Refugee: A Podcast Bryan Banks and Vy Dao

What drove the Vietnamese refugee experience? Students discuss the historical context in this mini episode!

Jason Nguyen is a PhD student in ethno-musicology at the University of Indiana, a trained musician in several Vietnamese instruments. He’s also the musician behind our podcast’s theme music, a Vietnamese cover of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Refugee.” In this interview, Vy and Bryan talk to Jason about his process and research into the music history of Vietnamese culture across the Vietnamese diaspora.

Kim Vu-Dinh is a law professor at the University of Arkansas and former host of VietNOLA. Kim tells her family’s story of migration from Vietnam to the United States before the large waves of Vietnamese refugees were expelled from the country. She links her family’s experience to her interest in Vietnamese-American food culture in New Orleans.

Carl Bankston is a professor of sociology at Tulane University, who specializes in Vietnamese refugee communities, especially generational change. Before he entered into academia, Carl worked in the Philippines at a refugee-processing center, helping Vietnamese refugees find a new place to call home.

Lan Diep sits on the city council of San Jose. Of Vietnamese ancestry, Lan represents one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the United States. From this position, he offers unique insight into what Vietnamese refugees have gone through and how their experience as refugees continues to inform their politics in twenty-first century America.

Vy Dao and Bryan Banks sit down to answer a few basic questions about the podcast. How did we come to this project? What are our goals? The answer to both questions is our desire to humanize refugee peoples through their own voices and the voices of those who have defended their interests over time.