Bridges & Belonging: An Evening with Mai Pham
The Vietnamese Leaders Forum (VLF) is honoured to welcome Hoangmai (Mai) Pham for an intimate dinner conversation about her acclaimed debut memoir, Bridge from Saigon: A Viet-American Memoir of Family and Mind.
Join us for an evening of food, reflection, and community as Mai shares the deeply personal journey behind her book — from her family's harrowing escape from war-torn Saigon to her remarkable career in American healthcare, and the hidden psychological toll that surfaced along the way. This is more than a book event; it's a conversation about identity, resilience, generational trauma, and what it truly means to live as a bridge between two worlds.
About the Book
"Hoangmai (Mai) Pham's Bridge from Saigon: A Viet-American Memoir of Family and Mind weaves her harrowing escape from war-torn Vietnam with the intimate unraveling of hidden traumas, revealing the profound psychological toll of immigration through a physician's unflinching gaze."
— Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of The Leftover Woman
War refugees like my parents don't want to talk about what they've left behind.
As a young Vietnamese refugee, Mai Pham suddenly lost her sense of safety and belonging when her family fled Saigon at the end of the war. But her later success in navigating life in America as a physician and health policy leader at the top of her profession paradoxically triggered a psychological unraveling during middle age.
Bridge from Saigon depicts Mai's struggle in confronting her hidden multiple personalities to heal, luring the reader into parallel slipstreams of discovery — one of family secrets and epic history before and during the Vietnam War, the other of traumas masked behind a child's vivid imagination. Hoangmai's final triumph crystallizes the immense price that immigrants pay for a chance at a better life, and their resilience in achieving every sense of integration.
Stories of ghostly ancestors, a fraught return to Vietnam as an adult, and her kaleidoscopic inner characters unfurl in a voice that is at once dreamlike and brutally honest in a memoir that incisively depicts an immigrant story like no other.
Price: $29.95
About the Author
Hoangmai (Mai) Pham is a Vietnamese American refugee, physician, artist, mother, and debut memoirist. Bridge from Saigon, her first memoir, was shortlisted for Black Spring Press' International Beverly Prize for Literature.
At six, Mai fled with her family from Saigon on a cargo plane at the end of the war to the United States, and went on to earn degrees from Harvard and Hopkins, and other markers of a model minority. She has pursued answers to mysteries about her family and her own psychological journey with interviews, voyages back to Vietnam, and a scientific healer's eye on her traumas.
Mai was the first Chief Innovation Officer for Medicare and Medicaid. When not making change in American healthcare, she hosts a baking club and relishes in her "Zoomagogue" Jewish community.
🔗 Learn more about Mai: hoangmaipham.me
Order the Book
Secure your copy before the event so you can come ready for a rich conversation:
📖 Book Signing: Mai will be signing copies at the event — a wonderful opportunity to have your book personally inscribed.
Dining: Attendees may order their own food and drinks at the restaurant. This is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy a meal together while engaging in meaningful conversation.
RSVP Deadline: Thursday, June 19, 2026 — Please RSVP by this date to secure your spot.
Contact:
David Doan — [email protected]
Dominique Nguyen — [email protected]
Vietnamese Leaders Forum (VLF) is a national network of changemakers, trailblazers, and advocates shaping the future of the global Vietnamese community. We build connections across industries and generations, leading with purpose and lifting others as we rise.