Vietnamese Boat People 2026 Story Slam

Do you have a story only you can tell? Vietnamese Boat People is back at the Think!Chinatown Studio for their 7th Annual Story Slam—an evening of live storytelling, community, and connection. Starting as the Mỹ Việt Story Slam, an online performance focusing on stories from the Vietnamese diaspora, this collaboration with Think!Chinatown features in-person live performances welcoming storytellers from any culture.

Maybe it’s the word that only exists in your native language, the one you’ve never found a real translation for. Maybe it’s your name — shortened, softened, anglicized, or swapped out entirely just to make a Tuesday easier — and you’re still not sure how you feel about that trade.

This year’s Story Slam theme is about living between two languages — the mistranslations, the code-switching, the words that don’t survive the crossing, and get lost or found somewhere in between. It’s about the moment someone gets something wrong — your name, your meaning, your joke — and you let it slide, or the moment you didn’t. It’s about the words, names, and phrases that somehow still trigger something in you, no matter which language you’re standing in.