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.

Immigrants, as troubling as they are to some people, are an integral part of what the American Dream is supposed to be. They're understandable to a considerable number of Americans.

I never called myself a writer because it seemed so pretentious - a writer was what somebody else called you, a title bestowed.

40, 50 years ago, Americans - the majority of Americans did not want to accept these Vietnamese refugees who they saw as completely foreign. Now there are new foreigners - Syrians and other people from the Middle East, people of Muslim backgrounds. And the sense among many Americans is, well, these people are completely different from us, and they're not like the Vietnamese who are much more assimilable. And I think that's very, very doubtful. I think that the majority of these new foreigners, if given the opportunity, will be able to assimilate and deal with American culture.

In the United States, we want to believe we will never become a country of refugees.

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