Live interview with Lisa Phu creator of BEFORE ME mini-series

VBP Season 6 Podcast Launch
Live interview with Lisa Phu creator of BEFORE ME
Join us in a virtual event to Kick-Off the new season, in a live podcast interview with Alaska-based journalist Lisa Phu, creator of Before Me, a limited series chronicling her mother’s journey from Cambodia to Vietnam to America over the course of decades. In November 2022, Lisa Phu and Self Evident Media, launched a mini series Before Me. The story unfolds between Lisa and her mother Lan as the two care for Lisa’s first born daughter — and for the first time, Lan feels ready to share her own experiences fully with Lisa, on tape.

February 22, 2023 - 7:30PM ET
Free Virtual Event

Join VBP host Tracey Nguyen Mang for an up-close and personal interview with Lisa in the making of Before Me. It is one of the first in a series of stories that VBP will unfold in Season 6 theme: Ba, Mẹ ơi, stories about the lives that our parents once lived. www.vietnameseboatpeople.org

About Before Me, Lisa, and Lan
Lisa Phu is an award-winning journalist who has reported on issues from politics to language revitalization and is passionate about elevating the deeply meaningful stories that are more common than we think. Before Me is a 5-part story on Self-Evident Media that follows one woman’s life, from Cambodia to America, over the course of decades. But it’s also a long overdue conversation between mother and daughter about their family’s history — through war and violence, separation and loss, endings and beginnings. For most of her life, Lisa Phu told a story about how her mom and family first came to the United States. Some of it was right, some of it was wrong; none of it was actually ever told to her by the people who had lived it. After Lisa gave birth to her first child, her mom flew across the country to care for them both. And during that visit, she finally shared the real story with Lisa. About growing up in Cambodia, fleeing genocide by the Khmer Rouge, surviving as a gold dealer in Vietnam, building a home in America while navigating the fallout and traumas of war… and carrying the future of her children throughout the journey.