Immigrants who come to a country are going to lose something, for sure, but they hope to gain a great deal by making this journey, whereas refugees by definition have lost a tremendous amount - not just country and society, but also more personal things like careers, prestige, status, relatives, identities. This inevitably makes the longing to remember the past even more powerful among refugees, to the point of often debilitating them.

Refugees have been displaced by war or natural disaster or political catastrophes, and they are much more threatening because they are reminders to people that all the comforts that we take for granted can be taken away in just a moment.

I think my parents' lives are worthy of writing about. I don't think my life is particularly worthy of writing about.

My identity is deeply intertwined with being a refugee because that's the first experience that I remember.

You have to wear a different face when you're interacting with the larger culture. And you can be more of yourself at home or in the local market or in the local church speaking your own language. That was my sense growing up as a Vietnamese refugee in San Jose.

People might like to think a war is done when a cease fire is signed, but for most people who lived through a war it goes on for decades.

I've never stopped being a refugee.