What drove the Vietnamese refugee experience? Students discuss the historical context in this mini episode!

What is a refugee? Students and interviews give us their perspectives drawing on historical and sociological lessons!

Lauren Vuong, a Vietnamese refugee filmmaker, made a documentary about her search for the captain of the Virgo – the ship that saved her family after their expulsion from Vietnam. Her story, captured in Finding the Virgo (2018), is a tale of refugee survival and global networks of people who saved thousands of lives.

Jason Nguyen is a PhD student in ethno-musicology at the University of Indiana, a trained musician in several Vietnamese instruments. He’s also the musician behind our podcast’s theme music, a Vietnamese cover of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Refugee.” In this interview, Vy and Bryan talk to Jason about his process and research into the music history of Vietnamese culture across the Vietnamese diaspora.

Kim Vu-Dinh is a law professor at the University of Arkansas and former host of VietNOLA. Kim tells her family’s story of migration from Vietnam to the United States before the large waves of Vietnamese refugees were expelled from the country. She links her family’s experience to her interest in Vietnamese-American food culture in New Orleans.

Carl Bankston is a professor of sociology at Tulane University, who specializes in Vietnamese refugee communities, especially generational change. Before he entered into academia, Carl worked in the Philippines at a refugee-processing center, helping Vietnamese refugees find a new place to call home.

Lan Diep sits on the city council of San Jose. Of Vietnamese ancestry, Lan represents one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the United States. From this position, he offers unique insight into what Vietnamese refugees have gone through and how their experience as refugees continues to inform their politics in twenty-first century America.

New American Pathways is an Atlanta-based organization that facilitates refugee migration to the state. They help refugees with everything from relocating, finding housing and jobs, fostering community, filling paperwork…etc. In this episode, we interview several members of their team and learn about all of the expected and unexpected challenges that refugees face when coming to the United States.

Vy Dao and Bryan Banks sit down to answer a few basic questions about the podcast. How did we come to this project? What are our goals? The answer to both questions is our desire to humanize refugee peoples through their own voices and the voices of those who have defended their interests over time.