BOAT BABY

Funny, heartbreaking, nostalgic and poignant, BOAT BABY is about the strength of family. In the tradition of We Are Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story by Simu Liu and Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, Vicky Nguyen looks at the immigrant experience from a refreshing and intelligent perspective, and with a strong and clear voice.

Vicky is a journalist who is writing about her family's struggles before, during and after leaving Vietnam. Desperate families, driven by the desire for freedom, fled the violence and chaos in Vietnam after the war. They left any way that they could, usually fleeing by boat across the South China Sea. Here, they were easy pickings for Thai pirates and crooked captains. Many died or vanished at sea, completely exposed to the elements, or prey to outlaws.

Vicky Nguyen and her family had the quintessential Vietnamese immigrant experience. Attacked at sea by pirates, left on a Malaysian beach, the Nguyens nevertheless made their way to America, where they set about assimilating and making a new life for themselves. BOAT BABY is Vicky's memoir of growing up in an eclectic Vietnamese family, while simultaneously taking us back to the time before her birth, when her parents struggled under harsh communist rule. Deciding to leave is half the story.figuring out HOW to be American is the other half.

Vicky is a Senior Reporter and NBC News Daily anchor. She is married with three daughters, and yes! still living with her parents.