diaCRITICS has moved!
Still We Rise
2025 Impact Report
Letter from the Co-Executive Directors
Dear Friends,
As we look back to 2025 and the 50th Anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, we were inspired to publish our first Annual Impact Report.
The Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora has contributed immeasurably to the cultural fabric of countries around the world since April 1975 and the Fall of Saigon. While our history is often told through displacement and resilience, it is also a story of creativity and artistic expression. Vietnamese and Southeast Asian artists’ work reminds us that our diaspora is not solely defined by where we came from, but by what we continue to create together. Here, we uplift the totality of our stories to challenge narrow and limited narratives.
Throughout 2025, DVAN provided opportunities for artists to showcase and publish their work, strengthened connections across the global Southeast Asian diaspora and Vietnam, elevated conversations through ÁCCENTED, and continued building an enduring archive of diasporic art and culture. Every exhibition, conversation, publication, partnership, and gathering reflects our belief that the arts are essential to building and imagining our collective future.
We continue to show up because you show up for us.
This first report captures some of these recent milestones and is a testament to the artists, writers, filmmakers, musicians, scholars, activists, supporters, and cultural producers who have entrusted DVAN with carrying these stories forward. We are thrilled to amplify these voices.
Thank you for believing in this work and for helping to make it possible. Whether you are an artist, partner, donor, or reader, you are part of this story, and we are honored to share our first Annual Impact Report with you.
With gratitude,
Isabelle Thuy Pelaud
DVAN Co-Executive Director
Kathy L. Nguyễn
DVAN Co-Executive Director
2025 Highlights
In April, DVAN hosted Northern California’s largest commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. This unforgettable evening brought together acclaimed Vietnamese American artists and over 600 attendees to reflect, connect, and celebrate diasporic art in the 50 years since the war.
We celebrated 15 years of diaCRITICS, DVAN’s literary magazine, by printing the Best of diaCRITICS, launching a new and improved website, and publishing our first special issue with 12 featured works reflecting on the 50 years since the end of the Vietnam War. Throughout 2025, diaCRITICS published 46 pieces, including art, poetry, essays, fiction, and reviews by 43 emerging and established artists.
ÁCCENTED, DVAN’s talk show and podcast, featured 15 guests across 9 episodes, including Ocean Vuong, Bao Nguyen, and more. 800+ attendees joined us live and thousands more tuned into past episodes—now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. We also partnered with KALW to host an in-person recording of ÁCCENTED live and air select episodes on KALW’s Bay Made and Tuesday Night Special.
In January, 7 writers participated in DVAN’s two-week Writers’ Residency in Việt Nam, which offered fellows the opportunity to focus on their creative projects while drawing inspiration from the beauty and charm of Huế. In November, we supported 1 writer through our fourth annual DVAN-Millay New Author Residency in New York. Watch fellow testimonials here.
Textures of Remembrance, a DVAN-curated exhibition, was on display at 8 museums and arts spaces across the country, drawing over 35,000 visitors from 2022–2025. Through written works, visual art, and audiovisual installations, the traveling exhibit offered an intimate exploration of the Vietnamese diasporic experience since 1975.
DVAN produced 5 publications in partnership with Texas Tech University Press, Kaya Press, University of California Press, and McSweeney’s: Best of diaCRITICS, Hair: A Lai Mỹ Memoir by Jade Hidle, Anam by André Dao, The Cleaving: Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora, and McSweeney’s 78: The Make Believers.
Artist Spotlight: Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood
Even before she understood what it meant to be a writer, Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood knew she could turn anything into stories. As a young girl in Việt Nam, she would ride on the back of motorbikes, creating new worlds from the sights and sounds that passed by.
After moving to the U.S. at the age of 12, Abbigail learned to think and write in English as a second language. To Abbigail, writing in diaspora means that she’s always wrestling with a beautiful tension of identities, places, interests, and languages.
“Sometimes I get pulled into one direction more than the other, and sometimes I embrace the tension, and sometimes I resist it,” said Abbigail. “When I approach my art or my work, I don’t sit down to write thinking that I’m writing from the diaspora, but I think my sentences are steeped in that in-between.”
Abbigail first connected with DVAN as a contributing writer for diaCRITICS, our literary magazine. When DVAN partnered with Texas Tech University Press (TTUP) to establish a new collaborative imprint centering literary voices of the Southeast Asian diaspora, Abbigail seized the opportunity and submitted her latest fiction manuscript for consideration. Her second novel, Constellations of Eve, was selected and published in 2022 as the inaugural title in the DVANxTTUP book series.
“I definitely felt heard,” said Abbigail, reflecting on the publication process. Working closely with TTUP Editor-in-Chief Travis Snyder, she felt empowered to voice her opinions on everything from manuscript edits to the cover art. “The whole experience felt writer-centered, and I think that’s really unique.”
The DVANxTTUP imprint has since published 8 more books—all works by Vietnamese writers. At a time when mainstream publishing opportunities remain limited and inequitable, Abbigail believes it’s more important than ever to create space for the multitude of narratives, voices, and styles in the diaspora.
“By giving us a platform and being unapologetic about it, [DVAN] is removing the agenda because then we can have a bigger symphony, rather than just one representation of the Vietnamese experience,” she said.
Abbigail has recently completed her third novel, Girl at the Threshold of Doors, and will be joining the DVAN-Millay New Author Residency in November 2026. Photos by Caroline Bodian.
Featured
DVAN’s work is possible thanks to our generous donors, sponsors, partners, and community. Thank you for being part of our collective story.
As a small community organization, DVAN relies on your generosity to sustain and expand programs that advance narrative change and amplify hundreds of diasporic artists each year. Support DVAN by donating today.
