By Lakshmi Gandhi

For writer and artist Trung Le Nguyen, sharing stories was always a way for his family to learn and grow together.

Nguyen, who was born in a Vietnamese refugee camp in the Philippines, moved to the United States with his family as a young child in 1992. "My parents would take me to the library a lot as a little kid, and they were learning English alongside me," Nguyen said. "We went through the process of shoring up our literacy together."

But when he decided to come out to his parents as gay a few years later, he struggled to find the words in Vietnamese — literally. Memories of his journey to discover the right vocabulary to discuss his life with his parents were part of the inspiration behind "The Magic Fish," Nguyen's new graphic novel about a Vietnamese American boy's coming of age, which will be released by Random House Graphic on Tuesday.

National Coming Out Day is Sunday.

The struggle to find the right vocabulary to describe same-sex attraction or nonbinary identities is shared by many Americans whose families speak Asian or Middle Eastern languages at home. Many have said they are often at a loss to find terminology that is both accurate and affirming in their ancestral languages, because the existing vocabulary is nonexistent, stereotypical or offensive. Read more via NBC