ABSTRACT
In the book, I focused on a transnational marriage market that emerged in the mid-1990s linking women in Vietnam and overseas immigrant men living and working in the Vietnamese Diaspora. Th e project started in Vietnam because I was initially motivated to spend time with my mother, with whom I was united in my early 20s, aft er having lost touch since leaving the country as a child. I had been interested in immigration, but not necessarily marriage migration until I met a group of young local men who thought I was there to search for a wife. Th e encounter was an unpleasant one, but it led me to
pursue the topic. My personal motivation was very important for the success of the project: I was compelled to spend as much time in Vietnam as possible to be with my mother. I was able to immerse myself immediately into Vietnamese culture, despite not having been back for over 15 years since I left the country as a child. Th at made the project go very smoothly since I designed the project in a way that I got to talk to the women in Vietnam (prior to their migration) as well as the men they married, who were living in the United States at the time.
