Thao Hà is the author of the new memoir Love Letters to the Dirty South. She is a professor at MiraCosta College, and she lives in Oceanside, California.
Q: Why did you decide to write Love Letters to the Dirty South?
A: If you've ever shared parts of your life with people, and the response from multiple individuals has been "Wow, you should write a book about this," then you should probably do it.
As a sociologist, educator, nonprofit leader, and public speaker, sharing stories about my life with others is common - so common that it began to feel natural telling anyone and everyone pretty much anything and everything about my life whether the anecdotes or aspects be personal or professional.
As an avid reader of biographies and memoirs, I often felt inspired to write my own story. But for me to complete a memoir manuscript required more than just intermittent bursts of motivation. It wasn’t until I experienced life’s heavy-handed punches to the soul during significant episodes and periods of time in my life that became the catalyst for writing.
I also needed time for intense reflections on the lessons learned and a willingness to be vulnerable in order to share the writing as a gift to readers. There is something deeply beautiful in our interconnectedness and in the enduring spirit and universality of the human experience.
I decided to write this book because love, loss, and grief are universal, and to bear the totality of their impact within our hearts, minds, and bodies often feels insurmountable in the early aftermath. Writing was my way of making sense of everything, coping with chaotic thoughts and feelings, and sharing it with others.
Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: My love story with Vu began in Houston, Texas, in 1992. We grew up listening to rap music in the 1980s and 1990s and gravitated toward the region’s representative genre - Dirty South rap.
With its distinct slower tempo (what we liked to call syrupy) and regional slang, the gangsters who I kicked it with blasted Dirty South beats on our portable boom boxes and in our cars. When we traveled out of state, and someone asked us where we’re from, we replied, "Htown, baby. I'm from da Dirty South!"
Given that Vu did time in a Texas state prison, and our main source of communication was through letters, the title delivers the matrix of our own experiences and a love story that unfolded throughout space and time.
I'd like to add that the UNM Press design team did an impeccable job creating the cover with me. I think it's stunning, and I'm amazed how they were able to pull artwork from a stack of prison envelopes and artwork I’ve kept over the years.
Q: The author Carolyn Huynh called the book an “urgent, lyrical coming-of-age love story.” What do you think of that description?
A: Carolyn Huynh is someone I admire as an author and as a Vietnamese American woman. To receive this endorsement is personally and professionally touching and an affirmation that the core of the story is suited for the moment.
The current state of affairs related to mass incarceration, immigration, and the refugee experience has roots that Vu and I were entangled in. It's relevant today, and what our community is going through is very real, endlessly frustrating, and a crucial piece in the annals of our history as Americans who came as Vietnamese refugees.
Q: What impact did it have on you to write this book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?
A: Writing was definitively therapeutic. As a refugee from Vietnam in 1975, the early generations in my community did not have a clue about therapy.
Cultural norms dictated that struggle is common, feelings are kept to oneself, and the expression of anything less than model-minority brings shame to oneself and any extension of the self, including the family. Therapy or counseling was never a concept I fully understood.
There's a passage in the book where I admit that my response to any suggestion of therapy or counseling was "Hell no!" But as a practicing Buddhist and follower of Stoic philosophy, I understood that my inner struggle had to go somewhere.
As a kid, I wrote a lot in diaries. As an adult, I write in a journal. I can't remember the exact moment when I began writing to share online. But as an adult in a digital society, blogging was my way of sharing my "adult diary" entries.
My hope has always been and is that my audience finds that they're not alone and that they can, and they will, make it out on the other side of the darkness. And for those who've not experienced what I write about, maybe their curiosity will lead to understanding, and perhaps compassion and empathy.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: It's a thrill and deeply humbling when I'm asked not if, but when the book will become a film. With some experience in filmmaking and as a board member of an organization that hosts the largest Vietnamese film festival outside of Vietnam, I understand that films are a colossal project that requires a vast enterprise. But, it doesn't mean I'm saying no.
It's in the works, and with new modes of distribution and evolving methodologies for funding and creating a visual representation of the book, I'm doing deep study and meeting with different media players to see what's possible and probable.
Given that the book is a memoir, I've also undertaken the task of learning about screenplays and book adaptations so that I have some level of control over the story.
In addition, I'm working on concepts for the next book(s). One is also about loss - my father and my dog. I lost both last year within the span of five weeks. The other is anchored in the experience of Vietnamese deportations. Fiction, nonfiction, memoir? I haven't figured that out yet, and there is joy in discovering along the way how those stories will be told.
Q: I’m so sorry for your loss…
Is there anything else we should know about the book?
A: Authors often express the delight of meeting with their readers. As a debut author, I feel an anticipatory thrill. Organizing a book tour is mammoth of an endeavor.
I'm grateful for my publicist and publisher's team. Their enthusiasm and tireless work in outreach and coordination are nothing less than stellar. My friends, family, and community supporters are a boisterous bunch with an infectious joie de vivre, and that means some book events are going to be parties - outright loud, rowdy, a helluva lot of fun!
Currently I’m already scheduled for Denver, CO at Fall Con on October 7; Orange County, CA, at Asia Garden Mall on October 24; Houston, TX, at Brazos Books on November 11; and New Orleans at Octavia Books on November 12. For updates on the book tour or to connect with me, find me on Instagram or Threads @thaohaphd, Facebook @thaohaphdCF, or my website www.thaohaphd.com.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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