{"id":54697,"date":"2023-10-25T01:00:40","date_gmt":"2023-10-25T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/?p=54697"},"modified":"2023-10-27T07:19:33","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T14:19:33","slug":"formative-years-a-conversation-with-diana-khoi-nguyen-and-steve-nguyen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/2023\/10\/formative-years-a-conversation-with-diana-khoi-nguyen-and-steve-nguyen\/","title":{"rendered":"Formative Years: A Conversation with Diana Khoi Nguyen and Steve Nguyen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our Writers on Writers<\/a><\/strong> series brings together two writers to mutually engage in each other\u2019s work with attention to a particular theme. In this latest installment poet and multimedia artist Diana Khoi Nguyen<\/strong> and director, writer, artist and producer Steve Nguyen<\/strong> discuss their work, growing up in the same town, and family. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Diana Khoi Nguyen and Steve Nguyen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Diana Khoi Nguyen:<\/strong> Steve, I think you have earlier memories of intersecting\/crossing paths with me\u2014I think I only faintly recall you as a tall, skinny guy in high school, though recently you mentioned that we go back even earlier. What do you recall that you\u2019re willing to share here?<\/p>\n

Steve Nguyen:<\/strong> I moved to Rolling Hills Estates (RHE) in the summer of 1993 when I was seven, so my family was in the process of scrambling to look for schools in the area that would take me in while they worked full-time. I enrolled in the summer at Rancho Vista because that was the only school that had a summer program at the time, and that\u2019s how I met you. Once fall rolled around, I had to go to a different school because of where I lived at the time.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> I love that your family was looking for what I am assuming \u201cgood\u201d schools for you. My parents weren\u2019t even thinking of schools. Our family moved to RHE in 1990, after my parents finished building their \u201cdream\u201d house across the street from Rancho Vista; it closely coincided with my brother Oliver\u2019s birth in October of that year.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> And to preface all of this, our city boasts a heavily affluent Caucasian population combined with conservative Chinese\/Japanese\/Korean\/Indian\/Persian residents. So to even see a Vietnamese girl outside of my family with the same name as me during that particular point in time was basically the equivalent of seeing a unicorn or a Pok\u00e9mon.<\/p>\n

But yes, I can recall eight-year-old you vividly. You were taller than me, so that was a bit intimidating. You had a short bob cut up to your ears. But man, you were a tough egg to crack! I remember you never gave me straightforward answers to my questions!<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> Ah yes, I remember being one of the few AAPI kids in my class\/grade, with the exception of an exchange student from Japan (Takehiro!).<\/p>\n

A tough egg!! I don\u2019t remember that at all. What questions did you ask me? Also, I\u2019m not surprised\u2013I had such a difficult home life in those early years leading up to when I fled home the day I turned 18. It was hard to try to be present in school, knowing what home life was like; but I think this is not uncommon for other households, perhaps other Vietnamese American households.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> I would ask you stuff like, \u201cWhen is your birthday?\u201d and you would say, \u201cIt happened a month ago,\u201d or \u201cDo you have any brothers or sisters?\u201d and you would be like, \u201cYep.\u201d Maybe it\u2019s the way I phrased the questions, but you were very guarded and difficult to engage with. Probably because you thought I was annoying at first, but eventually, I broke through to you.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> I think I still answer in this way regarding birthday queries. I was and still am fairly guarded about these seemingly minor things because stuff like birthdays were weaponized in my family growing up\u2014they are still really difficult times for me even now as an adult. I wish I could have been your friend during this time. I know now that I definitely would have benefitted from it.<\/p>\n

Were you able to connect to other kids during this time?<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> I believe I made meaningful connections that carry on to this day. Definitely learned a lot from casually observing others in my surroundings and seeing what was socially acceptable and what was not. Surprisingly, you can learn a lot more from your peers than teachers. I feel like my whole educational journey from elementary to college was really about studying people, not subjects.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> Was this a conscious decision? I don\u2019t know if I ever studied people. I recall myself mostly yearning to be free, to be given permission to pursue the arts, to read books, to play all the sports.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> Most people just have tendencies and needs that connect to others seamlessly. If you can align yourself with their best interests without being intrusive or annoying, they\u2019ll generally respond positively. I feel like art and sports have that same effect if you think about it.<\/p>\n

Oh, and the way I figured you out was\u2026 snacks! I brought snacks from home like those Calbee Shrimp Chips and Super Lemons and shared them with you when I saw you. I think that definitely helped you open up a lot more to me over that particular summer. There are bits of information that I have retained over the years of you, but the most vivid memory that stands out is one day after school, you asked me if I would walk you home. We get no more than ten steps from the curb of the parking lot, and you turn around, and say \u201cOk, bye.\u201d Turns out you lived right across the street from the school! I was dying laughing on the inside because I thought I was being messed with the whole time, but really wasn\u2019t. I must have stared at your house for a good five minutes after you walked through your door.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, there\u2019s something else you should know. To me, your childhood home doesn\u2019t just tether my memory to you, but it was my dream to have a house like that. I can literally draw it from memory. I lived in a one story, 1,500-square-foot bungalow that I had to share with uncles and grandparents. I\u2019ve never had my own room. So, I made a vow to one day build a house like that for myself. It was a lifelong goal of mine.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> I am so shocked, truly\u2013I feel so seen\u2013I remain a huge lover of snacks! Access the intimate self via food (isn\u2019t that a trope in Asian American culture? Families that say \u201cHave you eaten?\u201d instead of \u201cI love you.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The image of us walking away from the school\u2013your accompanying me home moves me, but I\u2019m not sure why. Perhaps because my adult self knows how with retrospection\u2013how meaningful it was to have someone who looked like me\/my family members\u2013to spend time with me in a kind way.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so grateful for your sharing of this young Steve\u2019s dream of having a multi-story home. I\u2019m thinking now about how this dream coincided with my parents\u2019 dream of this house: my father drew the architecture plans and together he and my mother built with some hired help on the weekends (when they weren\u2019t working), while my sister and I played in boxes in the dirt. I have such fond memories of this house being built. Remind me to share with you videos my dad shot of the house as it was slowly being built.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> I would love to see those videos. I\u2019m kind of envious that you have access to that footage of your past.<\/p>\n

The construction process was extremely daunting, but rewarding! Thirty years later, that dream became a reality. I\u2019m fortunate to say that my childhood goal has been fulfilled.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> Steve, this is incredible! How does it feel to now have a house like this to live in it with your own family? I ask because when I yearn for things for years and finally attain them, I often feel such sorrow, as if I miss the yearning more than I appreciate the achievement.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> I\u2019m humbled and grateful to be in a position to enjoy the fruits of labor with my loved ones. It started with a crystal-clear determination and gradually grew from there. Life goals are really about working toward an achievable process diligently and finding new ways to expand with the tools that we\u2019re given. If we ever do accomplish them, we have the luxury of sharing those moments with our friends and family.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> Yes, this is true. I learned this very early on, that I could only rely on myself and what I could acquire (knowledge, skills). I think there\u2019s something of an immigrant\u2019s child\u2019s work ethic mixed in there, too.<\/p>\n

Okay\u2013so, did you ever want to write a book\/become a writer when you were a child? What were your other dreams?<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> I never thought about getting into children\u2019s publishing, but I always thought it would be cool to write or illustrate a book. As soon as I knew I was going to become a father, there was an unspeakable feeling within me that random ideas started clicking and the opportunity to publish presented itself in due time. That\u2019s usually how most of my artistic endeavors usually come to fruition.<\/p>\n

You should totally write a children\u2019s book! I would love to see you tap into that medium.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> It\u2019s funny\u2013as a young child who loved reading, I would often save these pamphlets we got in the mail that advertised children\u2019s book publishing; I saved them in a plastic baggie because it was a secret dream of to write children\u2019s books one day, which I never have done. Poetry was always just a fun thing\u2013something that started during a poetry month unit in third grade (Mrs. Blum\u2019s class!).<\/p>\n

During adolescence, poetry became a lifeline for me: I wrote to stay alive, to capture the anguish and turmoil I felt so that my body could feel it perhaps a little less. I never dreamed that I would continue writing in college, let alone spend the next decade plus pursuing it as a way of being and profession.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> Through my formative years, I learned one of the hardest lessons in that there is physical and emotional danger when it comes to men-love. If a man doesn\u2019t understand or know how to express what they\u2019re feeling, it could result in potential violence not only for themselves, but for those around them too. Would you echo those sentiments based on your personal experiences?<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> Absolutely. I see it now, in a way, with my sister: she\u2019s not violent, but she\u2019s so kind, gentle\u2013she\u2019s always been this way. The aggregate of my mother\u2019s words and actions builds and builds and eventually my sister can\u2019t receive\/contain the discomfort anymore and she has an explosive verbal response. It reminds me of a tea kettle that wails and whistles when the water finally comes to a boil. She only started doing this in her late 20s.<\/p>\n

Because our family was not versed in describing, let alone sharing our emotions and interiorities with each other, none of us knew how to express our feelings. With my brother Oliver, he would have explosive verbal responses like my sister, except in his adolescence, and years up until his death, he was also violent with my parents. I feared that he might harm my parents (he lived with our parents until his death), or that he would take his own life, or both. I don\u2019t have words really, for this kind of dread. And then for it to culminate with taking his own life, which is a deep tragedy\u2013but there\u2019s relief in it, too, since no one else was \u201charmed.\u201d But grief leaves a mark on us all.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Steve Nguyen as a child.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SN:<\/strong> When I read your book (Ghost Of<\/a><\/em>), there were a lot of memories and thoughts that resonated with me that I had to come to grips with, like learning to let go from my own losses during that time. And while reading it, I\u2019ve also been processing how interconnected, yet disconnected the Vietnamese community is where we grew up. I never understood why that was the case until much later, but my hopes were that we could build back some semblance of it back so we could help each other through those tough moments like what you and your family had experienced.<\/p>\n

In absorbing some of the themes you delved into, I started to notice over time the visible separations in other people\u2019s lives. I saw how those who aren\u2019t where they want to be in their own respective lives dealt with major anxiety and loneliness because we\u2019ve been conditioned to compare lifestyles. It\u2019s like high school where everybody is kind of on the same level, but as time passes, things like finances, careers, romantic relationships create this divide which can affect people in a weird way.\u00a0 I realized everyone needed to grow apart from all that and continue to work to complement each other in our later years. That\u2019s why I believed that over a stretch of time, either relationships can grow stronger or distant. This commonly happens within our own family dynamics as well.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> What wise, astute observations you\u2019ve made over time. And yes, how true about the anxiety and loneliness that plagues us when we compare ourselves to others.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking, now, about how we\u2019ve only recently crossed paths in person (via Long Beach\u2019s AAPI Festival of Books in May 2023), how we never really had much of a connection aside from those earlier moments when we were in elementary school. Time surprises, continuously.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> I\u2019m aware that you and I have a very uniquely disjointed connection\/relationship. We\u2019ve encountered each other across three different decades.<\/p>\n

Regardless, I felt extreme remorse and concern that something like this happened to someone that I shared fond memories with as a kid. I\u2019m so proud of you and all of the acclaim that you\u2019ve received, but I really wish you didn\u2019t have to write that book under those circumstances.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> Me too, Steve. I had a whole other manuscript from grad school I had been sending out to contests. After Oliver died, I wrote all these intense poems that inevitably coalesced into a collection.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> How has your relationship with religion been affected after Oliver\u2019s passing?<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> Our family, while Vietnamese Buddhist, isn\u2019t really religious. So, I\u2019ve never had any relationship with religion, honestly. Perhaps funny of me to say, but I don\u2019t even really \u201cbelieve\u201d in ghosts\u2013I\u2019m fascinated with the idea of things which haunt, but not like Casper the ghost. I believe that my parents\u2019 early childhoods in Vietnam and flight post- Fall of Saigon continues to cast a long shadow over them, over their children (me and my siblings).<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> There is a Buddhist lantern floating ceremony that takes place every year around Memorial Day weekend in Hawaii that thousands of visitors from all around the world attend. It\u2019s very similar to another event they organize somewhere in Central Vietnam (H\u1ed9i An).<\/p>\n

The temple that I belong to just attended this past weekend to participate and pay their collective respects through these messages that are written on floating lanterns. It is an event of personal reflection, remembrance, and gratitude to all of those who we have loved and supported, but unfortunately, are no longer with us. Do you want to know what I wrote on my lantern?<\/p>\n

DKN: <\/strong>Yes!<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Oliver,<\/p>\n

Your eldest sister wrote a beautiful poetry book about you. I think you would be very proud of her. Wherever you are, hope you are at peace and one with the universe.<\/p>\n

Prayers from a
\nfellow Nguyen”<\/p>\n

\"\"
Steve\u2019s message of remembrance to Diana\u2019s late brother, Oliver.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Steve\u2019s lantern floating amongst thousands in the Shinnyo Lantern Floating Ceremony at Ala Moana Beach.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"SN:<\/strong> What is the most recent poetic thing you\u2019ve seen or heard?<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> This minor character\u2019s art exhibit in the recent Amazon Prime adaptation of David Cronenberg\u2019s Dead Ringers<\/em>, starring Rachel Weisz. The character, Greta, is an Asian American woman who cooks and takes care of the twin OB\/Gyn doctors. Throughout the show, she collects their detritus (used tampons, hair, soiled clothes etc.). You have an uneasy feeling about it all (like, is she trying to get their DNA to clone them?), and in the end, you witness her solo art exhibit in which she plays her mother giving birth to her (Greta\u2019s mother died while giving birth to her)–and all of the twins\u2019 detritus is collaged in the gallery space. It\u2019s fantastically eerie, uncanny, moving, astonishing. I\u2019ve been meaning to look up the artist whose work this exhibit was based on.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> That is haunting, yet beautiful. I have to watch it now.<\/p>\n

So how has motherhood been treating you, Di? How is Peregrine doing since the last time I saw her?<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> Oh, parenthood is like singing a song on one note that lasts even as you run out of breath\u2013it\u2019s magical, wonderful, exhausting, torturing, and somehow, time is accelerating. Peregrine is really enjoying interactions with strangers\u2013waving, saying hi, blinking intentionally to get others to mimic her. It was such a wonderful surprise to see you again after decades\u2013and for you to gift your children\u2019s book to Peregrine. And for you to meet her!<\/p>\n

Steve, how has parenthood shifted \/ changed you? How has your relationship to your daughter changed as the book you wrote (To Baby, From Daddy: A Love Letter from a Father to a Daughter<\/a><\/em>) remains the same age (that is, the book is a time capsule of the moment when you were writing it, but both you and Stella are aging every day)?<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong>\u00a0 Parenting has uniquely transformed my perspective of being patient, present and understanding of what our time here truly represents.<\/p>\n

You know that little girl you saw running around the park that calls me daddy? I\u2019ve been waiting to meet her my whole life. When you\u2019re young and uncertain, it\u2019s incredibly difficult to maintain that focus through all the turmoil and agonizing moments in life, but I always kept that motivation in my mind that I would get to be with her someday. My book is a compression of moments that happened on this journey to fatherhood. Just like a time capsule, whenever I open that book up and look through it\u2026 it feels like I\u2019m rediscovering all of those beautiful memories again for the first time.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> She\u2019s like the house in a way. A vision you worked toward.<\/p>\n

Someone once told me that in their culture, babies\/children choose which parents to be born into\u2013so, I like to think that Peregrine chose me and my spouse, and Stella chose you and your spouse.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> I\u2019d like to think that\u2019s the way it was always meant to be, and I wouldn\u2019t change it for anything at all.<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> Me too, and I am curious and remain open to how our paths (individual and combined) might unwind as Peregrine and Stella\u2019s unfurl in the coming decades.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> Raising this next generation of Nguyen women is a trip! Is there any advice you have for me being one yourself?<\/p>\n

DKN:<\/strong> I would like advice myself, honestly. Perhaps the advice I\u2019ll share is advice I wish I had for myself as a child, and advice I\u2019m trying to follow with my own child: try to listen as carefully as you can, make (safe) spaces for all the emotions, and foster all the gifts\u2013and have fun with your daughter! I think I overheard that children thrive when they can see that their parents are happy. So let\u2019s try to live in ways that bring us joy.<\/p>\n

SN:<\/strong> I\u2019m with you. Also, let\u2019s make a vow to not pass our trauma baggage onto them. They deserve much better than that. They really do have the potential to be the best versions of us.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"A poet and multimedia artist, Diana Khoi Nguyen<\/strong> is the author of Ghost Of<\/em><\/a> (2018) which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and forthcoming collection, Root Fractures<\/em><\/a> (2024). Nguyen is a Kundiman fellow and member of the Vietnamese artist collective, She Who Has No Master(s). A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and winner of the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest and 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, she currently teaches in the Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

\"\"Steve Nguyen<\/strong> is a Vietnamese-American director, writer, artist and producer. Nguyen and fellow director Choz Belen formed Studio APA, a multimedia collective that specializes in the production of animated films and music videos. Nguyen has worked as a production assistant at Universal Pictures (Jarhead<\/em>, Fast & Furious<\/em>: Tokyo Drift<\/em>). Since 2006, Nguyen has written, directed and produced over fifty feature length and short independent films ranging from a wide variety of genres.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Nguyen co-directed and produced an animated film, Hibakusha<\/em>, which chronicled the early life of a Hiroshima bombing survivor, Kaz Suyeishi. The animated film stars Karin Anna Cheung, Connie Lim, Daisuke Suzuki, Jane Lui and William Knight. The film was dedicated to the American Society of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors in an effort to spread awareness for nuclear disarmament and was completed on the 67th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, August 6, 2012. Nguyen and the Studio APA crew have toured with Hibakusha<\/em> throughout the United States since October 2012, and the film has been screened at the Japanese American National Museum, Vietnamese International Film Festival, Wing Luke Museum in Seattle, Dragon Con in Atlanta, University of Michigan, UCLA, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, San Diego State University, UC Davis, UC Riverside, DisOrient Film Festival, University of Wisconsin\u2013La Crosse, and California State University, Fullerton. Hibakusha<\/em> has gone on to receive nominations and awards, including the Special Achievement Award and Best Animated Short at the 2013 International Uranium Film Festival held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.<\/p>\n

Nguyen released his first children’s book on June 2020 with Sky Pony Press and Simon & Schuster titled To Baby From Daddy<\/em><\/a>, which feature his own illustrations and personal composition of paternal love and advice to his daughter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The image of us walking away from the school\u2013your accompanying me home moves me, but I\u2019m not sure why. 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