Vietnamese women in romantic transnational relationships: narratives of Vietnamese identity and transnationality

In recent decades, globalization has intensified the movement of people across national and cultural borders for purposes of study, work and long-term settlement, giving rise to increasingly diverse forms of social and intimate relationships. Within this broader trend, Vietnam has experienced both rising outward mobility – particularly for education, employment and marriage – and an increase in inward migration. One result of such mobility and intensified intercultural interactions is the growing number of transnational relationships and marriages involving Vietnamese nationals. In 2016 alone, 16,233 cases of Vietnamese nationals marrying foreigners were officially recorded, with the vast majority (85%) involving Vietnamese women and foreign partners (Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2017).

Scholars have linked the rise of transnational intimate relationships to several interrelated dimensions of globalization. Piller (2007), for instance, identifies increased international mobility, intensified global data flows and expanded intercultural exchanges as key conditions enabling the formation and maintenance of cross-border romantic ties. These structural changes not only facilitate interpersonal contact but also create new contexts in which cultural norms, identities and expectations are brought into close and sustained interaction.

Studies in intercultural communication have examined identity negotiation and facework in cross-cultural interactions (e.g. Ting-Toomey, 2005; Spreckels & Kotthoff, 2007), while work in counseling and psychology has developed tools and frameworks to support intercultural couples in managing conflict and relational stress (Henriksen, 2007; Ho, 1990; Romano, 2008). Although valuable, this body of research tends to emphasize problem-solving, adjustment and conflict resolution, often treating culture as a variable to be managed rather than as an ongoing site of meaning-making. This framing under-theorizes identity as a site of meaning-making and obscures the agentive, reflexive labor through which individuals actively interpret, contest and rework cultural norms within intimacy.

Addressing this gap, the present study explores narratives of cultural identity by Vietnamese women in romantic transnational relationships and involved three Vietnamese women who varied in their age, place of residence, partner's nationality, duration and stage of the relationship. Focusing on their narrative strategies and how they render identity affirmations and challenges, this study does not aim to explore the objective truth of their life and relationship. Rather, it looks into the “internal story, or personal myth” (McAdams, 1985, as cited in McAdams, 2011, p. 100) that constitutes a person's sense of self and contributes to the limited literature on Vietnamese women's identity negotiation in transnational intimate contexts.

Broadly speaking, intercultural or cross-cultural, relationship is one in which the partners belong to culturally different groups, whether racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious or class. A substantial body of research on intercultural relationships, particularly intermarriages, has focused on the challenges such relationships may face as partners often bring different beliefs, expectations and relational boundaries shaped by their cultures of origin. Factors influencing intercultural couple dynamics include food and eating practices, language use, relationships with friends and extended family, religion, place of residence, intimacy, gender roles, power relations and approaches to conflict resolution (Henriksen, 2007; Romano, 2008). A common assumption in this literature is that intercultural couples face greater difficulty in establishing and sustaining relationships due to individual differences, communication barriers and social pressures such as public scrutiny or familial disapproval. Intermarriages, in particular, have often been associated with higher risks of relational strain and divorce compared to intracultural unions (Gaines & Agnew, 2003).

Within this broader field, transnational couples can be understood as a specific subset of intercultural relationships in which partners come from different countries. While transnational couples may share certain experiences with interracial, interethnic or interfaith couples, they also confront challenges that are distinctively tied to national difference. As a result, transnational intimate relationships are deeply shaped by structural forces beyond the couple itself. National immigration regimes, citizenship policies and labor markets influence who is able to move, settle and claim legitimacy within a relationship. Feminist and political economy scholars have highlighted how care labor, migration status and legal dependency often intersect with gender to produce asymmetrical power relations within transnational partnerships (Constable, 2003). In some contexts, these dynamics have been analyzed through the lens of global inequality, most notably in research on “mail-order brides” and commercialized matchmaking industries, which foreground how intimate relationships may reproduce uneven geopolitical and economic hierarchies (Constable, 2003).

Vietnam is increasingly embedded in global circuits of migration and transnational marriage, yet mobility remains uneven and highly stratified. Much of the existing scholarship on Vietnamese transnational relationships has focused on marriages between Vietnamese women and men from wealthier East Asian countries, particularly South Korea and Taiwan. This literature has yielded important insights into brokerage systems, gendered migration pathways and the vulnerabilities faced by women in economically asymmetrical marriages. At the same time, this focus has contributed to a narrow empirical and conceptual framing in which Vietnamese women's transnational relationships are primarily interpreted through lenses of economic necessity, victimhood or cultural mismatch.

As a result, several key gaps remain. First, much of the literature centers on intermarriage as a legal or demographic category, rather than on diverse form of intimate relationships. Second, there is a notable absence of women's own stories of love, desire and self-understanding, particularly outside highly structured or economically motivated marriage arrangements. Third, existing research has tended to privilege explanatory frameworks rooted in adjustment, adaptation or conflict management, leaving limited space for identity to be understood as an ongoing, narrative process.

Identity is commonly understood as comprising both personal and social dimensions. While personal identity refers to individual uniqueness, social identity concerns how individuals understand themselves in relation to the social groups to which they belong (Baldwin, Coleman, González, & Shenoy-Packer, 2014). Originating in social psychology, particularly in the work of Tajfel and Turner, social identity is considered a core aspect of self-concept that encompasses both group membership and the meanings attached to that membership (Duszak, 2002; Baldwin et al., 2014). Because individuals occupy multiple roles and group memberships, social identities are inherently plural and are constructed through socially and culturally salient categories such as nationality, ethnicity, race, gender or profession. Crucially, social identities are not fixed attributes but are situational, dynamic and interactively constructed (Duszak, 2002).

National identity can be understood as a particular form of social identity, one that is organized around shared belonging and the construction of difference. Benedict Anderson's (1983) influential notion of the nation as an “imagined community” emphasizes that national belonging does not require face-to-face interaction among members of the nation. Rather, through shared languages, media forms, historical narratives and symbols, individuals come to imagine themselves as part of a larger community of strangers. In this way, national identity becomes “real” in the heart and mind of the nationalized subjects. As Stuart Hall (1994, p. 201 as cited in de Cillia, Reisigl, & Wodak, 1999, p. 155) further argues:

In the context of globalization and transnationalism, according to many scholars, national and cultural identities face increasing pressure. Yodanis et al.’s (2012) qualitative study of interethnic couples in Canada indicates that intimate partnerships can deepen engagement with a partner's cultural world and, in some cases, loosen attachment to one's ancestral identity. Scherr (2007) argues that global processes have weakened the notion of autonomous national cultures, while Liu Xin (1997) suggests that increased mobility has loosened the tie between identity and fixed national space (as cited in Lin, 2002).

However, globalization does not produce uniform effects. Woodward (1997) emphasizes this ambivalence, suggesting that the same global cultural flows that appear to weaken local attachments may also intensify them or produce new forms of identification:

Much of the scholarship on identity negotiation has been informed by acculturation models that focus on how individuals adapt to cultural difference. Berry's (2005) bidimensional acculturation framework, which distinguishes integration, assimilation, separation and marginalization, remains particularly influential. Overall, integration tends to be associated with lower stress and more positive adaptation, while marginalization is linked to poorer outcomes; assimilation and separation generally fall in between on both dimensions (Berry, 2005).

At the same time, acculturation models have been critiqued for treating identity change as an individualized, largely apolitical process. In response, scholars have proposed more dynamic frameworks. Cultural Fusion Theory, described by Croucher and Kramer (2017), conceptualizes intercultural relationships as sites of ongoing, bidirectional change. Newcomers both adapt to the dominant culture and retain elements of their minority culture, while the host society simultaneously incorporates aspects of the newcomers' cultural practices. Through this mutual exchange, a fused intercultural identity emerges rather than a one-sided cultural replacement. Relatedly, scholarship on hybridity and third culture formation highlights how transnational relationships often generate relational spaces that exist beyond singular national or cultural frameworks. Research on internationally mobile couples and families demonstrates how partners develop new cultural repertoires through multilingualism, shared rituals and hybrid social networks. Studies of so-called “third culture” formation suggest that these hybrid identities are not simply compromises but creative constructions that allow individuals to navigate complex cultural landscapes (Casmir, 2012; Moore & Barker, 2012).

Additionally, Levitt and Schiller's (2004) concept of the transnational social field offers a broader lens for understanding identity negotiation. Rather than viewing migration and intimacy through linear models of departure and assimilation, they conceptualize transnationalism as a set of interlocking social relations that span borders and link individuals simultaneously to multiple national, cultural and institutional contexts. Within such fields, identities are not relocated wholesale from one place to another, but are continuously reworked through everyday practices, relationships and narratives that connect “here” and “there.” Similarly, Butcher (2009) conceptualizes relationships as “spaces of belonging” (p. 1355) that are deeply affective and often unstable. In her study of Australian transnational professionals working in Asia, romantic relationships prompted sustained re-evaluations of selfhood and the development of what she terms mobile subjectivity, a flexible sense of identity that enables individuals to manage cultural difference while seeking emotional comfort.

Taken together, this body of literature positions transnational romantic relationships as emotionally and culturally complex terrains in which identity is not simply adapted, but actively negotiated. Shaped by both structural constraints and interpersonal dynamics, these relationships also provide spaces for agency, creativity and narrative meaning-making.

Narrative identity offers a productive lens for examining how individuals make sense of themselves within complex social and cultural contexts. McAdams (1985, as cited in McAdams, 2011) proposes that identity might be conceived as “an internal story, or personal myth” consisting of “main characters, intersecting plots, key scenes, and an imagined ending” (p. 100). These stories show both (selective) construction of the personal past and an imagined future. McAdams (2011) suggests that narrative identities emerge in late adolescence and emerging adulthood but are never finished or fixed. Instead, stories are the means through which people continue to make sense of their own lives and those of others. This “internalized and evolving story of the self […] provides a person's life with some semblance of unity, purpose, and meaning” (McAdams, 2011, p. 100).

Notably, narrative identity is inseparable from culture and can be considered a joint product between the person and their culture. Besides cultural differences in autobiographical memory, one can see cultural themes in individual life stories. For example, many Americans' narratives of success, recovery or development embody the script of American exceptionalism (McAdams, 2011). Factors such as gender, race and class provide further “narrative opportunities” and “narrative constraints” (McAdams, 2011, p. 110) that influence storytelling. Through narratives, individuals could connect their life to the broader stories of the society and culture in which they live. Narrative identity thus provides a framework for understanding identity not as a fixed set of attributes, but as an ongoing process of meaning-making, one that is particularly salient in transnational contexts, where individuals must negotiate multiple, and sometimes competing, cultural scripts and expectations.

This research employs a qualitative narrative approach. Narrative inquiry examines individual experiences in stories lived and told. Essentially, narrative inquiry involves “reconstruction of a person's experience in relationship both to the other and to a social milieu” (Clandinin & Conelly, as cited in Pinnegar & Daynes, 2007, p. 5). Three commonplaces characterize narrative inquiry as a research method: attention to temporality, sociality and place. Temporality suggests that subjects under study are in “temporal transition” and has a sense of movement and process. Sociality points towards interaction between people and their personal and social conditions. Personal conditions might include feelings, desires, moral dispositions while social conditions mean the environment and surrounding factors and forces that form the individual's context. The last commonplace emphasizes the specificity of places on lived and told experiences. Contrary to the positivist position that wishes to “escape the limitations of place in the interests of generalizability”, narrative inquiry posits that shifts in places might influence the unfolding of stories (Clandinin & Rosiek, 2007, p. 70). The narrative practice is interested in how people experience subjectively and give meaning to events and actions.

The three participants were recruited through the researchers' extended personal and professional networks, which helped create the level of familiarity and trust necessary for extended narrative interviews. The participants were not selected to represent Vietnamese women in transnational relationships statistically, but rather to provide contrasting and information-rich cases that illuminate different forms of identity negotiation across transnational intimacy. During recruitment, the researchers intentionally sought variation in age, mobility, relationship duration and relational configuration in order to capture multiple trajectories of transnational identity formation. There is no requirement on the couple's duration of the relationship as long as the Vietnamese woman considers the relationship significant. In the end, the three selected participants vary in their age (two young adults and one middle-aged woman); place of residence (Vietnam and abroad); partner's nationality (Hungarian, British, Canadian-born Chinese); duration of relationship (1 year, 3.5 years and over 5 years) and stage of the relationship (dating, cohabitation and marriage).

One participant, Phuong, remained in Vietnam throughout the relationship. However, her inclusion was analytically important because the study approaches transnationalism not solely as physical mobility across borders, but also as everyday negotiation emerging through everyday encounters with cultural difference. Including this case broadens the study's understanding of how transnational experiences are lived and narrated beyond migration alone.

The data were collected during in-depth narrative interviews of 2–2.5 hours each. This design encouraged storytelling, self-expression and richness of details. The participants chose the meeting place, which created a safe and comfortable environment. The interviews were predominantly in Vietnamese, their mother tongue, to reduce misinterpretations although the women felt free to switch to English whenever necessary, which they periodically did. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and translated into English. Personal information such as names, hometowns and names of people mentioned in the interview was changed to ensure confidentiality.

Data analysis sought to reconstruct stories of the three Vietnamese women's affiliation with and negotiation of their Vietnamese identity in romantic transnational relationships where contexts, feelings and meanings were discussed in rich details. Particular attention was paid to how participants positioned themselves in relation to “Vietnamese-ness,” their partners and broader cultural and national discourses, as well as how moments of tension, change or contradiction were narratively resolved. Thematic analysis made use of a combination of inductive and deductive coding, attending not only to what was said but also to how stories were structured.

Linh is a Vietnamese woman in her 20s from a middle-class family in Bac Giang, a city north of Hanoi. As the oldest child in a close-knit and family-oriented household, she developed strong emotional ties with her mother and paternal grandmother, both of whom greatly influenced her values and life decisions. Growing up, she witnessed unresolved tensions and her father's unhealthy involvement in gambling, experiences that discouraged her from imagining marriage with a Vietnamese. While studying abroad in Budapest, Hungary, Linh met her current boyfriend, Andy, a white Hungarian man. At the time of the study, they had been dating for nearly two years and living together for approximately a year and a half.

Linh's narrative is characterized by active integration into Hungarian society, and significant redefinitions of her existing beliefs. Her identity negotiations emerged not only through her relationship with Andy, but also the interactions with people, culture and social environment that Andy introduced her to.

Phuong is a recent university graduate in Vietnam. Born into a family of working-class parents with four sisters, she grew up aware that her family was often considered “undesirable” in the son-preferring Vietnamese culture. Despite this, her parents remained deeply devoted to their children, although they discouraged romantic relationships during high school in order to prioritize education. After moving to Hanoi for university, Phuong imagined herself eventually dating a quiet and ordinary Vietnamese “techie”. Instead, she fell in love with Joe, a white British musician she met while volunteering at a music festival. At the time of the study, the couple had been together for approximately one year and continued to reside in Vietnam.

Her identity work centered not only on adapting to her boyfriend's culturally different practices but also on protecting her self-understanding as a “virtuous and decent Vietnamese woman” from social prejudices surrounding Vietnamese women romantically involved with a white man.

Mai is a middle-aged Vietnamese woman from a middle-class family with well-educated parents. Describing herself as a “rebel” by Vietnamese standards from a young age, recalled always feeling that she did not fully fit within the conventional “gender box” of the Vietnamese society. Unlike the other two participants, Mai entered her transnational relationship after an unsuccessful marriage. She and her husband, Nick, a Canadian-born Chinese man, were colleagues and close friends for more than a decade before becoming romantic partners. At the time of the study, they had been in a relationship for five years and married since the previous November. Compared to the younger participants, Mai narrated relatively few dramatic transformations in her identity throughout the relationship. Although open to cultural differences and negotiation, she viewed the Vietnamese identity formed during her young adulthood in Vietnam as a stable foundation that continued to shape and regulate her decisions, values and behaviors.

When asked if they thought of themselves as Vietnamese, all three participants did not hesitate to answer Yes. Linh, for example, said: “I am very much Vietnamese. It does not matter where I go or what I do. I will always be a Vietnamese”. Being Vietnamese emerged not merely as a stable identity label but as a relationally produced sense of self that was continually affirmed and clarified through comparison with other Vietnamese, their partners and other people. In doing so, identity was constructed through difference as much as through sameness.

Specifically, the participants highlighted their Vietnamese identity by comparing themselves with “the culturally others” while assuming a level of uniformity among Vietnamese people. This was marked by linguistic strategies, such as in pronouns like “we Vietnamese”, “we”, “us” or when the participants sought our agreement by phrases such as “right?”, “you also know that”. Phuong described her conflict avoidance tendency as a Vietnamese trait:

Linh, similarly, distinguished between the “Vietnamese” and “Western” way of treating the parents:

Importantly, these comparisons should not be understood as objective or culturally accurate descriptions of either “Vietnamese” or “Western” societies. The participants often relied on broad cultural generalizations and simplified oppositions, selectively emphasizing certain traits while overlooking internal differences and contradictions within both groups. The invocation of “Western values” or “Vietnamese culture” functions as a relational resource for self-definition through contrast.

Second, the participants' narratives of cultural identity frequently invoked what they described as “traditional Vietnamese values,” particularly those related to family and gender. While all three agreed that being Vietnamese entails prioritizing family and taking family considerations seriously in personal decision-making, these commitments were enacted in notably different ways.

For Phuong, family was framed primarily through compliance and self-restraint: she avoided romantic relationships in high school because her parents “forbade” them, and although she wanted a tattoo, she chose not to get one out of concern that it would upset them. Linh, by contrast, described her familial orientation in terms of trust and emotional influence; she actively sought her mother's advice and treated parental input as guidance rather than constraint. Mai's relationship with her parents was articulated through care rather than obedience. Living at a geographical distance and positioning herself as more mature, she felt less constrained by parental expectations, yet was still willing to do things she considered unnecessary – though not things she actively disliked – in order to make her parents happy. Therefore, the participants did not simply reproduce a singular or fixed notion of “Vietnamese family values,” but rather interpreted and negotiated these values through their own life histories and emotional relationships with family members.

In terms of gender expectations, all three women suggested that the man should be “the pillar of the family”, meaning financially, mentally and physically stronger in a relationship. They valued qualities such as stability and security in their men and, in turns, tended to assume greater responsibility for domestic and emotional care work. Mai said:

At the same time, these gendered expectations were negotiated differently depending on personality, age and relationship context. As a married middle-aged woman, Mai found it her responsibility to get her husband Nick to be more involved in his extended family. She cared about Nick's children and constantly addressed their needs, for example, by asking what she called the “typical Viet parents' question” (as she claimed): “Have you eaten yet?” multiple times a day.

Among the three participants, Phuong struggled most explicitly with the notion of feminine virtue. She expressed regret over becoming sexually intimate with her partner and described it as a “sacrifice” made for the relationship, suggesting a strong internalization of ideals surrounding female sexual modesty. Her narrative also revealed an acute awareness of social stereotypes directed at Vietnamese women dating white men. According to Phuong, such relationships are often viewed suspiciously, with assumptions that Vietnamese women pursue foreign men for money or social mobility. In response, Phuong concealed her relationship from most of her friends and family: “I'm not ready to showcase this relationship just because he is a foreign guy. I feel like if people in my hometown know, they will think I'm with him because he has a lot of money.”

As illustrated above, invoking Vietnamese identity allows the participants to make sense of their own traits, practices, beliefs and habits, while also helps them better position themselves in relationship with their partners. “Being Vietnamese” functions as an interpretive resource that legitimizes everyday preferences and emotional responses, as when one participant stated, “I love Vietnamese food. When I cook it, he can't stand the smell of fish sauce, but I don't care,” or when another remarked, “I get anxious and can be jealous, which both of us agree is such a typical Vietnamese woman thing, but I just can't help it.” In these moments, cultural identity provides explanatory power: tensions and differences are framed as culturally grounded rather than as personal shortcomings. This culturalization, in the context of relationship, contributes to nurturing a degree of mutual acceptance and thus, has both psychological and relational functions.

Interactions with their culturally different partner exposed them to new practices like food, eating habits, hobbies and language experiences. Although Linh was still obsessed with Vietnamese food, she had learned to eat more Hungarian food. Phuong reported frequently enjoying Western food such as burger and fries, fish and chips, steak, which she had never tried before dating her British boyfriend. In caring for her husband and stepchildren, Mai learned to cook Western and Chinese food alongside Vietnamese and no longer followed the standard three meals a day at fixed times.

Apart from food and eating habits, the women learned about the values and traditions of the other countries and adopted certain lifestyles that they considered unpopular with their Vietnamese peers. Now living in Budapest, Linh loved nights out, and frequently visited local pubs, bars and jazz clubs to dance and even smoke. To Linh, Andy had been a gate through which she could not only gain a deeper understanding of the host society but also integrate into natives' lives. Phuong referred to her boyfriend as a typical Brit who was “posh” and loved “expensive and fancy things”. As he was a musician, Phuong often visited late night music clubs to chill or support his performances, which she had never done prior to dating him.

In terms of language practices, English was the language of their relationship. Although all three participants spoke fluent English, they still reported difficulty, especially when they had conflicts or misunderstandings. Most of the times, however, the participants saw it as an opportunity to learn to communicate more effectively.

The forms of acculturation described in this section are primarily at the level of everyday practices, habits and interactional routines rather than identity transformation. While the participants adopted new foods, leisure activities, communication styles and social practices through their relationships, they generally did not interpret these changes as fundamentally altering their sense of being Vietnamese. More substantial redefinitions of gender, intimacy and selfhood emerge at the level of identity discourse and are discussed in the following section.

Across the narratives, identity change is articulated not as rupture but as re-articulation: a process through which the participants reinterpret what it means to be Vietnamese under new relational and cultural conditions.

Phuong talked about changing from an indirect, unassertive person to a straightforward one. She used to be very conscious of what people might think of her, believing her actions would “speak for not only herself but also her family”. She tended to compromise to avoid offending others. Whenever she had a fight with her boyfriend, Phuong would shut down until her frustration faded. Joe, however, always confronted her and expected both of them to open up and talk. Gradually, Phuong took to Joe's style of conflict resolution: “Seeing that Joe always talks everything out and says whatever is going on in his mind, I start to become much more direct and transparent about my thoughts. I have also become more sincere, and honest, which felt great!”

Moving away from the traditional view that women should serve their man, the women rejected the idea that their life should “orbit around their husband, their kids, cooking, cleaning, and household chores as such”. Linh mentioned how interaction with “inspirational culturally different” people enlightened her that she had much more potential than she thought. She also explained that her boyfriend's insistence to keep his “space for self-development” drove her to re-think women's role in a relationship. Here, Linh narratively repositions autonomy and self-development as desirable feminine traits, aligning them with a modernized vision of Vietnamese womanhood.

While Mai was strongly family-oriented, she also emphasized independence and respect in her current marriage. This is different from her Vietnamese friends or herself while married to her Vietnamese ex-husband:

Earlier in the interview, Mai explicitly described herself as a rebel by Vietnamese standards from a young age, a self-characterization that reveals a longer narrative arc of self-positioning that predates her transnational marriage. Reflecting on identity and personal change, she explained:

Her account suggests that transnational relationships may not create new identities, but can also provide spaces in which previously existing orientations are affirmed, stabilized or more fully expressed.

Taken together, these narratives demonstrate identity change which is not experienced as cultural loss or detachment. Instead, the participants construct a coherent narrative of transformation that preserves Vietnamese identity while redefining its meanings. They selectively reinterpret Vietnamese womanhood by combining enduring commitments to family, care and relationality with greater emphasis on autonomy, emotional openness and self-development. Their invocation of “modern” or “Western” values, again, functioned as narrative resources. The contrasts between “Western” and “Vietnamese”; “modern” and “traditional” are simplified and selective, yet they enable the participants to explain personal change in culturally meaningful ways. By framing their changes as modernization rather than abandonment, the women sustain a sense of continuity and agency. In this way, their stories exemplify how narrative identity enables individuals to reconcile cultural belonging with personal growth, producing resilient identities capable of accommodating significant relational and ideological shifts.

Transnationalism refers to the flow of people, ideas, capital and goods across national borders. Although it overlaps with globalization, the two are separate phenomena. Kearney (1995) offers a useful distinction: “Whereas global processes are largely decentered from specific national territories and take place in a global space, transnational processes are anchored in and transcend one or more nation-states” (p. 548). Scholars of transnationalism have often focused on migration patterns and how transnational migrants are simultaneously connected to multiple social and cultural world within a “dynamic of the “here” and “there”” (Duong, 2015, p. 233). However, transnationalism should not be reduced solely to the physical movement of bodies across borders. In this study, transnationalism is approached as an everyday relational condition that emerges through intimate cross-cultural encounters, communication and negotiation. From this perspective, transnational relationships constitute important sites where transnational processes are lived, experienced and narrated in daily life.

As demonstrated above, engagement with culturally different experiences has prompted the participants to reflect upon, negotiate and reinterpret what it means to be a Vietnamese woman. Rather than functioning as a fixed essence, Vietnamese identity operates as an interpretive framework through which the women evaluate new ideas, practices and relationship norms. While the participants experience changes, adopt new habits or even beliefs within their relationship and through access to a different culture, these changes are interpreted not as cultural abandonment but as compatible with a more “modern” form of Vietnamese womanhood. This narrative strategy allows for the co-existence of both continuities and discontinuities, both stability and dynamism in identity construction. The participants maintain a coherent sense of themselves as Vietnamese even while accommodating new practices, contradictions and shifting expectations within transnational relationships. While concerns have been raised that globalization and transnationalism may lead to the weakening of national and cultural identity or identity confusion (Scherr, 2007; Woodward, 1997; Yodanis, Lauer, & Ota, 2012), the narratives in this study suggest there is a possibility of forming a resilient and adaptive cultural identity that can sustain changes, contradictions and complexities without experiencing fragmentation or loss.

The participants' narratives suggest that cultural identity is closely intertwined with gender, age and relational experience. As Vietnamese women in heterosexual relationships, they actively negotiate gendered expectations surrounding care, independence, emotional expression and relational responsibility. At the same time, differences in age, prior romantic experience and relationship stage appears to shape how identity change itself was narrated. Linh and Phuong, both unmarried and in their early twenties, had not experienced a serious romantic relationship prior to their current one and therefore tended to describe their relationships through moments of discovery, transformation and emotional intensity. Mai, by contrast, narrated far fewer significant changes within her relationship. Such differences suggest that transnational relationships do not produce a singular trajectory of identity change. Rather, the meaning and intensity of transformation are shaped by life stage, prior experiences and how individuals narratively position themselves in relation to continuity and change.

Taken together, the findings support conceptualizations of transnational relationships as “spaces of belonging” (Butcher, 2009), where identity is not merely expressed but actively produced. By adopting a narrative identity lens, this study foregrounds how women actively author coherent selves across culturally complex lives.

An identity narrative approach has granted us privileged insights into the experiences of Vietnamese women in romantic intercultural relationships. Contrary to assumptions that transnational relationships necessarily weaken national or cultural attachments, all three participants strongly affirmed their Vietnamese identity. Vietnamese identity served an explanatory and affective function in the women's relationships. By framing certain habits, emotional responses or preferences as “Vietnamese,” participants were able to externalize relational tensions and reduce their personalization. Across narratives, participants consistently rejected the idea that becoming more assertive, independent or self-oriented constituted a loss of Vietnamese identity. Instead, these changes were narrated as expressions of becoming a modern Vietnamese woman.

This study contributes to scholarship on transnational intimacy and identity by adding qualitative, narrative-driven accounts of Vietnamese women whose transnational relationships emerge from love and everyday encounter rather than economic necessity or brokerage systems, addressing a notable gap in the literature. More broadly, by centering women's voices and stories, this study reveals transnational relationships as sites not only of constraint and inequality but also of creativity, reflection and identity resilience.

As a narrative inquiry based on three participants recruited through personal networks, this study is not intended to produce representative or generalizable claims about Vietnamese women in transnational relationships. Rather than breadth, the study prioritizes depth, contextuality and the exploration of identity as lived and narrated experience. The small sample size also means that the findings cannot capture the full diversity of transnational relationships across class, region, migration trajectories, racial dynamics or relationship configurations. Future research could extend this study by examining a larger and more diverse range of transnational relationships involving Vietnamese participants across gender, class, generation, migration status and partner background. Future studies could also include both partners to explore how identity work is co-constructed within the relationship rather than experienced only from one side. Longitudinal research would be especially valuable for tracing how identity narratives shift across relationship stages, including dating, cohabitation, marriage, migration, parenting or separation.