Uprooted Coffee is an immigrant-owned coffee company based in Minnesota, sourcing high-quality specialty coffee from Southeast Asia and roasting them in small batches in the Twin Cities.
Saengmany Ratsabout and Gao Lee are a married couple living in the Twin Cities. Saengmany has been an avid coffee consumer for many years and enjoys learning about all things coffee. His family immigrated to the United States as refugees when he was four years old; they’ve lived in Atlanta, Georgia and Sacramento, California and he has called Minnesota home for the past 25 years. Aside from his passion for coffee, he is an independent scholar with research interest in Southeast Asian history, U.S. refugee resettlement, return migration, and social remittances. Saengmany has served as a consultant to international media organizations, philanthropic institutions, and civil society on issues relating to immigrant and refugee experiences.
Gao admittedly prefers tea but enjoys supporting Uprooted on the operations and logistics side. Her family arrived in Minnesota as refugees in 1980 and she was born and raised on the Eastside of St. Paul. Aside from co-owning Uprooted with Saengmany, she also co-owns Kindred Co. with her sisters - a small business that curates mission-focused gifts, and she also holds a full-time position for a local philanthropic organization.
Together, they have two children who are huge parts of their businesses. Their children create and run social media strategies as well as doing much of their in-person customer service roles.
Website: https://uprootedcoffee.com
Instagram: @uprooted.coffee
Facebook: @uprooted.coffee
4th WORLD PRESS is an independent family-owned publisher. Through the magic of literature, visual illustrations, and audio content, we tell stories of the unheard voices and distribute those messages to our communities.
The Day I Woke Up Different is about a child who is raised in a Vietnamese household and starts noticing the contrasts between their home life and American society outside of it. Standing out can often feel lonely. But, sometimes all it takes is that someone who understands and helps you realize that being different means being unique. And that’s a great thing!
Andy A. Nguyen was born in Portland, Oregon where he spent his childhood daydreaming. He now resides in Oakland, California working as a nurse practitioner. These days you’ll also find Andy creating and embarking on adventures with his wife and their beloved mini-dachshund, Scout.
Thi Doan is an artist who loves drawing and painting. When she is not showcasing her artwork, Thi works as a pharmacist at an anticoagulation clinic. She calls Portland, Oregon home and loves to explore and travel with her husband and their labradoodle, Bodhi.
Phuong Nam Doan or “PN” as many call her, was born in Portland, Oregon and trained in classical piano. She enjoys discovering new restaurants and baking recipes. When she is not on food expeditions with her husband and Ube, their corgi, PN works in cancer research in Seattle, Washington.
Website: https://4thworldpress.com
Instagram: @4thworldpress
Facebook: @4thWorldPress
Twitter: @4thWorldPress
Photos included in this interview were taken by Vĩ Sơn Trinh unless otherwise noted.
Olyvia Chac-Nguyen is the Creative Director for Silk Rise, a photography collection dedicated to the Vietnamese American diaspora.
Official Silk Rise Instagram: @silkrise
Email: silkriseproject@gmail.com
Vietnamese Boat People (VBP) is a podcast documenting the stories of the Vietnamese diaspora and the incredible personal journeys and experiences, both past and present. We are so grateful to VBP founder and podcast host, Tracey Nguyen Mang, for taking the time to speak with us for this interview.
Mission:
PRESERVING THE PAST FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
The Vietnamese Boat People podcast project is to preserve and carry forward the stories of this generation so that younger Vietnamese-Americans can understand and be inspired by their heritage. And if these stories evoke others outside of this community to have more empathy towards the millions of refugees around the world today, then this project has accomplished more than we had hoped for.
ACTIVATING PAST REFUGEES TO PAY IT FORWARD
Our family and many other Vietnamese refugees could not have rebuilt our lives if it weren't for the generosity of other communities. We owe so much to those who helped us find safe refuge in another country and provided us with temporary shelter, clothing and food. Through partnerships with nonprofits and communities we hope to mobilize Vietnamese-Americans to pay-it-forward and join us in helping today's refugees transition into safer lives.
Website: www.vietnameseboatpeople.org
Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BoatPeopleJourney/
Instagram: @vietnameseboatpeople
maivmai is an online publication and press for established, emerging, and aspiring Hmong writers. Our goals are to craft a space for the many voices from the Hmong diaspora; to convene Hmong writers so that they can share their work with one another; and to encourage more writing and more sharing both inside and outside the Hmong community. We are advocates of increased literacy - that is the reading, writing and sharing of stories that connects us to the oral narratives of our post-literate ancestors, some who had a written language and others who did not because it was lost or forgotten in migration and during war time. maivmai’s intent is to showcase both budding and more established writers on the web and in the world. Our name "maivmai" is a combination of the Hmoob and American-English romanized spelling of the word for girl or daughter, maiv and mai, respectively–reflecting the pluricultural identities and multicultural lives of Hmong everywhere. It is our hope that maivmai makes it easier for you to find and share the stories that reflect or resonate with your lived experiences and thus help us all establish a deeper sense of self and community through reading, writing, and storytelling.
Project MotiVATe is the first Vietnamese-American mentorship program in Southern California, located in the largest Vietnamese-American community in the United States. Our mission is to mentor Vietnamese-American Teens by developing their academic, cultural, and social skills to achieve educational goals and personal success.
Journey to the West is a podcast hosted by Vi, J, Sen & Wen. Listen to actual Asian women talk about Asian issues with a lot of the meandering and bullshit cut out.
Many know Jessica Nguyen as the founder and host of Project Voice, a podcast series aimed at empowering Asian and Asian American women through dialogues of social justice and identity politics. However, if you ask her, she'd identify herself first and foremost as a lifelong digital content creator. Jessica is currently working on a digital storytelling initiative that speaks to women of color.
Bio excerpted and adapted from Help4Refugees.org:
Jordan Hattar is a 25 year-old humanitarian and director of Help4Refugees.org. Instead of starting college the semester after high school, Jordan journeyed to South Sudan to work alongside Sudanese Lost Boy Deng Jongkuch to build a medical clinic in Deng’s home village of Malek. In January of 2011, Jordan began college, majoring in International Studies at California State University Long Beach. He spent the fall of 2012 reporting and delivering humanitarian aid to the Syrian refugee camp of Zaatri, and teamed up with Olivia Wong to fundraise and deliver caravans (prefabricated housing units) to the Zaatari Refugee Camp in 2013 and 2014. Jordan went on to receive his Master's in International Relations and Politics from the University of Cambridge in 2016, and interned with First Lady Michelle Obama's Reach Higher Initiative in the White House. Currently, Jordan has decided to follow in the footsteps of his mentor, Carl Wilkens, the only American who chose to remain in Rwanda during the genocide, and speak full-time in schools and universities around the world.
We recently had the opportunity to talk to Christine Chang, the founder of Cultural Splash, a program aimed at increasing interaction and understanding between refugee groups and local communities. Cultural Splash currently has chapters in Germany and Hong Kong.
Narrating the Chinese Vietnamese Identity is an oral history project by Francesca Huynh that investigates the histories, cultural backgrounds, communities, and pre- and post- migration identities of the first and second generation of Chinese Vietnamese in America and shares their stories through interviews and photographs of the places they now call home.