Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 552 - Why Would A PhD Professor Risk Her Career For A Man Serving 60 Years In Prison? - Thao Ha

Transcript

552 - Why Would A PhD Professor Risk Her Career For A Man Serving 60 Years In Prison? - Thao Ha · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast this morning.
0:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I have Dr. Talha with me as a guest on the Vietnamese podcast.
0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you?
0:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I can thank you for having me back again.
0:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course you you are recurring guests.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe we should still do an introduction now.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
0:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Talha just released a book.
0:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Love letters to the dirty south and it released two days ago and I think as I'm reading it's like a sold out in a lot of places, isn't it?
0:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm shocked, shocked.
0:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, released love letters to the Dirty South, my debut memoir released October 6th.
0:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And on the day, you know, you got to do the social media post.
0:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, hey, pop day, you know, what authors do.
0:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my, my, my lovely friends and community were like posting it up, and I was just so touched because everything's like, oh, here it is.
0:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's my book, I got it, and I'm reading it, and stuff.
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And then a few hours later, I get messages, oh my god, Tao, I can't order it, it's sold out.
1:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what are you talking about.
1:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And so like bookshop.org, bars and nobles, I'm like, what?
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: bars and nobles.com.
1:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I checked it.
1:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh shit, it's sold out.
1:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, wow, thank you to my community, my fans, my friends, my family.
1:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoever was buying these books, they have to reorder.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, that is amazing.
1:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, before we launch into the book itself, can you recount a little bit about the love story that this revolves around?
1:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they can watch the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first episode of the first
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was smooth handsome, cute, hallowed swag, little gangster.
2:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, like, this warm, sweet smile and just a kind, hearted person to the people we love fierce protector and down for his friends, down for his family.
2:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we met and boom, right away, just, you know,
2:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, puppy love, love, infatuation, desire, all that thing, the all those things, and yeah, and so the story is about that in the first part of the book, and then it goes into what happens when he gets caught up in his life, gang life, and then goes away to prison for 60 years.
2:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, for decisions at that point of what to do with ourselves.
3:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I know that this was a journey for you to write the book and to live through all of these things again.
3:17
[SPEAKER_00]: But one thing, when I'm listening to your book readings at these events, and I'm thinking about the arc of love and how you experience the arc of love through time, through the beauty of it, through the really hellish
3:37
[SPEAKER_00]: journey of, you know, fighting for, for Vue, how does this really affect the way you approach love?
3:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just romantic love, but like in your family and your friends and your lovers.
3:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Like how does the long arc of love really sort of, how do you process it with so many different
4:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I recently got a review, the book got a review on good reads, like a couple of days ago, and it said to the effect that it was delightful, something like that.
4:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a positive statement about how so many forms of love or types of love are intertwined in this book, right?
4:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, yeah, that's so true.
4:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And so your question is really powerful because, you know, when your love is an adaptation of, of, I think, time and space and people, um, and early on, you are, you are informed by,
4:47
[SPEAKER_01]: love or what you think love is, is or is supposed to be, you know, by your early socialization elements, your parents, Disney, you know, commercials, like people, your school, your friends, and so for refugees, like myself, and we just, you know, I came in 1975.
5:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And those early decades were just really brutal in terms of what it means for our parents to have gone through that.
5:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, love during struggle looks a lot different when it's love during, you know, peace and prosperity.
5:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So my early formative years and how I saw
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: had to change over time as I got older, but also like, you're not coming on like, we're humans too, like so.
5:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just talked about sociology.
5:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm going to get into biology and psychology.
5:50
[SPEAKER_01]: hormones and like, you know, body, like desire and like physical attraction, you know, sexuality.
6:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So then that, you know, you're trying to figure that out.
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And then lack of mentors or role models to like talk about the relationship.
6:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't talk about this shit.
6:09
[SPEAKER_01]: No, like nobody said this down for the birds and the bees, except like don't get pregnant, right?
6:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, okay, anything else, you know what I mean?
6:19
[SPEAKER_01]: In the book, I wanted to write about love and anger, which is a lot of big part of the theme, and fear, because it does transform over time.
6:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I had to reflect on why it was the version that it was during each period of that life.
6:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so, and then there's also pieces of like, well, what is it within ourselves that we have to fix or that we have to address in terms of harm trauma, the things that we've done, the things that other people have done to us and how that all, you know, means that we have to make some decisions because like,
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: when people say, well, you have a type, or, you know, you pick the same type of person, like you have a pattern, right?
7:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it's not working out for you, you know, we tend to think like, oh, it's the other person, but then maybe we got to think like, maybe it's us, right?
7:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's the type of person that we are and how we're making those decisions.
7:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah.
7:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's exactly what I was kind of getting at is that we experience the same human being
7:40
[SPEAKER_00]: differently through different points of our life because you're an academic, you're somebody who is a sociologist, you're really an artist, somebody who has a lot of expression.
7:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But you are at the heart of it,
7:56
[SPEAKER_00]: you're part of the fabric of the community that you grew up with.
8:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So as you're wearing all these different hats, I can imagine that the lens of who who is changes to you.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I asked it.
8:08
[SPEAKER_00]: That's you know, basically, um,
8:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Interestingly enough, a little bit, a little bit in terms of like, as I got older, you know, working with people who are currently or formerly incarcerated, the mentorship, the access to public education as a professor and like working with these individuals.
8:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And then in the community,
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That learning for me changed the way I saw him because, you know, when you try to leave a certain type of life, like I did, you know, you actually have to kind of shed it out to change your identity, right?
8:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So your, your first episode, my first episode with you was like from gang life to professor.
8:57
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the, where are the identity pieces that I had to kind of shut out?
9:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then it was also, it was like a rejection, right?
9:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a rejection of people who went to prison.
9:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a rejection of people who were like gang banging, right?
9:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, you, you, you then have to kind of form like, well, what are these other things that I need to learn and to understand about the human condition?
9:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, once it comes kind of circling around, because for a period of time, I was like, I don't want to talk to him.
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, is because I'm trying to leave that life, you know?
9:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But as you get, oh, as I got older, I was like, oh man, it's probably because I still might have feelings for him, what if I hear his voice, what if I see him?
9:40
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, I was afraid, like,
9:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I don't want to dig up that ghost, you know?
9:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the person, you know, when people go away for a long time, they feel it and we also treat them as if they're ghosts, they're gone.
9:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there's references in my book about him being like a ghost, even though he was fully alive and living in prison.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, and then the discovery, one that I did reconnect is like a shit.
10:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it can sometimes be like, it's beyond now.
10:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like all the things.
10:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all the things.
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the care work, and then the nostalgia, and then the questions about like, first love, and those feelings, and are they real?
10:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Or like, you know, don't entertain them, but then like, you dive deeper into, I dive deeper into who who was as an adult after having done 20 years already,
10:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, man, he's even more, he's even more beautiful inside.
10:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, oh, it's like, ah, oh my god, what a beautiful thing to say.
10:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, I'm not sure how much you want to get into the work that you're currently doing with the deportation, but I do want to say other episodes.
11:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Say it again and then audience can go watch the other episode.
11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, they can watch other episode, but I want to drop parallels to I want to drop parallels
11:17
[SPEAKER_00]: to the journey of empathy because I think when I think about the work that you do, a certain amount of empathy that goes back to this long arc of love is required because you can understand what the community, the gang community, the old
11:37
[SPEAKER_00]: your old community where you grew up and today the deportation work, all of it is really having the empathy that I think the Vietnamese community at large lacks.
11:51
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't have this understanding that there are people in these situations that are not good but the beauty that exists inside of
12:04
[SPEAKER_00]: They're lost in the system, and they're forgotten in the system, and I think the parallels that I want to draw is the microcosm of you and Vue in love and on a very personal, interpersonal place can really be drawn out into this big journey of
12:23
[SPEAKER_00]: the public, not understanding all the people that are in the situation, these forgotten brothers and sisters that are spending all these years in prison and now being deported, I feel I can't help but feel like a lot of the experience in the book informs this overall journey and process for you.
12:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, you know, if I'm sitting on the outside, looking at me, I'm like, wow, this person is really passionate because she's like spending fall this time and energy to fully volunteer her time while having another job to really help people figure out the immigration enforcement and deportation situation, right?
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And...
13:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, it's like, yes, yes, what you said can is correct.
13:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's empathy, but then like, I just there's this fire, this fierceness that I
13:21
[SPEAKER_01]: feel about, I don't know, like the word defending, it's not a defense, right?
13:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, I think in a lot of work, but not a profit where we call a deportation defense, I think of it is dignity because there are, I think as a sociologist, understanding like political power and structures, like I already knew it was going to be bad and like people believing that we can save people from being deported.
13:46
[SPEAKER_01]: was very naive and it's a goal, you know, but in the meantime, while the system and the laws and the policies exist as they are, like I just knew what was going to happen to people.
13:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So then the question went from, you know, trying to stop deportation to, man, it's going to happen.
14:08
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we do with that?
14:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that the turned into a mantra of dignity, regardless of, you know, what?
14:18
[SPEAKER_01]: things that have done in the past, you know, are there?
14:23
[SPEAKER_01]: People who are, I mean, I'm gonna be real here, like people have said, like, they can choose, like, oh, that person is worth helping.
14:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That person did not worth it.
14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I mean is like, oh, they haven't changed, you know, this is like, on the streets, right?
14:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm, I'm, I,
14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to think about it at a moment, like, you know, that point, but I'm going to help anyway, right?
14:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, whether or not they're still running the streets or they're a bad person still.
15:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it is really not me to judge that.
15:03
[SPEAKER_01]: What I am saying is if they are impacted and are facing that, they deserve information at the minimum.
15:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, this is what's going to happen to you.
15:12
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how you should navigate it, right?
15:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything else?
15:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything extra?
15:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's, that's for, that's for the upper echelons of our universe to decide.
15:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right?
15:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of upper echelons of universe, the word love
15:37
[SPEAKER_00]: was thinking about, you know, my questions and I was sitting over the weekend with a band of brothers, like literally like five brothers, so they're all related, you know, brother, real brothers, and they're all Catholics, and they grew up with these guys, and they're in their 50s and 60s, and they brought up this whole idea of borders, and I couldn't defend myself.
16:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, and we were so close to San Diego, basically,
16:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought about you, and I'm like, I wish Talha was here to really jump in this conversation because they are Catholics, and they deep Catholics.
16:12
[SPEAKER_00]: They believe and have deep faith in God and love, and the Pope, and the Pope was saying about, you know, always says open borders, and they're like, we should keep everybody out, that we should have legal immigration, we should,
16:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and ISIS doing their job there, you know, they're bringing people out, they're kicking people out and keeping the criminals out.
16:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, there's something just inherently wrong with all of this.
16:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
16:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can't really explain.
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't really go up against your legal argument.
16:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's just something inherently wrong about the way this is all going down.
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: The force,
16:52
[SPEAKER_00]: no due diligence to figure out.
16:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And these guys were arguing back, they're like, no, you think the U.S. government is gonna deport a bunch of people.
17:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought about you so much, and I thought about your book, because we were scheduled to do this podcast.
17:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, God, I wish you tell how is here, because the empathy that is missing from the Vietnamese, you know, these guys were coming in 72, 73, 75, in those years.
17:20
[SPEAKER_00]: We're here, and we are gonna close the door behind us.
17:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I wish Tal is here to really back me up here.
17:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you help me with the compassionate argument?
17:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I'm a bleeding heart liberal and progressive when it comes to stuff.
17:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't believe in borders, but then when they come at me with these arguments, I don't want to fight because there's like five against one.
17:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And one was like a former LAPD, 20-year veteran, you know.
17:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Right there, back you was, back you was, back you was.
17:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and I'm like, oh, here's somebody who really spent a lot of years living and writing a book about the idea of empathy and, you know, you've made it to the other side with your, you know, academic and your, your work that you do, how do we address people like this who are Vietnamese, been in America for 50 plus years.
18:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, it's a little bit, it's a little bit, what do you want to tell you what I mean by that?
18:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
18:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, my, my family's from Texas, there's still in Texas.
18:25
[SPEAKER_01]: My dad bless his heart.
18:26
[SPEAKER_01]: He passed away last year and Monday was his birthday.
18:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So happy birthday dad.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Happy birthday.
18:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I, you know, I'd write to him.
18:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I thank him.
18:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I know he's blessed to me, continues to bless me, and protects me, but he was very,
18:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Polar opposite to me and he probably would have agreed with the friends that you were sitting with a lot of with a lot of other people that I know very well in Texas and all around the country who are not just Vietnamese but lots of other cultural racial groups.
19:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think for myself, this is just how I managed that, is that at some point we, I think right now there is so much
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: charged energy that is polluting the ecosystem that we're living in when it comes to like social relationships, right, and personal.
19:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have decided that, you know,
19:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I want to disengage from those folks?
19:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I want to not be friends?
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I want to cut off my family?
19:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I want to, I mean, you know, you know your friends' positions, but you decide to meet with them anyway, and then you're engaging with that energy, right?
19:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so at some point, we have to decide what are our boundaries with those individuals?
19:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not...
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just not interested in convincing anybody, any other wise or deeply, any other wise.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you were thinking, how do I negotiate what's being shared with you about a position that like, I guess that's fair, I wish they had some empathy, but I think it's fair to them to say no open borders and don't let people in and of that nature.
20:29
[SPEAKER_01]: My response to that is like you're you're your positioning on the border and what that means and what that looks like is very narrow.
20:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It is very narrow in a sense that you are you, you know, because then it becomes a question a questioning of them.
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't try to debate them.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I just start to question because I do want to learn from folks.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Mexican border, Canadian border, air borders, water border, you know, like, what borders are we talking about here?
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and what do you think the innovation is happening?
21:05
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think the illegal stuff is happening?
21:07
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you, you know, how do you define illegal?
21:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what's legal and illegal?
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I always think about our families or friends, our community that left on boats, right literally escaped Vietnam.
21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And Julie, I'm sure my roots posted something really beautiful about this, is like that moment that they escaped went to Thailand, Philippines, Guam, wherever.
21:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, they were not there legally.
21:34
[SPEAKER_01]: There was no legal policy.
21:36
[SPEAKER_01]: They said, oh, people from Vietnam, leaving the country because of war, have a legal right to come to these places like landed our boats on there.
21:47
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, and people like, oh, come, come, come.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
21:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we were like, I came to the United States legally.
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, okay.
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know how do you remember?
21:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know how long you were sitting in a refugee camp and how long it took it and and who fought for that?
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Who?
22:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Champion the reception for folks to come and I get it people like well, it's still legal no matter what, right?
22:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we can say that part is fair.
22:16
[SPEAKER_01]: You can legally, you know, the Indochinese Refugee Act, the HACO Hey Humanitarian Operation Program, for real family reunification, the Orderly Departure Program, ODP.
22:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, yes.
22:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And somebody had to make those decisions to make it legal, right?
22:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So now, the question is, why are folks who benefited
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: from the legal process, not interested in making more legal processes, right?
22:47
[SPEAKER_01]: If you say it's illegal and you want legal, why are you not invested in making policies easier for people to be legal?
22:57
[SPEAKER_00]: The clear answer for me is because I got mine.
23:02
[SPEAKER_00]: and I don't want you to get yours.
23:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's, I don't know, it's just a clear.
23:07
[SPEAKER_01]: A little more empathy for those folks, you know?
23:09
[SPEAKER_01]: The empathy should go.
23:12
[SPEAKER_01]: all around, right?
23:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I have empathy for, I have empathy and enough empathy that I, you know, if someone was willing to engage with me and maybe I don't need to change their mind, but I need them to, I would like them to see the argument that they're making and convince them that there's a path that they could take with their stance, that we could all benefit from, right?
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But if they're hard-line and I don't know.
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, like, hard line.
23:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm out.
23:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And so with those folks, there is no convincing.
23:44
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no energy to be spent.
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And you should never have lunch with them again.
23:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think that's the beauty of your book is because now we get to see that there is a real human side to somebody sitting in prison.
24:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is this real human side to somebody on the outside loving the people that are sitting in prison.
24:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that humanity is lost in our community sometimes when we've already made it, when we are a band of doctors and dentists and retired, you know,
24:16
[SPEAKER_00]: people that are law enforcement.
24:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's something that I struggle to find balance within our community sometimes, you know?
24:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, um, people might think, well, the reason Tauha is like empathetic and champions at because, you know, her first love went to prison and
24:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, went to prison.
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, you know, I think that even if that, if I didn't know anybody, personally, like, I guess because of the things that I've experienced in my life, and there must be, you know, I haven't studied enough neural psychology and neurobiology.
25:08
[SPEAKER_01]: There must be, and I've read maybe a little bit, there's something within our,
25:15
[SPEAKER_01]: psyche, right, that along the way that we learned, and we chose that empathetic part, right, four certain things.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, woo.
25:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But I, and what I'm trying to get here is like, I know so many people who are just as much of a champion as me who've never experienced having a friend or a loved one or family member in prison, right?
25:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There are so many that work in the spaces with me, volunteer, and they've never been impacted, but they have just as much like care and compassion.
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there also is, I think there's another thing
25:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Selective empathy, which is versus having just general empathy, right?
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people are going to have a lot of empathy for this group of people or this issue, and some people just in general will like open up to empathy where
26:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, somebody might go, you know, like Trump supporters who have a family member getting deported, they're like, walk around and find out, you know, like you deserve it and that.
26:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're very empathetic to the impact of population, but not empathetic to a Trump supporter who is now facing, you know, the consequences of their decisions.
26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: When I get it, like, this country is like, I mean, there's some talking about like the possible loss of democracy, maybe democracy's already gone, you know, signs pointing to that.
26:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are rightfully incredibly angry individuals who aren't blaming Trump voters for the
26:48
[SPEAKER_01]: the situation that we're in.
26:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, there are some people who are like, well, actually, I'm benefiting, you know, or it is what it is.
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It is what it is, right?
26:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, it's a very difficult mental gymnastics that I'm constantly doing every day, trying to learn, but also trying to be empathetic, but then trying to have boundaries.
27:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, got to hook up some people off, got to flip people off, got this, you know, this,
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I hope from the book that people can get is not that, not, and there's no preaching in it, there's no teaching in it, it's a memoir, it's a story, it's human, we're messy people, I'm messy, you know, and, um,
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to do a lot of like vulnerable confession in there, but also I needed to share my reflections.
27:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like just like this happened to happen to happen.
27:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also, and this is what I have learned, and this is what I was probably going through when I was that age.
27:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And so again, I hope that your audiences would want to read because they want to read a beautiful, tragic love story.
28:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But also learn about the Vietnamese experience as refugees in a way that you might have not understood very instantly.
28:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But their choice is that then you made to, you know, I can't imagine there's so many different stories that you had to collect, but are there any stories that were just as powerful as the things that you wrote about, but it just didn't fit that the more it just didn't sort of coincide with the flow of the book.
28:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, you know, like when you get to like 50 years old, the two, the three, there's like decades of stories, right?
28:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think...
28:52
[SPEAKER_01]: um helping writers or aspiring writers think about like how to successfully complete a book it is the first thing is like hey this is what I did I don't know other people do a different there is just one overarching theme and that is this story right and then all the touch points
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: that come along the way that are side stories, on column side stories, they have to connect to that love story somehow, right?
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So if there is a bit about like gang life, it has to be the touch point in this, but the main thing is this love story.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: If it is about becoming a different person, changing your life, rising above struggle, is still related to this,
29:40
[SPEAKER_01]: the story, right?
29:41
[SPEAKER_01]: In the end, it's about fighting the system or battling the system or being impacted by the system or what does the system mean?
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I mean it's like legal systems, political systems, and justice systems, and prison systems, and even the health care system, right?
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I can, I can, I can manage, like, I can like write a lot about those things, but how are they, how are they related to this love story?
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
30:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's such a succinct way of putting it, no matter what the tangent is, there there needs to be connective tissue.
30:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
30:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They're probably were good stories that you left out.
30:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, is there anything that you would like to share that you left out perhaps that you made a, you know, in film we call it killing our babies.
30:29
[SPEAKER_00]: They're really good stories, but we have to leave it out because there's no, there's no strong connective tissues, but the story was so good.
30:38
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a story, but there is a piece that I wrote during the editing phase.
30:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know why it's not in the final book version.
30:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not blaming like the press or my editor.
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't recall why it's not in there.
30:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was so important to me in the editing part.
30:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think maybe because
31:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, my dad died in December and my final editing phases were January, February and March, right?
31:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, so I'm like, man, I must have been just brain fried, right?
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
31:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember vividly writing a part where I wanted to flesh out a reflection on my parents.
31:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And the important part of this is talking about my parents' relationship and being very honest about the violence in our household, and being very clear, being very visual, as a child witnessing it, observing it, interacting with my parents through it all the way until,
31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to leave it as, well, this is what I learned about love to parents who were very violent towards each other verbally, specifically in all that, right?
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, there is a part where I talk about,
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: How I, my fortune, the fortune at part is I always was, since I'm the eldest daughter, I was trying to referee between my parents, right?
32:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe as an early budding sociologist, I was trying to figure out who they were.
32:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember reading the five languages of love, right?
32:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, well, what's your love language?
32:25
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you need that to do?
32:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, Dad?
32:28
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think makes, what would mom do if you wanted to feel really good about, y'all, y'all?
32:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so I learned that my dad was words of affirmation and my dad, my mom was acts of service.
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was trying to give him tips and stuff, right?
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is later on in life.
32:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And at some point,
32:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The all their fights that were rooted in my dad's side of the family, right?
32:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm sure a lot of Vietnamese refugee kids are like, oh yeah, I know.
32:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They in the law problem, right?
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was so prominent, so deeply woven into my parents' conflicts that it was always a thing.
33:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's still, I mean, my dad's gone and it's still a thing.
33:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, yeah, it's like rooted it.
33:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like in my mom's veins, right?
33:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the patriarchy and the oppression of my mom on the husband's side of family.
33:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things that my dad was very protective of and and carrying and like kind of silent on things that happened between my mom and his side of the family.
33:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I never understood it.
33:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, man, yeah, I don't know what, you know, we never understood it.
33:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And then decades later, my dad just kind of opened up one day and shared that when he was a kid and he was in Vietnam, he had a brother after him who drowned when they were swimming in like a river or a pond or something.
34:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And he, my dad was, I think, eight at the time.
34:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I came home, my grandmother has mom blamed him.
34:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, why don't you let your dad, I mean, why don't you let your brother die?
34:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, as a kid, you know, your A years old, it's a be blamed for like your brother's death.
34:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that probably stuck with him, you know, through his life to feel like he always needed to protect, you know.
34:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But since he was the oldest, right?
34:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So there must have been something sitting inside with him that because when we came to America, my grandparents didn't come, and so he was the oldest brother and became the father figure.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, when he told us that my mom, she just kind of like, finally understood it.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, but like, now it's like 20, 30, 40 years later, that he confesses this, and I'm,
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's that's where the healing could begin, where my mom became softer, you know?
35:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
35:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I understood that.
35:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
35:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wrote it much more beautifully.
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's not in the book.
35:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm gonna have to like put something out there apart, but thank you for letting me share this.
35:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that I, and that's what I mean by.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just me telling these stories.
35:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's me really trying to make sense of like what was going on and perhaps why.
35:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That is such a beautiful story, although tragic, but how much?
35:40
[SPEAKER_00]: how many people go through that of our parent's generation and are unable to communicate these things because the technology, the technological language skill is not there.
35:51
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something that blocks that generation.
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and one more thing I want to share.
35:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Like,
35:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm not, again, you can read it in the book.
36:00
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of physical violence.
36:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was one point where, as a kid, I was like, I got to call the cops.
36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: This was what you told, right?
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom was like, no, you can't call the cops.
36:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of the uncles and the friends of it, really, no, don't call the cops.
36:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, in my mom, at one point,
36:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, she, she'll be okay if I shared this.
36:30
[SPEAKER_01]: She, she, she did try to take her her life when I would say 12 years old and when she was in the hospital, um, the nursing staff wanted to call the police.
36:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, because they were like questioning her.
36:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Did he do something to you?
36:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe my dad, right?
36:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And my mom was like, no, so she never called the cops.
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Then later on in a lot, killing those young.
36:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, and I wasn't, I didn't think
36:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even think like, oh, my dad would go to jail.
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought, would you go to call the cops, you know what I mean?
36:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you don't think about the repercussion.
37:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the consequences.
37:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I'm like, okay, my mom never call the cops.
37:07
[SPEAKER_01]: She must have been thinking,
37:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, well, what am I going to do when my dad is like their dad is gone, right?
37:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I asked her, she's like, yeah, you know, she, you know, um, right.
37:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Let God deal with them.
37:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, let God deal with him.
37:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I'm like, man, if that incident had taken my dad to jail to prison, he would have been deportable now because, or at the time, because I was 12 and he didn't get his citizenship until I was like 16 or 17.
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I go back, I'm like, man, it could have been so easily my own, you know, dad, um, which then last year when the Trump escalation happened, maybe I would have been 74, and deported, like I'm just, it's just what mind blowing to think about the choices that people make and how that impacts like something in your entire life.
38:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, this is the same person.
38:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he would have been the same person.
38:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I think except that he would have been checking it was ice.
38:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess Damn, this is all so
38:24
[SPEAKER_00]: crazy how just the refugee side of like our experiences are intertwined with them, the law and what's right and what's wrong, right?
38:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, if you're on the point of like committing suicide and your husband is doing this and your daughter wants to call, what's wrong with that?
38:45
[SPEAKER_00]: texting another human being as a 12 year old, you're texting your mother and then a downstream, you have this consequence that you're now dealing with, even as a grown-ass adult, like going my dad, just got deported because I made that phone call.
38:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sure that shit probably exists out there.
39:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, for sure, for sure.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, I was wondering,
39:11
[SPEAKER_00]: did the sociologists and the academic and the gang person and the regular human have any disagreements with each other as you're telling the story, where they're conflicts with all of these hats that you wear.
39:31
[SPEAKER_01]: No, they just, it's not about like conflicting positions with the different hats you wear.
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe there is, like, at the surface level, but memoir writing to me, the effective part of like sharing a story, is you at some point as the writer and the individual, you had to figure out how to organize all that, how to fit those pieces together.
40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: If there is a conflict, make a decision, what parts of yourself do you have to give up?
40:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, or not, or you can just literally say, I am confused at this moment.
40:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm writing this, I'm sharing this, and I don't even know what I'm going to do, right?
40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So whether or not you have figured out or whether it was conflict and a stage that authenticity of being able to share that is key to memo writing, memo writing, but to answer your question for myself, when things collided for me,
40:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always a personality question for me like I need to figure this out.
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's like the type of personality or something.
40:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, I can't have this mess going on.
40:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when it does, when it can't be figured out yet, and I'm still trying to manage it.
40:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, in the book, there is a point in time where, um,
40:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we, we when I reconnected, but like we cannot really like truly like what does it mean to be together to be in love with somebody who's like incarcerated you can't be with them you can't physically they you know like the daily conversations are even rare like you're writing letters and phone calls and you visit every few months like to me was that for was that fulfilling real relationship and so then there's certain
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: problems that arose.
41:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I had, you know,
41:28
[SPEAKER_01]: got gotten feelings for a person on the outside.
41:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, no, I'm feeling like a cheater that in prison, they call it the Sancho, right?
41:35
[SPEAKER_01]: The guy who's outside with your girl, but you know, you accept it because she's just, you know, you can't be there for her right now.
41:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So you let her be, right?
41:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You let her be.
41:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And it but when she's went, you know, when I get out, there's a voo just lines in the book because he said it to me and I was like, he's like, when I go, when I get out, we ain't gonna be friends, right?
41:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, no.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now it's like the first visit and he's telling me this, right?
42:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like okay.
42:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's go where it goes.
42:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, at least we're out.
42:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're gonna.
42:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be here for you and like
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But she got to read the, listen to the audiobook because I tried to narrate that, but back to the main point here is like, I was so confused.
42:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, what do I do?
42:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, here's this awesome guy out here, but like, he's not like, he's not the heart and spirit of like this first love that I have for who, but then who is inside what do I do?
42:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know,
42:30
[SPEAKER_01]: people are telling me like, hey, you know, it's cool, you know, it's just do today.
42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I like, it just feels wrong, but then I was like committing the wrong.
42:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, so that's one where you're like, your, your sociological hat is like, well, in, you know, prison, um, uh, studies, this is a very common phenomenon.
42:50
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm a little bit caught.
42:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, like, there's there is a lingo for it called the Sancho.
42:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so that's, that's going on.
42:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my
43:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the wives forums are like, you kind of tell them, you kind of tell them, like, do I have to tell you something?
43:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the honesty, right?
43:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And then from the beginning, the get go, the guy on the outside knows about who, right?
43:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, so he could read all the details, but like, yeah.
43:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Was there ultimately a right way to do it or it's just up even to now you can agree that it was it's going to be messy and there's no Looking back is a way to resolve that like and I and I asked that because It helps me
43:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of understand how messy things can be resolved.
43:51
[SPEAKER_00]: If you approach it with a fierce strength, a fierce honesty, or does that never not even work?
43:58
[SPEAKER_00]: That because you're liking somebody on the outside, but then you have this deep chemistry with somebody on the inside.
44:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to read the book because I've got the idea, I've really deep into what happens.
44:14
[SPEAKER_01]: My thought process, what, what Vuthan and what he said and what the other man said and yeah, I revealed it all like and honestly I even had to ask
44:30
[SPEAKER_01]: the dashing handsome kind person man on the outside, if it was okay.
44:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was okay that I wrote about him and that I shared, you know, what I wrote and I'm like, is this okay?
44:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you okay with this?
44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is just for me because he's such a
44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: uh, genuinely kind, um, honest, authentic caring person.
44:56
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, hey, that's the truth.
44:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, appreciate it.
45:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, we lived it in the moment and he was very awesome about the whole experience of the good, the bad up and down.
45:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I was ready to write, you know, and I asked him, he's like, tell, this is your story, you know, like, I care about you, your, your, your, one of the person, so, two of what you gotta do.
45:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I go, don't worry, I'm gonna describe you physically.
45:28
[SPEAKER_01]: tall fit handsome you are maybe you maybe a a single's ad for you so ladies if you read the book and you're sure you don't want to know he's available I totally doubt for him if who is alive today what do you think you would be thinking about your work and your life and your retrospections
45:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man, we did that all the time when he was still, you know, around, now you just spoiled the book.
46:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you don't know why he's not here with us.
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not a, you know, one of the reasons why, and this one reason why I knew it wasn't just nostalgia is that when we reconnected,
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we didn't talk on the phone like, oh, I miss you.
46:23
[SPEAKER_01]: How was your day?
46:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like not superficial at all.
46:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It really was about these like things.
46:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And he wanted to learn so much about what was going on the outside world, but not like who's the movie star and what's the best music out there and what's the fashion.
46:38
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to know about like the political world, the social world of, oh, I'm sorry.
46:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, thank you.
46:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm checking out today.
46:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, Denver has cleaning.
46:52
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to know about all these deeper level things and how a tree and writing and books and famous philosophers and so it was like all this stuff that like totally was in the brain for me.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I still, that's why I was like, oh my god, this is my first love and like he's so fucking dope, you know, like intellectually Philosophically, you know, he'd read so many books.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: He published like an article like I'm like you
47:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Bitch, you published before I did, right?
47:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, and so that's who I fell in love with again, and that was different from that first love.
47:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if he were still here today, like, we would probably be doing the same thing, still talking about my work and then the way that it directly impacts him,
47:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And the one thing he's really good about like also just wanting to help others, you know, mentoring others in there on different things, different projects, different information, you know, people like, hey, can you write a poem for me?
48:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he was writing me poems, and they were so, so good.
48:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, they do that, you know, they draw art for people.
48:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, apparently, he was writing poems for guys to send to their girls and stuff.
48:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh.
48:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
48:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah.
48:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Beautiful.
48:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
48:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
48:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
48:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say he would, next year, 2027, would have been his first year eligible for parole, possibility could have come home next year.
48:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, as we are coming to a, and I just want to say two things first of all, I want to tease out perhaps, I'm going to let you think about it while I say this thing first, but I want you to think about if you are able to tease out your next project.
49:01
[SPEAKER_00]: because I think it's an amazing thing.
49:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's up to you, you think about that.
49:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But the one thing I wanted to say about reading the book is because oftentimes I'll read it.
49:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And oftentimes I won't.
49:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have to make sort of a conscious decision sometimes.
49:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's controversial.
49:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And within my circles, whether I read or not,
49:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I don't read it because I know somebody's so well and that if I read it I feel like I'm gonna cheat the audience out of the experience and the questions of Yeah, and then it'll just become inside baseball between you and me and I don't want that, right?
49:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, but if it's like somebody that I barely know, or artists, writers that I barely know, then I have to read it to get to know them, and then it won't be inside baseball.
49:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be like more.
49:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think because the relationship, you and I are so close that it would become like all this like inside stuff and people are like, what the, like, what am I watching?
49:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've had that happen in me before, so many times.
49:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, all right, I have to make a decision between reading books and not reading books sometimes.
50:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just wanted to put that out there.
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, that you haven't read it and that's okay.
50:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And also you were waiting for the audio book because you can listen to it later, right?
50:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, because that to me is, you know, how I consume books mostly, even though I have, like, all these books and downstairs, I have a lot more, but I have a lot of books actually, just props, props, just props.
50:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't read anything.
50:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I listen to everything, but I wanted to
50:25
[SPEAKER_00]: to ask you, if you were open to perhaps sharing something that you are contemplating working on because it's really tied into kind of like this world that we're talking about, are you open to yeah, that's a great question that, you know, most authors get asked, where do you working on next, right?
50:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And at some point I was like, I just want to rest, you know, can I like
50:54
[SPEAKER_01]: solitude, the, I love the brain firing that has to happen.
51:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a lot of talk about like chatGPT and AI and call and all these like, um,
51:08
[SPEAKER_01]: lawsuits and then authors being accused.
51:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just like, man, I'm so glad I've been writing stuff for like 20 years.
51:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I've got blogs from like 15 years ago.
51:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Go ahead and like run that through and see if like my writing has changed.
51:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's never changed because I don't I've never taken a class on writing.
51:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't I don't I'm not a trained writer.
51:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I just write because like, um, that's how I learned in middle school.
51:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, um,
51:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so my writing, one thing that I'll pitch for the book is that my readers have told me how accessible it is.
51:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, you know, people are like, oh, I love this book because like, it's not, I understand all the words, right?
51:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I said it all the way.
51:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You keep it fifth grade, right, and people like me.
51:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Straight man, keep it straight, right?
51:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, is I'm talking
52:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, oh yeah, like my friends are already trying to get the books, you know, to the the guys inside and the women there are women in inside right
52:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the next project is, and so again, I just love the act of writing.
52:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care about speed, you know, it's, I mean, this book was, you know, started.
52:21
[SPEAKER_01]: This version was started five years ago.
52:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's taking me five years, right?
52:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I just chat, you've cheated, and like an Amazon self-published, can done it in 30 days, you know what I mean?
52:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
52:35
[SPEAKER_01]: My point to that is I just love sitting in quiet solitude for hours thinking about how this is going to come out and what I, how I want, not just the story, but like how I want to tell it.
52:46
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the words I'm going to choose, right?
52:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And for this next project, I think it's going to be a lot more challenging than this one because it is still, I would still like to write memoir at some point, I would love to write fiction.
53:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But memoir there is one more story that I think needs to be told and I mentioned earlier that my dad had passed away last year He and I talked all the time even though like we, you know, were politically opposites I still love him.
53:17
[SPEAKER_01]: He loved me.
53:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I never either are parts
53:22
[SPEAKER_01]: certain points will read like blew up on each other because that's just human to like be so angry and like how he thinks.
53:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even share with audience.
53:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he literally was probably getting really upset because I was
53:37
[SPEAKER_01]: legally and, like, sociologically, like, poking at his argument, right?
53:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, you're fucking brainwashed, and he used the F-ball, right?
53:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he had his cool, you know?
53:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You dropped the fucking brainwashed, right?
53:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, I never pulled the education card on anybody.
53:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't go, you know, I am a PhD.
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I try not to do that, because it don't mean shit, all right?
53:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It means a little bit of something, but it don't mean that to much shit to have PhD, okay?
54:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So, of course, then I'm triggered, you know, and like, so I go, I thought the first one, I'll go, you sent me to school to go learn.
54:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I have a PhD in society.
54:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I hope things say, okay?
54:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And you think I'm very much?
54:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, like, so, you know, we have those moments, okay?
54:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And my dad is still a lovely human being.
54:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like in all the other ways, all the ways of like care, generosity, time, money, effort, like generous to a fault, which is why my mom always always bitching.
54:43
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like trying to save money for the family and he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
54:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And he got roped into the Christian identity, identity, identityarian church, which is the American way of white supremacist racist ideology church.
55:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, I didn't know that at the time, okay?
55:14
[SPEAKER_01]: All I knew was like, he was super conservative.
55:18
[SPEAKER_01]: and saying like he would come home from work which he was a machinist and he did the night shift and he was like telling me like kind of racist jokes and I'm a kid and I'm I don't know.
55:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm 11, 12, trying to figure it out, but I'm like, is that funny?
55:31
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, I think it's funny.
55:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, like, I don't know if that's funny there, but okay.
55:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he met his supervisor in the night shift, the graveyard shift, which was a Christian identity and it then he brought over his future son-in-law, which was
55:51
[SPEAKER_01]: ended up being Louis B. who is historically known as the white supremacist KKK leader in Texas.
56:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want to look at him up, Louis B. he's even mentioned in C Drift, right?
56:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know, those people's mind, I'm like, wait a second, he's your dad's friend.
56:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, he was my dad's friend.
56:12
[SPEAKER_01]: He used to come over to the house, hang out, Mama made him egg rolls and he loves hot sauce and stuff.
56:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So over the years, they have remained friends and Louis Bean has like retreated from public life.
56:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And for a while, I didn't think anything over time.
56:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So now I've got,
56:30
[SPEAKER_01]: four decades of understanding my dad, this man, their friendship, what does that all, how does it all configure together to now I'm like, now I get why my dad and I are so opposed to one another because he holds a whole entire belief system, rooted in this thing and I can't wait to share about some of our conversations.
56:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But do you see things?
56:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would just like,
56:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, don't make no sense, right?
57:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is what he truly believed, and then he this is his friend.
57:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I will share that recently, you know, I asked Mr. Beam, when my dad passed, I went through his phone, and I was trying to invite everybody who, like, he had the number for, and he had just made a call with Mr. Beam, I don't know, maybe three or four months before he passed.
57:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So he was like, you know what, I know who he is, I know people are gonna be like, why would you invite that person to your feet?
57:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, it's, because it's for my dad.
57:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I wanna honor a person's life.
57:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So I invited Mr. Bean, and I don't know if he's gonna show up, but he did.
57:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And then after a few months he called to check and see how, you know, the family was doing.
57:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, hey, I've been, I've mentioned this to him like five years ago when my day I still have, I wanted to interview them both, right?
57:55
[SPEAKER_01]: But he wasn't, he wasn't willing yet.
57:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think maybe my dad passing really brought something in him.
58:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, I'm willing to talk to you, oh, friendship with your father.
58:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the plan for the next book.
58:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, Tom, thank you for sharing that.
58:17
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, I mean, obviously I've heard it before.
58:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but
58:23
[SPEAKER_00]: that is something that is profound in this day and age because I think the white supremacy movement in the United States and globally, I think it's more popular, it's more acceptable, it's more mainstream today, it's back in fashion and I think I am so interested in Mr. Beam's outlook.
58:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I mean, who you are, hanging out with this Vietnamese dude and your shop or your father
58:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to like deal with the fact that you are a white supremac, but then they're like good people good colored people in the world and I'm always wondering like how they they kind of mitigate that You know
59:08
[SPEAKER_01]: If you read my book, you're gonna be like, is this person a good person or a bad person?
59:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's tall, a good person or a bad person?
59:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's tall, a moral or a moral person, right?
59:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Because even if you're a good person, you make dumb choices or bad choices or wrong choices.
59:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're a bad person, you can still have good in you, right?
59:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know how to answer those things.
59:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I try to let people answer that for themselves about how they,
59:37
[SPEAKER_01]: frame their, their good versus bad versus evil, their moral compass, but what I will encourage people to do is to start thinking a little more flexibly, like flexibility in your thinking, I think the rigid, the rigidness of of
59:56
[SPEAKER_01]: of our judgment, it's not just, it's not just that it's hard for society, it's hard on yourself, it's hard itself.
1:00:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And for some people, it works, okay, so keep on doing what you do, right?
1:00:10
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, I won't have you in my inner circle, unless you're super rigid about like, well, I'm just kidding, cut that part out of a key.
1:00:21
[SPEAKER_01]: unless you're rigid, you know, and again, I'm human, so if you're rigid around the things that I care about, I'm like, damn, that's dope, you know what I mean?
1:00:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're rigid and you're not like, so again, I just feel for myself, I like to be a little, I like to have a little more flexibility and how I connect with people and what those connections are.
1:00:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So, how do we get to experience your book tour in person?
1:00:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there a schedule living somewhere?
1:00:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you can put this guy out when I share with you, right?
1:00:55
[SPEAKER_01]: If you follow me on Instagram or on Facebook, my handle is TaoHop, PhD-H-A-L-H-A-P-H-D.
1:01:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, I post all the stuff in there.
1:01:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I've already, I gloom.
1:01:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Today is Vue's birthday happy birthday happy, happy, happy, happy birthday, happy new Monday was my dad's birthday, happy, happy, happy, happy birthday, dad.
1:01:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and so, um,
1:01:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, follow me.
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I will be going to let's see these now.
1:01:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of your viewers are Southern California.
1:01:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So Los Angeles is a cool one October 15th.
1:01:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So follow that one.
1:01:29
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're in the O.C.
1:01:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Orange County, Little Psycho, we're going to have a big ol' party on October 24th at the football top.
1:01:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have details there and we're always going to have food.
1:01:41
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to have drinks and we have books.
1:01:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So
1:01:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Come hang out, we're gonna have talks and I will always have a cool guest with me to be on stage.
1:01:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
1:01:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't wait to see you at these events and I hope that people will come out to meet you at the other events across the country because I think the story that you have is probably never going to be able to be told again because of the time period of the 90s and today and who you are, the polarity of the experiences that you've had.
1:02:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You never know.
1:02:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You never know what stories can be like blossomed from this.
1:02:18
[SPEAKER_01]: There might even be more amazing stories.
1:02:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So if the book relates and or if it's relatable, if it inspires you, if it makes you feel a certain way, you should write yours.
1:02:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, totally agree.
1:02:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me.
1:02:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
1:02:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, thank you for having me and I love you too.
1:02:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Steve Travis, back home, tell.
1:02:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye.
1:02:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
1:02:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Winn.
1:02:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Winn, Katherine Winn, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
1:02:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.