He’s also the editor of a new collection titled The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives. AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your own refugee story. Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. AMY GOODMAN: You have related—after the election of Drumpf, you related it to the CIA-backed coup that took out the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende back in 1973. And so, that does lead to a relationship to the language that is playful, because I want to be able to look at the language from the inside as well as the outside, as an alien from the language, and, that way, to maybe possibly do something different with the language that other people who are completely native in it may not see. AMY GOODMAN: So, Ariel Dorfman, it was great to see you reading from your new novel last night, Darwin’s Ghosts, and we’ll try to get to that in this hour. VIET THANH NGUYEN: President Clinton, President Obama, despite their rhetoric and despite their praise of certain kinds of inclusionary attitudes towards refugees and immigrants and minorities and women and so on, yes, they were responsible for various kinds of policies that had negative impacts on minority populations and on immigrant and refugee populations. —The San Francisco Chronicle, “Powerful and deeply moving personal stories about the physical and emotional toll one endures when forced out of one’s homeland.” And I think Drumpf is the incarnation—really, incarnation—and the excrement of that denial of the past. Joseph Azam But in terms of doing things like writing op-eds for The New York Times or The Washington Post, I think simply being present there in these organs of mainstream mass media, writing in English, is itself, I hope, a kind of statement, especially with a name like mine, which I’ve always refused to change. You do not arrive the same as when you left. Currently you have JavaScript disabled. 404D Taper Hall So, my novel, in this case, very specifically, is trying to take the most innocent kid you can imagine, who everybody can identify, every—most Americans can identify, and saying, here comes this captive, somebody who was taken across a border against his will, like slaves have—right?—and so others have, or like Viet himself—he didn’t want to come here necessarily, he was just brought here, right?—and force us to look into what that life means, and also ask how we can forgive ourselves and forgive the past, because I don’t think that it’s a question always of revenge and of anger. Dina Nayeri I’ve met many Americans of the generation of the war, whether they were soldiers or antiwar protesters or just people observing on TV. AMY GOODMAN: And you, Ariel, contributed an essay in The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, that is Viet’s book. Maybe it’s time for you to stop intervening in other people’s elections.” And also—I didn’t even mention that there—I mean, you know, Russia was invaded by the United States after the revolution of 1918. And having a president that is as nice and as articulate and as intelligent as President Obama didn’t really change these kinds of American imperial policies. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, he and his family fled to the United States. The Displaced | Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen called on 17 fellow refugee writers from across the globe to shed light on their experiences, and the result is The Displaced… © 1997-2020 Viet Thanh Nguyen All Rights Reserved. ARIEL DORFMAN: To Tommy, for instance, right, yeah. He takes over the life and the face and the identity, and forces this young, typical American kid to face what his own country has been doing in these countries. AMY GOODMAN: That’s Ariel Dorfman. And I grew up surrounded by people who were constantly telling stories filled with anger and sadness and rage and bitterness and melancholy. Its intent is to break a human being and rearrange them inside. It’s called Darwin’s Ghosts. AMY GOODMAN: You talked about refugees so often being the victims of U.S. policy, foreign policy. Talk about your concerns at the time, well over a year ago, and what you feel now. AMY GOODMAN: From Burma to Syria, from Thailand to Bosnia. The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives consists of essays of various writers who fled their homelands in search of a new existence. I thought I would be there forever. I’m just saying, the important thing is that this intervention of the Russians in the U.S. election should not be only a case of lamentation about, oh, how terrible this is, oh. ", "The overwhelming majority of people fleeing oppressive regimes, like Syria, the way we did from the Soviets, want what we wanted: freedom, security, peace, quiet, shelter, food, decent work, education, a new language, a new way of seeing things, and hope, hope, hope. AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to have to leave it there, but we’re going to continue the conversation and post it online at democracynow.org. I don’t know how I learned English. Viet Nguyen, called “one of our great chroniclers of displacement” (Joyce Carol Oates, The New Yorker), brings together writers originally from Mexico, Bosnia, Iran, Afghanistan, Soviet Ukraine, Hungary, Chile, Ethiopia, and others to make their stories heard. Marina Lewycka ARIEL DORFMAN: Well, I mean, in Darwin’s Ghosts, a 14-year-old kid wakes up one morning. "I was once a refugee, although no one would mistake me for being a refugee now. There’s like a very vibrant Vietnamese-language press, Vietnamese-language pop culture, which I tried to empathize in The Sympathizer with those songs. I could go on and on and on, on about this. How do we deal with that? And so, that’s really what happens in The Sympathizer, for example, where I put the language through its paces and really try to push it to its extremes. Department of English Your email address will not be published. And I know that there have been voices for the voiceless before me and that there will be voices for the voiceless after me. ", "For four years, [my father’s] family lived deep inside Russia, a time characterized by constant hunger. We want to give voice to all those losses that would otherwise remain unheard except by us and those near and dear to us.” And in a previous book, in your book Nothing Ever Dies, you write, “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” Explain. AMY GOODMAN: I mean, when we were together last night at Barnes & Noble, just down the street is the Museum of Natural History, where—. — Entertainment Weekly, “In this collection of 17 essays (one consisting of cartoons) by writers who were forced to leave their homes, Viet Thanh Nguyen, a Pulitzer-winning novelist and himself a Vietnamese refugee to America, begins to assemble one. And they’ve made their own industries, right? This panel, a part of BookCon, was moderated by Ingrid Rojas Contreras. Viet Thanh Nguyen is a Vietnamese American novelist and academic whose books include The Refugees, Nothing Ever Dies, Race and Resistance, and a new edited collection, The Displaced, alongside his best-selling, Pulitzer Prize winning book The Sympathizer.Nguyen… The author of three books, Nguyen is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at University of Southern California. ", "For those who can never quite accept her, a refugee is like a ghost. Why would you think you’d get anywhere here? ", "It doesn’t matter whether you were a physician in Bosnia or a goat herder in the Congo: what matters is that a thousand little anchors once moored you to the world. They would throw bananas at them. And I like the idea of smuggling ourselves across the border, which, by the way, of course, is a border which was created by a U.S. invasion of Mexico. Many of us would want to deny it or forget it. 2016 Pulitzer Prize Winner Viet Thanh Nguyen reads with contributors Kao Kalia Yang and Vu Tran from The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives. The editing is by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanah Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam before the fall of South Vietnam … Viet and Ariel, we welcome you both to Democracy Now! AMY GOODMAN: You talk about immigrants being more reassuring than refugees. University of Southern California So, I have been a refugee several times over. He will be presenting on his academic work or, at the literary events, reading from and talking about his most recent books: the novel The Sympathizer (2015), the cultural history Nothing Ever Dies (2016), the short story collection The Refugees (2017), and the children’s book Chicken of the… (read more), Viet Thanh Nguyen joins the Pulitzer Prize board as its first Vietnamese-American member. Check it out at democracynow.org. His dad works at the Polaroid factory. ", "We were the ones who dressed a little differently and carried our lunches in repurposed plastic shopping bags that could never be tied tightly enough to contain the unfamiliar aromas from our home kitchens. Vu Tran New York, New York 10003, (212) 420-8585, To invite Viet to do a reading or lecture, please contact Kevin Mills of the Tuesday Agency, 132 1/2 East Washington The Displaced: Refugee Writers Ariel Dorfman & Viet Thanh Nguyen on Migration, US Wars & Resistance. Also, 10% of the cover price of the book will be donated annually to the International Rescue Committee, so I hope readers will help support this book and the vast range of voices that fill its pages.” Because of this, I insist on being called a refugee, since the temptation to pretend that I am not a refugee is strong. VIET THANH NGUYEN: Well, I grew up in this Vietnamese refugee community, and I would often attend Vietnamese weddings. Thanks to Creative Capital / Warhol Foundation for funding this site. And I’ve gone around this country, speaking to many kinds of American audiences. And Ariel Dorfman, his new book, Darwin’s Ghosts, and his essay book, Homeland Security Ate My Speech. Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen called on 17 fellow refugee writers from across the globe to shed light on their experiences, and the result is The Displaced, a powerful dispatch from the individual lives behind current headlines, with proceeds to support the International Rescue Committee (IRC). And those of us who consider ourselves to be progressives and on the side of greater social equality, greater inclusion, really have to hold everyone responsible, regardless of their party affiliations. Unlike him, I will never be a stranger to my children. And instead of his face being there in the photograph, the face of a native of some sort from across some part of the Third World—we don’t know where—is plastered onto that face. Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen lives the insider-outsider life of a refugee. Between October and the end of March, just 10,500 refugees entered the United States. ARIEL DORFMAN: I know. You know, Drumpf represents American instincts that have been with us since the founding of this country. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, he and his family fled to the United States. You would have found us tagging along with our parents for parent-teacher meetings to help translate and working at our family-run businesses on the weekends. Of course they probably had seen refugees—people like myself, not the huddled desperate dangerous characters who were portrayed in the popular media. And last night I asked Arundhati Roy, “Is it exhausting to be a writer who’s constantly engaged and committed?” And she said, “No, it’s exhilarating.” And I thought, “That’s a great answer.” And I want to pose that to you: Do you find it exhausting or exhilarating to be in your situation? Viet, your book, The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, your previous books, remarkable. Description Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen called on 17 fellow refugee writers from across the globe to shed light on their experiences, and the result is The Displaced, a powerful dispatch from the individual lives behind current headlines, with proceeds to support the International Rescue Committee (IRC). David Bezmozgis Now, the issue is that if we get wrapped up in a domestic discussion about Obama versus Drumpf, we forget that President Obama himself also tends to represent some of the worst instincts of the American character overseas, in terms of the continuing exertion of American imperial power. Los Angeles, CA 90089-0354 The United States has been meddling in the southern countries south of the border for a very long time, and would rather think about these people as undocumented immigrants or people who are trying to invade this country, when in fact questions of immigration are totally related to U.S. foreign policy and U.S. drug policy and things like this that the United States would rather disavow. So it turns out that this is an enormous strength and wonder of the country. You know, it’s not rhetoric on his part. And my memories really start after we make it to the United States and we were put in one of four refugee camps in this country. ", "The journey is designed to test the body’s resilience. I sometimes came into the kitchen to find him eating butter. Like “With the exception of those born in refugee camps, every refugee used to have a life. A refugee is an official classification. If they formed their own country, it would be the world’s 24th largest—bigger than South Africa, Spain, Iraq or Canada.”. Even if the country gets overcrowded and you have to give up your luxuries, and we set up ugly little lives around the corner, marring your view. In The Displaced, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, brings together a host of prominent refugee writers to explore and illuminate the refugee experience. You write, “To become a refugee is to know, inevitably, that the past is not only marked by the passage of time, but by loss—the loss of loved ones, of countries, of identities, of selves. First tell us your refugee story. Today the world faces an enormous refugee crisis: 68.5 million people fleeing persecution and conflict from Myanmar to South Sudan and Syria, a figure worse than flight of Jewish and other Europeans during World War II and beyond anything the world has seen in this generation. VIET THANH NGUYEN: Bigger than France, too, to put it in another perspective. AMY GOODMAN: Well, Ariel Dorfman, you also wrote a piece after Donald Drumpf was elected president. VIET THANH NGUYEN: Well, I was born in Vietnam in 1971. Kao Kalia Yang. Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen called on 17 fellow refugee writers from across the globe to shed light on their experiences, and the result is The Displaced, a powerful … AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. So, Drumpf can eat his tacos, you know, all he wants, but the fact is, we’re already here. So, the idea behind this is, we are going to find out that one of those photographs, the man whose photograph is being plastered on the face of this young American kid, in fact, was a captive in a human zoo in Europe. One sponsor took my parents, one sponsor took my 10-year-old brother, one sponsor took 4-year-old me. They’re strange. Viet Thanh Nguyen is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.His novel, “The Sympathizer,” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2016. And they don’t fit into the narrative of the American dream. An estimated 60 million such stateless people exist, 1 in every 122 people alive today. Email, For review copies or bookstore events, contact publicity@groveatlantic.com for The Sympathizer or The Refugees and Margaux Leonard of Harvard University Press for Nothing Ever Dies, Literary, translation, and film rights are handled by Nat Sobel at Sobel Weber Associates, 146 East 19 Street These people were kidnapped from their native lands in Africa, in Latin America, in Asia, and even the American Prairie Indians were brought. So that—you know, he did not take the most famous, let’s say, refugees. But in the United States, you can do that. How does what you write change the language? In so doing he gives ordinary Westerners a heart-wrenching insight into the uprooted lives led in their midst…the collection succeeds in demonstrating that this dispersed community in some ways resembles other nations. His fictional depictions of the effects of displacement has earned him a MacArthur "genius grant." ", "I think of all the routes of emigration taken by refugees like us, routes that have been carved into memory, into family stories. It’s a troubled relationship, you know, because English, even though not my first language, is basically my native language. Description Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen called on 17 fellow refugee writers from across the globe to shed light on their experiences, and the result is The Displaced, a powerful dispatch from the individual lives behind current headlines, with proceeds to support the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Forty-five years ago, he fled Chile, after a U.S.-backed coup displaced President Salvador Allende. ARIEL DORFMAN: I find it—I find it exhilarating, but I’m a bit tired, I must tell you, because I’m a bit older than Arundhati—I’m considerably older than you are, right?—and I’ve been doing this for a very long time. But this is the hymn that people would sing in the streets of Santiago as they were being beaten by the police, saying, “We dream of a world where someday we will all be brothers, we will all be sisters,” right? So, in order to leave the camp, you had to have a sponsor. President Drumpf has repeatedly railed against the asylum seekers. AMY GOODMAN: You wrote an eloquent piece right after Donald Drumpf was elected president, that went viral. Dorfman had served as Allende’s cultural adviser from 1970 to 1973. Number one, it’s very inaccurate, as you say, you know? But, you know, basically, we tell love stories, we tell betrayal stories, we tell stories about everyday people, and we hope that some of the voices will seep through. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. VIET THANH NGUYEN: Well, I grew up in a Vietnamese refugee community in the 1970s and 1980s in San Jose. They lost relatives, property, careers, identities, selves. ", "You realize every day is a lesson in America, the real America, the violent one that never protected you. And it’s all related to human zoos, which is another topic which is very central to the story. And, of course, behind that is the whole idea that I have about America, America being innocent about its past. Maaza Mengiste I’m Amy Goodman. ", "I am ever working, overworking, because I’m aware of the potential, as a non-white body and passport holder from ‘Africa,’ without the safety of ‘being at home,’ of my easy disposal from the political imagination of the world. —Electric Literature, “Each essay is worthwhile.” And I was also someone who was watching all these American movies of the Vietnam War, because I was an American boy. VIET THANH NGUYEN: Well, one of the essays in The Displaced is by Reyna Grande, who came as an undocumented immigrant. Becoming a refugee means watching as those anchors are severed, one by one, until at last you’re floating outside of society, an untethered phantom in need of a new life. Monuments Project: Expanding the American Story, Catch Viet at one of these appearances in the coming months and say hello! ― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives. 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