From War to Words: Exploring the Vietnamese American Experience

In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, WashU Libraries are highlighting books by Vietnamese American writers. All books are available at WashU Libraries or electronically.

When we speak of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) experience, we’re referring to an incredibly diverse mosaic of histories, languages, and cultures. Among these, the Vietnamese American story stands out as one shaped powerfully by war, displacement, resilience, and reinvention. It’s a story marked by trauma and loss, but also by tenacity, adaptation, and artistry and it is a story that directly influences St. Louis here today.

Vietnamese Americans make up one of the largest Southeast Asian diasporas in the United States. For many, the journey to America was not a pursuit of opportunity in the traditional immigrant sense—it was an escape from devastation, political persecution, and upheaval. Over the past five decades, generations of Vietnamese Americans have rebuilt lives across the U.S. and here in St. Louis, bringing with them rich traditions and complex identities. Today, we find their stories told with nuance and strength in a growing body of literature.

This post honors Vietnamese American voices by reflecting on the historical and cultural contexts that have shaped the community and introducing a curated selection of books that chronicle and celebrate that experience.

A New Home Away from Vietnam

In many ways, the Vietnamese American experience is inseparable from the Vietnam War. The war’s devastating toll—on the land, on families, on the psyche—left a legacy that still echoes in the literature of the diaspora. When South Vietnam fell to communist forces in April 1975, many Vietnamese people migrated to the United States. These refugees, many of them educated professionals, military officers, and political dissidents, were resettled across the U.S. They arrived with little, often traumatized and separated from loved ones. Subsequent waves of migration followed, particularly during the late 1970s and 1980s, as many risked perilous sea journeys to escape the new regime in Vietnam and the conflicts that continued in the region. These later arrivals often came from more rural or working-class backgrounds and faced even greater hardships in adjusting to American life.

The refugee identity is central to much Vietnamese American literature. Unlike immigrants who often frame their journey as one of choice, many Vietnamese Americans carry the psychological weight of exile, of being forced to leave a home they did not want to abandon. Literature, in this context, becomes not just storytelling but survival. It offers a way to process memory, confront trauma, and connect generations.

Hyphenated Identities and Intergenerational Tensions

For many second-generation Vietnamese Americans—the children of refugees—there’s a deep tension between inherited memory and present reality. They straddle two worlds: the inherited trauma and cultural expectations of their parents, and the American landscape in which they come of age. Their narratives often revolve around the pressures of assimilation, the challenge of decoding their parents’ silences, and the complexities of language, identity, and belonging.

In these stories, the home is often a liminal space of negotiated identities. A place where English and Vietnamese coexist. A place where filial piety, Buddhist rituals, and family honor might clash with Western values of independence and self-expression. A place where the past is always present, even if unspoken.

These themes resonate not only within the Vietnamese American experience but also across other AAPI communities. But what makes Vietnamese American literature unique is how it blends postcolonial sensibilities with diasporic themes, often navigating layers of displacement—from French colonization to American militarism to refugee resettlement.

Curated Book List: Vietnamese American Stories

Below is a curated collection of books—fiction, memoir, poetry, and graphic novel—that offer insight into Vietnamese American life. These works explore the effects of war, the struggles of resettlement, and the resilient spirit of a people determined to write their own futures.

Toward a More Complete American Story

Literature ultimately allows us to feel what statistics and headlines cannot. In reading Vietnamese American narratives, we learn not only about the Vietnam War or refugee resettlement, but also about the emotional architecture of migration—the hope, the grief, the estrangement, the love, and what takes place after all of the attention drifts away.

For many years, mainstream depictions of Vietnam and Vietnamese people in the U.S. were filtered through the lens of American soldiers or Hollywood war films. Vietnamese Americans were side characters in their own stories—refugees to be pitied or enemies to be vanquished.

Through literature, each one of us can help reclaim what the experiences meant and continue to mean for the people who are influenced by them. Today, Vietnamese American authors are contributing to a vibrant AAPI literary canon that demands recognition. Their work challenges dominant historical accounts, explores what it means to live between worlds, and insists that their voices are not only valid but vital. As we celebrate AAPI Heritage Month, let us remember that heritage is not just about honoring the past—it’s also about shaping the future. By reading Vietnamese American literature, we bear witness to stories that were once silenced. We affirm that America’s story is not complete without the voices of those who arrived by boat, by plane, by sheer will to survive.

These books are acts of memory, resistance, and imagination. They help us understand not only Vietnamese American lives, but the greater possibilities of identity, empathy, and community now and in the future.