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

I am hopeful that the pendulum swings toward seeing immigrants in favorable terms once more.

The collection is a labor of love and devotion, and whenever I found free time from my journalism work, I'd work on one story or another, or at least sketch out my characters, and research various issues related to my characters' dilemmas.

I think in a larger sense, immigrant narrative is comprehensive and speaks to the core of human experience.

In non-fiction you have to stay true to historical events, be they personal or national .

In fiction, it's as if you enter a dream world that you created, but your characters have their own free will. They don't do what you want them to do - they get into trouble, do drugs, fight over petty things, and do outrageous things that you wouldn't want your children to do. In other words, you can only provide the background, the seeds - in my case the background of the Vietnamese refugee.

Missing from the national conversation are voices of pro-immigration reformers and civil rights leaders, who can speak on behalf of those who have no voice.