“I see America as a place of opportunity and also freedom in comparison to my life in Vietnam”

Story #11

Thao Nguyen, Vietnamese-American

Interviewed & Written by Roni Deckard

Edited by Madeline Humphrey

Thao Nguyen, a PhD student studying sociology at Boston University, migrated to the United States from Hanoi, Vietnam in September of 2013 for her undergraduate degree. Nguyen arrived in Lynchburg, Virginia to attend Randolph College on an F-1 Visa.

“My sister was in the U.S. for about 10 years. She already went through the education system, and she has a lot of knowledge about the education system. So, she helped me with the application process and everything else,” Nguyen said in an interview. “It made the process of applying to colleges here easier.”  

Upon arrival, Nguyen knew only one person, a friend of her mother, in America. Upon reflecting on the most difficult times during this period of migration, Nguyen spoke of the language barrier. 

“I think the most difficult part when I first moved here was that I didn't speak English very well,” she said. “I wrote my first essay in English back in 2013 when I started my first semester of college in America,” she continued, “my spoken and written English at that time was not that great. So, that was very hard.”

For Nguyen, English was one of the factors that formed the tie to American culture. 

“I struggled with trying to be American,” she said. “I saw my roommate, who spoke English beautifully, was a white and from the Netherlands. So the way she was accepted and welcomed at my college, I felt like I wasn't receiving the same kind of treatment. That made me feel like I have to be American. I have to speak with an American accent. I have to act in an American way. I have to know about American TV shows or pop culture that people here talk to you about in small talk. I felt intense pressure to do that.”

Nguyen discussed how luckily, her transition to college in the United States was made easier by efforts made by her college and its organizations. 

“I went to a liberal arts college. It is more close knit and very small.  There were only 700 students for the entire college. So, we were kind of like each other's community, and there were a lot of international students in Lynchburg. There was this Christian group who would organize different events with international students, and so that was nice,” Nguyen said. 

The college’s program for international students was also key to her adjustment. 

“There was an office at my school called the International Students Service Office, and I think the coordinator of the office was very nice,” Nguyen said. “I think she went out of her way to help us get adjusted to the culture. Also, she helped us with the paperwork and everything. So that was very nice of her.” 

Nguyen distinctly recalled moments in which the differences between American and Vietnamese culture were starkly evident to her. 

“The thing that I remember the most was that people here are not that confrontational,” Nguyen said. “I think the way I was taught in Vietnam, I was more confrontational. For example, in a student organization meeting, if I saw something that I felt needs to be spoken about, I would speak my mind about it, but I didn't feel like people would do the same thing. They were less confrontational, and they were very nice. Like, sometimes it's genuine, sometimes not.”

For Nguyen, norms around physical proximity were foreign. “People like their distance. For example, in Vietnam, when we sit next to someone, we sit super close to them and touching is common. It’s not that weird. But here, it's less common. There is a common understanding to keep a certain distance when you're sitting next to a stranger, for example,” Nguyen said. 

She recalled taking a school trip and sitting next to a woman eating a snack on the bus. “People don't share food a lot, I think. It was like 5pm or something in the afternoon, and we didn't eat much that day, so I was very hungry. In Vietnam, it was very common, if you were to eat something next to someone it's common to share. You just kind of offer it just like a gesture. You know, you don't expect the other person to also eat your food, but you just have to offer it.”

There were similarities between the reality of and her expectations for migrating to the United States for school.

“I still see America as a place of opportunity and also freedom in comparison to my life in Vietnam. So, it does match my expectations,” Nguyen said. 

However, she commented on a stark difference in her expectations versus reality as well.

“When I was in Vietnam, what I wasn't aware of was the kind of discrimination that I may potentially face when I'm in America,” Nguyen said. “But also, I was in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was a very conservative place. Most people are religious in town, most of them are white.”

In adjusting to her life as a United States college student, dealing with unfamiliar cultural norms and the pressure to learn English at a steep learning curve, Nguyen described situations in which she was placed in uncomfortable situations. 

“An example is that when I was in Lynchburg after graduating from Randolph College, I didn't have a place to stay. So, I had to stay with an old white dude. The rent was very cheap; it was only $40 per month. I didn't have a paying job at that time and his house had everything. So, it was a very attractive opportunity,” she said, “but then he turned out to be a very abusive person. He turned out to be a perpetrator. Every night, he would be completely naked. Later on, I learned that's super weird. Most of the people that were living in the house were Asian women, and he subjected us to racialized sexual violence.”

Nguyen also noted a situation where she experienced racism in Virginia.

“Another racist incident that he [man who she was living with] did to me was that he accused me of stealing the bikes, even though the bike that he gave me to use wasn't stolen,” she said. “He accused me of that because he saw on the camera that the person who stole them looked kind of Asian. They couldn't see him very well, but because he kind of looked like Asian and because I was both Asian and outspoken in the house, somehow, I was the one who orchestrated that whole thing.”

These were not the only housing-related incidents that Nguyen experienced. 

“When I was looking for places as well, one of the landlords asked me ‘what is my spirituality?’ Because Lynchburg is very religious. I told her that I am an atheist. At that time, I already started developing a sense of awareness, and I sensed something that could be wrong if I were to stay there, so I didn't,” she said.

When in her undergraduate program, Nguyen decided to study abroad in England. Here, she faced discrimination and racism from her peers as well. 

“When I was in England, I was living with this group of American students. I remember one time I was cooking and I was using fish sauce. One of the women in the program was a white American. They were getting ready to go out and all that stuff, and they were drinking in the kitchen. She told everyone to leave the kitchen because it was smelly, and I was literally standing there. So, that was just very disturbing, and she made those comments right in front of me,” Nguyen said. 

She recalled other times that she spent with the American students from her college. “The whole time, nobody would talk to me. I would just sit there for like, an hour, probably for two hours. At the beginning of it, I thought, okay, maybe they didn't have anything to talk to me about. Then it kept happening and happening over and over again. So, I thought maybe they really just don't want to talk to me. That was difficult,” she said.

In this challenging time of her life, Nguyen found strength. 

“I guess the way I tried to cope with it was to meet different people, like different types of friends. Because I knew these people didn't quite accept me, or welcome me, I started hanging out with students at the University of Redding, England,” she said. “When I was at Randolph College, I didn't have that kind of access. It was just a small school of 700 students.” 

Her experience in England, compounded by her time spent in Lynchburg, led Nguyen to study sociology.  

“After my experience in England, which was very traumatic, it kind of made me have to try to understand why those things happened,” Nguyen said. “So, sociology definitely gives me the tools and the knowledge to really understand why things happen the way they do. I have benefited a lot from it. I can look at a social event, and I can analyze it. I can see how things connect.”  

Now, after completing her masters program at the University of Chicago, Nguyen plans to move to Boston to start her dissertation work.  

“I wanted to be in a place where I felt like the academic culture would be less toxic and would be more welcoming of people of different marginalized identities, and I thought that the sociology department at BU would be that for me. It has been a great experience so far,” Nguyen said. 

To other migrants in a similar position, Nguyen said that she encourages them to be accepting of their identities. 

“I would encourage them to feel comfortable with their identity,” she said. “Normally, there's different cultural and social norms in their own country, and what they do is seen as normal. In America, people see you as an outcast if you behave in a certain way. A lot of times people feel the pressure to fit in, so I would encourage them to feel comfortable with their identity and feel empowered to express themselves in a way that they find fitting for themselves.”

“The second piece of advice,” Nguyen continued, “comes with the ability to find a community of people that you could connect with that they feel like could understand their background, their history, and their memories. Also just be socially aware of what may go on and what might occur to them in their social life.

“I think a lot of times, immigrants, when they come from a different country, they don't have access to social norms and bureaucratic processes,” Nguyen said. “So, it's important to actively seek that out.” 

However, Nguyen, as a sociologist, also understands the role that institutions play in facilitating this access to information and accommodation for a migrant. She said, “the departments should be careful of how they recruit or train students in a way that is not Western centric, so that they could be welcoming of different identities and different experiences.”

Nguyen reverts the expectations placed on migrants back to the responsibility of the institutions. She said, “I guess because I studied sociology from a structural perspective, I would ask BU, or any department, ‘what kind of like structures they could put in place, what kind of mechanisms, or what kind of programs could they provide for students?’”

“It is important for different departments to be able to provide information that would facilitate a smooth transition and accessibility for international students, or at least have it readily available on their website, for students to have access to,” Nguyen said. “Because a lot of times students don't know where to ask or what to ask. You don't know what you don't know. Right? If you don't know what is out there, how can you start asking questions?”