Music

Always Waiting

With ears comfortable to the sounds of the hums of quê hương, or quê nhà, my parents listened to an evoked past that reverberated well into the present. Yet these very sounds, as beautiful and tragically poignant as they are, sometimes suffocated me at night in our familiar home.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Artist Profile of Rocky Rivera

Rocky’s music is a journey into the spirit of resistance in the form of loud bass, energetic anthems, and subversive takedowns of the status quo.

Please Re-Wheel

Nhạc vàng songs are like ghosts living in and out of diaspora, trailing behind Vietnamese veterans, rewinding themselves, back to their country and the struggles of living through destitution and ideological polarization. The political and historical erasures that were never archived in print media were/are re/recorded and re/produced as songs. […]

~ Mai Khoi & The Dissidents at National Sawdust ~

A review of Mai Khoi & The Dissidents' music performance, by Monique Truong: "Throughout the band’s eleven-song set list, Mai Khoi’s lyrics declared, boldly and without a doubt—they were literally the writing on the wall—that she’s a citizen of a country that systematically controls and silences the free expression of its populace…"

OUT OF THE MARGINS :: Michael Nhat

You motherfuckers don’t give us respect / So when I turn to my own they look at me like heck / he ain’t really Asian, much less Vietnamese / How do you think that makes me feel? ...

The Odyssey – From Vietnam to America: An Interview with Vân-Ánh Võ

Integrating traditional and new instruments, video, field recordings and interviews with survivors, The Odyssey–From Vietnam to America reflects the resilience of the human spirit and the price of freedom. The work was created in partnership with Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI). She spoke with New America Media editor Andrew Lam.