Andrew Lam (born 1964) is a

Vietnamese American Vietnamese Americans () are Americans of Vietnamese ancestry. They constitute a major part of all overseas Vietnamese. As of 2023, over 2.3 million people of Vietnamese descent live in the United States, making them the fourth largest Asian Ame ...

author and journalist who has written about the

Overseas Vietnamese Overseas Vietnamese (, , or ) refers to the Vietnamese diaspora living outside of Vietnam. The global overseas Vietnamese population is estimated at 5 to 6 million people. The largest communities are in the United States, with over 2.3 million ...

experience.

Biography

Andrew Lam was born Lâm Quang Dũng in 1964 in

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam (RVN; , VNCH), was a country in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975. It first garnered Diplomatic recognition, international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam within the ...

. He was the son of General

Lâm Quang Thi Lâm Quang Thi (7 May 1932 – 19 January 2021) was a Lieutenant general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Early life and family Thi was born in Bac Lieu on 7 May 1932, to a family of wealthy landowning farmers. ...

of the

Army of the Republic of Vietnam The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN; ; ) composed the ground forces of the Republic of Vietnam Military Forces, South Vietnamese military from its inception in 1955 to the Fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Its predecessor was the ground forc ...

. He attended

Lycée Yersin The Lycée Yersin was a school founded in 1927 in Da Lat, Vietnam, to educate the children of French colonialists and upper class Vietnamese. After various changes, it is now the Pedagogical College of Da Lat (Vietnamese: Trường Cao đẳng S� ...

Đà Lạt Da Lat, or Dalat (; ), is the capital of Lâm Đồng Province and the largest city of the Central Highlands region in Vietnam. The city is located above sea level on the Langbiang Plateau. Da Lat is one of the most popular tourist destinat ...

. Lam left Vietnam with his family during the

fall of Saigon The fall of Saigon, known in Vietnam as Reunification Day (), was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by North Vietnam on 30 April 1975. As part of the 1975 spring offensive, this decisive event led to the collapse of the So ...

in April 1975. He attended the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, where he majored in biochemistry. He soon abandoned plans for medical school and entered a creative writing program at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

. While still in school he began writing for

Pacific News Service Pacific News Service (PNS) was an American nonprofit alternative news media organization. PNS ceased operations in 2017. The organization was located in Berkeley, California. History PNS was founded in 1969 by historian and sociologist F ...

and in 1993 won the Outstanding Young Journalist Award from the

Society of Professional Journalists The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is the oldest organization representing journalists in the United States. It was established on April 17, 1909, at DePauw University,2009 SPJ Annual Report, lette ...

. A

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

documentary produced by WETA in 2004, ''My Journey Home'', told 3 stories of Americans returning to their ancestral homelands, including of Lam's return to Vietnam. He is currently the web editor of New America Media. He is also a journalist and short story writer. In 2005, he published a collection of essays, ''Perfume Dreams'', about the problem of identity as a Vietnamese living in the U.S. Lam received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2006 for ''Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora.'' He is a regular contributor to National Public Radio's ''All Things Considered''. His second book, ''East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres'' is a meditation on east–west relations, and how Asian immigration changed the West. It was named Top Ten Indies by Shelf Unbound Magazine in 2010. ''Birds of Paradise Lost'', his third book, is a collection of short stories about Vietnamese newcomers struggling to remake their lives in the San Francisco Bay after a long, painful exodus from Vietnam. Lam blogs regularly on

Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers ...

. He was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University 2001–2002. Though reticent about speaking about his sexuality, in 2009 Lam gave an interview for a collection of portraits of homosexual Americans.Gambone, 194-9

Publications

Books
''Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora'', (Heyday Books, 2005)''East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres'', (Heyday Books, 2010)''Birds of Paradise Lost'', (Red Hen Press, 2013)''Stories from the Edge of the Sea'', (Red Hen Press, 2025)
Essays
"Letter to a Vietnamese cousin: Should you come to America?", December 22, 2002
*
"Andrew Lam's essays on Huffington Post"
Fiction *"Slingshot" in ''

Zyzzyva ''Zyzzyva'' is a triannual magazine of writers and artists. It places an emphasis on showcasing emerging voices and never before published writers in addition to the already established. Based in San Francisco, it began publishing in 1985. ''ZYZ ...

'', winter 1998
available online
Short Stories "Show and Tell"

Quotes

* "Art is the lesser sister to medicine. It aims to heal."

Notes

External links

a short story
Andrew Lam page
on Alternet

on WQED
"Cõi già trên đất lạ,"
a translation by Nguyễn Đức Nguyên of Andrew Lam's "Aging in a Foreign Land," printed here with original English version {{DEFAULTSORT:Lam, Andrew 1964 births Living people 21st-century American businesspeople American short story writers American gay writers Vietnamese emigrants to the United States University of California, Berkeley alumni Vietnamese writers American writers of Vietnamese descent American LGBTQ journalists American male journalists American male short story writers American LGBTQ people of Asian descent Gay journalists Gay businessmen PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners American male non-fiction writers Vietnamese gay men Vietnamese LGBTQ journalists Vietnamese LGBTQ businesspeople English-language literature of Vietnam 21st-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century Vietnamese LGBTQ people 21st-century Vietnamese male writers