This collection of poems is largely autobiographical, telling the turning points in a life that began in war-torn Vietnam. Somehow, unlike many, Teresa and her family survived, although her parents were separated for a long time. She, her brother, and her mother escaped Vietnam in a ship crowded with frightened immigrants, and in time they settled in California, bringing with them their nightmares, their memories, their history and culture. Family is a recurring and insistent theme in this book. Teresa devotes her art to her grandmother, her mother, her brother, her son. This is the story of a refugee family who settled in California, bringing with them their nightmares, their memories, their history and culture. “Teresa Mei Chuc’s poems speak from the heart of one woman’s experience, and expand beyond the personal to reveal and record the common experienceof multitudes.... The ‘American experience,’ what is it? Chuc’s RedThread offers us all another piece in this difficult puzzle.” -Lowell Jaeger, Editor, New Poets of the American West