In My Family’s American Dream, Bootstraps Met Blocks of Government Cheese

After an Arduous Journey Emigrating from Vietnam in the ‘70s, the Author Benefitted from Both Personal Resilience and Public Assistance

I spoke my first words on a boat: “milk,” “cockroach,” and “itchy.” An unusual toddler vocabulary perhaps, but not surprising considering that I spent the second year of my life on a freighter with thousands of other people, a floating petri dish of equal parts vomit, diarrhea, desperation, and hope. Every inch of that boat teemed with refugees: the cargo hull, hallways, and deck. Even the captain’s steering room had ceased to be a sanctuary.

I am an immigrant from Vietnam. I left the land of my birth in …

By Kim Luu | August 23, 2016

The 1965 Immigration Act That Became a Law of Unintended Consequences

When President Johnson Signed the Hart-Celler Bill, He Said It Wouldn’t Reshape the Lives of Millions of Americans. He Was Wrong

By Jia-Rui Cook | October 2, 2015

“It’s complicated.”

This might be an appropriate way to characterize via Facebook the legacy of the 1965 Immigration Act, one of the biggest changes to the flow of people into …

Chinese Immigrants Now Make Up the Largest Group of New Arrivals to the U.S.

Once Excluded and Now Admired, Their Families Could See a Newfound Status in America Complicated by China's Rise

By Erika Lee | July 7, 2015

Once singled out for exclusion by law from the United States, Chinese immigrants now make up the largest single group of arrivals per year into this country. A recent report …

My Living, Yet Lost, Father

The Final Weeks Of South Vietnam Changed Everything Between Us

by Kyanh Tonnu | July 9, 2012

In the spring of 1975, when I was eight years old, my family, which included my parents and younger sister, moved from Vietnam, our native home, to Singapore. My father …

Asian-Americans