Love Letters to the Dirty South

A stunning debut memoir about love, loss, and the Vietnamese immigrant experience in the American South.

As an infant, Thao Ha was evacuated on one of the last flights out of Saigon during the fall of the city in April 1975. Like the other lucky few—and the thousands who came after—she and her family found sanctuary in America. Raised in the growing Vietnamese community in Houston, she did all the things American kids of the ’80s and ’90s did—but she also ran with a Vietnamese street gang. B...