Cơm Gia Đình — meaning “family dinner” — evokes different emotions for many in the Vietnamese diaspora. Why was it chosen for the Vietnamese American Roundtable(VAR)’s community cookbook? Were there specific community meals, gatherings, or shared experiences that inspired the name and ultimately led to the creation of this anthology cookbook?
Cơm Gia Đình literally translates to family meal. It reflects two great pillars that uphold Vietnamese identity: food and family. The family meal is more than the food itself, enjoyed family style, eaten together; it includes the stories, conversations, and moments of connection that transpire over the dinner table. The Cơm Gia Đình anthology and cookbook is a collection of recipes and stories that represent over 50 years since our diasporic community first established roots in the United States.
Inspired by the resilience and courage of the Vietnamese American community that came together after Black April (April 30, 1975), we present the Cơm Gia Đình Anthology. Since that pivotal moment, the Vietnamese community has shown incredible strength and perseverance as they have resettled and reestablished their lives here in Santa Clara County. At the heart of this journey has always been the family meal. Ask anyone in the Vietnamese American community, and they will tell you that you can find the best Vietnamese dish in their own homes. These dishes are symbols of family, unity, and the enduring values we hold dear. The idea for this anthology emerged after our inaugural SEEDS summer youth program, created to train and cultivate future community leaders capable of addressing complex issues through hands-on experience. To truly nurture the next generation of leaders, we had to understand our own history and the journey that brought us here.
In this anthology, we hope to share glimpses of personal experiences of the Vietnamese American families who resettled in the Bay Area through their recipes and family resettlement stories. Through times of uncertainty and hardship, the family meal at the end of the day was what brought everyone together. This anthology is a celebration of those nourishing moments that have shaped our Vietnamese American community and a testament to our collective ability to rise again and pursue our dreams.
With the cookbook freshly released and already sold out after its initial run, what can readers and home cooks from diverse backgrounds expect when they open its pages? What makes Cơm Gia Đình Cookbook and Anthology more than just a collection of recipes? Are there recurring themes of identity, unity, or adaptation that readers might notice?
This cookbook anthology reads as more than just a normal recipe book. Emphasizing the anthological part of it, at first glance, the book may seem like a collection of mundane life stories, but it’s within these vignettes that a deep sentiment of discovery and wonder emerges.
When we were collecting these stories along with the recipes, we were surprised by how similar and familiar they were to the ones that we heard during meals we shared with our own families, or while nhậu-ing. We hope that readers will take a glimpse into each family’s unique journey to get to where they are today. In a way, we mời cã nhà to our collective dinner table, made up of our contributors’ tables, to eat, to cook, and to share stories passed from generation to generation. Without these cultural practices, so many of these stories – and their life lessons – would have never been told or heard.
Through an Ethnic Studies lens, we center the stories of refugees and immigrant survival, whose journeys continue to stay alive to this day. Many of the stories collected were submitted by the children of refugees and immigrants looking for ways to better understand the people and places that they came from. This project provides people a brief glimpse into these struggles and a platform for our families’ visibility and validation as Vietnamese Americans. While many often draw parallels, comparing and contrasting today’s global conflicts to the Vietnam War/American War/Wars in Southeast Asia and the aftermath, our community’s stories still largely remain underrepresented, unheard, and unspoken. Even 50 years after April 30th, 1975, the risk of losing these vibrant and valuable experiences is greater than ever, and this project has carved out a pathway to have conversations over and about food with family and friends.
Were there any favorite moments, stories, or pages you especially cherished while creating Cơm Gia Đình Cookbook and Anthology? Did students or community members share feedback during the development process that felt particularly meaningful or memorable?
As we explored our family histories of refugee resettlement, one profound barrier surfaced: the inability to speak openly about the trauma our families endured. Yet despite this barrier, a common thread emerged showcasing the ability to bond over nostalgic family dishes, where a single taste or familiar aroma could transport us back to moments of warmth and connection.
For many refugee families who came to this country with nothing, these recipes and the muscle memory – or the instinctual “refugee reflex” to survive, as the graphic novelist Thi Bui puts it – of preparing them were among the things they carried from Việt Nam, even if everything else had been taken away from them or lost. These dishes demonstrated resilience, in which cooking often served as a substitute for direct expressions of love. Again and again, we saw where food bridged the gaps between generations, offering understanding where words sometimes could not. Con ăn cơm chưa? became synonymous with I love you for Vietnamese American families. From students to families, the concept and idea for the cookbook anthology resonated heavily with the scenes that they often experienced in day-to-day life.
Beyond the family, we saw where food served as a bridge of understanding, connecting the Vietnamese American community with our larger community as well. Any Bay Area resident can tell you where to find their favorite phở, bánh mì, or cà phê sữa đá, reflecting the Vietnamese American community’s significant contributions to the region’s cultural identity.
With that understanding at our core, we began collecting stories through the lens of the one-and-a-half and second generations, grounded in the commitment to preserve and pass forward the legacies, lessons, and flavors that shaped us. From going door to door in Vietnam town, to asking students in classes, and speaking to our very own neighbors, we had short and long conversations, but it was apparent that our community just wanted someone to talk to about their stories. The feedback that always keeps us going is to continue building this legacy of intergenerational storytelling.
When we were putting the book together, we booked an AirBnB and invited our community and volunteers, many of whom were from local Vietnamese Student Associations, to join us to cook the final recipes submitted for the book to photograph the individual dishes. Over two full days, we meticulously shopped for ingredients, cooked the recipes to the best of our ability, photographed them, and shared meals and laughter. The dedication that opens the cookbook is a set of hands rolling a gỏi cuốn – VAR Executive Director Philip Nguyen’s mom’s hands. We affectionately called her “Cô,” and he had traveled from SoCal, with her set of pots, pans, utensils, and ingredients, to join us to help prepare the dishes. It was truly a “family-style” way for us to experience the making of this cookbook and learn the techniques, literally and metaphorically, handed to us from the previous generation.
Without a doubt, it was quite the journey to explore the ins and outs of how to produce the book from scratch with our own effects and photos. So while it was our first fledgling book project, we hope this anthology will be the first of many, as food and flavor continue to evolve and adapt with each new generation.
Finally, what advice would you offer to other community organizations interested in compiling an anthology or cookbook of their own? What have you learned about collaboration, trust-building, and honoring collective memory through a project like this?
Individual memories last as long as the people who remember them. When we talk to each other, we’re able to contribute to a collective memory that we all can remember. That practice heals as much as it is resilient, and it’s what connects us in the present and across history.
In Vietnamese America, the sense of family and community has always been commonly grounded in food and storytelling. For us, as the younger generation who pulled this together as a way for us to convince our families to share their deepest secrets with us under the guise of asking for recipes, we uncovered that, to our surprise, our elders were very willing to share with us. They just wanted to know whether anyone would want to listen to them.
So what are you waiting for? Time is of the essence!
The Vietnamese American Roundtable (VAR) is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. VAR is composed of young professionals and representatives from various Vietnamese American community groups who works collaboratively to research, promote, and support joint programs and projects to benefit the local community. VAR envisions a strong and unified Vietnamese American community that works towards improving our quality of life for all. To this end, VAR focuses our mission to organize, advocate, and educate our community. We accomplish this through mobilization, advocacy, and education – mobilization through events and coalition building, advocacy through empowering and strategy, and education through panels, workshops, and cultural events. VAR’s programs cover three key strategic issue areas in community building, civic engagement, and cultural learning.
Philip Nguyen serves as the Executive Director in the Vietnamese American Roundtable (VAR). After graduating from UC Berkeley with B.A. degrees in Ethnic Studies and Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies, he earned his M.A. degree in Asian American Studies from the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, where he teaches courses on Vietnamese American Literature and the History of the Vietnamese in the US. He has been involved with community-based organizations dedicated to amplifying and advocating for Asian American, Southeast Asian American, and Vietnamese American voices to the forefront through his involvement with the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization, and the Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations.4) varoundtable.org | instagram.com/varoundtable | facebook.com/VARoundtable
This interview was conducted by Alan Trinh, Viet Book Fest’s Program Manager, as part of the Author Spotlight series. All featured authors participated in Viet Book Fest 2026, a literary event presented by the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA).
Join us on Sunday, April 12, 2026, from 10 AM to 5 PM at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California for a full day honoring Vietnamese storytelling and culture in literature.
Viet Book Fest 2026 offers a full day of programming focused on Vietnamese literature, storytelling, and culture. Attendees can participate in five panel discussions, enjoy interactive activities for children, and experience youth performances that showcase Vietnamese traditions and creativity. The festival also provides a space for community collaborations, where participants can create their own art and engage in hands-on projects.