December 2025

I have read many memoirs and books about the immigrant experience, but migration from Vietnam to the United States is a trail that I had not explored until BOAT BABY. Vicky Nguyen was just eight months old when her family left communist Vietnam by boat for a refugee camp in Malaysia. In the photo on the front of the book, she is about 18 months old. She learned to walk as her family was in the camp waiting for their next steps. They were sponsored by an organization in Eugene, Oregon, and moved there as their first stop in the U.S.

Vicky shares how she worked to assimilate into the culture in the States. Her parents were learning English and adapting to their new way of life, starting businesses and providing her home and safety. Vicky was in a quick-study class of American culture. She was observing what others were doing and how she would be able to fit in. She read books that would give her insight into what American kids did. Judy Blume and others were her guides.

What’s interesting is how Vicky melded both her new and old cultures together --- and continues to do so. She became a cheerleader, which brought a built-in group around her that also participated in a number of school activities. She enjoyed the foods of Vietnam and parenting her mother and father in the ways of the States. At the same time, she held onto the ties where your elders continued to be part of your daily family life even as you married. The book is laced with humor as much as it is with love. However, she does not hold back on family situations that dismayed her, namely her father’s casual view of finances that put him and her mother in a terrible position after they had seen success.

Vicky’s love for her husband, who she has known since she was a teen, comes through, as well as her honesty about the challenges she met before becoming a mother --- and how her parents still are a key part of her family life today.

Vicky is now an NBC News senior consumer investigative correspondent and anchor of “NBC News Daily.” She walks readers through the paths at stations across the West that she worked at before landing this coveted spot, where she arrived in late 2019 months before the pandemic. The same spirit that guided her through her years assimilating to life in America is the attitude that she takes to her on-air pieces.

I had a fascinating conversation with Vicky for “Bookreporter Talks To.” You can watch the interview here or listen to it here.