April Reads honoring SE Asian Authors

April books that coincide with Khmer New Year's, the takeover of Saigon, and the beginning of the Khmer Rouge genocide

April marks a pivotal moment(s) in SE Asian history with Songkran, Khmer New Year’s, the end of US intervention in Saigon, and the beginning of the Khmer Rouge genocide. I also believe it’s important to acknowledge the Lao Civil War that affected many Lao and Hmong communities during that time. On that note, these are some of the recent releases by SE Asian authors that I’m excited to highlight for this month.

My Vietnam, Your Vietnam by Christina Vo and Nghia M. Vo

Slow Noodles by Chantha Nguon with supporting author Kim Green and contributions by Clara Kim

Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life by Kao Kalia Yang

My Vietnam, Your Vietnam by Christina Vo and Nghia M. Vo

Release Date: April 16

“My Vietnam, Your Vietnam” is a dual memoir shared from a father and daughter experience in their two divergent journeys from Vietnam.  For Christina, she candidly shares her transformative early adult experience returning to her family homeland that she has never been to.  Meanwhile, her father Nghia laments the loss of his homeland after escaping post-war Vietnam and the challenges he faces in the early US resettlement period.  Christina talks about the struggles that she has in her relationship with her father since the loss of her mother as an adolescent, and the complexities she experienced in being a Việt Kiều (overseas Vietnamese) living in Vietnam twenty years ago. Going further, she takes a chance to live in Ha Noi, a city in North Vietnam that was a symbol of its emblematic communist past during the war.  This decision proved to be difficult given her family’s roots in Southern Vietnam and its relationship to the North during the war. 

Nghia M. Vo’s masterful storytelling of both his love of Vietnamese history and what he remembers of Vietnam during the war is vivid and refreshingly honest. It is much too common for many Vietnamese survivors of the war that are now aging to remain silent. With Nghia, he invites us into his personal side that in Christina’s writing, often avoids telling her about.  It is through his writing that he finds his voice to share these stories from loss to resilience, and opens up in a way that offers an intimate look at the often untold stories of elder Vietnam War survivors. 

Christina's journey to Vietnam two decades ago illuminates a significant and ongoing conversation shared by many Viet Americans and other fellow Việt Kiều’s—navigating the return to a family homeland characterized by a lack of familiarity, compounded by the language and cultural loss experienced by those who have assimilated into their adopted Western homeland. Her story is relatable to me and those who live in the diaspora. I recalled my first visit to the southern part of Vietnam in my mid-20s (Sai Gon, Can Tho, Tri Ton) to visit long lost relatives of mine.  I remembered the embarrassment that I felt for losing my family native tongue and how much I had to rely on my uncle to translate or get around the area.  Despite the language barrier, I also felt my pride in learning about my family roots and the personal reconnection to a part of my heritage that I had long rejected.

Looking ahead, I aspire to follow in Christina's footsteps by planning a return visit to Vietnam, this time with Ha Noi as my destination, ideally by year's end. Similar to Christina, I find myself venturing into a city not connected to my family roots, and anticipating a fresh exploration of not only a new geographical landscape but also a deeper connection to a heritage that transcends my adopted Western identity.

In reading this dual memoir, I appreciated the beautiful and short transitions between Christina and Nghia’s stories which helps to maintain the balance of each of their respective stories, and how much contrast there is in their journey yet paradoxically, how they are intrinsically connected together by their shared love of Vietnam. The exploration of their individual paths gives light to their divergent experiences that shaped their identities, their relationship with Vietnam and the US, and ultimately the relationship they have with each other. Christina’s story can connect with so many fellow Việt Kiều folks looking to make their first-time journey to Vietnam and begin the process of learning their cultural identity while Mr. Vo's story provides a personal perspective on Vietnam's history, delving into the complicated layers of the US resettlement era for many Southeast Asian refugees. Throughout his journey, he candidly unveils moments of vulnerability that add depth to the narrative.  With the elderly Vietnamese / SE Asian refugee population aging, this dual memoir is an opportunity to share and document these stories about the community while providing a pathway toward healing between generations. 

Slow Noodles by Chantha Nguon with supporting author Kim Green and contributions from Clara Kim, daughter of Chantha. 

Chantha Nguon’s Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes takes us through Chantha’s lens starting as an impressionable 9-year old living in pre-Khmer Rouge era Cambodia in the 1960s.  As a Viet-Cambodian kid growing up in Battambang, Chantha recounts her mom’s special recipes in her early childhood, and reminisces on the Vietnamese community she was growing up in.  In 1970, the US overthrew Cambodia’s Prince Sihanouk, abolished the monarchy, and replaced him with Lon Nol, a fierce nationalist and anti-communist leader who would later execute thousands of suspected Cambodian communists.  Lon Nol, a Cambodian blood-purist set out to destroy ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese communities in Cambodia which would later force Chantha and her siblings leaving their mom behind to flee the country and escape to Vietnam, already mired in their civil war.  Cambodia would later go through a genocide that began with the Khmer Rouge overtaking the country on April 17th, 1975.  That genocide would later take the lives of an estimated 2 million people in a nearly 4-year span. The stories of ethnic Vietnamese people living in Cambodia, and ethnic Cambodians living in Vietnam that talk about the struggles and violence of being othered are often untold and it leaves out the essential part of the historical conflicts between Vietnam and Cambodia.  As a Viet-Cambodian American, I found it refreshing to see Chantha’s own perspective and experience living with both identities in these two countries.

While in Saigon, Chantha experiences losses in her family, including her big sister Chanthu and later her mother.  Through these losses and later having to escape to the Thailand refugee camps, she is forced to navigate her survival through a series of odd jobs such as cooking in a brothel, serving drinks in a nightclub, being a kuy teav vendor, weaving silk, and becoming a suture nurse. In these jobs, she shares her encounters with the many different people that she connects with, and learns of the many layers of trauma that they experience from the Khmer Rouge to the Vietnam War.  She would later come back to Cambodia after the genocide, learn first-hand of the devastation that her birth country faced, and take the small but holistic approach to help rebuild the country from Year Zero. In each of these chapters, she shares homemade recipes that serve as a soundtrack to her journey.  In the face of some of the most formidable challenges on her journey, she has artfully curated the inclusion of these recipes into her narrative, not only as part of her healing journey but, more significantly, as a poignant act of reclaiming her family and cultural identity. Each recipe becomes a heartfelt love letter penned with flavors and traditions, a profound testament to the enduring bond she shares with her family.

What struck me about Chantha’s storytelling is her deepened compassion for the people she encounters along the way while living in exile.  She brings important attention to the challenges that her community in Cambodia faces such as underage sex trafficking, HIV/AIDS, the lack of infrastructure and accessible clean water and medical treatment, and does so with the utmost care while also demonstrating the hope that she has for her homeland.  Her words echo a strong, unrelenting will and curiosity that allows her to beautifully reflect on her past mired with tragedies and joy. Slow Noodles is a testament to the inner strength and indomitable spirit that Chantha carries throughout the book, and makes for an unforgettable read. 

IG at slownoodles

Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life by Kao Kalia Yang

Kao takes on the story of her mother Tswb’s turbulent upbringing and survival from the Lao Civil War which was sometimes known as America’s Secret War during the time of the Vietnam War. During the war, the US enlisted Hmong and ethnic minorities in Laos to fight on the US side. However, in 1975, the Americans vacated Laos which then left the Hmong community vulnerable to genocidal attacks as they were seen as traitors for assisting the Americans during the war. As a young Hmong woman, Tswb navigates the challenges of patriarchy, motherhood, separation, and losses while surviving in a country mired in a civil war where her Hmong identity was deemed a threat to the North Vietnamese and Lao troops. Tswb’s family was forced to survive in the treacherous jungle before reaching a Thai refugee camp. Kao takes us through the impact of Tswb’s miscarriages and her family’s difficulties with assimilation and refugee resettlement in Minnesota.

Kao invites us into her mother’s psyche through her challenging journey. A particular quote that stood out was Tswb describing her marriage to Npis, “In America, my marriage, I’ve had to become stronger with the addition of each child. These stronger versions of myself are not celebratory in nature. It does not feel like something to be proud of. “ She goes further, “In America, we have become versions that we do not love, but need. Somehow in Thailand, in the waiting years, rubbed raw by the war, we could not be anything but the remnants of flesh and bone trying to find shelter in our bodies. I will not observe out loud to Npis the fact that I have to do most of the hard things to make our lives in America possible, only to my children.” This experience that Kao shares through her mother delves into the sobering reminders of how refugee mothers often shoulder the burden of survival for their families, and pay the price to do so. Channeling through her mother’s experience, Kao takes us into the hardships of living in America battling job loss and depression, and dealing with the long culture shock of her family’s return to Laos after 4 decades.

Kao’s impressive ability to bring vividness and care to her mother’s story demonstrates the power that she gives to her mother’s voice. Her beautiful storytelling of her mom’s daunting journey makes it impossible for us to forget while shedding light on a history that so many people have forgotten or never knew about except the people who survived that part of history.

Also, check out Kao Kalia Yang’s YA illustration book, “The Rock In My Throat”

Follow Kao on IG at KaoKaliaYang

Other notable SE Asian authors to check out for:

Snow In Vietnam by Amy M. Le

Ma and Me by Putsata Reang

Remembering Water by Tuan Phan

House of Sticks by Ly Ky Tran

In The Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

Things We Lost To The Water by Eric Nguyen

Three Funerals for My Father by Jolie Phuong Hoang