Higher Ed + Life: A Combustion Formula (for Personal Development)
It is way too early for this.
And by “this,” I mean “Girl on Fire” blasting through conference speakers as multiple women flitter around scooping shiny confetti from little baskets and sprinkling them onto white tablecloths.
While my daily coffee intake to prevent caffeine headaches does nothing to actually stimulate my brain, “this” certainly woke me up.
In the Diaspora: September 2023
News from Vietnamese Abroad and from Việt Nam
►Man executed in Vietnam despite international appeals from Europe and Canada
►How a Vietnam War diary found its...
Book Review: The Betrayed by Reine Arcache Melvin
Siblinghood is an intriguing thing: there could hardly be anyone in the world closer to a person than their sibling, but at the same time, the same world and circumstances can look so differently from each sibling’s perspective. The winner of the 2019 National Book Award for fiction, The Betrayed by Filipina-American writer and translator Reine Arcache Melvin, explores this complex relationship with heart, following two sisters as they navigate life in the Philippines through a turbulent dictatorship.
How Mẹ Makes Rice ~ a poem by Jason Yore
Drain and rinse again. I’ve been told to repeat this until everything is clear or less murky.
DVAN COO Appointment Announcement
The Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) is happy to share that after an intensive nationwide search, we’ve appointed Kathy Nguyen as DVAN’s new Chief Operating Officer.
Book Review: My Yellow Heart by Vi Khi Nao
Zuihitsu, “lists built to cause surprise through a mix of surprise and variety,” are the cornerstone of Vi Khi Nao’s latest poetry collection My Yellow Heart. Prefaced by a copy of a blast email sent towards the end of March 2022, the collection is framed as an elongated response to a prompt. The email’s sender is Erik Ehn, who asks the recipients to practice in zuihitsu, “compassionate noting” for two weeks following the theme of “changed-for-changing.” The poetry collection follows suit, immediately creating a narrative through numbered lists, with the first half of poems titled with dates, as if in response to the prompt.
Propaganda Disguised as a Love Poem Disguised as a Dictionary Entry ~ a poem by Arthur Altarejos
Your hand entwined in mine as we tread on.
In the Diaspora: August 2023
News from Việt Nam and from Vietnamese Abroad
►Vietnam beat Indonesia on penalty shootout to win AFF U23 Championship
►Job-seeking Vietnamese teens trafficked to Laos, family...
Book Review: Tender Machines by J. Mae Barizo
Tender Machines, J. Mae Barizo’s second full-length poetry collection, begins with the epigraph from Sylvia Plath’s Bell Jar that tenderness is what women see in other women that they don’t see in a man. This book is for women, in all their roles and royalties—daughter, friend, lover, mother, great-grandmother.
Discovering Joy After My Family’s Traumas During the Vietnam War
[TIME] As a second-generation Vietnamese American I spent much of my youth railing against my heritage. The reasons were as simple as being a normal rebellious teenager, and as complex as not understanding how PTSD could be a catalyst for generational trauma. As an adult I’ve worked hard to appreciate where I come from, but earlier in 2023 at an online Áccented event hosted by the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN), I found myself, once again, at odds with my community.