Editor's Notes

Another year, same pandemic.

And through it all, we continue to build. We build communities, we make art, we tell stories. Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diasporic culture makers continue to work. We work because what we make is important.

I see our threads separating and I want to know more. What is your story? I want to ask.

Over the past two years of editing diaCRITICS (and over the last decade of contributing to both DVAN and diaCRITICS), I’ve given much thought to the tensions between the individual and the collective, in particular to how this is weighted for a Vietnamese person in the diaspora, who must navigate multiple points of pressures, both internal and external, familial and societal.

Two years ago this time I was preparing to assume the editorship of this blog, diaCRITICS, from Viet Thanh Nguyen, and having many thoughts...