Growing up in New Jersey, Peter Trinh and his siblings would hear endless stories of how his parents fled Vietnam. When the war ended, Peter’s father, Nhung Trinh, a former pilot in the South Vietnam Air Force reported into re-education camp as required by the new Communist government. He thought it would be for a few days, but instead days turned into weeks, into months, into four years. During that time, he was moved to several different remote camps without his family knowing. Peter’s mom,...

Naoko Tsunoda was born in Los Angeles in 1976 and adopted by Japanese expats the following year. Despite knowing she was adopted, it was not until she turned 18 that Naoko’s parents revealed that she is ethnically Vietnamese. Thus began a decades-long search for the missing pieces of her history, culminating in the discovery of her birth name: Mỹ Thị Bùi. Now in her forties, Naoko is learning to embrace her dual identities via her love of tea. The events of 2020 propelled her to start her own...

Bonus Episode, Self-Evident: How Do Stories Change Lives?  The impact of storytelling is often portrayed as a story changing the life of the person consuming it — and changing the world by reaching as many people as possible. But what about the person who offers their story to be consumed? How else can we define the value of our life’s stories, and the importance of how they’re shared? In this second episode of a three-part series, Managing Producer James Boo invites Randy Kim (Host of...

A global pandemic has completely changed our everyday lives, an election year has divided our country, there has been unprecedented racism against Asians, and continued police violence against Black Americans spurred the largest nationwide wave of protests. We've also seen local communities uniting, new friendships forging (even if virtually), and new hobbies and hidden talents emerging. Listen to how 2020 has changed our featured Storytellers: Anthony Nguyen, Belle Le, Kyle Nguyen, Leo...

Mark Erickson (Đỗ Văn Hùng) was born in Saigon in 1972 and put up for adoption at two and a half years old. He arrived in the United States as part of the American program Operation Baby Lift and was adopted by a white couple living in Buffalo, New York. Mark grew up in a predominantly white suburban neighborhood and what he knew about Vietnam was through movies and stories told through an American lens. When he moved to Boston for college he discovered a Vietnamese community in Dorchester,...

Phuc Tran, born in Saigon Vietnam, immigrated to America along with his family in 1975 when he was just a baby. He grew up in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, being one of the few Asian families in a small town, his family struggled to assimilate into their new life. In his debut book ‘Sigh, Gone’ Phuc shares his coming-of-age story, the push and pull of finding and accepting himself, and the challenges of immigration, feelings of isolation, and teenage rebellion. In this live virtual interview, Phuc...

To siblings share their experiences in post-war Vietnam and what it was like to be separated as a family. Danny fled Vietnam as a teenager with his brothers and later had to fight for his life after a severe accident just two months after arriving in America. While Tu-Anh was moved from place to place in Vietnam as her mom made several attempts to get them out of the country. They share their journeys and struggles and their search for a guiding light during the toughest times. 

Quang was born in Ha Noi in 1953 just a year before Vietnam was divided into two and his family migrated south to Saigon. In 1970 when he did not pass the High School exam, he was drafted into war, and recruited to Division 3 of the Special Task Force for the South. Days before the Fall of Saigon, Quang’s special unit was stationed in a small village when they had lost contact with their main command. They remained in hiding for days and emerged only to find that they had lost the war and had...

To close out season three, we explore perspectives from the American born Vietnamese, those who are categorized as second generation. For most second generation Vietnamese children, their childhood looked nothing like that of their parents. They did not grow up during the Vietnam War era, nor do they have memories of the life threatening escapes from the country. Even so, this generation still internalizes the experiences, some through stories told by their parents, while others can feel the...

Amy Le was born in Tra Vinh Vietnam in 1974, with a severe heart condition. The doctors predicted that she would not live past her childhood. Desperate to find the right medical care, her mom decided they needed to escape the post-war conditions of Vietnam. In 1980 they arrived in Kent, Washington State. Growing up, her relationship with her mom had its ups and downs and her Dad was in and out of her life. In 2017, when Amy’s mom passed away, her world shattered. To honor her mom’s legacy and...

The Vietnam War is one of the most widely-known and controversial events in world history, yet the stories of the Vietnamese refugee experience as a result of the war are marginalized. Almost two million Vietnamese risked their lives to flee oppression and hardship in one of the largest mass exoduses in modern history. Here’s a preview into the personal stories of hope, survival and resilience of the Vietnamese diaspora, told by multi-generational voices. Subscribe today and visit...

Cô Loan was born in Saigon and left Vietnam with her family on April 30 1975, the exact day when the South Vietnamese Army surrendered, bringing an end to the civil war in Vietnam. She was 11 years old and would face many new challenges as her family tries to adjust to a new country. But her greatest challenge came much later in her life, when she learns that her child is a transgender. A term she knew nothing about. She shares her journey of trying to understand and accept, during a time...

Ten Storytellers from across America were selected from a nationwide open-call for submissions, sharing their Vietnamese American experiences in celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage month.  Each Storyteller shares their very personal experiences in the form of monologues, music, poetry, art and more. Featuring Lynn Kim Do, Julian Saporiti, Hop Nguyen, Kavi Vu, Lauren Nguyen, Trammy Lai, Cindy Nguyen, David Kaizen, Dieu Ngoc Nguyen, and Quentin Nguyen-Duy. Thank you WHRO...

Bao Nguyen is an award-winning Vietnamese American filmmaker whose work has been seen on The New York Times, HBO, NBC, PBS and more. He has directed, produced, and shot a number of short films, which have played internationally in festivals and museums. His feature documentary directorial debut, Live from New York, opened the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival. His latest film is, Be Water, a documentary about Bruce Lee, airing on ESPN on June 7, 2020. Bao is a child of refugees and grew up working...

Yen Ngo is number eleven of twelve children, born in Da Lat Vietnam. Her parents were both orphans and even though they did not receive a formal education themselves, they raised their kids to excel in school. After 1975, Yen’s oldest sister made the decision that the family needed to flee Vietnam in phases, and that the youngest children should go first. Yen arrived in America at the age of 13 and shares the loneliness she felt going from having a large family surrounding to feeling isolated...

Gene Binh Nguyen, the youngest of two children, grew up with a widowed mom. His father died in the Vietnam war when he was just two months old. Because Gene’s father fought on the South Vietnamese side, his family was ostracized in the new government regime. When Gene and his family finally escaped from Vietnam, they were put in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles California, where he faced racism, violence and gang life on a daily basis, while his mom tried to make ends meet....

Thanh is the oldest of six children and was just eight years old at the Fall of Saigon. She was living in Tân Châu, just six miles from the Cambodia border and she remembers vividly the blood bath from the continued warfare between Vietnam and Cambodia. With Communism breathing down their backs and their wealth and freedom wiped out, Thanh's parents had to make an agonizing decision. Without enough gold to pay for a family of eight to flee Vietnam, they had to choose whether to stay together...

Thanhhà Lại was born in Vietnam in the middle of the war. She wrote about growing up there and leaving on a navy ship two days before the war ended in her first novel Inside Out & Back Again, which won a Newbery Honor and a National Book Award and eight years later is still a New York Times bestseller. She is the youngest of nine children raised by a single mother. Her father went missing during the war when she was just one years old. Her life in America would begin in Alabama and...

Tom Pham, was born in 1971 in Saigon as Hung Quoc Pham. At the end of the Vietnam War, his father Qouc Pham, a former South Vietnam Naval officer was considered a traitor and sent away for many years in re-education camp. His mom was left with young children to care for, in a war-torn country. Tom was sent to live with his grandparents during this time at age four until one day, a father he barely knew started to appear again. And the two of them would escape Vietnam in 1980 when Tom was just...

VBP Student Spotlight: Growing up in Brooklyn New York, Vivian was not surrounded by many Vietnamese people. Her parents fled Vietnam by boat as refugees in 1978. And while she grew up in the largest melting pot in America, Vietnamese-Americans don’t even come close to 1% of the entire population in New York City. She never connected with her heritage until college, when she met a group of passionate and supportive students who recruited her to join the Vietnamese Student Association (VSA)....

In 1988, a group of Vietnamese boat people attempted to flee their country in search of freedom. Once at sea, the boat's engine died, leaving over 100 people stranded in the ocean. What happens next is an unbelievable story of perseverance that changed the lives of 52 survivors forever. Award winning documentarian Duc Nguyen, shares his journey in unraveling this story and making this regional Emmy award-winning film.  Film (English): https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bolinao52 Film(Tiếng Việt):...

In virtually every city, state and strip mall across the U.S., people get their nails done in salons likely owned by Vietnamese entrepreneurs. How did our community come to dominate the $8 billion dollar nail salon industry? Director Adele Free Pham set out to explore the history of Vietnamese nail salons and discovered it all began with 20 Vietnamese refugee women and a chance encounter with famed Alfred Hitchcock actress and humanitarian Tippi Hedren. The "first 20" Vietnamese manicurists...

Leo was only 26 years old, one of the youngest crewmen on the US Navy chartered military vessel, the SS Trans Colorado. On August 11, 1980 in the midst of a storm, Leo was on watch to steer the ship, when he spotted a small fishing boat far away with two men holding up a red flag in distress. Little did he know that his crew was about to change the fate of 67 refugee lives on that boat.

In 1980, Nesta arrived at the Singapore Refugee camp for the first time, looking to do something meaningful with her time and skills. At first, she was overwhelmed by the chaos and traumatic experiences that the refugees had just gone through. Using a combination of her training, pure instincts and cultural understanding, Nesta became instrumental in helping the refugees transition into new lives and resettlement countries. The experiences at the camp also had a profound effect on her...

Meredith couldn’t bare to sit back and watch the boat people crisis unfold in the news. In 1979, she was among one of the first to volunteer at a makeshift refugee camp at 25 Hawkins Road, Sembawang, Singapore; the site of a former British barrack. She started the language program at the camp, and touched the lives of over 30,000 refugees. Including one young man, with Meredith’s help, was able to hear the sound of freedom for the first time.