Love Letters to the Dirty South: An Afternoon with Dr. Thao Ha

Join The Lunar Foundation and the Vietnamese American Community of Austin, Texas (VACAT) for an afternoon with Dr. Thao Ha, celebrating her debut memoir, Love Letters to the Dirty South.

Love Letters to the Dirty South is a testament to lifelong love, an unflinching depiction of prison culture, a loving portrait of family life in the Vietnamese diaspora, and a counternarrative to the model minority ethos. In this stunning debut, Thao Ha tells her story of reckless youth, love reclaimed and tragically lost, and the power of words to transcend boundaries with honesty, insight, and conviction.

The book received a starred review from Library Journal, which called it a book that brims with empathy toward often-overlooked communities, including refugees, people of color, the incarcerated, and those who love them.

Dr. Ha will read from the memoir and join Lily Trieu, co-founder of Asian Texans for Justice, for a conversation about love, loss, family, and the Vietnamese diaspora in Texas. Audience questions and a book signing follow.

Thao Ha is a Vietnamese refugee, award-winning professor, author, filmmaker, advocate, and nonprofit leader. She earned a doctorate in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and teaches at MiraCosta College. Her expertise in Vietnamese American history, immigration, and justice studies informs her personal life and professional endeavors. She is founder and executive director of Collective Freedom, board chair of the Doan Foundation, board president of the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association, and an associate producer of the documentary Seadrift.

Love Letters to the Dirty South is available October 6, 2026 from High Road Books, an imprint of the University of New Mexico Press.

Free and open to the public. Light refreshments served.