Interview - Nghi Nguyen & Nha Tu

Nghi Nguyen and Nha Tu are a Vietnamese American couple in the LGBTQ community. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they donated to the Houston Food Bank, which was funded through the sales of their designed, hand-crafted masks. Their contribution was reported on OutSmart Magazine's front page. Nghi was born in 1993 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and grew up there. Having tried out various disciplines and taking a gap year, he decided to come to Houston to study Fashion at Houston Community College to pursue his passion. While studying, he interned at local designer’s shops mentored by one of the most well-known designers in Texas, Chloe Dao. Later, upon graduation, he founded his own online women’s wear brand “NEEWIN”. He started taking testosterone injections two months before the date of this interview, an important step of transition toward his true identity.

Nha was born in Vietnam in 1994. She came to the US with her parents at age 10 to join her grandparents. They settled first in Iowa, and then in Dallas, then Houston in 2016. She studied at Iowa State University first, then the University of Iowa, then University of Texas Health Science Center with a bachelor’s degree in Nursing, which she obtained in May 2018. She is now a registered nurse serving at the HCA Houston Healthcare in Clear Lake, Texas. Her job nowadays includes caring for COVID-19 positive patients; she shares these experiences in this interview. The couple shared their experiences of meeting each other first, their favorite dating activity —being the museum, as well as their prospects for the future.

View interview transcript PDFFull interview materials on Rice Digital Collections