Nguyen is possibly best known for her compilation zine Evolution of a Race Riot first published in 1997 with a second issue in 2002,[9] in which she and contributors of color challenged racism in the punk scene.

In June 2013, Sarah McCarry's Guillotine ("a series of erratically published chapbooks focused on revolutionary non-fiction") released PUNK, a conversation between Nguyen and Golnar Nikpour, which later informed a 2016 exhibition at the Arnolfini called "Moving Targets.

In her essay "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival", Nguyen discusses the work the Riot Grrrl movement has done in calling attention to how a woman's personal experiences with sexual abuse, heteronormativity, and intimacy with other women are tied up with the political and social.

[14] Nguyen created Evolution of a Race Riot as a compilation zine based in North America.

[15] According to Nguyen in her introduction to the first issue of the zine, most of the submissions are written by mixed race or Asian-American people of color.