A Conversation About Home, Identity, and Belonging with Our Host: Jason Phúc Hữu Nguyễn
The Roads That Bring Us Back
There is a moment many of us experience, though we may not have the words for it at the time.
A moment when we realize that home is no longer a simple answer.
For some, it happens when someone asks where we're from. For others, it arrives years later, when we return to a place that once felt familiar and discover that both the place and ourselves have changed.
Somewhere between memory and reality, we begin asking questions.
Who am I?
Where do I belong?
What parts of me were shaped by the places I come from?
This November, we're honored to welcome Jason Nguyen as our Creative Co-Host for the November 2–15, 2026 Heritage Tour. Not because he has all the answers, but because he has spent much of his life exploring those same questions.
Growing Up Between Worlds
Jason was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States in 2008 at the age of ten. Like many members of the Vietnamese diaspora, he left behind more than a country. He left behind childhood friendships, familiar streets, family memories, and a version of himself that only existed in that chapter of life.
Years later, he would come to realize something many of us eventually encounter: we do not simply move between countries. We move between versions of ourselves.
Part of us grows forward. Part of us remains connected to where we came from. And somewhere in between, we spend a lifetime trying to understand how both can exist at the same time.
That search for understanding would eventually shape much of Jason's life and work.
"I thought I was leaving Vietnam for a vacation. It took me years to realize I had left behind a version of myself too."
Creating Spaces for Questions
By profession, Jason works in the semiconductor industry, spending nearly a decade in advanced manufacturing and technology. Yet outside of engineering, another passion quietly began to take shape.
Not one built around systems or machines.
But around people.
Stories.
Questions.
Community.
The kinds of conversations that rarely have clear answers.
What began as personal curiosity eventually evolved into several projects centered around identity, culture, and connection. Different expressions of the same lifelong question: How do we make sense of who we are?
Nguyễn Dynasty
Through Nguyễn Dynasty, Jason created more than a clothing brand. He created a platform for storytelling, cultural preservation, and community building.
Using fashion, media, interviews, and creative projects, Nguyễn Dynasty explores what it means to be Vietnamese across different countries, generations, and lived experiences. The name itself reflects something deeply personal and collective. A reminder that regardless of where we were born, raised, or currently live, many of us carry pieces of the same story.
At its core is a simple belief: culture is not only preserved through history books. It is preserved through people. Through stories. Through the connections we create with one another.
@Whothephuc
Alongside Nguyễn Dynasty, Jason built @Whothephuc, his personal storytelling platform.
Part journal. Part reflection. Part conversation.
Through photography, essays, interviews, and personal reflections, he created a space to explore the experiences that often live between cultures, languages, and generations. It became a place where vulnerability and curiosity could coexist.
Not to provide answers.
But to make space for honest conversations about identity, belonging, friendship, family, and home.
Ngã Ba Intersection
That same spirit eventually led to the creation of Ngã Ba Intersection.
Named after the Vietnamese word for "intersection," Ngã Ba Intersection was designed as a cultural exhibition and community gathering where art, storytelling, memory, nostalgia, and difficult conversations could exist together.
What began as an idea became a gathering place for hundreds of people across Arizona and Austin. People from different backgrounds, generations, and experiences coming together around questions many of us carry but rarely discuss.
Questions about family.
Questions about healing.
Questions about culture.
Questions about belonging.
Through Ngã Ba Intersection, Jason created something many people are searching for: a space where they felt seen, understood, and connected through shared experiences.
Why Jason?
When we first met Jason, what stood out was not the brands he created.
It was the intention behind them.
On the surface, Nguyễn Dynasty, @Whothephuc, and Ngã Ba Intersection looks very different. A clothing brand. A storytelling platform. A cultural exhibition.
Yet beneath them all is the same question:
How do we make sense of who we are?
That question sits at the heart of everything we hope to explore this November.
The most meaningful moments on our Heritage Tours rarely happen at landmarks. They happen around dinner tables. During journaling sessions. In breakout conversations. On long bus rides between cities. In quiet moments when someone finally feels comfortable enough to share a story they have never spoken out loud before.
Those moments require more than an itinerary.
They require someone willing to create space for them.
Jason has spent years building exactly those kinds of spaces. Not spaces built around certainty, but spaces built around curiosity. Not spaces focused on having the right answers, but spaces where people feel comfortable asking the questions.
Between Here and Home
A Fellow Traveler
This November, Jason will not be joining us as an expert, lecturer, or authority figure.
He will join us as a fellow traveler.
Someone who understands what it feels like to live between cultures.
Someone who has spent years exploring the relationship between identity and belonging.
Someone who believes that every person carries a story worth telling.
And someone who knows that some of the most meaningful journeys are not measured by how far we travel, but by the conversations we have along the way.
Because this experience is not about finding answers.
It is about creating space for the questions.
The stories we carry.
The lives we inherit.
The parts of ourselves we are still discovering.
And perhaps, the many ways we continue finding our way home.
Over the coming months, we'll be sharing more of Jason's story through reflections, community conversations, and our Voices Between Worlds series as we prepare for November together.
We're excited for you to meet him.
The Stories We Carry
November 2–15, 2026
Finding Home Together.
