Literally Displaced

Writing the Southeast Asian Diaspora

An exhibit on Southeast Asian American Writers

Literally Displaced: Writing the Southeast Asian Diaspora centers the voices, memories, experiences, and desires of writers from the Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, and Vietnamese diaspora. Exploring their selected published works alongside materials from the University of California, Irvine Libraries Southeast Asian Archive, this exhibit asks how literature illuminates the conditions of displacement for Southeast Asian Americans and what new understanding emerges when we write from the position of the displaced. Through these writers' masterful storytelling and representations, we are invited to delve deep into themes such as the role of language in refugee families, vexed identity formations, familial connections, negotiating cultural memory, and more. This digital exhibit accompanies the physical exhibit running in the Orange County & Southeast Asian Archive Center on March 1-April 30, 2022 and is a partnership between the UCI Libraries OC&SEAA Center, the Humanities Center, and Illuminations: the Chancellor's Art & Culture Initiative at the University of California, Irvine.

le thi diem thuy

thi diem thuy is a Vietnamese-American writer and performer known for her works such as The Gangster We Are All Looking For and Red Fiery Summer (Mùa Hè Đỏ Lửa).

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Viet is a Pulitzer Prize winning Vietnamese-American author best known for his spy thriller novel The Sympathizer.


Anthony Veasna So

Anthony is a Cambodian-American author who is known for his work Afterparties.

Loung Ung

Loung is a Cambodian human rights activist and Cambodian genocide survivor, her best known published work is First They Killed My Father.

Mai Der Vang

Mai is a Hmong-American poet. She is best known for her collection of poems titled Yellow Rain.

Ocean Vuong

Ocean is an openly gay Vietnamese-American writer and poet known for his work On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.



Kao Kalia Yang

Kao Kalia is a Hmong-American writer known for her memoirs, such as The Latehomecomer, and numerous children's books.




We have compiled a number of other Southeast Asian and Southeast Asian American Writers: