Andrew Lam (lyricist)
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Andrew Lam (born 1964) is a Vietnamese American author and journalist who has written about the
Overseas Vietnamese Overseas Vietnamese ( vi, người Việt hải ngoại, or ) refers to Vietnamese people who live outside Vietnam. There are approximately 5 million overseas Vietnamese, the largest community of whom live in the Vietnamese Americans, Unite ...
experience.


Biography

Andrew Lam was born Lâm Quang Dũng in 1964 in
South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...
. He led a privileged life as the son of General
Lâm Quang Thi Lieutenant General Lâm Quang Thi (7 May 1932 – 19 January 2021) was a senior military officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Early life and family Lam was born in Bac Lieu in 1932, to a family of wealthy lan ...
of the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN; ; french: Armée de la république du Viêt Nam) composed the ground forces of the Republic of Vietnam Military Forces, South Vietnamese military from its inception in 1955 to the Fall of Saigon in April ...
. 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 ...
in Đà Lạt. Lam left Vietnam with his family during the fall of Saigon in April 1975. He attended the University of California, Berkeley where he majored in biochemistry. He soon abandoned plans for medical school and entered a creative writing program at San Francisco State University. While still in school he began writing for Pacific News Service 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, letter ...
. A PBS 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'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
. 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)
Essays
"Letter to a Vietnamese cousin: Should you come to America?", December 22, 2002"Andrew Lam's essays on New America Media""Andrew Lam's essays on Huffington Post"
Fiction *"Slingshot" in '' Zyzzyva'', 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 LGBT journalists American male journalists American male short story writers American LGBT people of Asian descent Gay journalists Gay businessmen PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners American male non-fiction writers Vietnamese LGBT journalists Vietnamese LGBT businesspeople English-language literature of Vietnam 21st-century LGBT people