Vietnamese Boat People Podcast Records

The Vietnamese Boat People podcast and nonprofit was founded in 2018 by Tracey Nguyen Mang (1977-) whose family of nine fled Vietnam by boat between 1978 and 1981, arriving and reuniting in the US in 1984. Growing up, Nguyen Mang was ashamed of the stigma associated with being a refugee. Her parents rarely spoke about their past, and the pain and losses they endured seemed to linger silently in their lives. Nguyen Mang started the podcast to create a platform that would help capture her community’s stories, amplify marginalized Asian and refugee voices through storytelling, and encourage younger generations to embrace and be inspired by their history and heritage.

The podcast features a curated collection of stories of the Vietnamese diaspora sourced and told directly by community members. It focuses on those who fled Vietnam, often by boat, following the Vietnam War in the years 1975-1992. Vietnamese Boat People is available on major podcast platforms such as Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Stitcher and currently reaches listeners all over the world.

The Vietnamese Boat People Podcast Records consists of materials documenting the creation and production of the Vietnamese Boat People podcast, including electronic audio files, transcripts, and supplemental photographs. Each podcast episode is documented through an edited audio version with soundbed music, edited audio version without soundbed, raw interview files, English-language transcripts, and digitized photographs.

To learn more about the Vietnamese Boat People Podcast Records at the NYU Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, view the collection’s finding aid.

Top left, bottom left, and top right images: Photographs of Tracey Nguyen Mang’s family in a Singapore Refugee camp, 1981; Vietnamese Boat People Podcast Records; TAM.800; Electronic records; Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University Libraries.

Bottom right: Photograph of Tracey Nguyen Mang’s family arriving in the USA, undated; Vietnamese Boat People Podcast Records; TAM.800; Electronic records; Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University Libraries.