From the L.A. Times Studios, this is Asian Enough.

Each week on this podcast, we talked to one Asian American celebrity about the joys, the

complications and everything else that comes along with being Asian American. I'm

Jemimato and I'm Frank Schion. This week on episode three of our show we have the Pulitzer Prize winning writer Viet Tannue.

So when you know Jonathan Franzen puts a description of a sandwich in his novel he says I ate a sandwich period.

As a Vietnamese person I'm expected to say I ate a

bowl of fah comma a delicious beef noodle Vietnamese soup but when you said that you know you're

not talking to Vietnamese people newen's debut novel, The Sympathizer, was published in 2015.

It's this intense, funny cinematic spy thriller set in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

And in 2017, he wrote the refugees,

a collection of stories about refugee life.

Viet has also written non-fiction books

and commentary for lots of places,

including our very own LA Times. He is prolific. We were so

excited to take a trip outside our studio to visit him across town at the

University of Southern California. So let's get started.

I wanted to talk to you, start with first, what does being Vietnamese American mean to you? You know, what does being Vietnamese American mean to you?

You know, what does being Asian American mean to you?

Well, being Vietnamese American to me means being traumatized,

troubled by so many different things.

Of course, there's wonderful things about being

Vietnamese American. I grew up knowing that we had a very tight community that

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