Our friend Tracey Nguyen Mang, host of the Vietnamese Boat People Podcast, goes behind the scenes with Lisa Phu in this conversation — about how to document the lives of our parents, when that process can feel overwhelming.

This episode, recorded live online, is the Season 6 Premiere of The Vietnamese Boat People, a podcast and nonprofit project that preserves the story of the Vietnamese diaspora community — and provides spaces where people can share their experiences. This latest season of their podcast follows the theme, “Ba, Mẹ ơi” (which roughly translates to "Dear Dad and Mom"). You can listen to more stories from the season by searching for “Vietnamese Boat People” where you get podcasts, or on their website.

Boen’s mom thinks he’s brainwashed by the New York Times. Boen thinks his mom is brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party. But when Boen starts listening more deeply to his mom’s stories of growing up in China and then immigrating to the U.S., he spots the signs of his own political conditioning — and unravels the threads of Chinese and American history that led to the very fabrication of “brainwashing” as a concept.

This story comes from our friends at Feet in 2 Worlds, originally airing on their podcast, A Better Life? — and was written and produced by Boen Wang. Full transcript, credits, and show notes available on our website.

Full episode transcript available on the Grief, Collected website.

Episode Credits 

• Grief, Collected is a production of The Mash-Up Americans
• Executive produced by Amy S. Choi and Rebecca Lehrer
• Senior editor and producer is Sara Pellegrini
• Development Producer is Dupe Oyebolu
• Production manager Shelby Sandlin
• Original music composed by The Brothers Tang
• Sound design support by Pedro Rafael Rosado
• Website design by Rebecca Parks Fernandez
• Grief, Collected was supported in part by a grant from The Pop Culture Collaborative