Pauline Bich Lieu Nguyen is a nun at the Adorers of the Holy Cross Sisters in Portland, Oregon and is currently travelling across the US on a convent mission. She was born in 1972 and her family left Vietnam in 1992. She has also worked as a mental health counselor at the Oregon Health & Science University and she has lived in Portland, Oregon for 28 years.

In this interview Nguyen first explains her immigration from Vietnam. She talks about her father, a military officer of the Vietnam Republic and re-education camp survivor. His eventual death left her family struggling greatly under the new regime. She describes how her brothers left Vietnam first and eventually they sponsored the rest of the family’s migration to the United States. Nguyen describes her family’s treatment before leaving Vietnam and the transition to a Catholic community in Portland. A passion for learning led her to Portland Community College to get a two year nursing degree and that passion helped her greatly in pushing herself to make friends with Americans and improve her english. She also touches on the differences between Vietnamese education and American education and why she later became a nun.