Carol Hills and Marco Werman of Public Radio International interview Viet Thanh Nguyen as a recipient of a MacArthur grant.
Vietnamese American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen describes himself as “numb and shocked” after winning a MacArthur “genius grant.”
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Sympathizer,” his debut novel, was cited by the MacArthur Foundation for “challenging popular depictions of the Vietnam War and exploring the myriad ways that war lives on for those it displaced.”
Nguyen’s first displacement was being separated from his home country. He was just 4 years old when his parents fled Vietnam with him and his brother after the fall of Saigon. There was further displacement at the refugee camp in Pennsylvania where they were brought for processing.
“In order to leave these refugee camps, refugees had to have American sponsors. In our case, there wasn’t a sponsor who would take our entire family,” he explains. “So my parents went to one sponsor. My brother went to another one. And me, at 4-years-old, was sent to a third sponsor. So that was a very traumatic experience.”
It lasted two months — an eternity for a small child — and it proved to be formative.
“My first memories are of coming to the United States and being taken away from my parents, so there was always a part of me that knew that my existence as an American had somehow been shaped by this very traumatic history of war and of being a refugee,” he says.
Further disruption was the gap that grew between Nguyen — the eager wannabe American — and his parents, who wanted him to retain his Vietnamese culture and language.
“In my parent’s home I always felt like I was different. Like, I didn’t understand them or their language. I felt like an American spy in a Vietnamese household,” he says. “But when I went outside into the American society, although I felt comfortable, I also retained that Vietnamese-ness that my parents were trying to instill and I felt like a Vietnamese spy among Americans.”
Nguyen grew up in California among Vietnamese refugees who had been singed by loss and displacement and whose role as America’s allies in the war was almost totally ignored or worse, belittled.
“The Vietnamese refugees who came here and formed a community feel that neglect very, very poignantly and feel very frustrated that their experiences are oftentimes completely ignored.”
That experience of growing up with people trying to build a new life while being burdened with the memories of their old life is something Nguyen returns to again and again in his writing. His latest work, a book of short stories, is titled “The Refugees.”
Here is the transcript:
Marco Werman: It is MacArthur Week. The geniuses got their calls. Yesterday we met one of this year’s 24 Fellows, Jason De León, who studies migration through the things migrants leave in the desert as they come to America. Today another MacArthur Fellow, writer Viet Thanh Nguyen. You may have read his debut novel, The Sympathizer, which won a Pulitzer last year. Nguyen was born in Vietnam during the war and came here as a refugee, just four years old, with his family after the fall of Saigon in 1975. His latest book of short stories, The Refugees, explores the disruption the war caused on so many Vietnamese refugees’ lives. Viet Thanh Nguyen joins us from his home in Los Angeles. So, congratulations first of all, on your MacArthur prize.
Viet Nguyen: I’m kind of still numb and shocked.
Marco Werman: Can we start with the first major disruption in your life? When your family arrived in the U.S. you were still four. You were in this resettlement center in Pennsylvania. Can you just tell us what happened to you at that moment because it sounds like pretty traumatic stuff for a kid.
Viet Nguyen: Right. We were in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, which was a refugee camp set up to absorb and process the Vietnamese refugees. In order to leave these camps, refugees had to have American sponsors. And in our case there wasn’t a sponsor who would take our entire family so my parents went to one sponsor, my brother went to another one and me, at four years old, was sent to a third sponsor. So that was a very traumatic experience. Because certainly at four years old, I did not have any idea why I was being taken away from my parents. Even though that only lasted for a few months, it at that time felt to me like a very long period of time.
Marco Werman: And is that your first memory?
Viet Nguyen: Pretty much, yes. My first memories are of coming to the United States and being taken away from my parents. So there was always a part of me that knew that my existence as an American had somehow been shaped by this very traumatic history of war and being a refugee.
Marco Werman: So you’ve described being an outsider in California where you grew up but also over time an outsider within your own family. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Viet Nguyen: I think it’s a very common experience for the children of immigrants or refugees to feel themselves to be quite different than the older generation, particularly their parents. My parents were Vietnamese people and they wanted to retain Vietnamese language and trying to also to survive in American society. They had to work really, really hard so they didn’t really have a lot of time to spend with me and expected me to understand Vietnamese culture and customs. And at the same time, I, four years on and onwards was spending some of my time at home but most of my time outside, in the school and in the library becoming an American. So in my parents’ home I always felt like I was different than my parents, that I didn’t understand them or their language. I felt like a spy in a Vietnamese household, an American spy. But when I went outside into the American society although I felt comfortable, I also retained that Vietnameseness that my parents were trying to instill. I felt like a Vietnamese spy among Americans.
Marco Werman: Yeah, that’s wild. And you’re growing up at a time when Hollywood was producing a long string of Vietnam stories. Did you watch movies like Apocalypse Now when that came out and how did those American stories of your native home influence you as a writer?
Viet Nguyen: Well you know, Hollywood made a whole lot of these movies from the ’70, through the ’80s and I think I watched almost all of them. The first one was, I think, Apocalypse Now which I saw on a VCR probably 10 or 11 years old. And it, like all the other Vietnam war movies, depicted Vietnam and the Vietnamese people in a very stereotypical way and that was very uncomfortable for me because I felt like an American. I identified with the American soldiers until they started to kill Vietnamese people. Then I felt split in two. This was the beginning of my sense that here was a problem of how it is that Americans think of Vietnam and people like me and that I might have to do something about that one day.
Marco Werman: So those films seem to have had a very direct influence on you as a writer.
Viet Nguyen: Yes, and I think they’ve had a lot of influence on all Americans because I think that’s how many Americans get their information about Vietnam and the Vietnam War. So these movies, which may be very powerful artistically some of them, but they’re also very limited when it comes to depicting Vietnamese people.
Marco Werman: Yeah, well one thing that many Americans are not plugged into, for example, is the impact of the Vietnam War on the Vietnamese-American community. If you look at Cuban-Americans, they fled, they lost their country, resettled in the U.S. and many became really anti-communist. But unlike Cuban-Americans, there really hasn’t been much interest in hearing Vietnamese-American stories of disruption or stories of re-education camps. And you’ve got influential American gatekeepers like publishing houses and news organizations that just don’t seem to have had much interest in this. I’d like to know why you think that is.
Viet Nguyen: Oh, I think it’s a human and universal tendency to see the world through ethnocentric lens and Americans are no exception. So when they think of the Vietnam War, they really think of it as an American War and how it affected Americans. To the extent that Americans are interested in the Vietnamese people, ironically most of the time they’re interested in their Vietnamese enemies, which is to say the communists, the people fought against them. That means that the American allies, the ones for whom the Americans fought the war, the South Vietnamese, oftentimes are ironically overlooked in the United States. And the Vietnamese refugees who came here and formed a community feel that neglect very, very poignantly and feel very frustrated that their experiences are oftentimes completely ignored. I think that these people are trying to build a new life while they’re burdened with the memories of their old life.
Marco Werman: For you, having come here at the age of four, is that a hard thing to kind of capture?
Viet Nguyen: I think it is a hard thing to capture because for me it’s very personal. A set of experiences that have saturated with my memories of the experiences and the feelings of my family and among other Vietnamese refugees that I knew when I was growing up. It was difficult to try to translate all of that into fiction so that the stories themselves would exist on their own dramatically and yet still capture some of this autobiographical world that I was immersed in growing up.
Marco Werman: Viet Thanh Nguyen the author of The Sympathizer and The Refugees, the latest book of short stories just out. Thanks very much for being with us and congratulations again on the MacArthur.
Viet Nguyen: Thanks so much, Marco.
