Vietnamese Americans Are Detained in New Novel 'My Documents'

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Vietnamese Americans Are Detained in New Novel 'My Documents'"

All Of It with Alison Stewart
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Kevin Wynne, Author of My Documents
Release Date: April 9, 2025
Duration: Approximately 17 minutes

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Introduction

In this episode of All Of It, Alison Stewart engages in an insightful conversation with Kevin Wynne, the author of his latest novel, My Documents. The discussion delves into the novel's exploration of Vietnamese American internment, its historical inspirations, character development, and its reflection of contemporary political climates.

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Overview of My Documents

Alison Stewart introduces My Documents as a gripping narrative set in a dystopian near-future where Vietnamese Americans are forcibly interned in camps following a series of terrorist attacks orchestrated by members of their community. The story centers around siblings Duncan and Jen, who navigate life within the detention centers, each taking divergent paths to cope with their confinement.

Notable Quote:

“My Documents is a family story. I wanted to create empathy through giving you characters living through this scenario rather than being about the scenario itself.” — Kevin Wynne [03:14]

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Inspiration and Research Behind the Novel

Kevin Wynne reflects on his initial research, which began with studying the Japanese incarceration during World War II—a topic he discovered in college due to its limited coverage in high school curricula. This historical context served as a foundation for imagining a modern parallel affecting Vietnamese Americans.

Notable Quotes:

“I thought a lot about how that history had been erased. And then I kind of imagined, what if an echo of that happened today.” — Kevin Wynne [02:07]

“I did quite a bit originally, actually. I had thought of doing just a straight historical novel about Japanese incarceration.” — Kevin Wynne [02:37]

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Themes: Language, Identity, and Power

A significant portion of the discussion revolves around the importance of language in shaping perceptions and identities. The novel introduces the "American Advanced Protections Initiative (AAPI)", an acronym deliberately mirroring "Asian American Pacific Islanders", to illustrate how governmental language can obscure harsh realities.

Notable Quote:

“AAPI passed easily. As the rallies that followed fizzled, so did the words imprisonment, incarceration and internment. The only thing that was left was the language of the government and the language of the media both said detention.” — Kevin Wynne [06:20]

Kevin emphasizes the intentional choice of the acronym "AAPI" to reflect the manipulation of language in erasing identities and sanitizing oppressive actions.

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Character Development and Family Dynamics

The novel intricately portrays the family dynamics of Duncan, Jen, Ursula, and Alvin. Each character embodies different responses to internment:

• Ursula: An ambitious journalist whose reporting brings attention to the camps, potentially endangering her family.
• Alvin: A successful engineer at Google, whose professional success contrasts with his siblings' experiences.
• Jen: Engages in underground efforts to connect the camp with the outside world.
• Duncan: Channels his emotions into playing football within the camp.

The strained relationship with their absentee father, Dan, a refugee with anti-capitalist views, adds emotional depth to the narrative.

Notable Quotes:

“All four characters in some ways are the opposite of their father. They reflect pretty familiar ideas of what we're supposed to do as good standing Americans.” — Kevin Wynne [10:53]

“The cousins love each other enough that they're okay with them being lucky, but it was definitely an interesting dynamic.” — Kevin Wynne [15:38]

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Real-World Resonances and Political Commentary

Wynne connects the themes of his novel to contemporary events, notably the Supreme Court's ruling on the Alien Enemies Act and the deportation of Venezuelan gang members. He draws parallels between the fictional internment of Vietnamese Americans and real-world policies affecting migrants and minority communities.

Notable Quotes:

“When I started writing it, I thought, okay, heightened reality. Let's heighten the reality a little bit because it is a character driven story. Now I'm just like, I should have heightened it more.” — Kevin Wynne [16:25]

“People who are reading the book are also seeing them quite clearly.” — Kevin Wynne [16:07]

Wynne expresses concern over the political climate, indicating that his novel serves as a cautionary tale of unchecked governmental power and the erosion of civil liberties.

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Conclusion and Reflections

Alison Stewart wraps up the conversation by highlighting the book's timely relevance and its emotional resonance. Kevin Wynne expresses gratitude for the platform and reflects on the novel's impact as both a family saga and a social commentary.

Notable Quote:

“It is hard, because I know it, but I can't tell you.” — Kevin Wynne [03:50]

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Event Promotion

The episode concludes with a promotion for Kevin Wynne's speaking event at Books Are Magic, which had a sold-out audience, underscoring the novel's significant interest and anticipation.

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Key Takeaways

• My Documents is a thought-provoking novel that uses a dystopian scenario to explore themes of family, identity, and governmental power.
• The novel draws heavily from historical instances of Japanese incarceration and contemporary issues surrounding migrant detention.
• Language plays a crucial role in shaping societal perceptions and can either conceal or highlight oppressive actions.
• The character-driven narrative offers a deep emotional connection, fostering empathy and understanding of the complexities faced by the protagonists.
• The conversation underscores the importance of storytelling in reflecting and critiquing current political and social landscapes.

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For those interested in exploring the intricate dynamics of My Documents and its relevance to today's societal challenges, reading the novel is highly recommended.

Transcript

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[Kevin Wynne]

Listener supported WNYC Studios.

[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. In the new novel My Documents, Vietnamese Americans are sent to internment camps following a series of terrorist attacks. After it comes out that the attackers were Vietnamese American, two of those internees are siblings Duncan and Jen. Duncan. Duncan starts adjusting to life in the camp by joining a football team. Jen joins an underground organization dedicated to connecting the camp to the outside world. Duncan and Jen have two half siblings named Ursula and Alvin. Thanks to their jobs, they are able to get exemptions from internment and likely because their mother is white. Alvin is protected by his job at Google. And Ursula works at a BuzzFeed Esque Media company, hoping for her big break. That break comes when Jen starts smuggling her information about the camp. Ursula starts gaining acclaim for her reporting on life inside detention centers. But this reporting could put the family at risk. My Documents is the latest novel from author Kevin Wynn. He is speaking tonight at Books Are Magic. The good news is that sold out. Hey, Kevin, Congratulations on selling out. Books are Magic.

[Kevin Wynne]

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

[Alison Stewart]

So what was the first idea for My Documents?

[Kevin Wynne]

You know, it's funny, I've been reading on and off about Japanese incarceration, which happened during World War II, which I didn't learn about until college. It wasn't taught in my high school. Did you learn about it in high school?

[Alison Stewart]

I learned about it towards the end of high school. But just like. And it happened.

[Kevin Wynne]

And it happened. Yeah, it's amazing. You do like an entire year about World War II and like, Japanese incarceration is just a blip. So I thought a lot about how that history had been erased. And then I kind of imagined, you know, if an echo of that happened today, what would that look like? So that was sort of the conception of the book. And at the same time, you know, I imagine like young people in these camps and honestly, they would just be missing the Internet a lot.

[Alison Stewart]

So how much research did you do into Japanese?

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, I did quite a bit originally, actually. I had thought of doing just a straight historical novel about Japanese incarceration. And then over time, I think that project seemed a little different from what I wanted to do. So I started roping in What I knew about the Vietnam War and what I knew about modern day migrant detention camps. And so that kind of conceived the world that My Documents has in it.

[Alison Stewart]

You don't tell us a lot about the attacks allegedly perpetrated by Vietnamese Americans or even the motive necessarily of the attackers. Why did you want to leave those details vague?

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, there's, I will say, a much longer, earlier draft of this book that you have all been spared from. This is a much tighter novel now, but I really wanted it to be a family story. I wanted it, as fiction can do, to create empathy through giving you characters living through this scenario rather than being about the scenario itself.

[Alison Stewart]

Oh, that must have been really hard when your editor said, you know, you gotta lose this.

[Kevin Wynne]

Yes, it was like about 30,000 words, but I'm very thankful for it reading it later.

[Alison Stewart]

So do you think even though that's not in the book, it helped you write the book?

[Kevin Wynne]

100%. I do think that the author needs to know more about their world and their characters than they give to the reader. But it is hard because I do. You know, actually my parents read the book and they had some of these same questions you have, like, why aren't there more motives? Why don't you explain that thing? And in my head I'm like, I know it, but I can't tell you.

[Alison Stewart]

My guest is Kevin Wynne. His new novel is called My Documents. All right. The law that passes allowing interment is called the American Advanced Protections Initiative. Aapi. Is that intentional that it is an acronym for the Asian American Pacific Islanders?

[Kevin Wynne]

It is extremely intentional. And, you know, I just thought about how when we do these, when these things happen to communities, there's often a destruction of identity. And we do tie up a lot of identity into acronyms. Now, honestly, you're seeing it a lot with like the phrase D, E, I. Oh, please, sorry.

[Alison Stewart]

Di di, di. We know what everybody means when they say that.

[Kevin Wynne]

Exactly. So I kind of imagine that that's what the right wing party would do in the universe of this book.

[Alison Stewart]

I would wonder if you would read a section for us from the book explaining how this AAPI act came to pass. This section is called Nomenclature.

[Kevin Wynne]

There wasn't an agreed upon term at first. The government insisted it was detention, since it was what the Department of Homeland Security had done aggressively with undocumented immigrants for the better part of two decades. It sounded temporary and fairly gentle, evoking a grade school punishment. Some journalistic outlets favored the word internment, which harkened back to the internment of Japanese citizens During World War II, what was happening to the Vietnamese was similar both in practice and and in policy. Looking back at coverage of the American Advanced Protections Initiative, or aapi, you can see more progressive leaning publications using internment at the beginning, before resorting to the government mandated term detention, a word that spoke to the largest possible audience. Familiarity meant relatability. Still, even with the connotations associated with the horrific treatment of Japanese Americans, for which the country later arranged reparations, the clearest kind of apology that can exist in a capitalist system, internment was still a euphemism masking what it truly incarceration. The strongest proponents of using incarceration to describe AAPI were also the most vocal protest groups, Japanese Americans, many of whom who had already organized demonstrations against DHS's detention centers. They already understood Homeland Security's massive overreaches in policy and power and saw echoes of the way migrant families were treated in the US When AAPI was proposed on the Senate floor, they were the first to warn about the parallels between the incarceration of their parents and grandparents during World War II and what would happen to the Vietnamese. One Japanese American group marched outside the US Capitol banging tako drums, hoping to stop elected officials from repeating a past national shame. It was the most impressive anti AAPI demonstration and the last one covered by major media outlets. But every protest movement is powered by momentum and eventually even the most spirited showing from these groups dissipated. AAPI passed easily. As the rallies that followed fizzled, so did the words imprisonment, incarceration and internment. The only thing that was left was the language of the government and the language of the media both said detention. There's a saying that the history is always written by the victors, but that assumes a winner and a loser. A more accurate saying, history is a reflection of who had power and how they flattered themselves.

[Alison Stewart]

That's Kevin Wynne reading from my documents. It's so interesting just in that small passage, how important words are, how important how we describe things, how important that we assign certain words. Would you talk a little bit about that?

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, I think even in this section it pulls from a very real debate about how to talk about Japanese incarceration or you know, it's more broadly known as Japanese internment. And so even then that's a strange debate. Scholars really want you to say incarceration because it's more accurate. At the same time, should we be using language that's more accurate or language that signals something that people are more familiar with? I think that's actually. It's just not that clear. Cut. I say Japanese incarceration, but if someone says Japanese internment, you know, I don't correct them because it's just a way. I know what they're saying. More people know what they're saying. So those kinds of debates are happening often in newsrooms, maybe here as well.

[Unknown Guest]

Absolutely.

[Alison Stewart]

And you note that the act was passed, though mainly by Republicans, but there wasn't much Democrat pushback at all.

[Unknown Guest]

What did you want to examine about the current political situation in which this is happening?

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, I did not necessarily want this to be like a pointed capital P political novel. Like, I wanted it to really be about the family moving through this situation. But when I started writing this seven, eight years ago, I think you could probably see the construct of how our Republican Party acts and how our Democratic Party acts that has truly borne out to be an extreme in 2025, I feel.

[Unknown Guest]

Let's talk about the four main characters, since it is a family story. Jen, Duncan, Ursula and Alvin. First, I want to ask a question about their dad. We get small glimpses of the father who abandons yet another family to avoid going into incarceration. Why is he someone whose first instinct is to leave?

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, I never want to speak too broadly about a community, but I just know a lot of Vietnamese kids with a dad that's not really around. And in a way, I didn't want to justify that behavior, but I did want to bring. I did want to create a character where you might understand that behavior better. So the character of Dan, their father, he's. He's a refugee. He spent a year in a refugee camp in Indonesia and he just comes to the US and he's just so used to everything disappearing at all times. He's anti capitalist. He doesn't believe in, you know, the capitalist formations of work, of family. On some level, I think we can all appreciate some of those stances. On the other hand, it might not be how we behave in response to that, but I actually found that to be a rich territory to bring a character.

[Unknown Guest]

All four of these kids have been abandoned by him. How has their abandonment been? How has, how has that abandonment affected them?

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, it's funny. I think each of the four characters in some ways are the opposite of their father. They reflect pretty, pretty familiar ideas of what we're supposed to do as like, good standing Americans. You know, a couple of them have or want to have prestigious jobs. Another one of them is trying to do well in school. A fourth one is, you know, trying to be a great linebacker on his high school football team. All These things that we're told or we're promised that if you do these things well, you're really diligent, you, you work hard, you get the promises of the American dream. And I think they all slowly learn that those promises can be quickly taken away from you.

[Alison Stewart]

They're half siblings, but they call each other cousins. Why did they call each other cousins?

[Kevin Wynne]

Maybe this just is from my family history, but we have a lot of. Well, one, I have a lot of cousins, but two, it's more like we treat all of the kids at the same level, as the same. So we just call each other cousins all the time. And so it kind of doesn't matter that, you know, I have someone that. That's technically an aunt in my family, but she's like closer to my. She's actually younger than me, so we just call each other cousin. And I. I really like the informality of that. In Vietnamese culture, the way you address people is by age.

[Alison Stewart]

And so aunties, even not your aunt, it could be your next door neighbor.

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Alison Stewart]

So let's talk about Ursula. How does Ursula feel about being half Vietnamese and half white?

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, I actually think that she doesn't think a lot about it until confronted by ways in which it could advantage her career.

[Alison Stewart]

She wants to be a journalist, right?

[Kevin Wynne]

She's a journalist. Yeah. So she works at the aforementioned buzzfeed type website. And, you know, I'm also a journalist by day, so I feel strongly about the project of free press and journalism. I also have a lot of gripes about how we approach it. And so it's fun to write a novel to get a lot of those feelings out. But Ursula embodies the ambition of a great journalist. And I think a lot of those ambitions come at the expense of sources. And in the case of this book, I made the sources family.

[Alison Stewart]

Alvin's an engineer. He gets a job working at Google. What are his goals? When we first meet him, I think.

[Kevin Wynne]

Alvin's goals are he's quite dim in some ways. He's obviously one of those people that's extremely accomplished as a student, as an engineer, but I think he just wants to work at the fancy tech company and make a lot of money. And he very quickly learns that those. Those aspirations are not everything that make up a satisfying life.

[Alison Stewart]

All right, let's move on to Jen and Duncan. Jen moves to New York City to be closer to Ursula, her half sibling. Ursula doesn't really want to hang out with Jen. Why not?

[Kevin Wynne]

Well, you know, I think this is a great part of the cousin sibling dynamic. One fun thing about writing these four characters is it's just really clear on the page to me that they care a lot about each other, they love each other, and that they just drive each other up a wall constantly. I think that's the funniest thing about family. You just, like, love these people, and they drive you nuts all the time. And so with Ursula, she just. She doesn't want to hang out with her younger cousin, you know, until it's good for her. Until it's good for her. And, of course, Jen looks up to her a lot. Like having, especially arriving in a place like New York, it's overwhelming. You're a young student. Of course you want to hang out with your cool, older, you know, sibling, journalist, sister.

[Alison Stewart]

And then there's Duncan, who just wants to play football. What is Duncan's strategy for surviving during.

[Unknown Guest]

This period of detention that he and Jen are in?

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, I will say the football leagues in the camp, in the detention centers in the book are based on real life football leagues and baseball leagues during Japanese incarceration. There were some very competitive ones. It was obviously a way to pass the time, channel a lot of, I would say, repressed emotion. And that's exactly what Duncan is doing as a character in this book. He's channeling or he's repressing a lot of the things that have been taken from him and putting it into the game, which, you know, I think is a pretty. I think a lot of us do that with some of the tougher things in our life.

[Unknown Guest]

All right, here's a hard question. Do Duncan and Jen feel resentment towards their half siblings who have escaped internment?

[Kevin Wynne]

I think in the book, I thought about illustrating that more strongly, and I thought about how I would feel if I were in that position. And I don't think they strongly resent their siblings for being outside of camp. I think they love their siblings enough that they're okay with them being lucky, you know? But, yeah, it was definitely an interesting dynamic that I kind of left on the table a little bit because it didn't feel honest to me.

[Unknown Guest]

Just this week, the Supreme Court ruled that President Trump is within his right to deport Venezuelan gang members through the Alien enemies Act from 1798. How do you see resonances between your novel and what's going on today?

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah, I see them quite clearly. People who are reading the book are also seeing them quite clearly. When I started writing this book, as I mentioned, I did want to base it on a lot of history of Japanese incarceration. The Vietnam War, that wave of immigration migrant detention centers that are happening today. You know, in the past decade, ICE has detained half a million migrants. This is, you know, what's illustrated in this book is not so outlandish, but when I started writing it, I thought, okay, heightened reality. Let's heighten the reality a little bit because it is a character driven story.

[Unknown Guest]

That was eight years ago.

[Kevin Wynne]

Yeah. And now I'm just like, I should have heightened it more. It's like everything just feels so close to what's in this book. And that wasn't necessarily intentional, but all of that stuff was there. I mean, we're talking about the Alien Enemies act now, but Trump has been invoking that for several years now. And now he's, you know, he's making good on his promise. And I don't know, I think it's terrifying.

[Unknown Guest]

My guest has been Kevin Nguyen. He's author of the new novel My Documents. It's about Vietnamese Americans who are sent to incarceration camps after a deadly terrorist attack. To find out what happens, you have to read the book. Have a great event tonight at Books Are Magic.

[Kevin Wynne]

Thanks for having me.

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