This was a very special night I won't forget. I had stepped out of the theater (because I've seen the film a million times,) and when I came back in, my father was standing there, watching from the back row. My heart trilled and I'm surprised I didn't ugly cry. As a second generation Vietnamese kid, the daughter of a war refugee going into film, I still question myself. I wish I had more money to help my family. My emotions were already running high just being on campus, Reed College, the Harvard of the West, where my younger brother got a full ride and graduated -- but paid the price. He still has not recovered from the mental break he experienced there, and Reed gave us 0 support. As a family we've been through so much, and are still together, and trying to pull everyone through. The metaphor of the Vietnamese nail salon as a family unit holds great meaning for me. I'd like to think that's where the heart of god lives -- in not abandoning your family or any human being, when faced with insurmountable odds.

“Nailed It,” produced by filmmaker Adele Pham, sets out to answer the question: Why are so many nail salons run by people of Vietnamese heritage? Pham grew up in Portland, and back for several screenings of the film this week. Listen to the interview on OPB here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/oregonpublicbroadcasting/documentary-looks-at-vietnamese-nail-sal

NAILED IT

PBS Encore Broadcast: December 10, 2019 @ 8/7c America ReFramed on WORLD Channel Streaming: ​12/10/2019 – 1/9/2020​

watch now at: vimeo.com/ondemand/nailedit

The Nailed It screening and Q&A at UC Riverside was organized by Southeast Asia: Text, Ritual, and Performance (SEATRiP)at UC Riverside, PHD candidate Justin Pham, and Violette Ho who moderated the conversation after the film.

ECHS' AASA students hosted a community screening of Nailed It and moderated the following discussion. One of our best screenings to date. Meeting high school students of this caliber make me more hopeful about the future! Thank you to educator Julie Vo for bringing me into the fold of this special school.

Q&A from Nailed It's UCLA screening 10/22/19 moderated by Prof. Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi. Co-presented by the Institute of American Cultures, Asian American Studies Center, Southeast Asian Studies Center & The Dept of Asian Languages and Cultures.

Q&A from Nailed It's USC screening 10-20-19, moderated by Professor and Author Lan Duong. Co-presented by APCA, APASA & SCAPE.

A week after the election of Donald Chump, my millennial aged brother Tim who organized for Bernie and spent thousands of his own dollars on the campaign, talks to me about politics, wtf happened, and the future of the Democratic Party.

Welcome to life on mars. Since our last show a lot of bad news been a go-go down - Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Baton Rouge, St Paul, Dallas. I'm not going to run down the rabbit hole of emotions today, or debate all lives vs black lives. You know damn well we say #blacklivesmatter because for a millennia, they haven't! Certainly not in America - which if you think about it, is just an extension of the Roman empire, like Britain before us. Come to think, did England really lose that revolutionary war, or are we living in one giant psyop colony. Im serious! Where can I put my petty cash in the bank of killer mic already. I'm ready to brexit this bitch.

As a mixed asian and white person, I notice the outpouring of grief from non black giga-friends on facebook. But I also know this is a curated list of folks, who made the cut after my own soap box a-WOKEning in 2011 when they lynched Troy Davis. Remember him? To me, Troy Davis' life mattering was The spiritual tipping point of Occupy, #occupythehood anyway...but as always, I digress, it's time for No More Mr. Bad News Episode 2, with Niki and Adele, chat in progress.

The inaugural birthday episode of No More Mr. Bad News with Nicole and Adele, recorded on my 34th birthday :-/ We cover all the bad news of the week, and can't even get to all of it - broaching Orlando's trifecta of tragedy and why in the hell minorities potentially voted for Hillary in the primaries. It's No More Mr. Bad News!