TigerFish

A refugee story of war, survival, and becoming American.

In 1975, I left Vietnam as a teenager and arrived in America carrying the memories of a country, a family, and a life I had been forced to leave behind.

TigerFish is my story of growing up in wartime Vietnam, fleeing after the fall of Saigon, and beginning again in a place I did not yet understand. It is about displacement and adaptation, but also about family, identity, resilience, and the complicated process of becoming American without losing where you came from.

At its heart, TigerFish is a coming-of-age story shaped by history—and the first chapter in the larger family story I continue in Dragons Don’t Dance.

For readers of memoir, refugee stories, Vietnamese American history, and stories about finding home between two worlds.