This post first appeared on the Pacific Link Foundation's ADAPT: Stop Human Trafficking blog on July 11. The original post and a Vietnamese translation can be found here. For the past three weeks, I’ve been living and working at Pacific Links’ reintegration shelter for trafficking survivors in northern Vietnam. There are twelve girls, ages thirteen to twenty-two, from five … [Read more...] about Inside Human Trafficking: The Stories of a Girl
Agent Orange Studies Overlook Vietnamese Americans
The original post can be found here. A few years ago, my father, a former naval officer in the South Vietnamese Army, developed liver cancer. The diagnosis followed decades of struggle with Hepatitis C, a viral infection he contracted through a blood transfusion during the war. A liver transplant saved his life. More than two years since the operation, and my father’s life … [Read more...] about Agent Orange Studies Overlook Vietnamese Americans
Post 9/11, Is Coming to America Still Worth the Journey?
Today marks ten years since the September 11 attacks of 2001. As we commemorate the lives of the innocent thousands that passed away, the 10 year anniversary also marks an occasion to reflect on how America has changed in the past decade. Is America still the shining beacon of hope and haven for tolerance and social mobility it once was? Have we surrounded our core values for a … [Read more...] about Post 9/11, Is Coming to America Still Worth the Journey?
An Artists’s Perspective: The Stories We Share, The Lessons We Learn
As noted in last Thursday's post, VAALA will soon be hosting a new exhibition titled "Marvelous Metaphors: Art as Visual Poetry" to encourage audiences to experience art as they would poetry. One of the artists to be featured at the exhibition, Trinh Mai, has kindly shared with VTP her artist's statement. The final art product is itself a matter of contemplation, but knowing an … [Read more...] about An Artists’s Perspective: The Stories We Share, The Lessons We Learn
South China Sea: Détente vs. Deterrence
Thi Quang Lam is a former general in the South Vietnamese Army and the author of The Twenty-Five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon and Hell in An Loc: the 1972 Easter Invasion and the Battle that Saved South Vietnam. View the original post on New America Media here. When it comes to geopolitics, especially in the … [Read more...] about South China Sea: Détente vs. Deterrence