NBC News anchor and correspondent Vicky Nguyen visited the 7th floor at the Starvos Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) located on 455 Fifth Avenue. She joined fellow book lovers for her first book release with her new autobiographic memoir, “Boat Baby” on Wednesday, April 23rd. 2025.
She pens this memoir as a “love letter to America and her parents”. The Vietnamese-born American joins NYPL for a conversation about her new book with moderator, reporter, and founder of the non-profit organization, Vietnamese Boat People, Tracy Nguyen Mang.
The book tells her the story of her family’s daring escape from communist Vietnam and their journey from refugee to California. The book recognizes and begins in April 1975, after the Fall of Saigon. The Fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, marked the end of the Vietnam War. The fall of the city marked the end of the South Vietnamese government and decades of conflict with the North Vietnamese Army’s capture of Saigon. As the North Vietnamese military took control of the whole country, over two million Vietnamese immigrants fled to the United States on boats across the South China Sea to available asylums and refugee camps.
Nguyen and her parents would come to the U.S. when she was eight months old in 1979. She became a naturalized citizen at the age of 10. The term “boat baby” was a term used to describe the children of refugees fleeing Vietnam throughout the 1970s.
“It is hard to imagine that my family had gone through many ups and downs in my childhood,” said Nguyen. Her family moved to San Jose, California. Many Vietnamese immigrants built a community in San Jose and Orange County and nicknamed it “Little Saigon”. Nguyen describes her struggle to fit into the American culture and had to figure out how to be American and bridge the cultural gap. “I was always asking where I fit in,” said Nguyen.
“In the community I grew up in, in a predominantly white town. Growing up in San Jose, California, in 7th grade, they would tease me, saying I’m being too white, and not knowing the slang, and not being able to talk to my peers.
“With the white kids, it was “ok, you’re not us” and I wasn’t a third or fourth generation Chinese or Japanese American, so there was always a question, on where do I fit?” she said.
In 1996, Nguyen attended college at the University of San Francisco on an academic scholarship. She served as president of her student body and graduated in 2000 with a degree in Communications with a minor in biology.
After college, she started her career with Central Florida News 13 in Orlando, Florida, and then moved to ABC in Reno, Nevada, as their night reporter and fill-in anchor. Next, she moved to Phoenix, Arizona, for FOX KSAZ-10. She had notable interviews with Tyra Banks, Shaquille O’Neal, and Senator John McCain. She also covered the Baseline Killer. Mark Goudeau, who was a serial killer and rapist responsible nine murders in Phoenix between August 2005-June 2006.
In 2007, she returned to California and started working for NBC Bay Area as a freelance reporter. She was later hired as part of the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit. In 2011 and 2012, she was awarded four Emmy nominations, and won two in the category of “On-Camera Talent-Reporting”
In 2014, she won two more Emmys. Today, she has a total of 15 Emmys in counting.
In 2019, she joined NBC News New York as the Investigative and Consumer correspondent. She has appeared on The Today Show and Nightly News with Lester Holt. She took the time to speak about her advice for anyone interested in entering TV journalism. “It is hard,” said Nguyen. “It is hard because it is a competitive industry, and there is always a need for more supply than demand. There is room, and there is a need for more journalists,” said Nguyen. “The focus of journalism is public service and using the microphone as a platform. If you want to be a journalist, be prepared to work hard, be persistent, and develop a thick skin, ” she said.
She next discussed why she came to NYPL for her book tour and how the library is important for our community. “The New York Public Library is such a gift!” said Nguyen. “Even when I was growing up in California, I knew that there was nothing more representative of American society than the New York Public Library. said Nguyen. “It is a place where you can go to feel safe, and it is heated or air conditioned, and access to all kinds of information for free, and you can borrow up to 50 books at a time. It is a luxury! The library holds a special place with me,” she said
The moderator, Mang, took a moment to express her feelings on what the memoir meant to her.
“In general, stories like this are so important because they create more compassion and understanding of yourself. But when we were growing stories like this did not exist in public media, and were not told in the first person. It was told by journalists and historians. It defiantly not taught in the classroom for our children. Since it was lacking growing up, we felt we were out of place.” said Mang. ” I feel like there is going to be a change happening to share more Asian American stories for ” she said.
Nguyen discussed her process of writing her memoir. Her TV agent insisted her family’s story was special and should be documented. She had to go back and learn more about her parents’ lives before she was born. Her mother, Lien Do, and her father, Huy Nguyen, helped her document their story after spending 10 months in a refugee camp off the coast of Malaysia before coming to the U.S.
“I wrote the book, where an eight-year-old or an 80-year-old can read and reach a diverse audience and for some where English isn’t there first language, like my parents” I wrote the book the same way I speak.” There a lot of heavy books on the Asian refugees, like The Manicurist Daughter by Susan Lieu, but my book discusses the universal truths that all people of all walks of life can relate too.” she said “It all starts with education”
Her continuing effort to promote diversity in education. She has partnered up with The Very Asian Foundation. It is a non-profit organization created in 2022 by St. Louis Korean TV Anchor Michelle Li. It is a foundation that raises money and donates books by Asian historical figures to schools for grades K-12. Copies of “Boat Baby” will be donated to schools through The Very Asian Foundation.
She also discussed the changes in the family dynamic in the Vietnamese family and the love language. She discussed there being no mental health in the Vietnamese culture. With her parents, she describes her parents’ love language “was not spoken, but shown”.
“Growing up, their love was shown through food and having a hot meal with clothes, and school supplies. My parents worked seven days a week,” she said. “But now, it is drastically different. My parents went from Vietnamese parents to Vietnamese-American grandparents, and now they have learned the American way of expressing affection and feelings with my three daughters. My parents did the best they could with what they had at the time they had it. My relationship with my mother is a much more affectionate and loving relationship, and I am glad to experience that.”
Since April 1st, she has been going to her book tour discussing the meaning behind the memoir. Her next stops on the tour in New York is a segment on the 11th Hour on MSNBC on April 30th. It is for the commemoration the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
She also will attend Saigon Social NYC down in Chinatown on Orchard Street with Vietnamese comfort food like Banh Knot ( mini Vietnamese pancakes) with Chef Helen Nguyen. Her last date in New York will be May 6th, where she will be at the Asia Society and Museum. After that, she will be off to Houston, Texas, to the Asia Society of Texas Center on May 22nd.
She ended the book session after the Q&A with one thing she hopes to achieve with this memoir: “Sometimes you have to make room for goals you didn’t envision for yourself. It is important to know your history. This book is going to restore faith in what it means to be American.”
Photo Credit: Sherica Daley & Book Credit: Vicky Nguyen
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