In this powerful conversation, Ocean Vuong and E.M. Tran examine the people capitalism often pushes to the margins—immigrants, refugees, low-wage workers, caregivers, addicts, and elders whose lives rarely fit America’s preferred success story. Through The Emperor of Gladness, Vuong rejects the idea that dignity must come from wealth, upward mobility, or escaping poverty, arguing instead that lives built around work, survival, friendship, and care are worthy on their own terms. He challenges the mythology of the American Dream and asks us to look directly at the people whose labor keeps society moving, even when the systems around them barely see them.
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