Vietnamese Refugees Quotes

• In fiction, it's as if you enter a dream world that you created, but your characters have their own free will. They don't do what you want them to do - they get into trouble, do drugs, fight over petty things, and do outrageous things that you wouldn't want your children to do. In other words, you can only provide the background, the seeds - in my case the background of the Vietnamese refugee.

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  Andrew Lam

  Dream   Children   Character  

  "‘Birds of Paradise Lost’: A Conversation With Author Andrew Lam". Interview with Anna Challet, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 5, 2013.

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• You have to wear a different face when you're interacting with the larger culture. And you can be more of yourself at home or in the local market or in the local church speaking your own language. That was my sense growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in San Jose.

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  Nguyen Viet Thang

  Growing Up   Home   Different Faces  

  "'The Refugees' Author Says We Should All Know What It Is To Be An Outsider". Interview with Ari Shapiro, kccu.org. February 10, 2017.

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• 40, 50 years ago, Americans - the majority of Americans did not want to accept these Vietnamese refugees who they saw as completely foreign. Now there are new foreigners - Syrians and other people from the Middle East, people of Muslim backgrounds. And the sense among many Americans is, well, these people are completely different from us, and they're not like the Vietnamese who are much more assimilable. And I think that's very, very doubtful. I think that the majority of these new foreigners, if given the opportunity, will be able to assimilate and deal with American culture.

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  Nguyen Viet Thang

  Opportunity   Thinking   Years  

  "'The Refugees' Author Says We Should All Know What It Is To Be An Outsider". Interview with Ari Shapiro, wbgo.org. February 10, 2017.

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• We lived in St. Tropez when I was young, and there were a lot of Vietnamese refugees in France at the time, after the war. My mother had many Vietnamese friends who entertained a lot, and she was taught how to make that spring roll. She would make them all the time.

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  Eric Ripert

  Mother   Spring   War  

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

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• As a Vietnamese refugee who became an American writer, I can tell you that you matter, that your sadness matters, the story of how you survived and triumphed matters. For every story that belongs to you, in time, belongs to America.

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  Andrew Lam

  Sadness   America   Stories  

  Andrew Lam (2010). “East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres”, p.133, Heyday

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