REFRACTIONS

Author’s Note

In a time when borders blur and traditions are tested, identity becomes a negotiation—a constant refracting of memory, culture, and aspiration.
This series, Refractions: Vietnam’s Identity in a Shifting World, is both a meditation and a provocation. It was born from the tension I feel standing between worlds: Vietnamese and diasporic, ancient and digital, collective and individual.
Each essay traces a different thread in Vietnam’s identity—how it has been shaped by history, distorted by power, and reimagined through art, technology, and exile.
Refraction, as a metaphor, is not about fragmentation—it is about transformation. When light hits water, it bends; when Vietnamese identity moves through colonialism, capitalism, diaspora, or nationalism, it too bends—but it doesn’t disappear.
These writings are neither definitive nor complete. They are reflections, and like all reflections, they depend on light, angle, and movement. My hope is that in these words, you’ll find your own refractions—your own ways of seeing what it means to be Vietnamese in this shifting world.