Boat Baby

January 15, 2025
The daughter of Vietnamese refugees climbs the long ladder to 30 Rock. Following in the path of colleagues like Connie Chung and Dion Lim, Nguyen offers insight into her experience of growing up Asian American and achieving a high-profile career as a broadcast journalist. She begins with an account of her parents' hair-raising escape from Vietnam in the 1970s, during which she was a babe in arms, followed by an account of her girlhood in California, when the family moved around quite a bit. Following her father's early entrepreneurial successes, the threesome lived in both predominantly Vietnamese areas and ones where minorities were few. Often drawing self-help-style advice from her experience, she offers a few pieces of counsel we have not heard before: "I tell you, cheerleading is underrated as a crash course in social skills." She also shares insights into various aspects of Vietnamese culture: "Berating the survivor for getting hurt in the first place is our language of love." Because her career path has been relatively smooth, the main friction in the memoir comes from her relationship with her father, whose successful years in business were followed by a long period of embarrassing failure and delusion. The book is framed around the decision to move her family, including both parents, from the West Coast to New York for her high-profile job on NBC'sToday show, a tough move for her husband, who had just started his dream job in medicine. Unfortunately, the moment they got there, the pandemic hit, taking the wind out of their sails, and also providing a somewhat awkward and abrupt ending to the book. A letter of gratitude and inspiration addressed to her daughters is included as a coda. An upbeat immigration and career narrative.

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March 1, 2025
This engaging memoir by Nguyen, of Today Show fame, isn't a story of driven ambition or an industry expos�. It is a quietly moving story of evolving family relationships and the importance of love, respect, and support. Nguyen and her parents were ""Boat People,"" leaving Vietnam for America in 1979. With grace and insight, she shares scenes of her striving immigrant parents and her own struggles to assimilate as a kid. Rather than ignore difficult situations, Nguyen tends to downplay them with humor, balance, and honesty, such as the time she fearlessly faced a racist neighborhood bully, armed with just a butter knife. Later, she repudiates unwelcome sexual advances and a largely indifferent HR response. Overcome with emotion, she manages to deliver the news during the pandemic while privately reeling from reports of brutal attacks on Asian elders. She frankly discusses her multiple miscarriages, evolving relationship with her parents, and the dynamics of navigating a two-career marriage. Nguyen traces her career path from indifferent student to crusading cub reporter to award-winning investigative journalist. It's an enjoyable ride.

COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.