Viet Thanh Nguyen /New York Times
Viet Thanh Nguyen shares many of the same feelings that other former refugees emigrating to America following the Vietnam War shares. The hardships of settling in a new land, with nothing and starting over. At the age of 4, he was shuttled between American host families so his parents could work and stabilize their situation in order to take care of him eventually.
Viet Thanh Nguyen is a former refugee and current author and associate professor at the University of California. (Photo courtesy vietnguyen.info)
His parents opened up a grocery store and went through many trials and tribulations. They were shot and robbed– the last thing they hoped for in the ‘American Dream’. They worked hard to give their children an education, and his mom never saw her own parents again, and his dad reunited with his own father 40 years later. These are the sacrifices many had to make for a chance at freedom and a better life. It took 27 years for Nguyen to visit his birthplace, and it was both foreign and familiar. Today, he is an author and professor at the University of Southern California and has just finished a novel titled “The Sympathizer.”
To read more about his thoughts on the aftermath of the war and why it has changed the course of so many people’s lives, click here:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/opinion/sunday/our-vietnam-war-never-ended.html?referrer=&_r=1
