E.M. Tran
E.M. Tran (Lizzy) was born and raised in New Orleans to Vietnamese immigrant parents. She is the author of Daughters of the New Year, a novel inspired by her upbringing in New Orleans as a daughter to an immigrant family. She has returned to New Orleans and currently raises her child here.
Lizzy and her older sisters, Cathy and Rosie (respectively), in the early 90s
Lizzy's father, when her parents owned a Vietnamese grocery in Marrero in the 80s
Lizzy's mother with her sisters in front of their childhood home
Lizzy's mother behind the register at their Vietnamese grocery
What advice would you say to younger generations in the New Orleans East community about both preserving Vietnamese culture, but also navigating life in America?
Lizzy: “I think it's really hard when you think about younger Vietnamese people in New Orleans. It's like I don't want this place to die because my parents worked so hard. But at the same time, I don't wanna have to remove myself from the center of the city from all of these other things in order for it to survive. And I don't have a solution to that. I think the answer comes from setting up maybe programs or pathways for people who are interested in that.”
“ I think that the Vietnamese community in New Orleans is often forgotten. I hope that Vietnamese people are remembered just a little bit more because of me and because of the work of other Vietnamese people in the community here.”
Was there anything you hoped readers would take away from your book specifically?
“I was really interested in representing a version of New Orleans that doesn't necessarily get depicted in popular media. I wanted to diversify the narratives around New Orleans a little bit, and I wanted to represent a community that I was a part of that I never saw growing up. The books that I read, the movies that I saw about New Orleans never included me, and I wanted to be a part of that. And then the other thing that I wanted to include in the book was immigrant experiences. I felt like I was in between. I wasn't necessarily accepted into mainstream American culture, but I also wasn't folded into the open arms of the Vietnamese community in New Orleans.”
E.M. Tran Timeline
July 1989 – birth
August 29, 2005 – Hurricane Katrina
August 2007 – Begins Undergrad at LSU
January 2008 – Does badly in school. Goes to academic counselor and changes major to English, Creative Writing
May 2011 – Graduates LSU, rejected from every major MFA Creative Writing program
June 2011 – July 2012 Year off, living and working in New Orleans as a freelance writer
April 2012 – Accepted to Ole Miss MFA program
August 2012 – May 2015 Lives in Oxford, MS doing the MFA program
August 2015 – May 2020 Enrolled in the Ohio University PhD program in English, CW
August 2015 – May 2019 Lives in Athens, Ohio
October 2016 – Wins Prairie Schooner’s 2016 Summer Nonfiction Contest for my essay “Miss Saigon,” my first big publication
July 2019 – Moves to Jackson, MS
February 2020 – Married
April 2020 – Signs with a literary agent
July 2020 – Moves back to New Orleans during height of COVID-19 lockdown
January 2021 – Father passes away after a prolonged illness
April 2021 – Sells book project to Hanover Square Press/HarperCollins
October 2022 – Debut novel is published
October – December 2022 Book Tour
September 2023 – Has a baby