ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis

lawrence-minh bùi davis is a writer, curator, and Kundiman community member who has worked in partnership with Kundiman to program the Asian American Literature Festival. He has also been a Kundiman Gala honoree. He was interviewed by Gina Chung on May 8th, 2025.

INTERVIEW EXCERPT 1

lawrence-minh bùi davis discusses the motivations behind the development of the Asian American Literature Festival Collective ("AALFC"). He cites Kundiman and the community-focused spirit of the Retreat as being part of the inspiration.

TRANSCRIPT

BÙI DAVIS: It was always really important to me not to just work with -- try and engage all the different organizations and then engage Kundiman or Kundiman being a kind of central partner and founder, but that spirit that I was talking about or that desire to have relationship centered and to think about the festival not as the thing that everything flows into but as a stepping stone to help move towards other things in the future, or like a space -- not a space that tests relationships in the process of making it go a certain way, but as an opportunity to deepen relationships, and if that included hosting some good readings, wonderful. That felt like the idea of the Retreat; the Retreat is about the Retreat, but then it has also gone on to change literary culture broadly, to have huge, long-lasting effects on people's relationships with each other, or how they show up for community, with their own writing careers, and what that means for other writers and Asian American writers and are thinking about not just Asian American existence, but more broadly. That all flowed into the things that I really cared about, and the kind of programming, and the kind of arts-based work I was doing and I've been wanting to do. And then at some point, we started gathering these sets of partners including Kundiman folks centrally that were working on the festival and imagining, "Well, how can we work together that support each other's organization so that we are sharing resources and thinking about five, 10 years down the line and helping each other out, and holding each other accountable.

INTERVIEW EXCERPT 2

lawrence-minh bùi davis reflects on the just transition process that Kundiman embarked upon at the end of 2024, following an organizational crisis. He highlights the importance of centering labor justice as a sustainable practice within the arts.

TRANSCRIPT

BÙI DAVIS: I think that's something we need to run with more, is to really think about what does it mean to put workers at the center — both in the transition process and in where we need to go — in how the arts works, in processes, both public-facing and internally, to make sure that it can be sustainable. It can't be sustainable if it's continually exploiting, and burning out, and throwing away the people who are doing the work -- and nobody's coming to the arts because they want to get rich. They're coming because they believe in it, and we're sucking that dry -- rather than drawing upon it and enriching those people. So, rethinking labor and from there how we work, how the arts does its work, how it's funded, why it's funded, what the aims are, what accountability looks like. All of that has to start with labor justice.

INTERVIEW EXCERPT 3

lawrence-minh bùi davis reflects on the impact Kundiman’s organizational crisis had on its values. He talks about how the events reiterated the need for AAPI organizations to make a greater effort in further including Central Asians, West Asians, and Pacific Islanders in leadership positions.

TRANSCRIPT

BÙI DAVIS: I think [Kundiman] had to course correct its values. If we think back like 10 years, how much are Central and West Asians included in Asian American conversations anywhere? And then ongoing when we say "AAPI," how many organizations say "AAPI" or "APA," and Pacific Islanders are nowhere to be heard in leadership positions? You know, represent a very small portion of outreach or community engagement or audience, let alone like artists programming or artists supported and nurtured. I think it's a different question now than it was two years ago, than it was five years ago, than it was 10 years ago, but I see Kundiman as having tried, in really good faith, to be at the front end of that curve and trying to do work. And, it could do better. We can all do better. We know that this state of affairs has long been unacceptable but we're now in a place where it has to change. I think the impact of these events was bringing to the surface just how unacceptable they were and why.

INTERVIEW EXCERPT 4

lawrence-minh bùi davis shares his hopes for Kundiman’s just transition process. He talks about how power-sharing and transparency is part of the legacy that should be handed over to future arts workers, writers, and readers.

TRANSCRIPT

BÙI DAVIS: Future Kundiman has to have power-sharing. It has to have transparency, and that goes for the larger AAPI literary landscape. It has to be transparent. We are asking people to care about our art, we're asking them to see how better lives happen through the art, how our literary work is our history, it's our dreams, it's our futures, it's the inner selves that we don't give enough time to, it is our incubators, it's our catalyst, it's our space of love, it's our space of working through the hardest and most painful things of what it is to live in this place, and we need it but we can't have it at the cost of hurting each other -- and then pretending that hurting isn't happening. So we have to be open and upfront about these things, the best that we can, and then that hands on a legacy of something better to future generations of writers and readers.

CITATION

Bùi Davis, Lawrence-Minh, Oral history interview conducted by Gina Chung, May 8, 2025, Kundiman Oral History Project.