Lan Phạm was born in 1973 in Bến Tre, Vietnam. Before coming to the United States, she worked as a registered nurse at a children’s hospital. After moving to Portland with her husband, Phạm went to university and began work in the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Clackamas, Oregon. She currently works in the hospital’s medical lab.

In this interview, Phạm starts by talking about her what brought her to Portland and her first impressions of the city, such as the cold climate and green landscapes. She also shares some of the difficulties she faced while adjusting to life in America, including the language barrier and feelings of isolation. Phạm then goes on to talk about the Vietnamese community and how attending events such as Tet helped her get to know more people and socialize with others. She talks about the differences between working in the medical system in Vietnam and the medical system in America, sharing how patients are treated differently. On the topic of cultural differences, Phạm also talks about raising her children in Portland and how Vietnamese parents tend to treat their children more harshly than in America. At the end of the interview, she talks about how she hopes the Vietnamese community will get more involved in social issues like elections and the census, and that she hopes the younger generation will help to preserve the Vietnamese culture for generations to come.