Dr. Y Thien Nguyen

Assistant Professor

Y Thien Nguyen received his PhD in Sociology from Northwestern University. He previously served as a Teaching Fellow in South East Asian History at the University of Leeds, UK and a Research Associate for the US-Vietnam Research Center at the University of Oregon. He was also the Resource Development Manager at the Vietnamese-American non-profit Boat People S.O.S., Inc. His research focuses on Southeast Asia during the Cold War and the history of the Vietnam War and Vietnamese refugee communities. His work examines the ideological, political, and institutional connectivity between the Republic of Vietnam and Vietnamese America. (Fun fact: Y is an avid consumer of Esports and online competitive gaming)

Peer-Reviewed Journals

“(Re)making the South Vietnamese Past in America.” Journal of Asian American Studies. 21, no.1 (2018): 65-103. https://doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2018.00032

Peer-Reviewed Chapters

“When State Propaganda Becomes Social Knowledge,” in Building a Republican Nation in Vietnam, 1920-1963, ed. by Nu-Anh Tran and Tuong Vu. University of Hawaii Press & Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute, 2022.

“Legacies and Diasporic Connectivity: Dialogues and Future Directions of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American Studies,” in Toward a Framework for Vietnamese American Studies: History, Community, and Memory, ed. by Linda Ho Peche, Alex Thai Vo and Tuong Vu. Temple University Press, 2023.

“Understanding the Historical Foundations of Vietnamese American Conservatism,” in Politics of the Multiracial Conservatism, ed. by Daniel Martinez HoSang and Joseph Lowndes. New York University Press, forthcoming March 2024.