tuannyriver

Click here for a list of archives that I have visited for my book project on a history of Vietnamese refugees. And here for publications and here for presentations.

My primary research interests are the history of Vietnam in the twentieth century, particularly the history of noncommunist thought from late colonialism to the end of the Vietnam War as well as the history of Catholics in South Vietnam. In addition is the postwar history of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in the U.S., which is a long-term project. 

Summer 2025 – Keston Center, Baylor University

Besides archival materials, which are mostly in English, primary sources come from published materials noncommunist Vietnamese in the Republic of Vietnam or Vietnamese refugees in America.  In South Vietnam and America later, Vietnamese produced a massive amount of publications, many of whose copies are kept at Cornell, University of California, University of Washington, and other institutions.  There are many other documents, Vietnamese or English, at archives across the U.S. and Vietnam. 

To place it in a broader background, recent historical scholarship on South Vietnam focuses on politics and diplomacy and a good deal less on society, culture, and intellect. But the tides have begun turning since the mid-2010s. In comparison, the studies of Vietnamese Americans and the Vietnamese diaspora have come primarily from the social sciences, which means there is a lot for historians like myself to discover and explain.