The author in Sweden near her great-grandmother’s birthplace. (Photo by Pia Röstell)

My life changed when I went to college and met a boy from the Mekong Delta.

This girl raised in Minnesota by parents from a Swedish-American farming community became part of a culture of rice and fish sauce, Buddhist temples and dragon dances.

My Vietnamese-American family’s stories fascinated me and inspired me to write Catching Shrimp with Bare Hands, a memoir of my husband’s life.

I write and live in Santa Barbara with my husband and three children.