Vicky Nguyen’s book “Boat Baby” is a memoir of growing up the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants.
The NBC News correspondent and anchor writes about trying to make her way in a White world that often looks down on someone with her appearance. She also watches her parents try to adjust to a new culture while her father’s penchant for a hustle leads them to both an “American dream home” – and the loss of that house.
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But Nguyen, who spoke recently by video about the book and her life, also goes back in time and traces her parents’ journey, from life in Vietnam before America went to war there, then during the violence of the war years, the tumult and danger after America left and then their decision to flee, as “boat people” in 1979, taking Nguyen who was then a baby, on a perilous journey out of the country and into the uncertainty of a refugee camp before they made it to America.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q. In the book, you recall the childhood embarrassment of trying to pronounce English words because your parents didn’t speak much English and about hearing racist comments about your appearance even as a child. How has that shaped you as a journalist?
I feel like it made me less judgmental because I recognize that people’s words matter, but so do their intentions – and I can appreciate people for who they are and that we all have such vastly different perspectives. I feel like I can give a lot of grace to people when I’m in a situation where someone might say something that’s not politically correct, or that could be perceived as insulting. I’m able to press pause, reflect, and think, where is that coming from? Is it meant to be malicious? Or is this someone who just hasn’t been exposed to Asian Americans or has a blind spot there?
Q. This is partly a memoir, but the most dramatic things happened to your parents either before you were born or when you were a baby. Did you interview them, or did you base this on stories you’d heard growing up?
I pieced together my own memories of what my parents had told me, but I also worked with a co-writer who really helped, extracting information and details from my parents in a way that I don’t think they ever would have shared with me. I think your instinct as a parent is to protect your children, so you don’t go into the finer points of something that might have been scary or traumatic for you.
Q. What surprised you about your parents’ lives that you didn’t know before working on the book?
Our parents have these incredible lives before they just become mom and dad to us. So this was such a beautiful gift to have this opportunity.
Learning how my dad was a hustler from his earliest days as a kid helped me connect a lot of dots about who he was. And then learning about my mom in her teens and early 20s having the courage to leave her little seaside village and go to Saigon and try to make her own way during the war, working for American companies, practicing her English.
I always joke that the Vietnamese Americans you meet are Type A++ because it took that mentality to think, “We’re going to hire a smuggler and we’re getting away on a boat.” We know all these bad things have happened, but why not us? Why not have some hope? It’s a mix of desperation with the hope that fuels the belief you’re going to get somewhere better.
Q. What did your parents think of the book?
I gave both of them early drafts and I tried to explain why it’s important for me to include the ups and downs of what we went through – had we not gone through some of those financial hardships, if we had a comfortable life, if we kept our American dream house, maybe I wouldn’t have stuck it out in journalism. Maybe I wouldn’t be here talking with you today as an NBC News correspondent and anchor. I might’ve felt like it was safe to go home.
My mom read the book and was very interested in what it was like for me growing up, what my early jobs were like, the experiences that I had that she didn’t know about. My dad read the book for all the parts about himself. This is what my mom tells me. That’s very on-brand for him. Maybe with time my dad will be able to see from beginning to end why I included the financial difficulties.
Q. Do you see yourself in them?
My parents are built to see the silver lining in any situation. That’s the thing that I inherited from them. When they recount being attacked by pirates while on the smuggler’s boat trying to leave Vietnam, their takeaway is, “Well, thank goodness, nobody was raped or shot or thrown overboard.” They know that people had it so much worse. They don’t let themselves get mired in the trauma.
Q. Do you see your parents differently now?
I am able to give them so much more grace now. When I hear about family dynamics from fellow Vietnamese Americans and other Asian Americans, I know how tough it is when you are parented by people who were raised in a different country with different cultures, different values, and different ways of showing affection. I feel like I got off pretty lucky, and I’m really grateful to my parents for everything that they have done for me.
Q. How is it different for you as an American parent?
When you are bicultural or multicultural, you get to take the best parts of all of those cultures and customs and parenting styles so there is a toughness and a resilience that comes from parents who have high expectations, who show they love you, but don’t always tell you they love you. That is embedded in how I parent, but I also know how important it is for kids to hear those words – “I love you,” “I’m proud of you” – and so that is also how I parent.
I didn’t have that growing up. What is so funny is that my parents raised me as Vietnamese parents, but with my daughters, they’re now Vietnamese American grandparents, so there’s a lot of “I love you” and “Great job, I’m so proud of you.”
And I think, “Who are these people?” But they’ve evolved as well.