Self Evident Presents: “Live! Making Before Me With Lisa Phu” (by The Vietnamese Boat People podcast)
Before Me
Our friend Tracey Nguyen Mang, host of the Vietnamese Boat People Podcast, goes behind the scenes with Lisa Phu in this conversation — about how to document the lives of our parents, when that process can feel overwhelming. This episode, recorded live online, is the Season 6 Premiere of The Vietnamese Boat People, a podcast and nonprofit project that preserves the story of the Vietnamese diaspora community — and provides spaces where people can share their experiences. This latest season of their podcast follows the theme, “Ba, Mẹ ơi” (which roughly translates to "Dear...
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Before Me
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Part 5: Birthday Card
Before Me
Just before I gave birth to my daughter Acacia, I turned 36. And on my birthday my mom sent me a birthday card that was full of heartfelt words — more than she’d ever written to me before. On the last night of her visit to help me take care of Acacia, as she read the card aloud, I realized how I was — and still am — a part of the lives that came before me. .
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Part 4: Head of the House
Before Me
At the moment my mom steps onto a small fishing boat off the coast of Cambodia, headed for a refugee camp in Thailand under cover of night, she becomes the head of our family. It takes her less than a year to make it safely to her new home in New York, give birth to me, and learn how to be a single parent in the U.S. But it will end up taking her decades to process what she’s overcome, what she’s become, and what she’s left behind on the beaches of Cambodia.
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Part 3: Beautiful Country
Before Me
Reunited with my cousin Lynn, my mom becomes a gold dealer to support her growing family — and realizes that the charmed childhood she had in Cambodia is nowhere to be found for her own kids. She recounts the joyful memories that helped her hold on for more than five years as a refugee in Vietnam, before making the decision to leave both countries for good. .
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Part 2: Photograph
Before Me
As the genocidal regime of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge takes hold of Cambodia, my mom and dad run for their lives — separated from my cousin, Lynn, who's then faced with keeping her siblings alive in a forced labor camp.
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Part 1: Firstborn
Before Me
When I became a parent, my mom flew across the country to help me take care of my firstborn child. And opened up to share a story I’d never fully heard, about her firstborn child — the sister I’ve never met. (Content Warning: Descriptions of death during war, acts of genocide, family separation) .
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Introducing "Before Me": A Refugee's Story, Told From Mother to Daughter
Before Me
For most of my life, I told a story about how my mom first came to the United States. Some of it was right, some of it was wrong; none of it was actually ever told to her by the people who had lived it. After I gave birth to my first daughter, my mom flew across the country to meet her first grandchild. And during that visit, she finally shared the real story with me. About growing up in Cambodia, fleeing genocide by the Khmer Rouge, surviving as a gold dealer in Vietnam, building a home in America while navigating the fallout and traumas of war… and carrying the future of her children...
info_outlineReunited with my cousin Lynn, my mom becomes a gold dealer to support her growing family — and realizes that the charmed childhood she had in Cambodia is nowhere to be found for her own kids. She recounts the joyful memories that helped her hold on for more than five years as a refugee in Vietnam, before making the decision to leave both countries for good.
Full show notes, photos, credits, and transcript on our web site.