People usually pick up The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote expecting a standard collection of immigrant struggle stories. You know the type. Heavy on the "new world" optimism, maybe a little bit of longing for a lost kitchen or a grandmother’s recipe.
But that's not what this is. Honestly, it’s much weirder and darker.
Viet Thanh Nguyen, who basically became a household name after winning the Pulitzer for The Sympathizer, spent about twenty years working on these short stories. You can feel that weight. It’s a book about people who are living in California or visiting Vietnam, but they are all, in some way, being haunted. Not by Casper-style ghosts—though there is one literal ghost in the first story—but by the versions of themselves that didn't make it across the ocean.
Why The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen Hits Different
Most fiction about the Vietnamese diaspora focuses on the war. The helicopters. The fall of Saigon in 1975. While those events are the "big bang" for every character in this book, Nguyen is way more interested in the messy, awkward, and sometimes cruel ways people try to survive after the history books stop caring.
Take the story "Black-Eyed Women." It’s the opener. It’s about a ghostwriter—ironic, right?—who lives with her mother. They’re survivors of a boat journey. When the ghost of her brother shows up, he’s still wet from the ocean. He hasn't aged. It’s creepy, but it’s also a perfect metaphor. For many refugees, the past isn't "back there." It’s sitting in the living room, dripping water on the carpet.
Nguyen avoids the "model minority" trap. His characters aren't all saints. They lie to their families. They cheat. They harbor deep, ugly resentments. In "The Liar," we see how deception becomes a survival mechanism. Sometimes you lie because the truth is just too heavy to carry into a new language.
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The Long Road to Publication
Nguyen didn't just whip this out after his novel became a hit. He started these stories in 1997. Think about that. He was writing these while the world was changing, through the 90s, the early 2000s, and the post-9/11 era. By the time The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen was published in 2017, it felt like a lifetime of observation packed into a few hundred pages.
He’s mentioned in various interviews, including talks at the Library of Congress, that short stories are actually harder for him than novels. In a novel, you can sprawl. In a story like "The Other Woman" or "I’d Love You to Want Me," every single sentence has to do the work of a sledgehammer.
There’s this specific nuance in the story "I’d Love You to Want Me" that perfectly captures the "refugee" experience without mentioning a single boat. An aging man with dementia starts calling his wife by the wrong name. She’s devastated, obviously. But it’s deeper. It’s about the fear of being forgotten by the one person who shared your original world. When you lose your country, your partner is your only witness. What happens when the witness goes blank? It’s brutal.
Identity Isn't a Straight Line
The book also challenges the idea that "refugee" is a permanent state of being, or even a single identity. In "The Homeland," we follow a woman named Phuong who stays in Vietnam while her sister, Shea, goes to America. When Shea returns, she’s "the rich American sister."
But she’s a fake.
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She’s pretending to be more successful than she is. This flips the script. Usually, we think of the person who stayed behind as the one who lost out. Nguyen shows the psychological toll of trying to live up to the "American Dream" while your family back home views you as a walking ATM.
What People Get Wrong About the Keyword "Refugee"
Nguyen has been very vocal—in his non-fiction book Nothing Ever Dies and his various essays—about the difference between an "immigrant" and a "refugee."
- Immigrants usually move by choice, seeking something better.
- Refugees are pushed. They are the "unwanted."
This distinction is all over the book. The characters in The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen didn't necessarily want to be in San Jose or Westminster. They were dropped there by history. That creates a specific kind of friction. You see it in the way they interact with their kids, who are "too American," and the way they look at the neighbors.
The Art of the Unsaid
One of the best things about Nguyen’s style is what he leaves out. He doesn't over-explain Vietnamese culture for a white audience. He doesn't put a glossary at the back. You’re just dropped into the middle of these lives.
In "Fatherland," the final story, a man in Vietnam names his second set of children the exact same names as his first set of children who moved to America. It’s bizarre. It’s a bit pathological. But it’s a desperate attempt to replace what was lost. When the two sets of siblings finally meet, the "clash of civilizations" isn't a political debate—it’s a quiet, painful realization that they are strangers who happen to share a name and a father.
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Actionable Insights for Readers and Writers
If you're looking to engage with this work or the themes Nguyen explores, don't just read it as a "diverse" book to check off a list.
- Look for the "Ghost" in every story. Even when there isn't a literal spirit, ask: what is the character haunted by? Is it a lost career? A dead sibling? A version of themselves that stayed in Saigon?
- Pay attention to the setting. Nguyen is a master of "Little Saigon" geography. Notice how the heat of California is often contrasted with the memories of the monsoon rains in Vietnam.
- Read his non-fiction alongside it. If you want to understand the "why" behind these stories, read The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, which Nguyen edited. It provides the political backbone to the emotional meat of his fiction.
- Examine the power dynamics. Notice who has the money and who has the "moral high ground" in these stories. It’s rarely the person you expect.
The Refugees Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote serves as a reminder that displacement isn't an event that ends when you get a green card. It’s a permanent shift in how you see the world. It’s about the "double vision" of seeing where you are and where you should have been, all at the same time.
To truly grasp the impact of this collection, one should look at the current global climate. With millions of people displaced today, Nguyen's work moves beyond the specific Vietnamese-American experience and becomes a manual for understanding the human soul under pressure. It’s not an easy read, but it’s an essential one for anyone trying to navigate a world where borders are constantly shifting.
Next Steps for Deep Engagement:
- Audit your own family history: Most of us have a "refugee" or "migrant" story somewhere in the lineage. Write down the details that aren't about the move—the smells, the specific objects lost, the small lies told to keep the peace.
- Support Refugee Literacies: Check out organizations like The International Rescue Committee (IRC) or local ESL programs. Nguyen often emphasizes that giving refugees a voice is as important as giving them a home.
- Comparative Reading: Pair this book with The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui. It’s a graphic memoir that covers similar ground but through a visual lens, helping to round out the historical context Nguyen references.