Arcadia Public Library

Caodaists worship the left eye as an Asian synthesis of eastern and western traditions. In this film, they tell their stories of exile, anti-colonial struggle, and building immigrant congregations in California. Footage of rituals and temples, and archival images combine to provide a personal perspective on a largely unknown mystical tradition. Older religious leaders tell how this new faith emerged in colonial Saigon in the 1920s and was soon followed...

Têt is the Vietnamese New Year, and it is the first one that Huy is celebrating away from his homeland.

"It started with their ancestor, Oanh, who dared to leave her marriage for true love. So a fearsome Vietnamese witch cursed Oanh and her descendants so that they would never know love or happiness, and the Dương women would give birth to daughters, never sons. Oanh's current descendant Mai Nguyễn knows this curse well. She's divorced, and after an explosive disagreement a decade ago, she's estranged from her younger sisters, Minh Phạm (the middle...

When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She's always lied to fit in, so if she's straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised. But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound, while...

Presents a series of essays on the experiences of Vietnamese who have migrated to the United States, discussing the effects of the Vietnam War on their troubled homeland, their problems in assimilation, and prominent countrymen who have achieved success in America.

"As a young boy, Bao Phi awoke early, hours before his father's long workday began, to fish on the shores of a small pond in Minneapolis. Unlike many other anglers, Bao and his father fished for food, not recreation. Between hope-filled casts, Bao's father told him about a different pond in their homeland of Vietnam"--

"Robert, an Oakland cop, still can't let go of Suzy, the enigmatic Vietnamese wife who left him two years ago. Now she's disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who's blackmailing Robert into finding her for him. As he pursues her through the sleek and seamy gambling dens of Las Vegas, shadowed by Sonny's sadistic son, 'Junior,' and assisted by unexpected and reluctant allies, Robert learns more about his...

Small footprints. Brave steps. Angry and alone, Thuy shuffles, tiptoes, and stomps toward home through fresh snow. Some bullies have been bothering her again. Then a cardinal catches her attention and sets Thuy on a new path. What if she could fly away like a bird? Sprint to safety like a deer? Roar like a bear to show her might? Mimicking their footprints all the way home and into the arms of her moms, Thuy takes on each creature's strengths and...

Khai Diep no tiene sentimientos. Bueno, se siente irritado cuando la gente mueve sus cosas o contento cuando los libros de contabilidad se equilibran hasta el último centavo, pero no experimenta emociones grandes e importantes como el amor y el dolor. En lugar de creer que procesa las emociones de manera diferente debido a que es autista, concluye que es defectuoso y decide evitar las relaciones románticas. Entonces su madre, llevada a la desesperación,...

"From the award-winning author of Stealing Buddha's Dinner, a powerful memoir of a mother-daughter relationship fragmented by war and resettlement. At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her father, sister, grandmother, and uncles fled Saigon for America. Beth's mother stayed--or was left--behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent...