As a child, Hung Cam Thai went from Southeast Asia to the South in America, where he grew up with the help of black Catholic nuns. Now a respected professor of sociology and Asian American studies, Thai helps pioneer the largely uncharted waters of what he terms “international intimacy.”
For Better or for Worse, Thai’s latest book still hot off the press, examines cross-border marriages among the Vietnamese diaspora, with a focus on Vietnamese men in the United States and the women who wed them. This study of gender and migration probes well-known secrets of the transpacific marriage market, such as the trend of “global hypergamy” or marrying up — and out.
As part of his tenure at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., Thai spoke about his marriage research to a private audience of S.F. Bay Area alumni, parents and friends April 5 at Berkeley’s Hotel Durant. “I present data to illustrate how international marriage is a key pattern due to the forces of globalization,” Thai explained.
For Better or for Worse: Vietnamese International Marriages in the New Global Economy is available in hard cover from Rutgers University Press (March 2008).