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Being Vietnamese-American

  • Charlotte D.
  • Wednesday, May 05, 2021
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“Remember, you're not half of anything, you're twice of everything.”

― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

Growing up, I didn't have a lot of people that looked like me in my school classes or neighborhoods - mixed race, half Vietnamese, with a funny last name no one could pronounce. I didn't know where to look for stories about folks like me as a young child, though my mom, an avid reader, found several books that mirrored or helped me understand my experiences - most notably among those, The Land I Lost by Quang Nhuong Huynh and Angel Child, Dragon Child by Michele Maria Surat. Even through high school, I was still the "token" in most of my classes. I was frustrated and confused that I was the "other" and yet my voice was not one that was encouraged to be heard.

"I realized staying authentic to myself and my feelings was the best thing I could ever do for myself."

It wasn't until I lived one summer with some of my Vietnamese relatives in Boston - which followed an undergrad history class on the relationship between the US and Vietnam since 1945 - when I really felt that I came into my own as a half Vietnamese, fully American girl.  I was working at a publishing company, and except for my family, I was alone in Boston - and I did a lot of reading on the MBTA during my long commute. I began to read about Edward Said's theories of Orientalism and the model minority myth, and I realized that my feelings of duality were valid.  I could be of Vietnamese descent, I could be of Caucasian descent, I could be everything I was feeling - simply, I could be me, and I realized staying authentic to myself and my feelings was the best thing I could ever do for myself.

I still struggle daily with my identity - especially with the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes up exponentially over the past year and a half.  However, finding books about the Vietnamese diaspora and from the Vietnamese-American viewpoint have helped me realize that representation matters. There are some great Vietnamese-American writers out there who can show you different perspectives - or maybe, show you that you're not alone.

She Weeps Each Time You're Born

She Weeps Each Time You're Born

Barry, Quan.
Published in 2014
A young girl born under mysterious circumstances a few years before the reunification of Vietnam possesses the otherworldly ability to hear the voices of the dead.
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Book
 
The Lotus and the Storm

The Lotus and the Storm

A Novel
Cao, Lan, 1961-
Published in 2014
"An epic tale of love, loyalty, and war from the acclaimed author of Monkey Bridge Half a century after it began, the Vietnam War still has a hold on our national psyche. Lan Cao's now-classic debut, Monkey Bridge, won her wide renown for "connecting . . . the opposite realities of Vietnam and America" (Isabel Allende). In her triumphant new novel, Cao transports readers back to the war, illuminating events central to twentieth-century history through the lives of one Vietnamese American family. Minh is a former South Vietnamese commander of the airborne brigade who left his homeland with his daughter, Mai. During the war, their lives became entwined with those of two Americans: James, a soldier, and Cliff, a military adviser. Forty years later, Minh and his daughter Mai live in a close-knit Vietnamese immigrant community in suburban Virginia. As Mai discovers a series of devastating truths about what really happened to her family during those years, Minh reflects upon his life and the story of love and betrayal that has remained locked in his heart since the fall of Saigon"-- Provided by publisher.
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Book
 
Love Like Hate

Love Like Hate

A Novel
Dinh, Linh, 1963-
Published in 2010
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Book
 
Pioneer Girl

Pioneer Girl

A Novel
Nguyen, Bich Minh.
Published in 2014
Discovering a family heirloom that her mother may have received from Laura Ingalls Wilder, PhD graduate Lee Lien explores the tenuous connection between her ancestors and the famous pioneer author only to discover a trail of clues that lead to fateful encounters.
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Book
 
Things We Lost to the Water

Things We Lost to the Water

A Novel
Nguyen, Eric, 1988- author.
Published in 2021
"When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle into life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father. Over time, Huong realizes she will never see Cong again. While she copes with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh, grow up in their absent father's shadow, haunted by a manand a country trapped in their memory and imagination. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways: Huong takes up with a Vietnamese car salesman who is also new in town; Tuan tries to connect with his heritage by joining alocal Vietnamese gang; and Binh, now going by Ben, embraces his burgeoning sexuality. Their search for identity--as individuals and as a family--tears them apart, until disaster strikes and they must find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them"-- Provided by publisher.
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Book
 
The Mountains Sing

The Mountains Sing

A Novel
Nguyẽ̂n, Phan Qué̂ Mai, 1973- author.
Published in 2020
"The multigenerational tale of the Trà̂n family, set against the backdrop of the Vit Nam War. Trà̂n Diu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Ni, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the H Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that will tear not just her beloved country but her family apart"-- Provided by publisher.
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Book
 
The Committed

The Committed

Nguyen, Viet Thanh, 1971- author.
Published in 2021
"The astonishing sequel to The Sympathizer, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, The Committed follows the "man of two minds" as he comes to Paris as a refugee. There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese "aunt," he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise-but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen. Both literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen's position inthe firmament of American letters"-- Provided by publisher.
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Book
 
The Sympathizer

The Sympathizer

Nguyen, Viet Thanh, 1971- author.
Published in 2015
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Book
 
The Eaves of Heaven

The Eaves of Heaven

A Life in Three Wars
Pham, Andrew X., 1967-
Published in 2008
From Andrew X. Pham, the award-winning author of Catfish and Mandala, a son's searing memoir of his Vietnamese father's experiences over the course of three wars. Once wealthy landowners, Thong Van Pham's family was shattered by the tumultuous events of the twentieth century: the festering French occupation of Indochina, the Japanese invasion during World War II, and the Vietnam War. Told in dazzling chapters that alternate between events in the past and those closer to the present, The Eaves of Heaven brilliantly re-creates the trials of everyday life in Vietnam as endured by one man, from the fall of Hanoi and the collapse of French colonialism to the frenzied evacuation of Saigon. Pham offers a rare portal into a lost world as he chronicles Thong Van Pham's heartbreaks, triumphs, and bizarre reversals of fortune, whether as a South Vietnamese soldier pinned down by enemy fire, a prisoner of the North Vietnamese under brutal interrogation, or a refugee desperately trying to escape Vietnam after the last American helicopter has abandoned Saigon.--From publisher description.
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Book
 
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

A Novel
Vuong, Ocean, 1988- author.
Published in 2019
"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity"-- Provided by publisher.
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Book
 
Author

Charlotte D.

Customer Service Specialist

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