beltway.  

 

SB: Okay. 

 

HN: Anyway, we were just outside the Beltway, which just meant we were very close to this very political power center of the superpower. But it was not particularly diverse. There weren't a lot of, I had no Asian friends. I had no Vietnamese friends. I had no–there was one family that my mother hung out with a little bit. A woman named Nha who, whose husband worked for the government also. And she, her children were mixed like me, but we didn't necessarily get along, 

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: And neither did my mom didn't really get along with. [laughter] 

 

SB: Yeah, yeah. 

 

HN: And so they, you know, that she didn't have a lot of options, so. But she made a lot of friends in the restaurants where she worked. And so she had a very diverse friend group. My friend groups were not only white, but they were very Anglo-Saxon. Their last names were like Miles and Pomeroy and McIntyre. You know what I mean?  

 

SB: Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.  

 

HN: And so I was the only person who immigrated. I was the only person whose mother was an immigrant. I was the only person who was racialized, you know? So that left me feeling always a little bit like an outsider, you know? 

 

SB: Okay. 

 

HN: But my mother, she adopted American ways. She learned American football and she would gamble on the games [laughter]. 

 

SB: [laughter] Okay. 

 

HN: She learned how to play poker. She learned how to play Texas Hold'em, and she was really good. And she would play with, at these sort of mafia-run game nights with big money. It's not nickels. It was money,money. But she was so good that they would invite her to come to the game. Because the thing with poker. Do you play poker?  

 

SB: No, no, no, but I know how to. I know rules and stuff.  

 

HN: Well, the skill of the game is if you can keep the game going. And the house, the people who are running the game, like that because it means the pots are bigger. It’s more exciting, people keep playing. And my mother, because she was very charismatic and good she knew how to run the table.  
 
 
SB: Okay.  

 

(20:00) HN: She would be invited, and she would be the only woman at these games. Anyway to say, she was very successful at assimilating, but she also experiences moments. I remember her telling me she would be in line at the supermarket, at the groceries and the person before her, they would be chatting, talking, “Oh, how are you?” and smiling and everything. Then she would come up and then they would just treat her like she was a stranger.  

 

SB: Okay. So there was two different, one way she was accepted and the other way she was not. There was two types.  

 

HN: Mhm. 

 

SB: Yeah, okay. I see.  

 

HN: Yeah. So and then what else did I, I'm not sure I answered your question. I think you just were asking what was it like?  

 

SB: Yeah. That was that was really good. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. 

 

HN: And my experience as a mixed person is also different than experiences of people who grew up with parents who are both Vietnamese. So and also maybe with a traditional family, like more traditional members of the family. My mother was so not traditional. When my mother moved to the United States because she had been on her own and making money, she could always hire somebody to do the housekeeping and cook and take care of me. So when we moved, she didn't know how to really take care of me or wash dishes or make any food. So she was also learning how to be a good housewife, I guess. [laughter] 

 

SB: Okay.  

 

HN: Yeah. Which is hilarious because she's not, that's not her style. She's the poker player and the, you know? [laughter] 

 

SB: Okay yeah. [laughter] 

 

HN: So, yeah. And that was also really, that was another way that I was different from my peers. So my friend group were very kind of traditional, like the mothers. Either they stayed at home and were working in the house as the homemaker, or they were maybe a teacher or maybe a nurse. It was very gendered back then.  

 

SB: Okay.  

 

HN: Yeah. And so my mother was the only working class mother. She was a waitress. A career waitress who also had been in a circus [laughter] Very different. 

 

SB: Yeah. [laughter] She had many lives. Many lives.  

 

HN: Yes, exactly. So yeah, I’ve always understood my difference, but I also felt very, slightly stranded in a way. Because I'm mixed, because I don't speak Vietnamese, because I didn't really have the Vietnamese customs growing up. So if I met a Vietnamese American, they would look at me and say, “you're not really Vietnamese.” 

 

SB: Okay, I see.  

 

HN: Yeah, because I didn't look Vietnamese. And then when I'd say, “well, yeah, I don't speak Vietnamese.” They're like, “well, you're not Vietnamese.” Well I'm something. [laughter] 

 

SB: Yeah. And so have you been back to Vietnam since that time, or now you've never been back to the country? 

 

HN: Yeah. I mean it took me a really long time to make my way to Vietnam. In part because it's expensive, in part because I didn't have a family member or connections there. So I didn't want to go just as a tourist by myself. Anyway, it was complicated. I wasn't feeling like I had a way to get back. And then, you're working jobs and it's so far. But I finally made it back for the first time eight years ago. 

 

SB: Eight years ago, Yeah.  

 

HN: And at that time, my mother, her health had been poor. And so by the time that I was ready to and I figured out a way to go. She–it was the first time she ever expressed desire to go to Vietnam. But by that time her health was too poor and she couldn’t tolerate the trip. So, it might be that she said she was ready to go home then, because she actually knew she couldn't. You know what I mean? 

 

SB: Okay, yeah, yeah.  

 

HN: But yeah. So I went back eight years ago. I went to, I had a literary engagement. And so, I was able to do some research towards my last book and it was really important trip. But I didn't actually go to where I was born and where my mother was born until December of 2023. So just two years ago. I went and took a second trip to the south. The other trip was to the north and to central Vietnam. Have you ever been? 

 

(25:00) SB: Okay. No, never to Vietnam. I've been to Laos, Cambodia and never Vietnam, actually. And Thailand too. I want to. My parents have been to Vietnam. I've never been to Vietnam, but I want to actually. It'svery beautiful, but do you want to go back later on in your life? To Vietnam? 

 

HN: Yeah. We talk about it actually, my family and I. Because I, although the second time I went, I brought my whole family. So I have two sons and my husband, who are, my sons present as white because my husband's white American. And so they were coming to support me and to kind of see this place that’s important to me. But I've talked to them about trying to go another time. But we'll see, I don't know.  

 

SB: Okay.  

 

HN: Right now, although I am in conversations. I'm part of an artistic collective of Vietnamese women writers and visual artists called She Who Has No Masters. And we are trying to set up a time for us to go together as a group. 

 

SB: Okay. I actually had a question about that, because you have worked with several Vietnamese community organizations, like the one you said, She Who Has No Masters, right? 

 

HN: Yes. 

 

SB: And WritersCorps also. So how do these experiences in your life shape understanding? Like the Vietnamese community and identity in the US? And, how do these organizations build connections and links between all the Vietnamese refugees in the US. Is it very important?  

 

HN: Well, my first experience, really being more embedded in the Vietnamese community was at San Francisco in the mid 90s when I worked as a member of WritersCorps. I was placed with an organization called the Vietnamese Youth and Cultural Center, which is based in the Tenderloin of San Francisco. Which is, I don't know, it's been a long time since I have lived in San Francisco, but it was always sort of the grittiest place in San Francisco, you know.  

 

SB: It's the same, actually.  

 

HN: It's the same, right? So, but the thing that I think surprises a lot of people is that a lot of children live in the Tenderloin, or did live in the Tenderloin. Because it's a place where you could affordably rent places. And so new arrivals, people who are immigrants, who don't have a lot of resources can fit a lot of number of people into a small amount of space and live and work in a place like the Tenderloin. So I think it was for me, because my class experience was sort of  lower middle class. I mean, my father worked for the government, so that's like a good sort of middle class job. And then my mother was a career waitress, which is more of a working blue collar job. So, we were very comfortable, but among my peers, I was always the one who had no money. 

 

SB: Oh, okay.  

 

HN: In fact, it's so funny because my friend Laura, she was like, “yeah, I just remember you never had any money. And like you were scared of your father.” Those are the two things she remembered about me. Okay. But anyway, the experience at the Vietnamese Youth and Cultural Center was great for me in that I could connect to this community of young people who were also first generation. Their circumstances were very different than me, but we could find sort of commonalities. But then there would still be like differences. I remember showing up one day. I ride my bike, so I'm riding my bike at the time, I lived in the Upper Haight. So  I rode my bike down to the Tenderloin, and I pull it into the hallway. And I remember one of the young men that was probably like 17 or something. He was like, “you don't have a car.” [laughter] 

 

SB: [laughter] 

 

(30:00) HN: In other words, it was like the class aspirations, were the thing that I noticed the most. I had a really great experience working with this intergenerational project where the youth met up with an older elderly group of Vietnamese people, and we translate. I helped translate a poem that one of the elders shared to one of the youth. And the youth shared what the meaning was in English. But then I made it like a poem. Then when I worked with their translation to make it poetic, to see the youth were like, “oh, yeah, that's where the poetry is.” It was, that was really special. And then we also did some really interesting interdisciplinary projects. I worked with ceramic muralist named Joanna Pathak and she identified area, she really conceptualized the visual projects. And then I would add a literary element to it. So I remember we made this mural in an alleyway. It was really kind of a dead end alley. And so she conceived of it as this mural of protection. And so we made this figure and these tiles that were sort of emblems of protection and including language. And then they had the youth write superhero backstories for some of the elements in the mural. And then we when had the blessing for this mural, we read the stories. It was really special. Later, connecting with She Who Has No Masters that really opened up a place of connection and healing for me as both as a woman who is Vietnamese American. No. Canadian. Yeah. Writer who often has had the experience of trying to grapple with this history and these particulars of history but not always having access to the language for it. And so to connect with other people who have that same set of struggles. Yeah, yeah. Even though even as we have different struggles inside that struggle and make work out of the struggle is transformative. Yeah. And just the kind of immediate understanding that we share, having a certain shared sense of what unites us is what's really healing for me. And then creatively, it's been such a blessing that there's been so much work that we've made that I feel really happy about.  

 

SB: Uh, do you think that poetry and literature,  can help maintain the culture and the history of the refugees in the United States and in Canada? There is access for young people to learn about poetry or literature about the Vietnamese refugees. Do you think it's for the future generations?  

 

HN: Yeah. I mean, poetry can be a site that helps with remembering, with giving new perspectives. I think in particular there are great oral story projects that collect narratives not unlike what you're doing here. But poetry acts as a site of activation, too. So it's not even just a repository for information, but it's a site that can open up possibilities to move into a future, you know? Yeah. So it's not even just about preservation, but a passage.  

 

SB: Okay. Thank you. Your first experience as a poet was in college? Or was it during college? You wrote in a journal? Is it, I've learned about Skanky Possum? Oh, yeah. Was it your first experience in college? This poetry journal, as a poet? 

 

HN: Yeah. Well, Skanky Possum was a journal that I co-founded and edited, in the late 90s and aughts. Which was a project that I started after I finished graduate school in San Francisco at New College. Okay. My first experience publishing a poem was as an undergrad. So, I was 21 or something, or 20. I published a poem in the literary journal of my university and that was born out of taking classes towards my minor in English. I majored in behavioral sciences. Psychology because I thought I might become a therapist. Okay. And–but I secretly wanted to be a poet. Okay, but you can't. But that's not a job. You know. 

 

SB: Okay. No, that's a job, actually, for you. Yeah. I mean, in college, you can be like, “that's a not a job for me.” But after a few years, it's a job.  

 

(35:00) HN: Well, I didn't find that. I didn't feel I had the permission to claim it as a vocation, because it's really not one in a certain way. It's really sort of a role that you might, you may never make money from. Right. Sothere's the practical part, but when I was an undergrad at the university, I definitely sought out all of the poetry classes I could take. Including when I encountered, I was like, oh, there's something where you write poems and you talk about them. And that was just it for me. I was like, “this is amazing!” So what I learned from those experiences is that that's really where I come really alive, right? Is it okay to write? Write poetry, talk about poetry, be in conversations about poetry, share poetry. You know, poetry, poetry. So, I ditched my plans to become a therapist. I actually almost went to social work school. I wanted to get a, I was going to get a master's in social work after I finished my undergraduate degree, but I just couldn't finish filling out the application. I kept avoiding it, and then I realized that there's something wrong with that. If I'm really interested in doing a master's in social work, I should just be jumping up and down and getting ready to go off to that program. So I made a big turn and I decided I'm going to commit myself to studying poetry and being a poet. And so I often think of San Francisco as a place where I really started.  

 

SB: Okay 

 

HN: My life was, oh, it's where I met my mentors. It's where I met my first poetry community. Including my life partner, who I'm still I'm still with. So yeah. And we together after we finished the program at New College, which is a place that was in the mission, it's no longer there. We moved back to his hometown of Austin, Texas, and sort of just set up our lives there. Got our whatever, day jobs but we knew that poetry is born out of community. Poetry is born out of places where you can share it. And we wanted to be part of the vector. And we wanted to be part of establishing a place that we could help manage and direct. So we started this very lo-fi production of a staple-bound folded over, a magazine. We got a rubber stamp made for the logo, and then we would put some kind of hand-drawn element on the cover. We. Well, when we first started doing Skanky Possum, we invited people over. We had artist friends like my friend Phillip, who did this painting. Okay. And we said, we're going to draw possums for, until we draw, I think we published 500 copies. So we just sat, and we like painted possums on the covers of these magazines. And I would make a bunch of food and we'd have a cooler with beer in it. And it was a party where we could contribute to the magazine. But also talk about poetry, talk about gossip or whatever we want to. So we understood from our study of poetry that it doesn't happen in isolation, it doesn't happen in a vacuum. And it's not just happening at say, a university journal, although those are great too. It's really about people who make the work also helping to be part of the dissemination. And that's something that I learned growing up in the DC area, because when I was coming of age, it was the moment right after punk had come out. So it's like this post-punk grunge era, and that music was not being promoted on corporate-  

 

(40:00) HN: Music networks. It wasn't being played on the radio, and the only way it was played was these alternative sites and including the people who made the music. They also had a record label, and then they would send their tapes or their discs to Dischord Records, which was in D.C. would send it to SubPop Records in Seattle, you know what I mean? And so I understood that that's really where the sound I wanted to listen to was being made and played, not that Michael Jackson or Madonna is are bad things. But, I knew that there was other music out there. Yeah. That I connected to better. But you wouldn't know it if you listened to every dayradio. Anyway, this is obviously older technology but the but the concepts are the same. 

 

SB:Yeah. 

 

HN: So becoming a publisher and editor, that was really important. Part of my editing is that I’m a feminist, I’m a proud feminist. I wanted to make sure there was [unintelligible] in who we published, that there was an equal number of representation as much as could help shape those spaces. That was important to me  

 

SB: What? And so was it easy to publish that as the Vietnamese American, now Canadian woman back in the days, or did you face any complications or-? 

 

HN: Um, yeah. I mean, sometimes people, you know, people can be can be rude or. Yeah, just or dismissive. I mean, that's something that I've always been accustomed to and vigilant about. If I suspect that someone is talking down to me, I'm going to snap back at that. I do remember it was interesting as an editor, how many men would send me poems to be published in my magazine? They were very free, about it. They would send and send and send. There was this one poet. I remember he would send me–because this is all back when it was paper–he would send me work, I would I would read it, I'd be like, not for me. And I would write a little formnote back. But I always try to put a little personal mark on it, send it back to this person. Literally within like five days, another big fat envelope, more poems from the same person. And literally I think this happened three times, it was aggressive. And the third time he sent me the same poems. He sent me the same f****** poems. And they were kind of macho. And then they were like kind of talk about women's body parts and stuff. And I was like, these aren’t it for me. Okay. Then the next thing I know, he publishes some kind of conversation with another poet in a magazine, and I read it and it's like, “That Hoa Nguyen, she has a bug up her a** about me.” And then makes fun of something that I wrote in the note to him where I said it isn’t for me. But I confronted him about it and I was like, oh, I see you didn't like that. And then I think I was assisted by the fact that I had a partner, you know? So he stepped in and he was like, Hoa was much too nice to you. When I saw what she was looking at, I would have said, just forget about–don’t send me anything. And that shut him up, you know. But yeah. And then also now, I've written six books and I don't know where this person is. Yeah, exactly. There's the revenge of a sort of just outlasting and just carrying on and contributing and being a factor in the shaping of what's read. And mentoring people, mentoring is a really big part of my identity. So not only is it about shaping the contributions like what I write, but also publishing. Part of what we did at Skanky Possum too is that we would have a reading series. So we had a- 

 

(45:00)HN: Bookstore that we worked with at Independent Bookstore, and poets would come to Austin. Sometimes we put them up and they'd sleep in our spare bedroom. Or they would come through town and we would throw this, have a reading for them. And then everyone came back to our house and I'd make a bunch of food. It would be beans and sweet potato fries and brussel sprouts and a cooler beer, and people would bring a big salad and then it would be a hang out. And then unfortunately, the bookstore closed and I was like, well, we're always coming back to our house anyway, so let's just have the reading at our house. So we had this house series and people kept, would come through town all the time on the way to somewhere else. And as Austin became more and more of a destination, come to Austin and so we also became a kind of nexus of connection. Not only contributing to letters by producing a magazine, but contributing to a community by hosting. And then I also taught workshops, community style workshops where there wasn't any kind of gatekeeping. You didn'thave to, to get into my workshop you didn't have to prove yourself or anything. You just had to be willing to come to the series, pay my very inexpensive rate. I would work with people for trades, if they didn't have any money. They could still come to my classes, and it became a place where I could not only be a person who can mentor people into writing and improving their writing, but also introduce them to lots of poets. Who in that same way of, the sort of underground music, writers who are less in circulation or whose work is maybe more difficult or avant garde. And so, I taught out of my house for 20 years hosting these workshops. So mentoring is a big part of it, but it wasn't necessarily out of my identity as a Vietnamese-American person, usually. Typically there weren't any other Vietnamese people in my workshops that just by virtue of a community I was drawing from, but actually occasionally there would be. And that was always really special.  

 

SB: And in fact, there's like your, family immigration history affects and influence–more than other stuff–you to become a poet and you to write poems in your life or not really? Was it very important for you? You told me it was very linked with Vietnamese in the city to write poems. So was it for you a link between, your migration issue, your family, and the fact that you become a poet?  

 

HN: Well, you know I lost my language, my first language. By, through this assimilation process. Right. And I've read studies about how people who were adopted. So that McGill did a study. So French speaking families in Quebec adopting from China. And so maybe the child was an infant, like nine months old, or maybe the child was two years old, and they were raised with the French everywhere. French. And then they did these studies where they–with the permission of the parents–they analyzed the brains by putting them under an MRI. When they played the language that they would have heard in utero, and the first nine months, or one year or two years of the child's life. When they played the Chinese. So they played Chinese for these children who were now like four and five or seven.   

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: The part of the brain that is for language lights up in the same exact way as someone who is a fluent speaker. In other words, the language that you're surrounded by during pregnancy and in the first two years of language acquisition is in your body. And I've asked when I when I hear Vietnamese, I have a full body experience to it, even though I don't understand it. 

 

(50:00) HN: I always have. And so I've come to think that. My writing poems is a kind of way to write to this ghost language, this language that I don't have access to, to speak. And I was never a fluent speaker because I was so young. But if you've ever met a two-year-old, they understand everything that you're saying to them. If you speak the same language, they understand everything you're saying. They just don't have the coordination of their mouth to say the words back to you. And I remember when my kids were that were the same age when I immigrated, I was like, okay, it would have been really traumatic to suddenly have this completely other language surrounding you and would have been really confusing. And then I also had like PTSD from surviving the Tet Offensive. So I had night terrors. So it must have been a really hard time. But I do think that poetry has been a way for me to kind of speak to this language that I don't have access to anymore. This language that's actually also very musical. Yeah, yeah. 

 

SB: Okay. Thank you so much. I have just one question more, is about your new project. If you have any new projects you're working on, new books, new poems. I don't know if you want to share? You can share.  

 

HN: Thanks. Well, I went to Vietnam hoping that I would connect with certain sites from my past and my mother's past. But everything, but 50 years had gone by. And so it's like the ghosts that were there, I couldn't find what I thought I might find but I found other things. And so that was useful. And then I'm, I've written a bunch of poems. I mean, partly also, my mother passed away in 2019, before my last book came out. So she didn'tget to see the finished book that really was also so inspired by her. So I'm still sort of kind of writing thinking about family connections. One of my connections is actually taking me to England because I found the identity of my biological father. And so I'm going to do some investigations into a long time ago ancestor who intrigues me. A woman who gave birth to her son, her only child, as an unwed mother during Victorian England. And she, so she gave birth to Thomas, this ancestor, on my birthday or on our birthday. And so I'm interested in this sort of interesting parallel where here's my mother 122 years later. A mother alone, a woman alone, giving birth under very difficult situation to this other woman who would have–who ended up–she was so poor she had to take her and her child into a workhouse. Which is back then was where if you didn't have a home and you didn't have any way to make money, you would like go into these. This institution, these workhouses, and they would make you do these dirty jobs in exchange for a little bit of food and shelter.  

 

SB: Okay. 

 

HN: So I'm interested in, I continue to be interested in the stories of women who are willful and resilient despite difficulty. And I want to somehow shine some attention on those kinds of stories. But I also just want to communicate with this ancestor, Thomas, who was born on my birthday, or I was born on his birthday and fly around in space and do magical things together. Yeah. It's a very weird project. I don't really know what I'm up to.  

 

SB: But it's interesting. 

 

HN: It interests me. And I'm hoping I can write poems that will accumulate into a book. But right now,- 

 

(55:00) HN: I have a couple of handfuls of poems, but not enough for a book. But I continue to write. 

 

SB: Okay. 

 

HN: Well, see where it goes, yeah 

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: I'm. I'm just open to where it will lead me. I haven't closed off any avenues of possibility. 

 

SB: Okay. 

 

HN: Mostly, my attention has been on working with the She Has No Masters. Masters, we were just in Berlin this year, where we got to connect with the German Vietnamese diaspora, who have a very different story. Their story of migration is about, most of them came from the North, and they were there working in former East Germany on contracts as contract workers. But then they ended up liking it in Germany and staying 

 

SB: Yeah 

 

HN: and establishing a community there. So when we went to Berlin, we collaborated with Berlin artists, and we were able to sort of share in that connection across North and South, across countries and across language. I mean, Germans speak a lot of English too, but- 

 

SB: Yeah 

 

HN: So we conversed in it. We conversed in English, but we also got to share our art together. It was really, really special. So She Who has No Masters has become a really important part of my artistic individual practice. I'm really looking forward to keep doing different things with the collective. 

 

SB: There's also a big community in France, obviously. So I don't know if I've ever been with your… 

 

HN: I mean, we just need to get someone willing to bring a bunch of us over. 

 

SB: Yeah, yeah. For sure. 

 

HN: Uh, yeah, for sure. I love that about, you know, our diaspora is really big. There are a lot. There are a lot in France. There are a lot in Australia. I'd love to do something in Australia. You know, we're all over the United States. I'd love to do something in New Orleans, which has a big Vietnamese community in Louisiana in New Orleans. Also because I just really like New Orleans. Have you ever been to? 

 

SB: I'm going in for Christmas. Actually, I'm going for New Years. Yeah, because my family's coming. 

 

HN: Oh my god. 

 

SB: Were going to meet there, but. Yeah. I didn't know there was a big community, Vietnam community there. But okay. 

 

HN: There is, there is. I don't know that you'll see them in New Orleans proper. They're sort of like farther into the outskirts, but you'll see lots of food, you know, and 

 

SB: Okay. 

 

HN: In fact, the Vietnamese, sort of intersected with Cajun cooking and Creole cooking and, and have like- 

 

SB: Oh, this is like a mixed cooking. 

 

HN: Fusions. Yes 

 

SB: Yes, I've heard about the fusions- 

 

HN: Yes 

 

SB: But there's also here in San Francisco, there's like fusions between like Vietnamese food and some other Pacific food. There's like deep fusion food. That's amazing. That's amazing.  

 

HN: That's so cool. Oh, my gosh, I'm so glad you get to go to New Orleans with your family. 

 

SB: Yeah. 

 

HN: It's a good spot to invite Europeans because it's so different than anywhere in the United States or in the world. Honestly. 

 

SB: Okay. I've never been actually. So we'll see. You know.  

 

HN: I mean, I would, yeah. So, Bourbon Street, which is the famous Party Street, that's kind of uh, yeah. You wouldn't maybe bring your family there, but there's so much music, and the food's great, and just the attitude is really fun.  

 

SB: Okay, I see, yeah, and I'm so hyped for going there. You know. 

 

HN: That's great. 

 

SB: Yeah. But thank you for answering my questions. And thank you for sharing to the DVAN and all your stories and all your projects. Thank you so much.   

 

HN: Thank you so much for your attention. I really appreciate it. 

 

SB: No problem. It was very interesting for me. But. Yeah. Thank you. 

 

HN: Thank you.  

 

SB: Uh, and have a good night, and because it's late and so. 

 

HN: So it's getting- it's dinner time. 

 

SB: Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. 

 

HN: Thank you, Sacha 

 

SB: Thank you. See you 

 

HN: Bye-bye. 

 

SB: Bye 

Biography

Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood is a Vietnamese and American author who lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and daughter. She was born in Vietnam and lived there until the age of 12. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Columbia University and is currently serving on the graduating thesis committee at Columbia University. Furthermore, she also works as a mentor for ‘She Who Has No Master(s) (SWHNM), a collective of womxn and nonbinary writers of Vietnamese diaspora. Additionally, she has two novels. One being her debut novel, “If I Had Two Lives,” which has been known as ‘a tale of staggering artistry.’ Lastly, her second novel, “Constellations of Eve” which portrays a philosophical fable of art and fate. She is a scholar of Asian American history and literature as well as Pulitzer winner in promoting Vietnamese American literature.

 

Thematic Overview 

Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood first talks a bit about her migration story as well as sharing a bit of her family's migration story(00:00). She talks about her journey as a writer as well as factors that influenced her(15:00). Abbigail also talked about how memory and language have shaped her writing as well as sharing aspects of being bilingual(30:00). She shares community work she has participated in and her efforts to help her community as well as other writers(45:00). Lastly Abbigail continues to talk about her experience as a Southeast Asian writer in the U.S. publishing industry; both the good and bad and how culture has influenced her writing (60:00).

 

Oral History Transcript

Interviewee: Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood (ANR)

Interviewer: Jaden Sunga (JS) 

Date of interview: December 9, 2025 

Location: Remote interview via Zoom 

Collection: DVAN@SFSU Oral History Archive, Fall 2025-Spring 2026 

Length of interview: 1:07:46

Overseen by: Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau 

 

(00:00) 

JS: Hello. So I'm Jaden Sunga, and today I'm going to be interviewing Abbigail. Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood. And first I'm going to go in. 

 

ANR: Hi Jaden. 

 

JS: Hi. And first question, we're going to jump straight into it. Could you tell us about you and or your family's migration story? 

 

ANR: That's a pretty loaded question. 

 

JS: If you don't want to. If you're not comfortable it's okay. 

 

ANR: No, no, no, it's. It's okay. It's just a long story but I'll try to be as brief as I possibly can. I was born in Vietnam, and I left Vietnam. I moved to Singapore when I was 11, 12. And then I spent a year in Singapore before moving to the U.S. So, my first place in the U.S. was Texas and then after that, we moved to California. And then I did my undergraduate in Oregon and I ended up in New York. So it's kind of been a lot of different destinations. And it's actually for my family–not just my immediate family, but my cousins, my uncles, my extended family–all about migration stories and quite complex. Everyone kind of traveled and left Vietnam. And then, some like my older sister actually went to Australia first and then went to England and then ended back to New York, and then ended in the U.S. She's now in California. So her story is a bit more complicated than mine. I went from, basically from Asia to the U.S., but she went to Europe and then the U.S. and then Australia. It’s, my family's, I think our map pretty much has covered kind of the whole globe sort of thing. It's a very kind of motley, I guess, like arabesque migration story and that's why it's, that's why my first reaction to your question was like, oh, I don't know where to start you know. 

 

JS: That's okay. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. No. Also, migration stories are very personal and also sometimes it's so long. Because I know for many families, sometimes it takes years or sometimes it takes like instants or there's so many complex like parts of it that we don't know about. So, for the next question. Are you ready? 

 

ANR: Yeah 

 

JS: Let's see. How did you become interested in writing? Because I also heard that you wrote. We did a little research, actually, before. 

 

ANR: Yeah, yeah. Of course. I mean, I think I've always been somebody who has the. Basically sum. I've always been introverted, and I've always had a more complex inner world than that I prefer rather than my external reality. I think in my childhood and family background, there was just a lot of difficulties. I think I retreated to an inner world that was, not fantastical, but just more of a more secure place. Especially as somebody who moved around a lot. I didn't have an anchor in a house or in a school or even in friendships. So from moving around, I mean, my home was myself. And so I had to make that external world very secure and very strong. And so I think I did a lot of work in building who I am. And I think that tendency to be more, to retreat to the interior is something that a lot of writers tend to do. You know, I think before I was interested in writing, I was a reader. 

 

(05:00) ANR: Uh, I just loved reading, and I related to books and characters more than I did in my immediate circumstance. So I think the love for reading eventually led to writing. 

 

JS: I love that. That's actually really interesting because I know for me too since I'm also kind of introverted. I can relate where you can really see you don't really talk to people. Or like you said, sometimes you don't have an anchor, since I didn't really reach out often, I was more within myself in that space of…how do you say it. Just spending time with yourself really, and doing what you love. 

 

ANR: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Mhm. And then you do become very. If you, like for introverts, spending time with oneself is never, it's always a pleasure. I never have an issue spending all day by myself. Yeah. Because I think you’ve built up so many layers of complexity from reading and other things that, yeah. I once read that in the mind of an introvert is actually very loud and very. That’s why introverts prefer their world to be quieter because their mind is so loud and they have a lot of ideas and like they're constantly thinking. Whereas extroverts, their minds are actually quite like quiet and still and calm. And that's why they require more external stimulation. 

 

JS: I didn't know that. Do you know the book? 

 

ANR: I think I read it in, I mean, I've read many things about introverts over the years. But I think it was quiet. It's called quiet, the power of introverts. I believe. Yeah. By Susan Cain. Yeah. 

 

JS: Thank you so much. I'm going to the third question. Okay. What are some main challenges you faced as a South East Asian writer? 

 

ANR: Specifically as a Southeast Asian writer. I mean, I think in general as a writer, it just really, it's challenging in that it's very hard to get published and it's very hard to. So, you know, you have all those challenges already. I don't know if my struggles are unique to being in the minority because it's hard to say. Because I have most of my, many of my writer friends, are also minority writers. Sometimes we do talk about this like, but you know. Of course, I don't know how true it is, but I guess we get. Sometimes we do get frustrated by certain mainstream publishing, commercial publishing that are trying to be diverse, but then just perpetuating one idea of diversity. But then, these days I'm starting to realize that we actually need these kind of one note idea of diversity because they're easier to push. In order to then, we need a lot of it so that we can then make room for nuance. We will get there someday. But I guess to begin with it's going to be a quite stereotypical idea of diversity. And it's going to come from, maybe perhaps people who are trying really hard to be allies but not necessarily understanding the narrative plenitude that Viet Nguyen has mentioned or talked about. Am I making any sense? I don’t know, I feel like I'm going all over. 

 

JS: Yeah, I totally understand because I also see that same thing in movies too, where people try to, in commercials or other pieces of media, where they try to push diversity. And. Yeah. And they only do it for like.. 

 

(10:00) ANR: Yeah, it's like okay, it's obvious what you're doing. But at the same time, I'm not going to complain because maybe that's the first step to narrative plenitude. 

 

JS: I like that because I also have the same idea since I also like, well I'm not that into reading. So sometimes I'm more into like movies and media and other types like, what’s it called? Shows or movies. So I also see that. Also, I didn't know it's that much into writing to where it has that much impact. Thank you. 

 

ANR: Yeah, yeah. No, it's definitely everywhere, I think. 

 

JS: And. I'll go on to the next question. What do you find meaning, the most meaningful in being a writer? 

  

ANR: I feel really lucky. I feel like I have a superpower to be honest. I feel like to have the ability to, more and more as people lose touch with their feelings or kind of disconnect from themselves. I feel really lucky to always. It's my cat. 

 

JS: It's ok I love cats. 

 

ANR: Yeah, I feel really lucky that I have a way to kind of digest anything that happens to me. I have, I always know that through writing, I will be able to find meaning in the things, in the events that happen, whether or not the events in themselves are meaningful. It’s just the map of events eventually will connect and give me meaning as a person. So I feel like I'm able to live life; live multiple lives and have and understand things beyond the surface, because that's what I'm interested in. And I don’t understand how to live life any other way. I feel like you would miss out so much, not reading and not having all these perspectives that helped me see life. Yeah. So it's great. I love writing and I love being a writer. 

 

JS: That's a really well said answer. Thank you. 

 

ANR: Thank you. 

 

JS: Of course, because I know reading too is very immersive for some people. And I think too for every book it's so unique. And you just learn each perspective like you said. 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

JS: And down to the next question. As a Southeast Asian writer, what has been your experience 

with the U.S. publishing industry? So similar to question three. 

 

ANR: Yeah. I think I have had my, I’ve been both. I have a complex relationship with this because on the one hand, I feel like I was really lucky to, seeing like how hard it is for writers and what some of my friends struggle to place their first book. I feel like I was really lucky to have been able to find an agent and then sell my book at the age that I did. When I still like had a lot to learn. But at the same time, I wasn't blind to the fact that possibly in the marketing of it, there was some like pigeonholing of, in for example, on the marketing side with the cover design. I felt that it was quite old fashioned. And so even though I have a lot to be grateful for, I do have my frustrations as well with the publishing industry. With my second novel was published with, Texas Tech University Press and DVAN 

 

(15:00) ANR: and that's Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network. It was the inaugural title and that was just such a cool experience because it felt like, in a way it felt like it was something. Those questions, the struggle that we're talking about, I didn't have to really think about. I think just the fact that whether or not there were actual issues, the fact that I didn't have to wonder about it was great. Because knowing that I was championed by a group of Vietnamese writers from the diaspora, and knowing that was just an automatic trust that I didn't have with mainstream publishers. I think I'm always gonna sort of question, as my career, as I continue in my career, I'm always going to wonder if our interests align, if they really understand. Yeah. 

 

JS: Thank you. I did not know that at all. About publishers either. 

 

ANR: Yeah, I think publishers are, they are doing their best and they're trying really hard, but they're also. I think it's not necessarily the editors who are, that are purchasing the books that  are at fault; it's more that the publishing companies itself are businesses that they need to make money. So then editors only have limited amount of powers, you know? So even if they want to champion like certain works, they may not be able to. 

 

JS: That makes sense. Yeah. Thank you so much. And for the sixth question, I'm going to be asking: have you been impacted by the ban of books and the pandemic and violence against Asian Americans during Covid 19? 

 

ANR: The ban of books. I don't, not that I know of. I think Covid was in 20, the start of 2019. Yeah. No, I don't believe that my…not anything sort of happened to my book. I mean, in terms of like general dread and fear. Yeah. But no, I stay at home most of the time. It's hard to even recall the pandemic like so much of it is a blur. Did you take classes online or what did you? Were you in school? 

 

JS: So for me, I was in high school during the time, and our semester got cut short and everything for the next two years was online. 

 

ANR: Oh my God. That must have been so tough. 

 

JS: I know right? I mean it was crazy. 

 

ANR: Do you feel like it changed how you interact with people afterward or do you feel like you're kind of back to normal? 

 

ANR: I feel like it impacted me a little bit because it made me more introverted. I think when I went to the real world and started talking to more people. And yeah. It was because it was such a big shift from two years being stuck in your house to now, “Oh, everything's back to normal.” 

 

ANR: Yeah. Right. Yeah, there’s always like that lingering effect. Mhm, yeah. That doesn't really go away. Yeah, I don't think I was like targeted or anything like that, you know? Luckily I was in New York, so I felt, wellmost everybody left the city. It was a ghost city. So, being in Brooklyn it was just so empty, the street and everything. I avoided Manhattan. 

 

(20:00) ANR: I guess. It did feel like there could be. Potentially, I didn't want to put myself indangerous situations. Because of the racism that went on. But I feel that's always the case anyways. 

 

JS: Yeah, I heard a lot of stuff on the news before too. When it was in, I think during Covid too, when people sometimes went out in New York. There was some hate crimes too, which is–since it’s a densely populated area too. 

 

ANR: Yeah, exactly. But I think the news will always have, obviously the news are going to cover those stories. But then note, there are always also instances of connection and bonds that were allowed to flourish during the pandemic because people didn't have to go to work full time. So there were more time to focus on relationships and there people started to look inwardly. With my husband and I at the time, we weren't married yet, but that was the most time we got to spend together and got to know each other, you know? So there was also that side of things that news are not necessarily gonna cover. 

 

JS: Yeah, I like that. That's so sweet because it's very personal. Thank you. 

 

ANR: Yeah of course. 

 

JS: And I'll go on to the next one. Have you worked with any community organizers that support Asian American or Vietnamese writers and why? 

 

ANR: Yeah, I work–right now I'm still with She Who Has No Master, which is a nonprofit organization for Vietnamese woman artists in the diaspora. And I occasionally mentor, for a couple of months, I mentored another Vietnamese American writer and worked with her on her application packet for MFA program and also start submitting foreign spaces. Why? I guess because I want to give back to like my community. Yeah, and I want. It’s just incredibly fulfilling to do. It's work, but it's also a lot of pleasure. And for me, it seems like a no brainer. It's like just reading a story and talking to another writer about their work. And it almost doesn't feel like work. So. Yeah. I was doing that. I still am a part of the organization. And obviously, I, my second book was published with DVAN. I used to take a workshop at Asian American Writers Workshop, or I think I got into a workshop called No Names Mind and Asian American Writers Workshop. I still go to their events now and then in New York. 

 

JS: Yeah, love that too. Because you found a job that’s, you do what you love to do and also helps back to your community, like you said. 

 

ANR: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I enjoy it. 

 

JS: Thank you so much. And I'm going to move on to the next question, which is going to be: how does your memory, both personal and collective, shape the stories you tell? I really like this question. 

 

ANR: Oh, yeah? 

 

JS: Yeah. 

 

ANR: Why do you, why do you really like it? 

 

JS: Because since you're a writer too, it can maybe help you with your books. And I'm interested in that. 

 

ANR: Mhm. Yeah. Can you actually repeat the question just so I am getting it correctly? 

 

JS: It's ok, Sorry. How does your memory in both personal and collective shape the stories you tell? 

 

(25:00) ANR: Every time I sit down to compose something, whether it's a personal essay or a short story, or a longer project, like a novel, it always starts with a memory. It always starts with a feeling. Maybe not the full memory and scene, but maybe a taste or smell. Something that triggered the memory. I'm mostly a fiction writer, but memories are just. That's where you mine any kind of inspiration. So my personal memories definitely, it forms my work a lot. I recently I've been trying out writing children's books and things like this more, fantastical. Because I have a daughter. But even then I realized that it's all very personal. I was writing a story about a rabbit that hates eating carrots. The rabbit left home to move to the city, and she tried all kinds of food. And it's very like fantastical foods like troll boogers and cotton candy clouds, things like this, you know. Mhm. The rabbit like, has a great time in the city but then like gets really sick from, like trying like so many different things. But even that is very personal because it's from my own experience too. There is a part of me, I came from Vietnam, I was born there. And then now I moved away and I don't really have access to certain foods that I used to as a kid. And with my daughter, she was, we moved back there. So she was born there and she also started out with all Vietnamese food, and now we're eating a lot of mac and cheese. So there's always that question, in New York especially, you have every cuisine at the tip of your fingers. But then I don't really, I can'treally get that specific taste of street food that I got in Vietnam or certain dishes. So yeah, memories come into it constantly. Collective memory. I think that's trickier to answer because I don’t really know when I'mworking. I'm differentiating. I think I'm not the type of writer works that much with collective memory. Because I don’t think, it wouldn't be fair for me to even try to address that because there are other writers that do amazing work with that. They really wrestle with that and it takes enormous empathy and research and understanding to access collective memory and historical memory. I'm sure that because as a person, obviously collective memory will seep into personal memory, but it's not something that I'm like very intentional of doing or very aware of. 

 

JS: I really liked your answer for personal memory and collective memory. I like how you said how collective sometimes seeps into personal. And I like how you said personal too, for the food part, because I feel food is such an important part to I think cultural identity and overall people. My computer's about to die. Can I get up? 

 

ANR: Absolutely . Yeah, I struggle all the time with. Oops. Oh, yeah. So, are we ending the interview, or are you just… Oh, okay. 

 

JS: I'm just getting my charger. I'm sorry. 

 

ANR: Yeah. That's fine. No worries. Don't worry. 

 

(30:00) JS: Sorry. I'm back. 

 

ANR: Hi 

 

JS: Hi. So, what are you saying? Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. 

 

ANR: No. That's okay. No. 

 

JS: Ah ok, No problem. So, I'm going to the ninth question. There’s actually fifteen questions. So if you wanted to know. 

 

ANR: Okay 

 

JS: Yeah 

 

ANR: And which questions are we on? 

 

JS: We're on nine. If you, what is it called? Mhm. There's nine. We're on nine right now. 

 

ANR: Ok that's fine. 

 

JS: That's fine with you? Okay, for sure. So for my next question, it's going to be, in what ways do your novels explore the relationships between Vietnam and the United States? 

 

ANR: I would say with my first book, it was directly because the character it was very personal and I drew upon my own experience. But the character also migrated from Vietnam to the U.S. That's not like the center of the struggle, but it's a mother and daughter story. But you know that is what happened to the main character. I can't see you, it's super dark. But maybe, I think because there's a bright light behind you. So you're just like a blob. 

 

JS: So sorry about that. 

 

ANR: Okay. Oh, yeah. 

 

JS: Okay, Is this better? 

 

ANR: No worries. Yeah. Great. Yeah. So I think in my first book more so. And then I feel like I kind of got it out away or something. So then I didn’t really address that or came back to that theme of migration again until I started writing this rabbit story. The children's book that I'm working on. Yeah. 

 

JS: That sounds good. I really like the children's figure you're talking about earlier too as well. And how you talked about, this is your first book right? Between your mother and you? 

 

ANR: Sorry. Can you repeat that? It was hard to hear. 

 

JS: Sorry. I said I like what you said about your first book, too. How you talked about immigration between you and your mom. I find it really inspiring because, I mean, it reminds me of my own family as well. 

 

ANR: Did your mom also, did your parents also migrate? 

 

JS: Mhm. Yeah. Because it was, what is it? Because my mom supported my grandma a lot. So it reminded me of that. Mhm. 

 

ANR: Aw. 

 

JS: Thank you. For the 10th question I'll try to hurry it up. How do you navigate writing in English about… 

 

ANR: No, no it's okay. No rush. 

 

JS: All right. How do you navigate your writing in English and Vietnamese experiences or emotions that may not be fully translated? 

 

ANR: Mhm. I actually love that question. I think some things are always going to be missed in translation. Or some feelings that, it's interesting that certain feelings are even, it's so tethered to the language. The language that expresses that feeling that it almost feels impossible to translate. But sometimes what I do is, I just do a literal translation. And in Vietnamese, there's a saying about things being snail paced, it's very slow like a snail. So sometimes when I’m saying stuff in English, 

 

(35:00) ANR: talking to my friends, I would say it's just like snail pace. It's a direct and literal translation. But it sounds very creative in English because it's not something people normally say or think of expressing themselves in. So I think that part of me being bilingual is, I don't mind that awkwardness and I enjoy the creativity of it. That it doesn't come out exactly the same way in English, but I think the feelings still come across. 

 

JS: I like the answer too as well, since I know in many Southeast Asian languages, there's certain words that have a long meaning or multiple meanings. You can't really translate it in English. Because I know my mom tells me, so she says a word and I'm like, “what does that mean?” And she's like, “It's kind of hard to say in English.” 

 

ANR: Yeah I agree. I think some experiences are not translatable. 

 

JS: And I'll move on to the tenth question. 

 

ANR: Sure. 

 

JS: How do you navigate writing in English and about Vietnamese experiences or emotions that may not be fully translated? So similar to the last one as well. 

 

ANR: Okay. You know. I think lately because I moved back to Vietnam for two years, I came back to New York only two years ago. Before that, I was in Vietnam for almost two years. So I have these new experiences that I now have to wrestle with as well. And part of that is because I'm wrestling with my identity when I'm speaking Vietnamese versus my identity when I'm speaking English. I don't feel very confident as a person and when I'm speaking Vietnamese and I don't feel, and mainly because I've been away for so long, that my literacy skill is just not very high. And so even that experience alone of life trying to explain how I have lost touch with my mother’s tongue to the extent that is really hard to do in English language. 

 

JS: I’m sorry about that. 

 

ANR: Oh. Thank you. And I wish that I have, in written form, I have to some extent become more competent. Yeah. So? I don't know. And sometimes English feels very global, this very global and capitalist language that is very successful and communicating things. But when I think about, let's say like my nanny that I grew up with as a child. Who for the majority of a life lives in the countryside and was kind of flabbergasted when I went back to Vietnam, I took her to a supermarket for the first time. And she, it seems too hard to even translate her into English because it felt like the wrong language to be describing her. It feels like I needed something texturally, the Vietnamese language was, it felt more local. It felt more like community and 

(40:00)  More in away, more gossipy. But I needed that because that kind of language to fully communicate the feelings. Because I'm trying to write about her. She's somebody that means a lot to me. I can only write in English but it feels almost false to do it because it feels like, “oh, she would never be able to read this.” And I feel like the language is too clean, just doesn't have enough grit to contain somebody like her. 

 

JS: Thank you so much for telling me that. That was really powerful. Like you said too and I feel that also related to the last thing you said about how some things can't be translated. 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

JS: And I feel too, I think language too. Like you said, food is very important to people because it’s very homey and it's much to their identity. So when you also told me how you feel torn between both English and Vietnamese. 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

JS: Thank you so much. 

 

ANR: Thank you for your questions. They are very thoughtful questions. 

 

JS: Thank you, thank you. And I'll go to the next one. So I'll say, what does the place play in your role in your creative process? For instance, if it's Vietnam, Texas, or New York, like  Brooklyn, like you said. 

 

ANR: I think I am somebody that loves featuring weather in my writing. 

 

JS: The cotton candy clouds? 

 

ANR: Yeah, but I'm, I lean towards, in my adult writing, anyway, I lean towards the more melancholy. So I lean towards colder weather. So in terms of place, it feels like in my head there's this fictional place that whether it's Vietnam or upstate New York or wherever, California–its just perpetually cold. And so I feel in a way, the fact that I've moved to so many places, they kind of blended together to create this composite place. This oneplace. And that I feel like that is more made up of the world of my fiction writing. I usually am super hesitant to describe anything in concrete terms, like describe place in concrete terms because I don't feel any personal connection to Texas or California or Vietnam or maybe New York. It's like I've been in New York for the longest, so maybe New York, but I don't feel like I know it. I don't feel like I know a place the way that somebody that was born and raised there knows that place. So I'm always very hesitant to approach place. And I think that comes across in my writing, in the sense that there's an adamant resistance to name a place. 

 

JS: I like that answer too… 

 

ANR: I almost never name anything. 

 

JS: I like that answer too because you told me how you used to hop around like different places before. 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

JS: That really reflects on that. Thank you. 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

JS: So for the next one I'm going to do is the twelfth question too. So four more. It’s, many of your characters experience displacement or longing. How do you see those emotions connecting to your own life or community? 

 

ANR: I've been thinking about how displacement or being a mother in the diaspora affects the way that I mother or the way that I experience motherhood. And, one, I feel very conflicted with not being able… 

(45:00)  To teach my daughter Vietnamese because I feel much more comfortable communicating in English. Vietnamese takes a lot of effort for me and a lot of brain power. And there's no one around me that is speaking it. So, I guess I just prefer English, but I know something is lost in that choice. I know that I'm retracting a layer that I could have given her. But at the same time, I'm also very resentful when people assume that I should be teaching my daughter Vietnamese, or that she should be knowing Vietnamese. Because there's a lot woven into that assumption. Language itself can be a sign of trauma, and language itself is not always something, it's not automatic culture. It’s not automatically something that we should praise. And so even though, if there was a genie and the genie said, “oh, would you wish for your daughter to know Vietnamese” and I'llbe like, yeah. But if I have to do all the steps to get her there, what it does to me, I can't manage it myself. Because in many ways the language itself has caused me a lot of pain. Growing up, Vietnamese was used kind of only ever roughly. I came to know the language through my mom, obviously, and my relationship with her was complicated. So in a way, I only knew what to scold. I only knew how to threaten somebody in Vietnamese. I only knew how to shout. I don't know words of affection. I don't know how to be patient in Vietnamese. I don't know these things that and so I don't want to be speaking to my daughter in that voice, because that's not me. But that's the only access that I have to Vietnamese as a language. So then I choose not to pass it on. You know. But I would be very welcome, yeah I’ll be very welcoming to, if she wanted to learn it herself in the future. I would be very supportive of that. But I myself can't be the vessel. 

 

JS: That was really good. Thank you for that. That was really touching. I was… Thank you, that was really good. 

 

ANR: Thank you for asking. 

 

JS: Of course I want to thank you for that. That was really good. I was about to cry. Thank you. 

 

ANR: Awwwwh, you're so sweet. Thank you. 

 

JS: Thank you. That was a really good response. 

 

ANR: Is it because you, is it something that you relate to or… 

 

JS: Mhm, yeah, yeah, I feel yeah. Because there's like… 

 

ANR: What does it make you think of? 

 

JS: I feel like.. Me too. It's like a quite sensitive topic since there's so many people around you too. Well, specifically, I don't know if it's like for you in New York, but in California, there’s family. There's people who speak your native language and you feel kind of left out or not a part of them because you don't know much. And you only know certain words of aggression or say ten words that are offensive in a way. That’s the only way I can communicate if I do want to say anything. So it's very personal to me too. To sum it up. Thank you. 

 

ANR: Thanks for sharing that. 

 

JS: Thank you for that. 

 

ANR: That must be really hard. 

 

JS: For you too. Thank you again. That was yeah. So for the next one. We’re gonna say another question. So this is going to be question thirteen. What do you hope the younger Vietnamese or Southeast Asian American readers will take away from your work? 

 

ANR: Southeast Vietnamese or Southeast Asian readers? 

 

(50:00) JS: Yeah. 

 

ANR: Was that the question? What will they? What will they, as readers will take away from it? 

 

JS: Or, what do you hope? Yeah. 

 

ANR: I think I hope that…I hope that people will feel–readers or anyone that comes to my work will value their own story. And that there is beauty and chaos and there is a way to make something beautiful out of a site of destruction. Basically. I hope that people find comfort in knowing that there are people that feel just as lonely as they do and can survive it and can make a beautiful life out of it. Yeah. I think a dominant theme in my work is, there’s a lot of loneliness. And there's a lot of mother daughter relationship. I don't. Yeah. This is a hard question. I don't know. Sometimes I ask myself too like I wonder, do I, because I write mostly for myself. And I feel lucky that if anybody's interested in reading these things. But, I guess it's just to take part in our shared humanity is my hope. Yeah, and just to feel a little… to just feel less alone, to feel seen. If anybody comes to my work and feel like, “oh I feel that,” you know, “I understand that” or if they feel understood by something I wrote. Or if it makes them understand something about themselves, I would be grateful. Yeah. 

 

JS: So, yeah that was well said. You know. Yeah, thank you. That one was really well said. 

 

ANR: Thank you. 

 

JS: Because I know you said earlier, too, sometimes you feel you don't know if you’re saying the right stuff or you're wondering, is this how I said it right or correctly? Because I know you said… 

 

ANR: Yeah, because I feel I tend to lose track of my thoughts and I start somewhere and then I'm like, where was I going with it? I don't know. I think that's why I write too, because I’m just not a public speaker. So… 

 

JS: I think that goes along with also what you said earlier about how you’re, people are introverted in your mind. There’s so much happening, so you put it on paper. 

 

ANR: Yeah, yeah. Because then you can actually, okay. I can compose it in the way and draft and fix it and move it around rather than just blah. Yeah. 

 

JS: Right. 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

JS: Thank you. And this is the second to last question. How do you see your writing contributing to or challenging mainstream narratives about the Vietnam War or its aftermath? And also to remember, if you're not comfortable with answering the question, let me know. 

 

ANR: Okay. How does it contribute to the mainstream? 

 

JS: Or challenge. 

 

ANR: Oh, or challenge. You know, in my first book, what the character refers to…what in the US is named the Vietnam War. But the character in my first novel referred to it as the American one. 

 

JS: Mhm. 

 

(55:00) ANR: So just from that shift alone. I think is a challenge to the American reader because it immediately, I don't go into it because that's not what the book is about. But it immediately set up that there's a whole other world out there where people see this war as the American war. You know that it's something that happened to them, not the Vietnam War. 

 

JS: Mhm. 

 

ANR: So it's obviously from the perspective of a Vietnamese person. So that and then I would say, I don't know if my work does this, but I would hope it does. In that, in contributing to… more contemporary stories. 

 

JS: Mhm 

 

ANR: You know, about characters who happen to be Vietnamese but are not necessarily struggling with their Vietnamese identity. That is just one pieces of their many, many pieces in their stories. Because that's obviously like a reaction against, a lot of mainstream stories. Which is that the minority person, whether it be LGBTQ or considered minority, diverse in any way, that their only complexity can be that they’re struggling with that identity. 

 

JS: Mhm 

 

ANR: And so that's something that mainstream media and publishers push. Whereas my characters, I don’t, sometimes I don't even mention that they're Vietnamese. But I need the reader to put in the work and imagining that they're Vietnamese without me telling them to. Because that's not the point. I'm just telling a story. I'm telling a story about relationships. And that's in a way, that alone is a challenge to, I guess the existing canon. 

 

JS: Mhm. 

 

ANR: Yeah I don’t know. 

 

JS: I think that was. Yeah. You said that really well. It shows off like you said, a little bit of humanity and related ability. And also it gives the reader a bit to work with, with imagination and you want them to work for it. I really like that. Well, not work for it more like… 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

JS: I don't know the word. 

 

ANR: Yeah. You know, because I.. because a lot of.. in the past anyway, things are changing little by little. But the assumption is always when people are reading a book, for the longest time every book I read, that's my assumption is always that the character is white. So then it starts to seep into only white characters can have struggles about internal struggles. About family drama or some complex struggle because they're free from identity struggles. So they’re, and I guess I want to write characters who are, I guess minority characters. But, I'm not necessarily struggling with their identity. 

 

JS: Mhm. I like that too. How you also related it to the earlier question, how publishers they mostly push one narrative when you want to mostly push more complex and more, a variety of issues at the same time. 

 

ANR: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. 

 

JS: Thank you. And this is going to be the last question. Thank you so much for your time. I really love this interview. I've never interviewed anyone before. And this is really good to me. Okay. So the last question is going to be. 

 

ANR: It's been really fun. 

 

JS: Mhm. Yeah. Thank you too. The time it lasted past the 30 minutes but it's okay. 

 

ANR: It is, it is okay. 

 

JS: Are there any writers, artists or thinkers, Vietnam or otherwise, who have influenced your storytelling voice or how you understand identity? 

 

ANR: How I understand identity… 

 

JS: Mhm. 

 

(1:00:00) ANR: I mean, they're like writers that influence me, but not because of identity. Because that's the one that I kind of deliberately stay away from as a reaction to mainstream storytelling. But, in terms of Vietnamese writers, I grew up a lot with the Vietnamese fairy tales. 

 

JS: Mhm. 

 

ANR: I don't know who wrote them. I mean, I think their oral tradition actually. 

 

JS: Like mythological. 

 

ANR: Yeah. Vietnamese myths. So those have an enormous amount of influence on me. Contemporary, when I went back to Vietnam, I actually started reading contemporary Vietnamese poetry and some short stories that I really, really liked. But I also have memory issues now. I think it's part of, after giving birth to my daughter. I just start to have a lot of memory issues. I can't quite recall the names. In the US, Viet Thanh Nguyen definitely is somebody that is, I study his book of nonfiction. I think “Nothing ever dies.” and that's where I started to understand this idea of narrative plenitude. And how I started to be able to think and talk about the fact that people are stuck with the idea that Vietnam is a war, not a country. And every time people think of Vietnam, the first image that comes into their mind might be like a war and soldiers struggling in the jungle or something. And they don't understand that it's just so much more than that. Yeah. I think and I don't know.  I also enjoy a lot of contemporary music, Vietnamese contemporary music when I was there. Pop and things like that. I feel like that brings me a lot closer to the culture as well. And yeah. Because [unintelligible] inspiration, it's not just in books, it’s everything. My sister is a writer-director, and she just came out with a movie. It actually won an award 

 

JS: Congrats! 

 

ANR: at the New York Asian Film Festival. Yeah, yeah. It's called “Skin of Youth” if you want to check it out. It’s called “Skin of Youth” by Ash Mayfair. I don't know if it's available on any of the streaming platforms yet because it's still kind of doing the festival tour. 

 

JS: Mhm. 

 

ANR: So it’s played in Hong Kong. I think Hong Kong. It won an award in India and it won an award here in New York. Yeah. So I love her films. Her first film I also love. Yeah. 

 

JS: Yeah, that's actually so cool that you and your sister are both artists and you both express in your own way. You do books and reading, and she does film and different types of media, I think. And I really like how you said. Sorry, I just go on tangents too. But I really like how you said, fiction, fictional… 

 

ANR: No, no, go ahead, please do. 

 

JS: [unintelligible] and Vietnam and I think Southeast Asian countries. They’re really interesting because they're told from older people and they have, sometimes they have personal stories related to them. I really love listening to their past and stuff about that. Since there's so many interpretations. 

 

ANR: Oh, yeah? 

 

JS: Yeah. And it's also like, I also have fictional things to… 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

(1:05:00) JS: And I think what else is a fictional thing? Was it, fantasy-like type of things, like you said. Those are really interesting, and I like as well. Since, I also like playing games and stuff. 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

JS: Really interesting. Anyway, do you have any questions for me at all or any…? 

 

ANR: Yeah. Games are really inspiring too. Yeah. No, this has been really fun to talk to you and thank you so much for the super thoughtful questions and for holding the space for me to kind of go all over the place. Yeah. You're a very good interviewer because you made me feel really safe and open and you just, you were vulnerable with me, and that made me even more comfortable to share more. And you were very encouraging, so this was a really great interview. Thank you. 

 

JS: I want to thank you a lot too, because it made me think about my own things. And now I’m, I want to do more research into your work and even your sister's work. And overall, books–I needed, I want to get into books more and maybe I could learn more, like you said, perspective. You gave me a lot of inspiration for that. And I really love this interview as well because you also made it very comfortable with opening up as well. And the questions too. Yeah, they were kind of heavy. They were quite heavy. 

 

ANR: No, that's the best kind of questions, you know? That’s how it should be. Yeah. 

 

JS: Thank you so much. I can't even. 

 

ANR: Yeah. 

 

JS: I feel like for me too, personally. Thank you for me too. I think it felt more personal because, when it was just the two of us. 

 

ANR: Yeah, I think that worked out for the best. That was perfect. Thanks, Jaden. Yeah. 

 

JS: Thank you so much, Abigail. 

 

ANR: Yeah. Well, hopefully. Yeah. Keep in touch. And if you need anything else, let me know. And yeah, please do send me the consent form on Docusign so I can sign that for you. All right. Good luck with your project. 

 

JS: Thank you so much. Bye. 

 

ANR: Bye. 

 

JS: And happy holidays too as well. 

 

ANR: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Happy holidays. Bye. 

 

JS: Bye 

Biography

Marcelino Truong Luc was born in 1957 in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. He is the son of a Vietnamese diplomat for the Republic of Vietnam and a French mother. His family moved to the United States and later to Vietnam during his childhood. He eventually settled in France, where he earned degrees in law at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and English literature. He is an illustrator and painter. He is also the author of the graphic memoir, Such a Lovely Little War, which blends his childhood experiences with the larger history of the Vietnam War. His sequel, Saigon Calling, continues this story and explores his life growing up between different cultures. His work focuses on themes of family, war, displacement, and mixed-race identity.

 

Thematic Overview

In the first part of the interview (00:00 to 10:00), Marcelino shares his family’s migration story, including his father’s journey from Vietnam to France, his parents' meeting in Paris, and the family’s moves for his father’s diplomatic work. Marcelino spent his childhood in Manila, the United States, Saigon, and London. In the second part (10:00 to 20:00), he describes how he gradually shifted from illustration to writing, the years of practice it took to feel confident, and the risks of creating long graphic novels. In the third part (20:00 to about 37:02), he talks about the challenges of being a Southeast Asian and mixed Vietnamese artist, such as not being taken seriously, facing racism and condescension, and his frustration with how people in France discuss the Vietnam War and politics without firsthand experience. The fourth part (37:02 to about 42:56) focuses on what he finds meaningful about being an artist and writer, including the loneliness of the work, the satisfaction of creating something beautiful, and his view that artists are not more important than people in other jobs. In the final part (43:18 to the end at about 1:11:45), Marcelino discusses how he hopes readers will respond to his books, the challenges of being published and translated, his thoughts on future projects and why he has stepped back from another large graphic novel, and he ends by giving practical advice about the risks of an artistic career and the need to find a sustainable path.

 

Oral History Transcript 

Interviewee: Marcelino Truong Luc (MT) 

Interviewer: Astrid Xhanen (AX), Audrey Nakamura (AN), Dylan Fong (DF) 

Date of interview: December 8, 2025  

Location: Remote interview via Zoom  

Collection: DVAN@SFSU Oral History Archive, Fall 2025-Spring 2026  

Length of interview: 1:12:00 

Overseen by: Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau 

 

(00:00:00) 

(AX): So, I'm just going to start off with our names. Interviewers are going to be Astrid, (myself), Dylan, and Audrey. Interviewing Marcelino today, December 8, at 7:40 a.m. All right. Then let's get started on the first question. So, can you tell us a little bit about you and your family's migration story? 

 

(MT): Well, long story. My father was Vietnamese. He was from the south. He studied first in Vietnam, and then after his “Baccalauréat,” the equivalent of I don’t know what in the states, the end of secondary studies. He was dispatched to France with a grant, with a scholarship, to study at first at the Sorbonne [University], where he studied French and English literature and language, which is unusual. Usually, most Vietnamese people in those days would study medicine or some more or less scientific subject. But my dad then went to a law school called “Institut d'Études Politiques,” Institute of Political Science. My parents- My mother was French, from Brittany, Saint-Malo, where I now live. And my parents met while they were studying in Paris. They were married in 1950. I have two elder siblings, my sister Mireille, Mi, who appears in [my graphic novel], and my brother Dominique, who unfortunately died in 1979. And a younger sister called Anh, A.N.H. Noel. We all have western names, first names, but also a Vietnamese first name. Because in those days, this was shortly after the independence, the Republic of Vietnam did not want children of Vietnamese nationality to have French first names. We had to have Vietnamese first names. So we have we all have both. My Vietnamese first name is Luc, L.U.C. Which means strength. I try to live up to that. We moved around a lot when we were young because our father's job. He was a diplomat for the then “Republic of Vietnam,” [when the] capital [was] Saigon. And so in my early years, I was born in the Philippines, which was his first posting abroad. Hence, my first name Marcelino, which is not Italian as many people imagine, but which is Spanish because we lived in a street in the center of Manila called “La Calle San Marcelino.” Anyway, we moved around a lot, first in the Philippines, then the states. In 1961, Dad was called back to Saigon because President Kennedy had just been elected. And he had announced in January 1961 that the United States would support all those countries which, as he put it himself, were threatened by what Kennedy called “the red tide of communism.” So that's why Dad was called back to Saigon, where we spent only two years. But very important years for me, which I describe in great detail in my first graphic novel. In the second graphic novel- the first one is called “Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63.” The title is, of course, ironical, shouldn't be taken first degree. Dad was then posted to London, the Vietnamese embassy. So we spent a long time in London, because about a little more than a year after we arrived, my father resigned. He worked then as a journalist in London, and my parents spent twenty years in London. I spent nine, that's where I learned my English. 

(00:05:00) MT: Our years in London, with the backdrop of the Vietnam War, I recount in my secondvgraphic novel called “Saigon Calling: [London 1963-75]” in its English language translation. The French first original edition is called “Give Peace a Chance,” the famous John Lennon song.bBut when it was translated by a publisher in Vancouver, he insisted on changing the title and also avoiding all musical quotes I made–numerous musical quotes I made in the original edition. Because he was very much afraid of having the- What are they called? The music publishing houses, you know, Polyor, EMI, etc. suing the publishing house for publishing rights. So I had to change all that, and he found the title, which in fact is better, “Saigon Calling.” To make a long story short, after studying first at the same school as my father, the “Institute of Political Science,” I got my degree when I was twenty. My father was hoping I would become one of those upper civil servants that emerged from a school in France called the “École nationale [d'administration],” that means National Administration School. People like our president, Macron, and many others. This was his ambition for me, being typical Vietnamese ambition because, as you know, the service for that generation, the service of the state, was the most, shall we say, “noble” thing to do. I would have wanted to please him, but I felt this wasn't for me. And I went on to literature at the “Sorbonne [University],” English literature which was very bohemian compared to the first set of studies. Which by the way really interested me too, but I just didn't feel mature enough to go all the way. And, there was probably already a sort of itch to become an artist, to do something with art, because I always had this little itch in the back of my mind. But art studies and artistic professions were not known in my family. The little talent I have, I inherited from my mother, my French mother, who was very artistic. But shedidn't have any knowledge of artistic professions either. So, it was only at the age of twenty-five, after being an English teacher for a year, and not wanting to go on to university. Because I felt that, of course, I could hold on and perhaps find a job in a university, but I knew that for the rest of my life I would be studying other people's works. Which I greatly enjoyed when I was studying, but I thought maybe I should produce my own modest works instead of being an expert on some obscure author writing a PhD. I knew that was the risk, and so I chose to become an artist, which was very, very difficult at the beginning. And it took me years to feel at ease and to reach the level of the others in the profession in France, because there are many very, very fine illustrators and graphic novel artists in France. So it was a long struggle for me to obtain a certain ease and to feelthe part. To feel I was entitled to call myself… “artist” sounds very pompous, but an artisan, doing an artistic job. It took me ages. I think that's about it. There would be many other things to say, but I don't want to be too long. 

 

AX: Okay. Thank you so much, Marcelino, for sharing all of that with us. I really appreciate that. You kind of did touch about what I'm going to be asking next, which is: 

(00:10:00) AX: How did you become really interested in writing? You shared a little bit about it, but if there's any more that you want to add to that. 

 

MT: Well, actually, it took me ages to allow myself to think about writing. It's funny because when I started off in 1983, I was pretty terrified. Pretty exhilarated too, thinking, "Oh, great. This is the life of the Bohemian, the life of artists in Paris." But it soon felt pretty lonely, and it's a hard struggle because you feel that you have to belong to a group, otherwise you're sort of left out. You're always feeling insecure. It felt like starting from scratch again, which it really was. How did I get to writing? It took me about ten years of work to feel I was good enough at the writing part. Not the writing, sorry, the drawing part, the illustration and painting bit to even think about writing. You see because when I started off I needed to produce, to make money, and the only way to acquire a certain ease–I think it's the same with music or sports or any other skill, the only way to make progress is to do. To make, to work, to dance, to play, to act, or whatever you're doing. And it was only after about ten years of writing that I began to feel a bit impatient sometimes, because my one of my main interests in illustration was Asia. Whatever country you can mention, because I knew that if I was given a book to illustrate on Asia, China, Japan, or Vietnam, or whatever, I knew where to look for the documentation. I wouldn't sit on my chair and imagine something, and write, and draw anything “Chinese-looking.” I would document myself, and I was often a bit disappointed by the texts I was given to illustrate, especially those on Vietnam, because I thought they weren't really written by people who knew. And I was always hoping for the perfect text to land onto my lap, but it didn't happen, it wasn't happening. So I thought, “all right, maybe the time is to write the score before playing it,” as musicians do. That is easier said than done because there's a risk to that. When you've managed to achieve some sort of recognition as an illustrator. People tend to label you, “all right,you're an illustrator,” but they don't seem to realize that you might be able to hold the writing pen, too, sometimes. Because, I suppose, it's because it's not really something you learn at school, I suppose. There's an element of, let's call it, “a gift,” “talent” sounds very pompous and grand, boastful, but I suppose there's a gift. It's not because you've been at university that you can write. Well, that's what people tell you all the time. They tend to be a bit, how should I say, I call them a bit “connard rouge.” Anything with an education in the world of art is sort of looked down upon as “non-cool,” you know? They think they have learned everything off the street, which is completely false, most of them come from the middle class, just like me. But there is that posture in the world of art that anything that comes from the universities sort of has lost its freshness. So I allowed myself first to write stories for young readers, for young children. We call them albums here. Stories for children below the age of six, [at least] they're supposed to be. 

(00:15:00) MT: And that will, if you write a story like that, it holds in two A4 pages, and then you divide it into blocks, and each block will be a double page. So it's not a lot of writing, but it's a lot of chiseling because you have to say a lot in a few words, so that was some sort of training. But again, I felt that it was a risk because while you're doing this, you're taking the risk of writing something which is not going to be successful, but that's always the risk. It's okay if it's a short story like that, but when you–It took me more years to allow myself to take the risk of writing a long graphic novel of 260 pages, or so, because that's a risk you have to take. Well, I took three months off. Of course, I would take small jobs, small commissions, doing a cover, a book cover for this, and a drawing for that, for a newspaper, small jobs like that. But the rest of the time, I was concentrating on writing the scenario. And it's sitting down in front of your screen for about three months and writing it page by page, trying to imagine what you're going to say on each page. And trying to imagine how you're going to cut up the page. And I needed to do this, and I did this for the first two graphic novels, because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to fall out of breath. It's a marathon. We all start stories which we never finish, and they finish in a cupboard. We all do that. But this time I couldn't really fail because it would have meant wasting three months for nothing. And in this sort of job, it's a fascinating, interesting job, [being an] illustrator, but we're not paid that much. So that you cannot afford- not earning any money for three months is a risk, especially if you have a family, etc, etc. So this was a calculated risk, but there is a risk. And then writing the thing takes you three months, but doing the thing took me three years. And each time, of course, as I said, I would interrupt my work on this graphic novel whenever some commission showed up. I do not regret having done that. In fact, I think it’s probably the most important thing I had to do. Because there were things I wanted to say about the history of Vietnam, there are many angles to any history, and I just wanted to bring my contribution. And it's the third graphic novel I did, it's about the first Indo-China war. It's a fiction [novel], but of course it's fed by lots of experiences, not that I have lived particularly, but people in my family or people I have met. So writing came gradually because I wasn't terribly Confident. And I think that sometimes, doing university studies makes you perhaps a little more judgmental about your own work than some others would be. That can be a good thing, but it can also paralyze you. One should be slightly- well, not lenient, but not too critical about one's own work. I'm not talking about the work of others. That can be a sort of hindrance because you've “read too much” or “studied too much.” No, I don't think you've ever read too much. I think it depends [on] what you're talking about. But if you're talking about important subjects like war, conflict, or history, I think you have to do a bit of reading. You have to do a lot of reading, or you have to have lived something exceptional, because you have to bring to your writing something that the others aren't mentioning. There you are. So writing was an ambition, but it took me a long time to allow myself to do that. 

 

AX: Thank you, Marcelino, for sharing your journey with us, 

(00:20:00) AX: about how you became interested in writing and an illustrator, and how that looked for you. The next question I want to ask are; What are some challenges that you may have faced being a Southeast Asian artist? 

 

MT: Ugh, good question. When I started off in the graphic novel world, my first projects were not about Vietnam. They were about England, because I had lived in England for a long time, nine years, my parents twenty. But at the Sorbonne [University], I had been fascinated by not all English literature. I never pretend that I know English literature. That's stupid. I know the books we had to study, and a few other books I read. But I was interested in the role- one of the topics which I was fascinated in was in the artists, and the war artists, and the war poets of the French of the- sorry, the first world war on the British side. Because in England you will find books about British war artists of the first world war or British war poets. I used to know all this by heart, Wilfred Owen or Siegfried Sassoon and people like that. I used to know this really well, and I thought the subject was fascinating. What do artists, of the brush or of the pen, how can they contribute to the war effort? And there were many experiences and many fine works of art to prove that they could do things. However, when I would approach publishers with such a project, they would say, “Oh, we already have Tardi.” Tardi is a very famous French graphic artist, he’s older than me, and also writer of his stories. Tardi (T.A.R.D.I.), you will find him immediately if you Google his name, “Jacques Tardi,” I think his first name is Jacques. He was very well known for his graphic novels about the French First World War. So when I would say, “Oh, I’d like to tell the story seen from the English side because I know this thing.” I think they were not convinced because I can't help thinking they must have thought- they would tell me that “we already have Tardi,” but I would say “well, he's doing the French side. I want to talk about the British.” But I probably didn't have the right face. That's what I tell myself. And no one would seem to understand that I was- I really knew that subject really well. But anyway, it was probably why I was much better off talking about Vietnam in the end. Because I suppose I had more legitimacy, and there was a life experience. My family, not only me. When I write a graphic novel, I'mnot talking about myself. I'm talking about my family, my family experience, and many other families, my own [when] I was a kid, you know. So being half Vietnamese, I think had an influence. When I'm in a bad mood, I tell people, “You know, it's hard to be taken seriously sometimes when you're a,” I may be wrong, this is personal, “when you're a young Eurasian,” How do you call it in English? In French, we say “Métis” [mixed race] or “Eurasien” (Eurasian). Métis, for some, is pejorative because it brings back memories of the colonization. I don't care. I'll give you an example. One day, I told this guy I had served in the French Navy. He said, "Oh yes, were you a cook?" I said, "No, I was an Ensign," meaning the first rank as an officer because I'd been to school, you know. I wasn't given that rank because I had to earn it. But immediately he said, "Were you a cook?" But you do hear that sort of thing, I find. And I find it very difficult sometimes, 

(00:25:00) MT: to get people to understand that I have done a lot of reading. I have experienced many things. I'm no longer a boy. I'm sixty-eight. My family has been through a lot, as many other Vietnamese families. A lot more than probably many people in Europe. I'm sorry to sound so embittered, but it is something I do feel sometimes. That being exiled, having been through these huge conflicts. I mean, the Vietnam War was the largest conflict after the Second World War in the 20th century. So I even get into trouble sometimes with my children. I have three children who are young adults now, and very clever and hardworking they are. But sometimes, as all parents, I annoy them because I will start wanting to talk about the war in Vietnam. I do so less nowadays because I know that this will get me into trouble, because it's never the right time. They always say, "Daddy, it's not the right time." It's never the right time. When is the right time? And this is the sort of experience that I encounter is that they cannot understand that their childhood in France or in England was not mine. I'm not playing the martyr. And I even think sometimes that it brought a lot to me, this experience. It wasn't all entirely happy, but I don't think that- usually writers aren't people who have spent their lives partying and having fun in life. If you want to have something to say, you have to experience things, and life isn't always easy. So I feel enriched by all this background, but I find that sometimes it puts me at odds with mysurroundings. It makes me impatient sometimes with people of, let me be nasty, especially my generation or younger generations in the west, who have only known peace all their lives, and who pass judgments. Who will lecture us on “who are the goodies” and “who are the baddies” in our own history. This is something very prevalent in France, a bit less nowadays, but in the 70s, France was a Marxist country with the good and the bad. And people here would be very confident. Well, I mean the most politicized people, not the others who are just going on about their business, but the most politicized, and the French like to be politicized because politics replace religion for them. They are Latins, and the Latins, I am convinced, need a strong faith. They need some sort of discipline. Look at history. Who were the two most powerful communist parties in Europe after the Second World War? Well, can you answer that question? Have you any idea, in Europe? Well, it was France number one and Italy number two. The two most prominent Catholic nations before the Second World War. Soafter the Second World War, Christian religions sort of waned, and they still are at the moment. But what replaced them was Marxism in France. So we had these people lecturing us all the time on “who are the goodies”and “who are the baddies” and even now on Facebook, when I publish something on- I do it less nowadays, but I used to publish more stuff about the conflicts of Vietnam. You will get these French people telling us, lecturing us on “who are the goodies” and “who are the baddies.” They've never been to Vietnam. They have never lost anything. They have never been involved. It's just a posture. It's just that they feel heroic, like in Robin Hood, on the side of Robin Hood and his little green men. Or on the side of, you know, in Gulliver and the Lilliputians, they will be on the side of the Lilliputians. 

(00:30:00) MT: Because just like in Star Wars, they'll be on the side of the goodies [Rebels] against the army of fascist looking [Imperials] whatever they're called. So that's what being half Vietnamese gets me involved into, because I suppose I've made it my subject because I was annoyed after some time of being lectured by people who had not lost anything in the process. So that's my job as I feel it. And being Asian, I'm very happy to be so, but I'm often annoyed about the work it takes to get them to realize that I'm not some idiot. You know, they're very condescending, I find sometimes. You have to work hard, you have to. I worked hard at university because I felt I needed the stature in an educated Vietnamese family. They want you to get the best degrees, which is sometimes a great amount of pressure. But, I was good at studies, and what I did do, it shaped me, learned me a lot. And there are good schools in France, and it's not the students that are important, it's the teachers who are, some of them fascinating. So I was very glad to have studied. And when I look around me, and in my job as an illustrator, I find that the people around me are extremely talented in art. But when it comes to history a lot of them are very well read, but I find that they tend to reproduce what I call mainstream cliches, which are fashionable in the art world. In the art world, no one, and it's certainly not me, will vindicate, will support, fascism or Nazism or racism, or anything like that. God knows. Thank God no. But then there is also this pose. They are very lenient when it comes to passing a judgment on countries like Cuba or even Vietnam, I hope they don't hear me, or China, or Russia of today, which is, for me, a pure offspring of communist Russia, Soviet Russia. So they're very, very, very shy when it comes to being critical of those countries. So, for me, in French we say “two weights, two measures,” [“deux poids, deux mesures” meaning “double standards”] and I find them very lacking in objective judgment about what the old, the formerly dominated colonite countries can be up to today. They're always going on about the nasty imperialist West. Of course, it was nasty. Of course, we shouldn't do that again. We will never do that again. I hope. But let's open our eyes. Does that mean that what followed is necessarily good? Personally, I prefer Taiwan to continental China for political reasons because I prefer a pluralistic society. Now, it is very difficult to say that here in France, and I suppose it's because I'm half-Vietnamese that I am troubled by these matters. I suppose that's the reason. And I'm not saying that- I mean, half of my family followed the revolution in Vietnam, and I know these people. A lot of them are very sincere, very good people who really thought they were doing the best, as my father thought hewas doing the best. But it doesn't mean- so it's not against them. It's against a political system. I find that some political systems, like the pluralistic democracy, 

(00:35:00) MT: with all its talkativeness and all its weakness sometimes, is for me a more livable system than authoritarian autocracies. But then you know, people always see the danger on the right but never on the left. It's the opposite, which was our experience. Well, for me anyway. Sorry about being so long. 

 

AX: No, thank you so much, Marcelino, for going into such detail about all the hardships that you face being Southeast Asian, being half Vietnamese. I'm sure, everyone in this call can have some form of that feeling until now still resonating with them. 

 

MT: I'd just like to add that for one nasty remark,“You were in the Navy? So, you were a cook.” For one stupid remark like that, I always say in meetings that “for one stupid remark, there have also been 1,000 extended hands.” You see, the fact that I was also from Asia could also attract a lot of friendship. I mustn't forget to say that. 

 

AX: I do agree with that as well. 

 

MT: Yeah. 

 

AX: Thank you so much. 

 

MT: It's not all bad, fortunately, but I think that we all make great efforts to be loved. 

 

AX: Yeah. 

 

MT: And I think that's right. But, you know, we make great efforts. 

 

AX: Yeah. You got to support the community that we're in, for sure. 

 

MT: To give a good impression, I believe in that. I always cannot understand how some people behave, because they give a bad name to the community. You know, I don't know many like that, but it happens sometimes. 

 

AX: Okay. Thank you so much, Marcelino. For my next question, it will be: What do you find the most meaningful about being an artist or a writer? 

 

MT: I'm not going to idealize it because it's a very lonely job. This is the one thing I don't like about it. Although I spent forty years of solitary confinement. Thank God I had a family, which really structured me. But sometimes I feel, “What have I done to deserve this?” I'm sociable. I like working with people, but it's not the sort of job- no one's salaried. No one's salaried in this job. We're all freelance. So, it's fine if you have a lot of work because you can't think about- time flies. Illustration is a long, time-consuming job. You can't cheat. Illustration is [either] completed, or it's not completed, and it shows immediately. Whereas writing, it's not easier, of course, but people have to read the damn page if they want to form an impression. Whereas a drawing, the impression is immediate, which is at the same time our blessing, but also [Laughs] it means you cannot cheat. What's the best thing? I suppose it’s the chance you are given because of some gift and a lot of hard work to produce something not necessarily durable. You don't know how long it’ll endure or last, but something pretty, something nice, something sometimes beautiful, something which is your own, you have made or written, that's some sort of achievement. And if on top of that you can earn a decent living from it, well, that's fine. But again, I will often say that it's fine if you have a lot of work and you're busy. It's torture if it doesn't take off. If you don’t take off. It's real torture. And I advise anyone doing that, if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter. Find something else. Look for another job immediately. And don't die of sorrow and boredom, 

(00:40:00) MT: and solitude trying to become an artist because there are many other good jobs. Sometimes I'm annoyed at the form of arrogance. Some artists seem to think they're above others. I really don't think that. I greatly admire nurses, or people driving ambulances, or anyone. Or carpenters, or lawyers, or cops, or soldiers, or whatever, doing their job properly. There's nothing special about being an artist. I find quite often in France they're being given far too much importance in a way. I suppose it's because they have done something which can be shared. I suppose that's why. That one should admire their works? Fine. I'm a bit more annoyed whenthey're asked about what they think on television about this or that. When actors are asked what they think about politics, why should their opinions weigh more than yours or mine? I don't see why, but this is [a] very common occurrence in France anyway. So, it's a great job, but I don't think it allows you to become a spoiled brat, which some of them are, let's say, obvious, sincerely, you know? When I was a kid, I grew up in England. Our stars were mostly the pop stars, because England was great during the counter-culture years. I was in the sort of the epicenter of the pop culture. Not that I was doing as much as I would have wanted to, but I witnessedit. But when I think of it, we would idolize pop stars. Fine. Okay. They were good musicians, but their private lives were many a time a wreck. They were bad husbands, bad fathers, bad whatever. Drugged to the hills. “Why so much attention?” Is what I say. It's not because they're artists that they should escape the rules applying to others. I must sound very boring, but that's really my opinion. 

 

AX: No, thank you so much, Marcelino. I appreciate going into detail about everything. This will really be helpful for us. Up next, Audrey will ask you some questions. 

 

MT: If she is still awake. [Jokingly] 

 

AN: Huh? No, I'm still awake. 

 

MT: Sorry. 

 

AN: Everything's so interesting. I have like one question. How do you hope Vietnamese or Asian-American readers to feel when they engage with your work? 

 

MT: How do I? Sorry, I missed the first part. 

 

AN: How do you hope your audience to react when they read your work? 

 

MT: You know, most of my work- or none of my work, has been translated in Vietnamese yet. And that's for me, it's a hope. I would like to be translated in Vietnamese because more and more I find that I've been working all these years in France trying to get hold of these subjects on Asia, right? Whenever something came up, I was hoping they'd send it to me. But obviously, there I have illustrated many other things, and some of my books are sold in Vietnam in a few libraries, namely French libraries but there are very few that there must be. There’s one in Saigon I know of, perhaps one in Hanoi, I don't know, very few. It would be nice if I could be translated in Vietnamese because then I could get to know what my readers think. But I don't have many. The readers I have are Vietnamese from France, or from Canada, or from the US. It's hard to know, by the way, whois reading you. You don't get any statistics, your publisher- You only know if you're a huge success. You see, your publisher will let you know, 

(00:45:00) MT: if you're a huge success. You will hear about it because your publisher will be very excited and probably ask you for more books. But if you're just average, you rarely hear about, because he's busy producing other books. Okay. I do get some very good feedback, mostly people of my generation who will say to me, “Oh, the story you tell in your first book,” for instance, “it's just like my childhood.” One day, this happened to me in a book fair. This guy, who became a friend afterwards, came up to me and said, “Your story is very close to my own.” We're the same age, we actually went to kindergarten together, and I checked, and we had the same photo. I didn’t know it was him, we were youngsters. But that happens now and then, people who tell me, “What you have said rings a bell because I was in Saigon at the same time in the same sort of year.” So that comes up now and then. I was in Saigon about two months ago and I was giving a talk in a in the French bookshop in Saigon where they sell my books in small quantities. And this Vietnamese lady comes up to me and says, "Everything you say in your third book about the first Indo-China war seen from the communist side, Everything you say is true, but for that reason, you will never be published in Vietnam.” She said that kindly, but realistically. So, I suppose she means it. The things I say are still not audible in Vietnam. Maybe, and I'm not calling for a violent uprising. No, thank you. We've had enough of that. No, I just think it's a pity that there is not more pluralism allowed in the storytelling, in the history with a big age. There are always several readings of history that are possible. It's not just only one imposed by the state. But this is still a strong, prevalent feeling whenever you deal with touchy subjects, political subjects, that's very touchy. So, I'm hoping to be read more. We'll see. But for the moment, there's this obstacle. And even in France, during my forty years as a illustrator, I have illustrated many books denouncing the Nazi occupation of France, the persecution of the Jews, the extermination of the Jews, etc. I've done that, and I had no trouble doing that with total conviction. Yeah. I was sure that this was the right thing to do. But only once in forty years was I asked to illustrate a cover on the Soviet gulag. Just once. Because this is a taboo in France. You will be considered a good guy if you keep denouncing the danger on the extreme right. And I agree, one should always be very careful. But, George Orwell, one of my favorite authors, observed that danger can also come from parties which are so-called left. They pose as left, but they are not left at all. They're just as right-wing as the others. It's just words. It’s just false publicity. But that is, you know, still my books- seeing that, in my last book I tried to explain that, the communist Vietmen, meaning the companions of Ho Chi Minh, 

(00:50:00) MT: was not a band of cool brothers smoking dope all day and doing the revolution, once in a while. Iit was nothing like that at all. That is slightly suspect in France. If you're critical of communists, “ooh you must be extreme right.” You cannot be otherwise. That is the level of indoctrination here. And especially in the comic graphic novel art world which in France is sort of refuge for. There are a lot of mainstream authors but there are some rebels, who rebel against anything, and that's fine one should rebel against injustice. But it's a sort of pose for many and as I said it's always directed against this the same side, meaning against the right wing. So my books, even here, are sometimes ignored by some progressives who think they know better. It's because France has only known five years of German Nazi occupation. It has never known anything else. Whereas if you go to East Germany or Eastern Europe, they have known both the Nazi regime and the communist regime. So they're not as naive. And in fact, you will observe that East Germany now, is voting en masse for the extreme right, not for the extreme left. If you observe German politics. So, How come? How is that? How come? But this is something that people don't like to hear. I don't know if what I'm saying is shocking you, I know that when one is young, one is idealistic and in the west it's a sort of mainstream thing. The only the fascist were the bad boys, the bad guys. Any other anything else you'd like to know? I hope I haven’t disappointed you. Dylan, have you any questions? 

 

DF: Yeah. So, the question that I wanted to ask was: What future projects or themes would you like to explore next? 

 

MT: Good question. My publisher wanted me to do a fourth graphic novel about the colonization of Vietnam. And I had many ideas about that and things I'd like to say. But probably not as clear-cut as what he was probably- would be hoping to hear, because I think that denouncing the colonialism and imperialism, it's being done already all the time. However, people like me, my father, and my grandfathers, and grandmothers, they- my father lived in the colonial period. I didn't, but he did, and so did his grandparents. And they were part of these Vietnamese who wanted to get an education. So, they went to schools to French schools, and they got an education. It didn't mean they became colonialists. It just means they got an education, and many- all of them were hoping for independence. But then, according to their temperament, to their inclinations, they were either for Ho Chi Minh and the communists or for something more. They were for the reds, and others were for the blues, to make it simple, right? With all tones of blue and red in between. It's not all always  [so clear cut]. Because colonialism, although it was a domination, I cannot help thinking that it propelled Vietnam, perhaps against its will, into modernity. De facto by the fact that it forced the Vietnamese to become accustomed to modern machines and modern techniques, etc., etc., medicine, and all that. 

(00:55:00) MT: If you look at Vietnam today, what are they doing? Those who were supposed to be for socialist economy and anti-imperialists and all that. What are you doing today? The country has become a heaven for liberal capitalists. The people are eager to work. They’re motivated. They want to earn money. They want to better their lives. They're ready to work hard. The unions, what unions? There are no unions. Everyone wants to buy Western goods. You will see luxury Western cars in the streets. But we still have this communist party exerting its monopoly. All right, I prefer that to civil war. But there's a certain irony to it. The irony being that the communists have achieved the liberal capitalist dream. And that what is that's what Trump is doing today. He would like to be like Putin or Xi Jinping. He would like to have no opposition and all a field day for investments, just like they're doing in Asia now. Try to make the French understand that it's an uphill job. And that's why, one of the reasons why I did not want to go into another graphic novel about colonialism in Vietnam is that sort of terrain has already been covered so much. And also, there's a very down-to-earth reason, such a job requires about three years of work, and it happens that my wife is very ill. She has multiple sclerosis, and I just can’t be available enough to do that sort of job, which is- Oh, I must tell you how much I was paid for doing each one of those thick books. I was paid €15,000, which is I don't know how many dollars [$17,460]. Imagine, for three years of work. And I'm not complaining. This is quite usual in the graphic novel world. There is very little money because it's a business. If you sell a lot, you can negotiate a better advance on rights. It's a business. If you sell 100,000, all right, they’ll give you more money. Because they know they will get their money back. When a publisher puts €15,000 on the table, he is taking a risk. It's money. And I don'tknow if you know how the system of rights functions. Very often, people never mentioned it because, “We're talking about culture, so let's not talk about money. How awful.” No. Well, how it works is that if the right if the publisher has put €15,000 on the table for me to do the job, it means that when the book is published, the publisher will have paid the printer, all the team working with him who do a huge job because they they produce a book which looks like something which is beautiful and that's a real job. (People who work in publishing houses.) And there's the publisher, there's a printer, and then there's the huge bill to pay to the distributor because a book is not sold unless it's sent all over France in different bookshops. Two books, two there, three there, one there. And when they're not sold, they have to be returned. They have to be stocked. When they're slightly shopsoiled, they have to be destroyed because they can't be sold. So that costs money. And in the sale price of one of my books, which is an average €25, my rights are 8% which is about €1.90. The biggest sum goes to the distributor trucks going here and there to deliver the stuff and bringing them back when they're not sold. It's the same for all authors and all publishers. So it means that I will not get more than €15,000 until, 

(01:00:00) MT: the publisher gets his €15,000 from having sold my book. So it's easy to calculate €15,000 divided by €1.90. Let's make it €2 to make it simple. That's 7,666 copies have to be sold before my slate is cleaned and before I can get €1.90 after the 7,667th* sale. Did you understand that? This is how the publishing world works. I'm not being oppressed in any way. This is how it works because it's a huge risk. It's costly to produce a book, and it's much more difficult to sell it. People tell me, “Why don't you make your own books?” Of course, I can find a publisher. I can find a graphic artist who will produce the most beautiful book, but people are not going to come to my home to buy it. You see? So, I'll end up with a pile of books in my living room. That is why you have libraries, bookshops, I mean bookshops, and publishers. So it's a huge- there’s[only] one Harry Potter per century, right? The success of Harry Potter. And there are hundreds and thousands of writers who are glad to express themselves, but very few sell beyond the first print run. You only make money from the second print run. The first print run is calculated by the publisher completely legitimately so that he can hope to get his money back for his costs and to level, right? Which is a normal commercial attitude. But if you hope to earn more money than your advance on rights, there has to be a reprint. And there are rarely reprints. Many books are never reprinted. And this is not me sobbing or complaining. It's just the law of the job. So writing another book on colonialism. Too much work. I'm not sure I would be heard because I would not necessarily be only anti-imperialistic, because my family profited in a way from the French presence in Indochina. They went to school. It's a couple of French teachers who noticed my dad when he was nineteen, and said, “You must go to university in France we’ll help you.” They didn't have to do that. It didn't bring them any money. But this is what happened, and it changes life, I suppose. So, at the moment, I prefer to do pictures when I can, and pictures, you know, stuff you can sell when it's nice. When you do a nice picture, you know that you will sell it sooner or later if it's nice. You don't succeed them all. They're not always- [Laughs] They're not all nice, but it's easier to make money from selling nice pictures than from writing a fine book. Writing a fine book is a hard job. And you have to be read anyway. Perhaps later, you know, perhaps one day. This year, I started writing, not a graphic novel. I wanted to write about my ancestors in Vietnam because there are lots of stories in the family. And we have- there's a blog on the internet called “Gia đình Tatrung.” “Gia đình” means family. Tatrung (T.A.T.R.U.N.G.) That's my grandmother's name, which runs through all the numerous uncles and aunts of my father and including his mother. And so there are lots of pretty original stories to be told, and I tried to do that at the beginning of the year, but then I was I had to stop because it was taking too much time. 

(01:05:00) MT: You have to do a lot of reading. I had to catch up on the story of China because we're a Chinese family originally. Truong is a Chinese name. It's Zhang in Chinese, Z.H.A.N.G., and Truong is just the Vietnamese version of Zhang. Anyway, so I had to read about the Ming dynasty and the Manchu and all that because my ancestors flew to Asia, as many others, after the Manchu took over from the Mings in 1634. I think Ihad to catch up on that. This was too much work, and I had to give up for the moment, for the time being. 

 

MT: Do any of you intend to be writers or artists or…? 

 

DF: I personally am not. I'm currently in the field of computer engineering. So it's a little bit different from what you do. 

 

MT: Mhm. 

 

DF: But yeah, it's definitely an interesting story that you've been telling about your writing and all the projects that you've been doing and what you plan to do. But I guess before we finish the interview, I want to ask; Is there anything you would like to add that we didn't get the chance to cover today? 

 

MT: Oh! I can't remember. I don't think so. Maybe any of you, Audrey and Astrid, any other questions you want to ask me? 

 

AN: I don't think so. I think you covered everything really well. Thank you so much. 

 

MT: I hope I didn't depress you. I'm not saying that- I'm glad of the work the path I chose. I'm glad I did it. Because for me the other possibility would probably have [had] to become a university teacher. Which is fine, which is quite respectable, but I don't think that I would have- I might have become even more boring, interested in a very precise subject of English literature that only ten people know about, you know, writing a PhD on that. That was the risk, being very pedantic about that. I suppose that could have been the risk. It's nice fiddling about with colors, and paper, and all that, but I also cannot minimize the difficulty of working alone. And also, when you're a freelance artist, you're not necessarily going to rise, as some people rise in their careers and earn more money when you're fifty than you earn when you were twenty. It's not necessarily going to be like that. Which is not, perhaps, a bad thing, but you have to bear that in mind. It's not an easy path. It's satisfying when it works, but if it doesn't work, one must quickly get another job. Because it can become very, very painful, and there's no reason in being too obstinate, after all. I know that when I started off, I should have–I used to be able I used to work in restaurants, things like that. When I began, I was so lonely sometimes waiting for the commission, being shy, and all that. I should have gone out into the world and worked part-time, you know, in a restaurant or something, made a bit of money, seen the world. I think I was a bit too obstinate in wanting to absolutely, to sweat it out doing this artistic thing. Because some of the time, I just sat at home being worried all day for nothing. But then things picked up when I had to accept jobs that I didn't necessarily think I would be interested in to actually acquire the ease. At first, I was terrified, you know, 

(01:10:00) MT: I would do it, one line, and rub it out, like children. So it's just a question of, those who have been to art school probably have more time to mature for five years. I don't know why five, it seems huge to me. I can teach you my technique in one afternoon. The rest is all added value. It's what you add to it. But when you go to an art school, I suppose you have more time to develop, to find your style, as they say. You also create a network of friends who will help each other out later on, pass on you know tips about work here and work there. I didn't have that, so it was more solitary even, for me. But those who go to art school, I suppose, for them it's easier because they can mature, for a few years, without having to earn money immediately, which I suppose I wanted to do. There you are. 

 

DF: All right, yeah. That's really cool, and how art school seems like a really interesting thing to go to. But I guess to end off, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate you sharing your experiences and your insight with us. This interview has been really helpful for us, and it's something we really need for our oral history project. It's been really helpful overall. 

 

MT: Well, I'm really glad to see you all, and I wish you well. 

 

DF: Thank you. 

 

AX: Thank you so much! 

 

MT: Okay! 

 

AX: Have a good night! 

 

AN: Thank you! Have a great day! 

 

MT: Goodbye! 

 

AX: Bye-bye! 

 

MT: Bye-bye! 

Biography

Aimee Phan was born and raised in Orange County, California. She received her BA in English from UCLA and her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the author of two books for adults, We Should Never Meet: Stories and the novel The Reeducation of Cherry Truong. She has received fellowships and residencies from the NEA, MacDowell Colony, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center, Djerassi and Hedgebrook. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time, USA Today and CNN.com, among other publications. Aimee teaches as an associate professor in writing and literature at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and resides in Berkeley, California with her family.

 

Thematic Overview

(0:00) Aimee Phan opens with her and her family’s migration story before transitioning to how her love of books and ample time spent in the library growing up sparked an interest in writing (3:00). She discusses the barriers to Southeast Asian writers in the U.S. and how these barriers are slowly being chipped away as Southeast Asian writers expand into more genres (5:00). This is followed by talks of how her parents paved the way for her to focus on writing as a career by creating a strong family network. Phan expands on her love of writing and how writing helps her make sense of the world (6:00). She introduces her role as a board member of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network (DVAN) non-profit, highlighting the mission of spreading awareness and access to the works of Vietnamese authors, including herself (12:00). She then expands on her profession as a college professor of creative writing and literature and how her work allows her to do the job she loves through teaching writing (14:00). Phan ends the interview by discussing her family’s stories, emphasizing that a large reason she was drawn to writing was because it was an avenue to immortalize the experiences of her family so they would never be forgotten (18:00). 

 

Oral History Transcript 

Interviewee: Aimee Phan (AP) 

Interviewer: Celine Datu (CD) 

Date of interview: December 8, 2025   

Location: Remote interview via Zoom   

Collection: DVAN@SFSU Oral History Archive, Fall 2025-Spring 2026   

Length of interview: 00:18:45  

Overseen by: Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau 

 

(0:00) 

(CD): Hello. I'm Celine and the other guy is David. 

 

(AP): Hi. 

 

CD: The first question is, can you tell us about you and your family's migration story? 

 

AP: So I was born here in the United States. My parents went to school in the Philippines and then in school in America before the end of the war. So they were actually here when the war ended. But after the war ended, they worked with their siblings to be able to help the rest of their families come over from Vietnam. So I have aunts and uncles who came over at different times. Some of them escaped by boat. Some of them were flown out, evacuated on the day that Saigon fell because they worked for the U.S. government or they worked for U.S. aid. One aunt worked for a Swiss agency. And so she ended up going to Switzerland. So we ended up all over the place. But my family, my mother, was studying social work in the United States. She ended up being part of Operation Baby Lift, which is the evacuation of Vietnamese and Amerasian orphans from Saigon. And because of her job as a social worker and that she could speak both Vietnamese and English, she was hired to work in Orange County to help with Vietnamese refugees at Camp Pendleton. And so that's how we ended up in Southern California. 

 

CD: How did you become interested in writing? 

 

AP: I always loved writing. I always loved reading books. My mom worked across the street from a library because she was a social worker. So, she would drop me and my brother off there and it was like our babysitter. So we had to stay there after school until she was done from work around 5:30 or sometimes six or seven. Right. So I had a lot of hours in a library and I loved to read. I felt like reading just showed me a lot about the world, gave me a lot of answers to things I was thinking about, helped me have adventures. And I realized that I could express myself really well in writing more than any other form. 

 

CD: What are some of the main challenges you face as a Southeast Asian writer? 

 

AP: I think there is still. I think it's when people want to read, they want to read easy things. They want to read to have fun. They want to read to forget. And I think that literature from people of color, especially people I think from Southeast Asia, it’s not necessarily seen as fun literature. I think that's changing. I think there's more really interesting writing, and we're being allowed to–not allowed to–but we're publishing in more genres than we have before. So now you do actually have Southeast Asian writers who are writing romcoms or writing horror or Y.A. or science fiction and fantasy. I don't think that was the case before. But I think it also has to do with the fact that those who are allowed to write. I feel like the reason why I was allowed to write was because my parents worked really hard in jobs maybe they didn't want. But they created a system, they created a family network. 

(5:00) That by the time I went to college, I wasn't being pressured necessarily to do to make money in the same way that I feel like my parents generation was. When they came over from Vietnam, they had to work right away. They had to work fast to buy a house to be able to be secure. And I had benefited from their hard work. So when it came time for me to go to college, I could, I wanted to write, and I figured out a way to do it. I don'tknow if I would have been able to do it if I had come over from Vietnam in the 1970s. Right. So I'm aware of the challenges. I think it’s really hard for Vietnamese writers and Southeast Asian American writers to publish now because there's a certain bias and perspective on what we're writing about. But I think that's changing all the time. It's still a struggle, I think, to get anybody to read. 

 

CD: What did you find most meaningful about being a writer? 

 

AP: I just I really like to write. It’s my favorite thing to do. I like making sense of the world in my writing. I think life is really messy and can be very painful and confusing and inconsistent. And writing is a way to clean up life. So I can write my own endings. I can make sense of the world, in my chapters and in my short stories. So I find a lot of joy in writing still. I think most writers don't necessarily make their living off writing. I make my living off teaching because I'm a teacher. I'm a professor at California College of the Arts. But I get to be around creative writers. I get to teach it. And so for that I feel really lucky. 

 

CD: As a Southeast Asian writer, what has been your experience with the U.S. publishing industry? 

 

AP: I think it's really hard. But I think the U.S. publishing industry is hard on everybody. But I think a lot of I think the challenge is to get…I don't think people think twice about reading a book from a white author. You don't. I think it's really easy because that’s been the norm for thousands of years. And so when you're asking a reader to read a book from a Southeast Asian writer, I think there are certain biases that can come into it. Do I have to know about the country? Do I have to know the history about them? You don't actually have to know any of that stuff. And it's surprising for them to read about complex characterizations that way. So I think the biggest challenge is, I think finding a readership and convincing. I think when I first started publishing, and this was back in 2004. There are very few Vietnamese and Asian American writers publishing. I think there are many more now, so we don't always have to answer questions about representation. The fact that my books don't have to represent the entire Vietnamese race, right? Or the Vietnamese American race. I think some of that pressure has released a little bit because they're just more of us. 

 

CD: Have you been impacted by the ban of books, the pandemic and the violence against Asian Americans during the Covid 19? 

 

AP: How many things did you just mention? What were they again? You mentioned a lot of things. 

 

CD: Have you been impacted by the ban of books, the pandemic and the violence against Asian Americans? 

 

AP: The ban of books. Okay, yeah, those are three big things to squeeze into one question. I think the pandemic has changed this world. Entirely. And I think we still feel the reverberations of it. I think we are all probably in many ways traumatized by what happened. That something like that could happen. And I see it in my kids and I see it in me. I see it in my family. I'm very thankful that we get to be out again. We have been out for a while. But yeah, and of those three things you mentioned, probably the thing I regret the most, that I hate the most was the pandemic. 

(10:00) Because I feel like it robbed so many people of their lives. The people who died, but also the people who had to go inside and not be able to go out. Book bans? Not so much I think. And the third thing you mentioned was the violence against Asians. I live in the Bay Area where there are a lot of, you do too. Where there are a lot of Asian Americans. I feel pretty insulated and protected here. But sure, there was a lot of fear, especially during Covid. About when we were hearing stories about, especially Asian women, older Asian women getting attacked and discriminated against. It's very painful, you know. It's really hard to be targeted that way. I realize that I have never lived anywhere where I didn't feel. You know, I remember the only time when I went to Vietnam, this was like 20 years ago. It was surreal being in a place where everyone looked like me. It was just like, this is what White people feel like. It was, they don't have to be afraid, right? They don't have to worry about other people's reaction. So I think it's a complicated question. It depends on where you are. Yeah, I do think that, and I've known this since I was little. I think the world is, there are a lot of good people in this world, and there are a lot of bad people as well. Or people who make really, really poor decisions that areunfortunately affect a lot of other people. 

 

CD: Have you worked with community organizations that support Asian American and diasporic Vietnamese writers and why? 

 

AP: I am part of DVAN Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network. I was invited to participate in readings, so I've read as an author. I've also helped organize readings, and I’m currently on the board of the Diaspora Communities Artist Network. It’s an incredible organization and without it, I wouldn't have a literary career. They're the ones that helped organize and create and attract audiences that are interested in wanting to read stories by Vietnamese authors. So that's been my main. Non-profit organization work. Yeah, there you go. 

 

CD: Could you tell us more about your experience in your job? 

 

AP: As a writer or as a teacher? 

 

CD: As a teacher. 

 

AP: I teach creative writing in literature. I teach in an art school. California College of the Arts. It's a really great job. I really love it because I get to do the thing that I–and I don’t think everyone gets to do the thing they love and gets to talk about the things that they love every day at work–and I get to. So that's really exciting. I also get to work with young people, young writers and artists, and they're very cool. They often are. I get the college students who, because I teach at an art school, and it tracks a very specific group of students who apply. I get the students who maybe didn't always fit in high school or who didn't always, who are different because they were artists and they loved to draw or they love to sculpt or, you know. So when they get to our school, they're just so happy. So I get very happy students in my class, or students who are just really happy to be with their people to feel comfortable. And so that's really neat and really fun. My students are also very accepting of each other, and so I feel appreciative of that. And so for the most part, my job is pretty good. What's hard is when my students struggle because when they struggle, it's painful. And it's certainly gotten harder after the pandemic. I think about the things that I used to be able to teach in a semester, you know. And it's changed because I think kids struggle with focusing, and they have so much other stuff in their heads. That sometimes makes it harder for them to be able to do all that they can. So it's frustrating for me not because I'm mad at them, but I just know that they could do so much more and I wish they could. 

 

CD: What are some things you enjoyed doing in the past? 

 

(15:00)AP: One of the things I've enjoyed doing in the past. I’m not sure what that means. 

 

CD: Like things before you got into writing. 

 

AP: When I was little, I was a ballet dancer. I danced when I was maybe seven, all the way up until I was fifteen. I really liked it, but I didn't have the body for dancing and wasn't going to be a professional as is the case, I think, for most ballet students. But it had a big effect on me, I think. You know, I had immigrant refugee parents who didn't really understand why in American schools, kids were allowed to do sports and music and do all these other activities that took away from their schooling. But my mom let me do ballet. I was also in choir. I did the yearbook and by high school, I was starting to figure out, oh, yeah, I like writing. That's going to be the thing that I really wanted to do. And I kept doing it. And then, I got into a good college, and then I studied English and journalism, and then I interned at several newspapers. This was back when there were many, many more newspapers. And that gave me a really good transition to get into writing and creative writing. So those are the things that I’ve done in the past. 

 

CD: What experiences shaped who you became now? 

 

AP: I think probably the reason why I'm a writer is because I remember all the stories that my parents used to tell me, especially my dad. He used to love to tell me stories. As we were talking about, you know, all of our families migrations to America, the thing that struck me was that I've got nine aunts and uncles on my dad's side and about seven on my mom's side. And those are a lot of families, and those are a lot of stories. And they each have a different story of how they got here. And the stories are very different. Some of them, and most of them were painful and sad because they didn't want to leave their homeland. And I remember listening to thesestories and I remember just being really amazed by the fact that we all survived this. And that we were very lucky. And how nobody really knew these stories. And I really wanted to know them, and I really want other people to know them. And that's probably why I became a writer, is that I didn't want anyone to forget these stories, and I didn't want to forget them. Someone said that when you write things down, your words become kind of immortal. They will last longer than I will in this world. Whether people read it or not, it's up to them. But I find that really comforting knowing that I can leave something behind that people can read and that the things that my family went through won't be forgotten. 

 

CD: Thank you.  

 

AP: Alright. Is that it? 

 

CD: Yeah. 

 

AP: Okay, thanks. Good luck with your project! 

Biography

Amy Quan Barry was born in 1973 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is now a 52-year-old. She is a biracial transnational adoptee who was raised in Boston by a diverse family in the White suburbs. Barry is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as an acclaimed author who has written several novels. Throughout her life, Barry has navigated diversity in education and society through race and identity. She has been involved in promoting diverse and underrepresented voices in literature.

 

Thematic Overview 

The interview with Amy Quan Barry, recorded on December 4, 2025, covers five major themes reflecting her life, identity, and creative journey as writer. In the first part (00:00-05:00), Barry discusses her personal background and identity as a biracial, transnational adoptee from Vietnam who grew up in a predominantly White Massachusetts town, describing both challenges and acceptance in her family and community. The second part (05:00-10:00) focuses on her cultural upbringing and perspective, explaining how being raised in an Irish German household influenced her understanding of culture and how her diverse identity informs her wing across multiple communities. The third part (10:00-15:00) explores her career as a writer and professor, including her early inspirations, her love of revising over drafting, and her experience teaching creative writing while adapting to changes in academia, AI, and post-pandemic learning. In the fourth part (20:00-25:00), the discussion centers on her community involvement and writing challenges, particularly her limited engagement with networks like DVAN, difficulties with publishing representation, and perceptions about marketability for writers of color. Lastly, the fifth part (25:00-30:00) highlights Barry’s views on diversity in literature, advice for young writers, and future goals, where she encourages authenticity in storytelling and expresses her desire to expand into playwriting and theater work later in her career.

 

Oral History Transcript 

Interviewee: Amy Quan Barry (AQB)

Interviewers: Tony Ma (TM)

Date of interview: December 4, 2025 

Location: Remote interview via Zoom

Collection: DVAN@SFSU Oral History Archive, Fall 2025-Spring 2026 

Length of interview: 00:30:00

Overseen by: Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau 

 

(0:00) 

AQB: Hello, Tony. 

 

TM: Hello. How are you today? 

 

AQB: I'm well, thank you. 

 

TM: Thank you. Before we start, let me address something really quick. Today is Thursday, the 4th of December 2025 at 12 P.M. Our group is pod three consisting of Mia, Britney, Zheng, and Tony. And this is the DVAN Oral History Project. The first category I want to start off with is your personal background and identity. First thing I would like to ask to get to know you, Amy, can we get some insight on you or your family's migration story? 

 

AQB: Yeah. As I mentioned in the Google doc, I'm adopted. I left Vietnam in January of 1974. I was six months old. Allegedly, I was born in Saigon. Again in 1973. Then through, an adoption agency called Holt, I was internationally adopted. My family lived at that time in Pennsylvania. And my parents, who are White, had three children biologically. I have two sisters, and a brother who is White. And then my parents had also adopted, my brother who is biracial, half White, half Black. They adopted him in 1969 and he's from the Boston area. Like I said, they adopted me in 1974. Originally, we were in Pennsylvania, and then eventually when I was about 3 or 4 years old, we moved back to Massachusetts, where my father is from. And I was raised on the north shore of Boston in a predominantly White town called Danvers. 

 

TM: Are there any other countries or states that you have primarily lived in besides? 

 

AQB: Well, since I left for. I grew up in Danvers, Massachusetts, primarily. That's where I was raised. After I left Massachusetts, then I've spent time in a lot of other places like Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin and California. 

 

TM: How did you feel about the diversity there? Were there many people that are diverse? 

 

AQB: It's funny because I just went to my 35th high school reunion, after Thanksgiving. And so, no. My high school was not diverse at all. The North Shore of Boston is about 17 miles, where I'm from is about 17 miles north of the city. It's more diverse now than it was back in the 1980s, which is when I primarily grew up. My high school, there were maybe about 200 people in my graduating class. And of those 200 students, there were maybe ten students of color. Maybe. There were two Vietnamese families who are refugees who lived in my town. People at this reunion were actually asking me about one of those people, Duc, who I don't know where he is now. But Duc Bui Trac, and there was another Nguyen family. They weren't my year, but they also lived in the town. And there were some other Asian people, too. One of my best friends was Asian. She was Korean American, and she was like me. She was adopted. There were about three or four other Asian students, like I said, who were also adopted. But yeah, there was not a lot of diversity in the town. 

 

TM: How was it like being a biracial transnational adoptee? Did you encounter any types of challenges? 

 

AQB: Looking back on it–I, again because I was just at my high school reunion. I was talking about this with people, and I think because I'm half Black, half Asian, people usually read me as being black. At any time in my life, if I've ever been called a slur, I've been called the N-word. Most people, I've never been called any kind of Asian slur or anything like that. It's usually Black, right? I think I was fortunate in our town because, I mean, I'm a college professor now. It's true that I was pretty smart, right? Being pretty smart, kind of insulated me in certain kinds of ways from certain kinds of things. And I also played sports, so I had friends across a lot of different categories. I think that kind of protected me a bit so I didn't necessarily feel that different when I was growing up. And I think one of the reasons why was because my parents, I think, did a really great job of–I have, for example, my other friends who are Asian who are adopted. One of my friends, her parents kind of treated her and her adopted brother a little differently than they did their biological children. Right? Just small differences. But with me, there was my brother, my parents. We were just their kids. I’ve never even ever heard my father say it.  

(5:00) AQB: I’ve literally never heard my father say the word adopted, ever in any kind of context. And so I think that for my brother and me, we didn't necessarily see ourselves as different in any kind of way. 

 

TM: Has this mindset stayed the same, or did it change gradually over time? 

 

AQB: When I went to college–for my brother, it's been a different experience. My brother didn't go to college, my brother who's adopted. But I went to College in the South. I went to the University of Virginia. And it was true that that's where I began having just kind of identity issues. I think, in my town, because a lot of people knew my family I didn't have to explain myself because people just knew. Everybody just knew. They knew my parents. They knew my mom and my family. It was just accepted. But when I went to college, nobody knew that. People didn't really understand why I was the way I was. And primarily and again, it was the Black community. Right? Because I there's certain things in the Black community as I mentioned in the Google questions that you would asked, it's true that I didn’t growing up have a lot of interaction with Vietnamese people, and the same was true for Black people. There are a lot of things about Black culture that I just didn't know. When I went to school in the South, I seemed kind of odd and aloof to a lot of people in the Black community who were kind of like, why is she like that? Why does she dress like that, why does she talk like that, you know? And so more of my, the struggles that I had had more to do with the idea of my identity as a Black person than they did with my identity as an Asian person. 

 

TM: What type of culture would you say you grew up with? For example, hip hop or any 

others? 

 

AQB: No, I would say culturally, which sounds odd…so my father's Irish American and my mother's German American, and in some ways I know a lot about those two cultures. My family has a small lake house in New Hampshire. I've spent a lot of time in rural New Hampshire. I also spent a lot of time in rural Wisconsin because that's where my grandparents were from. But I remember this night just even a few years ago, there was a night when we met with my family. We were all in New Hampshire, you know, in the small lake house. And for whatever reason, we started singing all these Irish songs and we all know them, right? In many ways, especially in Boston, there's a strong presence of the Irish community. And there's certain kind of folk songs and things like that. When it comes to–so culturally, in many ways I feel Boston Irish. And then in other ways, when it comes to food and things like that, I know because my mom's parents were German. There's certain kinds of German dishes, you know, schnitzel and kaiserschmarrn or things like that.  I grew up knowing more about German foods than I would have any other kind of food. 

 

TM: I read a short bio about you, and you've mentioned feeling somewhat distant from the Vietnamese community because of your upbringing. So you think this distance gave you a unique perspective as a writer? 

 

AQB: I think it did, yeah. And I think that that's one of the reasons why I believe personally that, because sometimes some writers or some people think that you should only write about your own experiences or your own community. And in many ways, I feel, in a good way that I belong to a lot of different communities. And some of them I only maybe belong to 5%, and some of them I belong to a little bit more. But I feel like I have a foot in a lot of different worlds. I feel that you can write about other communities and things like that if you do your research and really steep yourself and are open to talking to people and finding things out. So I think that being a member of a community doesn't give you a free pass to just write about that community any way you want. You still have to do research about it, about the things you don't know. But I do think the fact that I have been able to write about certain things. My first book is about Vietnam. And again I had to do a lot of research to writethat book. Right. It wasn't just because I'm genetically Vietnamese that I could do it. I think that because of that, I think it's possible for all writers to do that kind of research and to try and take on writing beyond just themselves. 

 

TM: So you can [unintelligible] both first person perspective and third person. 

 

AQB: I have yes. And I've also done first person plural, which is the “we” voice. Which is not used very often in fiction. In my second novel, We Ride Upon Sticks, is written from the we point of view. Yes, I've used many different kinds of person numbers. 

 

TM: The next category is as a writer and storytelling. What first inspired you to be a storyteller and writer? 

 

AQB: Yeah. When I first went to college, I thought I was going to be a government major because I'm very much into current events and what's happening in the world and helping people.  

(10:00) AQB: And then I got there and I took a I enrolled in a government class, and it was so boring. And it was just, I very quickly realized I was not going to be a government major. I ended up being a liberal arts major. But I remember so at the University of Virginia, there was a very famous poet, African-American poet named Rita Dove, who was a Pulitzer Prize winner. And she was–also she's also been the poet laureate of the United States since she was very famous. I took a class with herand I got more and more into poetry. Not super seriously, but just of everything that I did as an undergrad, that was the one area that I took the most classes. And I think I decided that I was interested in storytelling and writing for a couple of reasons. One was that, honestly, in the 1990s, in the early 1990s, the truth is, there just weren'tthat many writers of color like there are now. There are way more people now, but back then, like 30, 40 years ago, there weren't nearly as many. There were people. But like I said, the number was just very small. And I remember just always wondering like, what would somebody like me write? Because I didn't see anybody who looked like me. Who were authors in the sense that I didn't see any authors who were multiracial.  I didn’t see any authors who were transracially adopted. I was just kind of curious to see, what would somebody who has my life experience, who looks like me, what kinds of stuff would they produce? And so really, in some ways, I began writing to answer that question for myself. Then the second thing I would say is that I was fortunate that I was in a suite of women my first year in college. I remember two of the women who lived in the suite, they had journals and they would write just for fun. I’d never really seen that before. I'd never, I always thought, you write for class. That's the reason why you write, is because you have an assignment. Watching them write poems and things like that really just inspired me and made me want to. Like, wow, I could write stuff just for myself and not for class. I started doing that as well. 

 

TM: When you first mentioned politics, do you think it impacted you positively or negatively? 

 

AQB: When I was in high school, I was very involved already as a high school student. I volunteered for local campaigns in my town. I also volunteered, for example, in 1988, I volunteered for Michael Dukakis, who was the governor of Massachusetts who ran for President. And he lost to George H.W. Bush. I was always very involved. I still try and do a tiny part of volunteering in some way, shape or form for causes that I believe in. I would say, it was a positive because it helps me. In some ways it just helps me feel like I'm doing something even if what I'm doing–even if my candidate loses or things don't turn out the way I want–I can say I did what I could, right? It makes me feel like I'm an active part of the process. 

 

TM: Since you've been writing for a very long time, what aspects of it do you find most enjoyable and meaningful? 

 

AQB: Yeah. I tell people all the time which sounds really funny. I actually hate writing. I really hate writing. I love revising, I love editing. The analogy I like to use is like a sculptor. If you're a sculptor, you can take your tools and a piece of stone. The stone already exists and you take your tools and you do your stuff, and then you can make a sculpture. But for a writer, we have to create our own stone first. That's what a first draft is. You have to write a first draft, and then you can go in with your tools and all your instruments and shape it and polish it and do all kinds of stuff. And I love I in some ways, if I wasn't doing this, maybe I would be an editor for other people because I really like doing that. Like I said, that for me is the fun part. But writing that first draft is not fun. 

 

TM: We know that you are an English professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. How do the people that you come across–whether it be students, colleagues, or community members–how do they continue to influence your writing or creative philosophy? 

 

AQB: Yeah, so in many ways. Yeah, that's a tough question. I am–when it comes to my creative work–I’m very much, I am kind of a lone wolf in the sense that I do my own thing. When it comes to my poetry books, I write my poetry books all by myself. I don’t send them to have readers to give me feedback. It's basically, I'll write a book, I'll send it to my press, and they’ll say yes or they'll say no. I don't need readers in that sense to help me shape work. Fiction is a little different, because a novel is so much longer that sometimes you need other people to help read your stuff to help you remember what you've done because you'll forget. Oh yeah. On page 105, I did this thing which I forget about by page 305.  

(15:00) AQB: You sometimes need other people to do that. I have other readers. Most of my other readers do not tend to be people at the university. There's one person who maybe has helped me a little bit. But I would say that the ways in which being a professor has really impacted me in general is as a teacher. Right. I really like working with undergraduate students because they are still, for them, writing is still fun. Sometimes for graduate students, writing maybe isn't as fun because it's what they want to do with their life. They may be a little bit more invested in like what they create. Whereas the undergrads, they'll try all kinds of stuff because they're not as invested in it in a positive way. They're freer. They’re free to try things because they don't want to necessarily make writing their life. Right. And so, I try. I like being exposed to  them and teaching them and talking with them. It keeps me young. And it also reminds me that at the end of the day, for me, writing is supposed to be fun, you know? That's one way in which I'm definitely impacted as an author. 

 

TM: How was it like the first year up till now? 

 

AQB: The first year of teaching up until now, how has it been? Yeah, it's a very different. I started teaching in the year 2000, so that's 25 years ago. The biggest of the so many changes. Part of it has to do, just with what's happening to higher education right now under the Trump administration, right? There's so many budget cuts, so many departments having to cut back, classes having to get bigger that should stay small. Less graduate students that we can allow into the program. There's just all kinds of ways in which I’m seeing academia just really being threatened. And hopefully, though we can make it through these next 3 or 4 years and then grow back. But that's the first thing that I’m noticing. A couple of other changes which are big and which the impact will still be unknown. One of them not as big, but is the pandemic, right. After the pandemic, we all talk about how we see changes in students. The pandemic was a traumatic time for a lot of people. It interrupted students’ learning. Kids in high school who had to be online, interrupted various kind of social interactions that people would have had and would have learned certain kinds of social skills that they're maybe now a little bit behind on. Right. There's ways in which the pandemic is going to, the effects of the pandemic are going to be with us for a very long time. And then the last huge change which we're all just still grappling with is AI, right? Artificial Intelligence. It started last year that I began to see students using AI in ways that are not creative, but they're simply to do assignments and so that they don't have to do them. I've been having a lot of conversations with my students and also with the graduate students who I supervise as teachers. To try and help them help their students resist the idea of using AI and come to realize that A, it's more fun to do it yourself and B, you'll learn so much more. If you outsource your creativity to an AI, you're never going to develop those muscles to be creative, right? I'mspending a lot of time, helping my graduate students and fellows think about how to talk about AI with their students. That's a major change that we're all seeing and above all, dealing with. 

 

TM: Yeah. Knowing that AI is advancing. If people are irresistible to using AI, what type of way should they use it positively and not…? 

 

AQB: Yeah, yeah. I mean, so in the humanities it's a different story. Obviously. I think in the sciences I think AI is really great. Right. I think AI in sciences, for example, the medical community, there's all kinds of ways now that AI could maybe read a scan and see things that maybe a human eye wouldn't see. Right. There's all kinds of practical applications for it in the sciences. In the humanities, it's still something that we're still talking about. And there's no one way of doing it. I have some colleagues who really embrace AI. They're not creative writers. They're more like literary scholars. And some of them are really embracing it and wanting it to be a tool. Almost like the way in which we use Google, right? You use Google to look up certain facts. These professors are helping their students think about ways in which you could use AI as a similar kind of research tool. I do think there's like uses for it, again, in the, in the field of Research. But, I think those kinds of things can be positive. I do think overall, though, that it's environmental impact and all that kind of stuff doesn't outweigh. I’d rather have a human doing that research than having this machine that uses so much water doing it. But, I think there's that. I think creatively for my undergraduates,  

(20:00) AQB: I don't think there's that much practical application for that in creative writing classes. Because, again, I want them to really develop those kinds of muscles. On the smaller front, though, you know, because I've had a lot of conversations with my students. And one, we have the conversation the very first day of class, I was just kind of like, well, why would you want to use AI? What are you hoping it could do for you? For a lot of them, like the number one reason they wanted to use it was simply to come up with ideas, right? A lot of them were like, we don't know what to write about. I don't know what to write a poem about or write a story about and so AI can generate like a list. I can tell them I like these ten things, and they can tell me ten different ideas to write about. I understood what my students were getting out when they said that was the reason why they wanted to use it. But I hopefully help them understand that, again, coming up with ideas, original ideas is a skill. And if you just ask the computer to do it for you, you will never get better at doing it yourself. Like I said, a lot of these conversations are still works in progress. But yeah. 

 

TM: These skills develop over time and it's not just instantly just copying off online. 

 

AQB: Yeah, exactly. 

 

TM: Moving on to the next category of community. As you may know, we heard of you and DVAN, the Diasporic Vietnamese Artist Network. Specifically from our teacher Professor Lau. Now, what drew you to this organization? 

 

AQB: Yeah. Honestly, I didn't know a lot about it until a couple of years ago. I think when it was first started. Really it's founder Viet. Viet Thanh Nguyen, obviously, one of the founders of this organization and that's primarily how I first came to know about it. He had asked me, I can’t remember what the first thing was that I participated in. There was some stuff in New York. I'm trying to remember back because I think it was actually 2019. It's six years ago. I'm a little fuzzy on it. But there was like a gathering of people for a day of conversation that led to, a book being published recently that, again, showcase these conversations. There was also a talk among people that night. Yeah, that's been primarily my one of the ways in which I participated in this. I haven't participated that much in things. But, when I’m asked to do things, if I can, I try to. 

 

TM: Have you worked with any other community organizations similar to DVAN? 

 

AQB: I have and there are quite a few. For example, in the poetry world and this is for Black poets, there's something called Cave Canem, which is an organization again, for Black poets. And there's other kinds of organizations too, like Kandiman for Asian poets and things like that. But, for whatever reason, as I mentioned earlier, I'm kind of a lone wolf. I actually haven’t worked with that many organizations. But primarily, like I said, when. I don't always but when people ask, I try if I have the time. And if I'm in a place where I can add something of value to the conversation, I try and do so. 

 

TM: As a Southeast Asian writer in the literature world. What are any other challenges you faced, like in the aspect of writing? 

 

AQB: It's so I would say, you know. I don't know if anyone's ever said it to, if anybody in the publishing world has ever said it to my face. But I have been led to believe, talking to agents, talking to editors at major presses that New York presses–this is a generalization–but that the New York presses tend to say that, or the thought tends to be that American readers prefer to read stories set in the West, right? That's not to say that they won't read stories in other places, but that overall, they tend to read stories that are set in the West. They tend to read stories with White characters. Right? And so it’s true, my very first novel that I wrote was set in Vietnam. There are no White characters in it. Right. I think because of that and again, I can't know this for a fact, but I think sometimes then a New York press can be less hesitant. They can be more hesitant to spend big money trying to market your book. Because in their world they're thinking, this book set in Vietnam, it doesn't have any White characters. It's not really worth our time to try and really market it because it's probably not going to sell that well anyway. Again, these are generalizations because obviously there are books that do really well. But, that are set in other places and do have all people of color as characters. But, and again, this is changing because I published that first book ten years ago. Hopefully now the presses maybe don't feel that way quite so much. And would be more willing to put a lot of money behind the books that are written by people who are people of color and that are set in other countries. But, that's definitely something I've noticed. 

 

(25:00) TM: Do you experience any issues like book bans? 

 

AQB: I haven't, and I'm kind of a little bit surprised because my second novel is called We Ride Upon Sticks. And it deals, it’s set in a high school situation. It's high school students and that there’s a trans character in it, there’s talk about sex and things like that. My guess is that people who do book bans, because it's not a book that centered around a transgender person. They probably don’t realize that there's transgender characters in it. Because I'm kind of surprised that nobody's been like, “hey, this book should be banned.” But again, it's because the character, like I said, isn't necessarily like the main character. There are eleven main characters in the book, and that's just one of them. I think that that's one of the reasons why people haven't quite figured that out yet. We'll see what happens. Yeah. 

 

TM: About characters, how do you explore these wide range of ethnicities, identities? How do you portray these characters? 

 

AQB: Yeah. I just try and make everybody be fully realized and not a cardboard cutout. Right. In writing my book about high school, it was true that I was interested in certain like types. You have the jock, you have the brainiac, you have the athlete, right? Those are like types that we see, like in movies orb whatever. I was interested in having those types, but then pushing them forward. The jock isn't just a jock, but he's also something else. Right. The same thing with the cheerleader. It's the idea, anytime I write a character, it's like I try and think about like the archetype of what they represent. But then you have to get into the very specific things that make them human.  

 

TM: What were the good experiences you had with the U.S. publishing industry? And did you also have any bad experiences? 

 

AQB: Yeah. I think I kind of mentioned the bad experience before. Kind of feeling that some presses maybe didn't know what to do with me because I don't easily fit in any one category. I have a book about Vietnam, I have a book about Mongolia, I have a book about high school kids. My book that just came out is about somebody who's Black, right? So I don't fit in one category. And I think publishers have a hard time figuring out like how to market me. Right. But positive things is I have moved to a new press that I actually feel like does. I've been really having a really good experience with them because they're much, they think much more outside the box.And they kind of see those things about me as being a strength instead of being something to overcome. They think it's a positive that I work in all these different areas and do different stuff. I've really been enjoying it. 

 

TM: Lastly, what advice do you have for young and aspiring writers who have similar backgrounds like yours? How should they start? What should they focus on? 

 

AQB: Yeah, I think my biggest piece of advice, when I was a in grad school and somebody, an editor, came and he found out that I was Vietnamese and that I was born in Vietnam. And he said to me, that's your life material. He's like, that's what you're going to spend your life writing about. And I remember for me thinking, no. I'm not going to spend my whole life writing about that. I want to write about all kinds of stuff. My big piece of advice for young writers like me would be do what you want. If you want to write about yourself and your life and that kind of stuff, do that. But don’t feel like you're only that. I think sometimes, again, writers of color, we feel we can be sometimes pigeonholed and people expect us to write certain kinds of stories. Right? It's the same minority, model student. Right. They expect us to be good at certain kinds of things or whatever. And my whole thing for young aspiring writers is do what you want. Write the stories you want to write, not the stories that the world expects you to write. 

 

TM: And finally, what do you hope to accomplish or fulfill by the time you reach retirement? 

 

AQB: I've started writing plays, which I really enjoy, and I've had one produced play so far. I would really love to be more established in the theatre world, which is a world that I don't know a lot about. But I would love to just be more established in that world because it's a lot of fun to write plays and then to work in a room with actors and directors and to see your vision come to life on a stage. It's a lot of fun. I haven't had a lot of time right now to really sort of delve into it, but I'm hoping. It might not even be by the time I retire, it might be when I retire that I might actually have time to really, dig into the theatre world more. But that's something that I definitely hope to accomplish more in the future. 

 

TM: Are there any other questions you would like to be answered? 

 

AQB: I don't think so. It's been very thorough, so thank you very much. 

 

TM: Thank you for being part of this interview and I wish you the best in your future goals. 

 

AQB: Fabulous, thank you. You as well. I hope the end of your semester goes smoothly and that you have a good holiday season.  

 

TM: Thank you.  

 

AQB: Bye. 

 

TM: Bye. 

 

Biography

Thanhhà Lại, born in 1965 in Saigon, Vietnam, is a Vietnamese-American author. After fleeing Vietnam as a refugee with her family at the end of the war in 1975, she grew up in Alabama, where the challenges of adapting to a new language and culture deeply influenced her later work. Lại studied journalism at the University of Texas and earned an MFA in creative writing from New York University, eventually becoming a writer and educator. Best known for her National Book Award-winning novel Inside Out & Back Again, she uses her storytelling to highlight the experiences of refugees and immigrant families.

 

Thematic Overview

The interview begins (00:00) with Thanhhà Lại discussing her experience as a Southeast Asian writer. (06:22) She then goes on to talk about her outlook on what her lifestyle is like and how Asian hate during the pandemic affected her. (7:34) Lại briefly mentions her non-profit organization, Viet Kids Inc., (8:00) and then discusses her renowned novel, Inside Out & Back Again. (10:12) Lại then talks about adapting to America as a Vietnam War refugee (00:12:27) and how her way of thinking does not align with how most people think.

 

Oral History Transcript 

Interviewee: Thanhhà Lại (TL) 

Interviewers: Matthew Avalos (MA), Cody Wong (CW), Salina Liang (SL) 

Date of interview: December 2, 2025  

Location: Remote interview via Zoom 

Collection: DVAN@SFSU Oral History Archive, Fall 2025-Spring 2026  

Length of interview: 00:16:23 

Overseen by: Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau 

 

(00:00)  

MA: Okay. So, we'll start the recording with our names, and then we'll just go from there. 

 

TL: Okay. 

 

MA: So, Cody, do you want to start? And then Salina, and then I'll go. 

 

CW: Yeah. My name is Cody. Do you want to introduce, too, Matthew, Salina? 

 

SL: Yes. Hi, my name is Salina. Today, I’m going to be one of the interviewers. 

 

MA: My name is Matthew, and I'm one of the other interviewers. And then, if you can say your name as well. And then. 

 

TL: Hi. So, I'm speaking with Matthew, Cody and Salina. My name is Thanhhà Lại. 

 

MA: Nice to meet you, and then, Salina. You can go ahead. 

 

SL: I’m sorry, can you say it again? 

 

MA: You can go ahead. 

 

SL: Our first question is, can you tell us more about you and your family's migration story? 

 

TL: Origin story? 

 

SL: Migration? 

 

MA: Oh, migration. 

 

SL: Migration, sorry.  

 

TL: Migration story, got it. Thank you, Salina. Yes, so we are refugees, and I keep it in present tense because I actually don't know when you stop being a refugee. So, in my mind, I guess I'm still a refugee. We've been here a good 50 years. That’s half a century. We came right at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. We just had a 50th anniversary of the end of the fall of Vietnam. So, it's been a while. It's been a, you know. We landed in Alabama, and I didn’t speak a word of English then. So, it was a complete shock. So, that's why I tend to focus on refugee stories, because that's just the biggest shock of my life. And then, I mean, just what happens with most refugee stories. You come, you learn English, you figure out how to get into the education system, you study, you graduate, you get a job, and then you just get on with it. So, by now we're fully immersed. We have nieces and nephews coming up who can barely speak Vietnamese, but they all eat Vietnamese food. So, it's a very common story. 

 

SL: How did you become interested in writing? 

 

TL: How did I become interested in writing? Let's see. I had to learn this strange language called English. When I came here, what I did was that I would read a book in English. I would have to look up literally every single word and do a translation in Vietnamese. And that's probably not the best way to learn a language because it just comes out very stilted. Probably the quickest way for me to pick up English would be through– at the playground where there's no one around and you just have tofigure it out really fast. So, I picked up– it's street English is basically what I picked up. Then I had to spend the next decade relearning the grammatical rules and all the subtleties of English. 

 

SL: Yeah, that must be really hard at the beginning. 

 

TL: Okay, but I didn't answer your question. So, how does that lead to being a writer? Because I spent so much time learning this language, I thought I might as well use it. So, who uses language the most? A writer. So, that's why. 

 

SL: True. What are some of the main challenges you face as a Southeast Asian writer? 

 

TL: I don't know because I don't pay attention to it. I have no idea. I am sure there are challenges out there. I am sure other people can speak eloquently about it. I just don't know, and I really don't care. I just write my stories, I find an editor– I mean, I find an agent, and then this agent's job is to go out and find an editor and a publishing house. I don’t worry about things like that. I just focus on finding the right voice for the right story and developing the most interesting character. I'm character-driven and definitely voice-driven. And, so, I do that– and I'm inside my head inside this little bubble. I don't really pay attention. Maybe I should, but I don't. 

 

SL: What about like, what do you find the most meaningful about being a writer? 

 

TL: What do I find the most meaningful about being a writer? You know, you go through life, and you notice everything. You use your senses, right? What does this flower smell like? What does this petal feel like? What does this taste like? What does this look like? Way beyond seeing, we use our eyes the most, but hearing. I like to do a lot with taste and smell. You notice all this, and where do you put it all? For me, the most logical place is to put it into my writing. That’s the one place you can record all these details that you've noticed in life. And I also really like understanding why a certain human becomes the kind of person that they become. And that's just– and beyond textbook psychology. This is just human interest. So, I used to be a journalist. I like human interest stories. And, to me, writing is just a way to explain human beings to each other. 

 

(05:00) SL: As a Southeast Asian writer, what has been your experience with the U.S. publishing industry? 

 

MA: Oh, industry. 

 

SL: Industry, sorry, oh my god. 

 

TL: Say that question again. As a Southeast Asian writer, what was the last part? 

 

SL: What has been your experience with the U.S. publishing- 

 

TL: The U.S. publishing industry? 

 

SL: Yes, sorry. 

 

TL: Okay. I have the same experience in publishing as I imagined other writers. I don’t walk around going, “I am now a Southeast Asian writer. Do I have to do something special, or do I have to do other things?” If I'm supposed to, I don't know about it and I don't care. I just write my stories. And again, other people just do whatever they need to do with it. I don't know. I just think by the time you finish writing your story, you're focusing on voice, which takes all your energy. Plot, character, tone. I'm so exhausted, I don't have time to run around and go, "What should I do with this Southeast Asia–“ I don’t. Whatever. They can figure it out. I haven't run into any obstacles as far– I did think when I wrote my story, who's going to want to read about this 10-year-old refugee? It turns out tons of people do. So, I just– I don’t know. [laughter] 

 

SL: Have you been impacted by the ban of books, the pandemic, and the violence against Asian Americans during COVID-19? 

 

TL: Well, again, I live in a bubble. So, the same bubble that people found themselves in during the pandemic and became very distraught by it, I already lived in that bubble. I see probably two or three people a day, except for my fitness class. And I guess we just knitted outside during COVID, you know what I mean? So, I don't feel like my life changed that much because being a writer, your life is already so isolating anyway. As far as you can ask about the Asian hate that went on during COVID… Is that part of the question? 

 

SL: Yes. 

 

TL: I didn't experience any of it, not to say that there wasn't any. Again, I live in a bubble. I just go to my same exercise class. I walk my same dogs. I've been waving to the same people in this village for like a decade and a half. So, my life and the experiences that I had during it didn't change at all. But that is not to say that it wasn't going on in the outside world. 

 

SL: Have you worked with community organizations that support Asian American and/or Vietnamese writers? 

 

TL: Oh, okay, I feel like other people do such a great job. That's not my focus. I actually don't even hang out with that many writers. I have my own nonprofit, and we buy bicycles for kids in Vietnam. That's what I do. That has nothing to do with writing. 

 

SL: Fast forward to the people who haven’t read your novel, Inside Out & Back Again, could you give us a brief description of it? 

 

TL: Okay. So, Inside Out & Back Again, it's written in what is called a novel in verse, and that I guess that's the thing that marks it as special. I wrote it that way to have it reflect what it's like for this 10-year-old refugee girl who does not understand English or speak it at that point to express herself. So, when you read it, you feel like you're reading in Vietnamese and thinking in Vietnamese. But by literary magic, you're able to understand it. And it only took me a decade and a half to come up withthat. So, to me, that's what I find interesting. But who knows? I get emails all day long, and it's different every time as to what people find interesting about that book. So, it continues to surprise me every day. 

 

MA: So, now my questions are, what was your creative process in creating a character who was based on your personal experiences? 

 

TL: Oh, so, Hà, the girl in Inside Out is based–loosely, very loosely–based on what I experienced in Montgomery, Alabama, when I first landed there. Now, what happened is that it happened to me at 10. And I don't think I really shaped and really fully realized the novel until I was 40. So, I let 30 years go by, and I think that that made all the difference. Because if I had written it when I was younger, I think a lot more of the anguish and the anger would have come out. But by 40, I mean, come on, 30 more years of other stuff has happened to me. So, by the time I processed it, it was like it happened to somebody else. It was so long ago. And so, I focused very hard on bringing in the humor in the story because it– I just come from a family where we laugh about everything. And so, do we really need another dire, horrifying, “it was so horrific,” refugee story?  

(10:00) TL: So, I just focus on, in spite of all this that's going on out in life, what do other people still find joyful? And so, that for me was more important. 

 

MA: What were some of the biggest challenges you personally faced as a refugee adapting to America? 

 

TL: Language. Language, I think once–I mean. I can't imagine taking my child now and plopping her down in, I don't know… Prague and saying learn check. It's just–it’s that different. But, we also knew as a family that was the first obstacle we had to overcome. You have to learn that language, and you have to be able to function in it fully. We're not Google, your phone didn't exist then. It wasn't like you could say something in Vietnamese and then have it translate automatically English. That did not exist 50 years ago. So, I really had to learn it from scratch. And so, once we got the language down, then everything else started to happen. 

 

MA: Nice. Did you ever feel torn between missing home and building a new life in the U.S.? And how did you navigate that feeling? 

 

TL: Well, again, 50 years have gone by. I think in the beginning, obviously, I missed home because I just didn't know what hap–what is this Alabama thing? I didn't even know it existed until I was standing on its dirt. But then you acclimate, and children especially, I came in at 10, you acclimate even faster. What did I miss? I still miss the snacks. I miss the fruit. I miss reaching up and getting a fruit right off the tree. But for now, I can fly to Hawaii and visit my sister and get that. So, you just learn to substitute. Then my formative years were here. It was in Texas, but I was a teenager. And then I went to college at UT Austin and then I went to grad school at NYU. So, so much of what becomes you, so much of what you listen to, all the songs that you listen to as you grow up, and it fuels inside of you, and it fuses into this thing called a being. It all happened here. So I– it just wouldn't even be true for me to say I miss Vietnam because that's so long ago. When I went back there a few summers ago, and we stood right in front of the house that we lived in, and my school was literally two, half a block away. I felt like someone who was visiting. I just didn't feel like it was my world in any way. 

 

MA: Gotcha. So, your book explores the themes of identity, home, and belonging. Why are these themes especially important in immigrant and refugee narratives? 

 

TL: Oh my, you need to ask an English teacher that. I had no idea I was writing those themes. I don't think like that. I'm not a writer who sits down and goes, “I will now write about home and identity.” I just tell a story, and I create a character. I move the narrative in a way that is interesting, and it makes you turn the page. That's my writer's brain. The rest of it, English teachers come up with all kinds of things. I’ll let them. They do a very good job. So, it's not my job. 

 

MA: For sure. Do you think the idea of the “American Dream” still resonates for refugees and immigrants today? And how has your view of it changed over time? 

 

TL: You know, I don't think there's such a thing as an “American Dream.” I think there’s just a thing called a “dream.” Everybody has it. I had it when–I saw it in Vietnam. I see it in China. I see it wherever I go. Why is it American? I don't think it'sAmerican. Wanting to do better and wanting to send your children to college. Wanting to have a house that is yours, wanting to have fruit trees in the back, wanting to have a garden. Why is that a particular culture’s claim? I don't think so. And I think that's why people want to move around. They want to move around to a place that is safe enough and secure enough so that they can start building on all that, and wherever that may be. 

 

MA: For sure. How do you hope young readers, especially those from immigrant families, will connect with Hà's story? 

 

TL: Well, I think they find– when they read it, they find that everybody– it's hard for everybody in the beginning. No one lands in a new place and goes, "Wow, this is great." It just doesn't happen. Everybody has to learn the language. And even if you come here learning the language, there's just so much else to learn. Starting with the food, how to dress, how to wear your hair, how to raise your hand in class, how to hold your body, how to flag down a cab. There's just an endless amount of learning that goes with being– of resettling in a new place. You don't even have to be a refugee, you don't have to be an immigrant. Whatever that new - you could be a foreign student. You could be moving because of a job. You’re still going to have to learn. And so, it's a fish out of water story. And I think that's why I'm always surprised by who reads about Hà and feels like they see themselves in her. It might be someone who's never even left their village,  

(15:00) TL: but they have that need to be funny when it's sad or they have that need to grow something. So, I don't know what the answer to that–because I can't predict what readers will take from it. And I'm not a writer who hopes that readers take a certain message. Because I think however many poems and pages are in the novel, I think you'll get that many responses from all the different readers. 

 

MA: Gotcha. And then to close out, do you have any last words of advice for any aspiring writers out there? 

 

TL: You have to read. You have to read closely. You have to read slowly. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum–and you're going to have to learn to sit still, which I have yet learned how to do. It's a very isolating, slow, slow craft. It is a craft. It's– I am sure AI one day is gonna rise up and write novels for us, and we'll all read it, and we'll be fine. But it hasn't happened yet. And I like to be surprised. And the thing about AI is– it already has to exist for it to borrow from. So I'm looking for a novel that will surprise me or come up with something I can't even imagine. And that's the fun part of fiction. 

 

MA: Yep. 

 

TL: Yeah. 

 

MA: Well, thank you for your time. 

 

TL: Thank you. 

 

MA: Thank you so much. 

 

SL: Thank you so much. 

 

TL: You're welcome. 

 

MA: Thank you so much. 

 

TL: You're very welcome. 

 

MA: Hope you have a good day. 

 

TL: You too. All right. 

 

MA: Bye.

 

TL: Bye-bye.