I always say that writing non-fiction versus writing fiction is a bit like architecture versus abstract painting.

Though I later found a career as a journalist and an essayist, fiction is my first love and I never left it, even though there was no easy way to make a living from it.

As a Vietnamese refugee who became an American writer, I can tell you that you matter, that your sadness matters, the story of how you survived and triumphed matters. For every story that belongs to you, in time, belongs to America.

Today, more people are crossing various borders in order to survive, thrive, change their lives. Even if you don't cross the border, with demographic shifts, the border sometimes crosses you.

Precious things lost are transmutable. They refuse oblivion. They simply wait to be rendered into testimonies, into stories and songs.

[The immigrant] becomes a kind of insurance policy against the effects of the recession. By blaming him, the pressure valve is regulated in times of crisis ... What we have now is a public mindset of us versus them, and an overall anti-immigrant climate that is both troubling and morally reprehensible.

Art is the lesser sister to medicine. It aims to heal.