ÁCCENTED

Journalist Tina Nguyen and sculptural/digital storyteller Tuan Andrew Nguyen converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

TINA NGUYEN is a national correspondent and founding partner for Puck, covering the world of Donald Trump and the American right. Previously, Nguyen was a White House reporter for Politico, a staff reporter for Vanity Fair Hive, and an editor at Mediaite. Nguyen graduated from Claremont McKenna College and lives in Washington, DC.

Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s work explores the power of storytelling through video and sculpture. His projects are based on extensive research and community engagement, tapping into inherited histories and counter-memory. Nguyen extracts and re-works dominant, oftentimes colonial histories and supernaturalisms into imaginative vignettes. Fact and fiction are interwoven in poetic narratives that span time and place. Nguyen (b. 1976, Saigon) holds a BFA from the University of California, Irvine and a MFA from The California Institute of the Arts. Nguyen is a founding member of The Propeller Group, an entity that positions itself between a fake advertising company and an art collective. Accolades for the group include the main prize at the 2015 Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur and a Creative Capital Award. Nguyen’s work has been included in major international festivals, biennials, and exhibitions including, in the past year, the 12th Berlin Biennale, Germany; Manifesta 14, Prishtina, Kosovo; Aichi Triennale, Japan; and Biennale de Dakar, Senegal. His work is included in the permanent collections of institutions including Carré d’Art, Nîmes, France; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; SFMoMA, San Francisco; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

This episode is sponsored by AppLovin. AppLovin’s leading marketing platform provides developers a powerful set of solutions to grow their mobile apps. AppLovin’s technology platform enables developers to market, monetize, analyze and publish their apps. The company’s first-party content includes over 200+ popular, engaging apps and its technology brings that content to millions of users around the world. AppLovin is headquartered in Palo Alto, California with several offices globally. Learn more at ⁠⁠applovin.com⁠⁠.

Screenwriter and novelist Brandon Hoang and filmmaker Elizabeth Ai speak with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Brandon Hoàng is the author of the young adult novel Gloria Buenrostro Is Not My Girlfriend and the middle grade The Crossbow of Destiny. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Brandon grew up coveting the Baby-Sitters Club books and slurping noodles. Before he was a writer, Brandon was an animation executive. Now a screenwriter by day and novelist by night, he currently resides in Portland, OR with his wife and two daughters.

Elizabeth Ai is an award-winning Chinese Vietnamese American storyteller and filmmaker. Her directorial debut, New Wave, premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival and was awarded a Special Jury Mention for Best New Documentary Director. Ai writes and produces independent feature films and branded content for companies including ESPN, VICE, and National Geographic, for which she won an Emmy. She produced the documentary features Dirty Hands: The Art & Crimes of David Choe (2008), and A Woman’s Work: The NFL’S Cheerleader Problem (2019). Her narrative features include Saigon Electric (2011) and Ba (2024). She’s an alumnus of Berlinale, Center for Asian American Media, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Film Independent, Firelight Media, Sundance, and Tribeca. Her work is supported by Adobe, California Humanities, Cinereach, Ford Foundation, Independent Television Service, Knight Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Sundance.

This episode is sponsored by AppLovin. AppLovin’s leading marketing platform provides developers a powerful set of solutions to grow their mobile apps. AppLovin’s technology platform enables developers to market, monetize, analyze and publish their apps. The company’s first-party content includes over 200+ popular, engaging apps and its technology brings that content to millions of users around the world. AppLovin is headquartered in Palo Alto, California with several offices globally. Learn more at ⁠⁠applovin.com⁠⁠.

Artist and educator Phung Huynh speaks with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen about her recent projects.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Phung Huynh is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator with a practice in drawing, painting, public art, and community engagement. Her work explores cultural perception and representation. Huynh challenges beauty standards by constructing images of the Asian female body vis-à-vis plastic surgery to unpack how contemporary cosmetic surgery can whitewash cultural and racial identity. Her work of drawings and prints on pink donut boxes explores the complexities of assimilation and cultural negotiation among Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees who have resettled in the United States. Phung Huynh has had solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills and the Sweeney Art Gallery at the University of California, Riverside. Her paintings and drawings have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including spaces such as the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She has also completed public art commissions for the Metro Orange Line, Metro Silver Line, the Los Angeles Zoo, and the Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center through the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture. Phung Huynh is Assistant Professor of Art at California State University Los Angeles where her focus is on serving disproportionately impacted students. She has served as Chair of the Public Art Commission for the city of South Pasadena and Chair of the Prison Arts Collective Advisory Council, which supports arts programming in California state prisons. She is currently on the Board of Directors for LA Más, a non-profit organization that serves BIPOC working class immigrant communities in Northeast Los Angeles. Huynh completed undergraduate coursework at the University of Southern California, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with distinction from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and received her Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University. She is a recipient of the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, the California Arts Council Individual Established Artist Fellowship, and the California Community Foundation Visual Artist Fellowship. Phung Huynh is Assistant Professor of Art at California State University Los Angeles, and she is represented by Luis De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles. 

sored by AppLovin. AppLovin’s leading marketing platform provides developers a powerful set of solutions to grow their mobile apps. AppLovin’s technology platform enables developers to market, monetize, analyze and publish their apps. The company’s first-party content includes over 200+ popular, engaging apps and its technology brings that content to millions of users around the world. AppLovin is headquartered in Palo Alto, California with several offices globally. Learn more at ⁠⁠applovin.com⁠⁠.

Lao writers Krysada Phounsiri and Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Krysada Phounsiri is a Lao American award winning poet, professional dancer, optical engineer, and photographer. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a Physics & Astrophysics double major. He minored in Creative Writing with a focus on poetry. His poetry has been featured in various publications like the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education, SEARAC 40 & Forward, and San Diego Poetry Together anthology. He has authored two poetry books: "Dance Among Elephants," 2015, which takes readers on a profound journey of identity, family, homeland, love, and dance, and "Every Passing Minute," 2020, continuing the exploration of themes from his first book."

Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is a Lao American poet and playwright. CNN’s “United Shades of America” host W. Kamau Bell called her work “revolutionary.” She is the author of the children's book When Everything Was Everything (Full Circle Publishing 2018) and is best known for her Kung Fu Zombies play cycle. Her work has been presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Theater Mu, Walking Shadow Theatre Company, and elsewhere. She's currently living large thanks to grants from the MN State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, as well as fellowships from the Bush Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Jerome Foundation, and the Center for Cultural Power this year. She's a recent writer in residence at Hedgebrook and at Djerassi by invitation of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network. www.refugenius.net  @refugenius

Montagnard Degar writers H'Abigail Mlo and Y-Danair Niehrah speak with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

H’Abigail (Abi) Mlo is a Montagnard American, Southerner, and writer based on Lenape Land (Philadelphia). As a student at UNC-Chapel Hill, she co-founded Voices of the Highlands to meet a long-time need in the Montagnard community for connection and storytelling (Instagram: @voicesofthehighlands). In 2021, she wrote a children’s book in four weeks with Room to Read titled Yă’s Backyard Jungle. Outside of writing, H’Abigail is a hobby film photographer, outdoor enthusiast, and foodie.

Born and raised in Charleston, SC, Y-Danair Niehrah has studied creative writing since his father introduced computers to the family. He grew up reading genre fiction and horror but shifted to historical fiction in high school, focusing on the stories of the Degar people—the indigenous tribes of Vietnam. He studied creative writing at the College of Charleston under fantastic writers and mentors like Bret Lott and Anthony Varallo before pursuing an MFA at Queens University of Charlotte studying under writers like Fred Leebron, Naeem Murr, and Jonathan Dee.

Podcaster and film producer Kenneth Nguyen and poet Oliver de la Paz converse with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Kenneth Nguyen is a Los Angeles based podcaster and film producer with over two decades in the Vietnamese media space. Kenneth hosts and produces The Vietnamese podcast with over 300 episodes recorded. Kenneth Nguyen was a founding partner of Wave Releasing, the first U.S. based Vietnamese language film distribution company. Kenneth managed distribution on Vietnamese language films such as OWL AND THE SPARROW, DE MAI TINH, and MAIKA. He currently is a founding partner at EAST Films with several film projects in development. He has served honorably as a former U.S. Marine and holds a B.A degree from USC in Visual Anthropology with an emphasis in Cinema Studies. 

Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA for 2023-2025. He is the author and editor of seven books: Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the Orchard, Post Subject: A Fable, and The Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry. His newest work, The Diaspora Sonnets, is published by Liveright Press (2023), was a winner of the2023 New England Book Award, and was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award. With Stacey Lynn Brown he co-edited A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Oliver serves as the co-chair of the Kundiman advisory board. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Poetry, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the Low-Residency MFA Program at PLU.

Photographer An-My Le and writer Jamie Jo Hoang speak with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen.

ABOUT THE GUESTS

An-My Lê was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1960. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She was educated at Stanford University and at Yale University and has been the recipient of numerous awards including the MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships. Lê is currently the Charles Franklin Kellogg and Grace E. Ramsey Kellogg Professor in the Arts at Bard College, New York. A 30-year survey of her career has opened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and will continue until March 2024. The title is Between Two Rivers/Giữa hai giòng sông/Entre deux rivières. 

Jamie Jo Hoang, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, grew up in Orange County, CA—not the wealthy part. She worked for MGM Studios and later, as a docu-series producer. Now she writes novels and blogs full time. When Jamie’s not writing, she’s wandering, pondering, and chasing experiences. Her self-published first novel, Blue Sun, Yellow Sky, is a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. She is also the author of My Father, the Panda Killer.

Graphic novelist and illustrator Thi Bui converses with guest host Susan Lieu about her projects, such as her book "The Best We Could Do."

ABOUT THE GUEST

Thi Bui was born in Vietnam and came to the United States in 1978 as part of the “boat people” wave of refugees fleeing Southeast Asia at the end of the Vietnam War. Her debut graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do (Abrams ComicArts, 2017) has been selected for an American Book Award, a Common Book for UCLA and other colleges and universities, an all-city read by Seattle and San Francisco public libraries, a National Book Critics Circle finalist in autobiography, and an Eisner Award finalist in reality-based comics. It made over thirty best of 2017 book lists, including Bill Gates’ top five picks. She illustrated the picture book, A Different Pond, written by the poet Bao Phi (Capstone, 2017), for which she won a Caldecott Honor. With her son, Hien, she co-illustrated the children’s book, Chicken of the Sea (McSweeney’s, 2019), written by Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen and his son, Ellison. Her short comics can be found online at The Nib, PEN America, and BOOM California. She is currently researching and drawing a work of graphic nonfiction about immigrant detention and deportation, to be published by One World, Random House.

Chocolatier Wendy Lieu speaks with guest host Susan Lieu, her sister, about her journey to create her business, Socola Chocolates.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Wendy Lieu is the CEO and Chief Chocolatier of Socola Chocolatier, an award-winning chocolate company in San Francisco. Born in a Malaysian refugee camp, Wendy embodies the grit and optimism of the American Dream. A self-taught chocolatier, Wendy has been working with chocolate for over 20 years. At 19 years old, she and her sister launched Socola at a farmer’s market in Santa Rosa, California. After graduating college, Wendy became a management consultant but never forgot her love of sweets. After 8 years in the corporate world, she stopped moonlighting and finally took the plunge.

Sôcôla, which means “chocolate” in Vietnamese, creates inventive flavors reflective of the diverse flavors of Vietnam, including their iconic Little Saigon Box. Socola’s clients include Ferrari, Cartier, Sephora, YouTube and American Express. Socola has been featured in Forbes, Zagat, HuffPost, NBC Asian America, The San Francisco Chronicle, KTVU, KPIX, KGO, KPFA, and ABC7 Localish. Learn more at: Socola.

Lieu is the recipient of the NAWBO Aspire Award, PAAWBAC Monarch Leadership Award, Renaissance Entrepreneur of the Year, and CAAM Rising Star. She is a UC Davis, Tante Marie Pastry School, Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center alum, and former East Cut Community Benefit District Board Member.

Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh converses with hosts Viet Thanh Nguyen and Philip Nguyen about her journey in poetry.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Alexandra Huynh is an 18-year-old Vietnamese American poet from Sacramento, CA. She is the 2020 Sacramento Youth Poet Laureate, a program of Sacramento Area Youth Speaks, and is a Western Regional Ambassador and the 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States.

Alexandra began writing poetry in elementary school in the form of song. She gravitated towards poetry as a means to express complex emotions, but she seldom shared her work. When she competed in her first poetry slam in high school, she landed a spot on the Sacramento Area Youth Speaks Slam Team, which would go on to compete at the International Brave New Voices Festival. Heartened by the warm and visionary people she met, she has been immersed in poetry ever since.

As a second-generation individual, Alexandra employs poetry as a tool of self-reclamation and social justice for marginalized communities. She embodies a radical pride in her Vietnamese heritage, and seeks to write her story outside of the context of whiteness. Through poetry, she hopes to give students a vocabulary to articulate their lived experiences and empower them to shape their future.