From https://dvan.org/events/accented-56-375/:
ÁCCENTED | Fighting for Collective Freedom: Deportation Defense in Southeast Asian Communities
Join DVAN for ÁCCENTED‘s Season 7 opener with guests Thi Bui & Thao Ha! We’ll discuss deportation defense in SE Asian communities and more.
EVENT DETAILS
Thursday, September 17, 2026 • 6:00 PM PT / 9:00 PM ET
This event is FREE. Please register in advance to receive a link to join the virtual conversation.
ABOUT THE GUESTS
Thi Bui is a writer and artist from Việt Nam, California, and New York, now planting roots in New Orleans. Best known for her graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, which tells the story of her family amidst Việt Nam’s struggles for independence, she has also been a longtime educator in public high schools, a professor of comics, a public speaker, an organizer and artist-activist, an ambivalent sculptor and puppeteer, a fledgling screenwriter, and an award-winning illustrator of children’s books and comics journalism.
Thao Ha is a Vietnamese refugee, sociology professor, author, filmmaker, and non-profit leader. She is the current board president of the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA), board chair of the Doan Foundation, and founder/executive director of Collective Freedom. Love Letters to the Dirty South is her forthcoming memoir about what it means to love, long for, and lose someone incarcerated.
ABOUT THE HOSTS
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and numerous other awards. His most recent publication is A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial. His other books are the sequel to The Sympathizer, The Committed; a short story collection, The Refugees; Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction); and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He has also published Chicken of the Sea, a children’s book written in collaboration with his son, Ellison. He is a University Professor at the University of Southern California. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, he is also the editor of The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, and the forthcoming children’s book Simone illustrated by Minnie Phan.
Website | Instagram
Philip Nguyen is the co-host for ÁCCENTED: Dialogues in Diaspora presented by the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN). He teaches Asian American Studies in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, and is the Executive Director for the Vietnamese American Roundtable, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in California’s South Bay Area. Philip has formerly served as the President of the Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations (UNAVSA) and as the Co-Chair of the Young Vietnamese Americans (YVA) Committee for PIVOT – The Progressive Vietnamese American Organization.
ABOUT DVAN
The Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN) is dedicated to moving the voices and stories of the Vietnamese diaspora from the margins to the center. For over 20 years, DVAN has uplifted diasporic writers and artists through community events, writing residencies, and publishing opportunities, ensuring their perspectives reshape and expand the broader cultural narrative.
ABOUT ÁCCENTED
ÁCCENTED is DVAN’s acclaimed talk show and podcast, hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen and community leader Philip Nguyen. Since launching in 2020, ÁCCENTED has become a global platform for dynamic, thought-provoking conversations that amplify the voices of writers, poets, visual artists, and other cultural producers of the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora.
Please note that by registering for this event, we may contact you about DVAN news, events, and opportunities in the future.
