Discovering a family heirloom that her mother may have received from Laura Ingalls Wilder, PhD graduate Lee Lien explores the tenuous connection between her ancestors and the famous pioneer author only to discover a trail of clues that lead to fateful encounters.

Told from multiple perspectives and spanning several decades, Grass Roof, Tin Roof begins with the story of Tran, a Vietnamese writer facing government persecution, who flees her homeland during the exodus of 1975 and brings her two children to the West. Here, she marries a Danish American man who has survived a different war. He promises understanding and guidance-but the psychic consequences of his past soon hinder his relationships with the family,...

In his long-overdue first collection of essays, noted journalist and NPR commentator Andrew Lam explores his lifelong struggle for identity as a Viet Kieu, or a Vietnamese national living abroad. At age eleven, Lam, the son of a South Vietnamese general, came to California on the eve of the fall of Saigon to communist forces. He traded his Vietnamese name for a more American one and immersed himself in the allure of the American dream: something not...

"In 1979, a Vietnamese refugee shoots and kills a white crab fisherman at the public town docks in Seadrift, TX. What began as a dispute over fishing territory erupts into violence and ignites a maelstrom of boat burnings, KKK intimidation, and other hostilities against Vietnamese refugees along the Gulf Coast. Set during the early days of Vietnamese arrival in the U.S. "Seadrift" is a feature documentary that examines the circumstances that led up...

"Ut, a Vietnamese girl attending school in the United States, lonely for her mother left behind in Vietnam, makes a new friend who presents her with a wonderful gift." --

As a young child, Lac Su made a harrowing escape from the Communists in Vietnam. With a price on his father's head, Lac, with his family, was forced to immigrate in 1979 to seedy West Los Angeles where squalid living conditions and a cultural fabric that refused to thread them in effectively squashed their American Dream. Lac's search for love and acceptance amid poverty-not to mention the psychological turmoil created by a harsh and unrelenting father-turned...

When her brother is exiled to live with distant relatives in Vietnam, a young woman journeys to her family's homeland to bring him back and uncovers mysteries about secret loves, desperate choices, and the human consequences of war.

"Mr. and Mrs. Stein and their young sons Gabe and Jacob adopt a baby girl from Vietnam." --