I. The Vietnam/American War

A. Diaspora: community of people displaced from origins
B. War and violence in Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries

1. WWII: Japanese colonization, atomic bombs
2. Anti-colonial struggles and revolution
3. Postcolonial violence: partition (India and Pakistan), Sri Lanka

C. Vietnam: 19th c - independence

1. French colony: late 19th c - WWII
2. Japanese occupation during WWII

a. Ho Chi Minh works with allies, including OSS
b. Famine in northern Vietnam: 1944-5
c. September 2, 1945: Ho Chi Minh reads Declaration of Independence in Ba Dinh Square

3. Occupation by Chinese and British troops
4. Trusteeship turns into concern about communism in France and Asia
5. 1946-1954: war between Viet Minh and France (map)

a. Significant US funding for France (80% by 1954)
b. May 1954: French defeat at Dien Bien Phu

D. Geneva Accords (1954) - 1963

1. Division between Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North) and Republic of Vietnam (South)
2. Elections planned for 1956, but never held
3. Ho Chi Minh, DRVN President
4. Ngo Dinh Diem, RVN President
5. Migration: 80,000 go north, 800,000 or so go south
6. Late 1950s: DRVN starts using Ho Chi Minh Trail (map)
7. 1960: NLF (Viet Cong) formed
8. Buddhist crisis of 1963
9. November 1963: coup, Ngo Dinh Diem and brother killed

E. War: 1964-1975

1. Coup increases American involvement
2. 1964: Tonkin Gulf Resolution
3. 1968: Tet Offensive and My Lai Massacre
4. 1969: Nixon authorizes secret bombing of Cambodia, Lon Nol ousts Prince Sihanouk (Cambodia)
5. 1970: Kent State
6. 1973: Paris Peace Accords, US troops withdraw
7. April 30, 1975: "Fall" or "Liberation" of Saigon, war ends

 

II. Representing the War

A. Facts and terms

1. Nearly 60,000 Americans killed
2. Vietnamese loss of life: 1.5-7 million
3. April 3, 1995: Hanoi says one million Vietnamese combatants and four million civilians died during Second Indochina War (1960-1975)
4. VN: American War (War against the United States for national salvation)
5. US: Vietnam War
6. Southern Vietnamese on "losing" side: "The War" or "Before '75"
7. Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City: fell/liberated
8. Stop spread of communism/Expand American imperialism

 

III. Vietnamese Immigration to the United States

A. Paris Peace Accords, 1973
B. April 30, 1975: Saigon taken over, renamed Ho Chi Minh City

1. Evacuation of remaining Americans
2. Evacuation of tens of thousands of southern Vietnamese
3. Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, May 1975
4. Approximately 130,000 Vietnamese come to US: generally middle-class, educated, connections to US or southern government

C. Political and Economic Restructuring

1. Re-education
2. Socialization of businesses
3. New Economic Zones
4. Difficulties post-re-education: jobs, education, surveillance

D. Second wave of migration: "boat people"

1. Starts around 1977
2. Invasion of Cambodia, 1979
3. Chinese border war, 1979: Vietnam claims 100,000 killed in one month
4. Exodus of Chinese Vietnamese

E. Orderly Departure Program

1. UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 1979
2. Family reunification
3. HO, 1988: re-education camps for more than three years, those with ties to US or southern government

F. US-Vietnam diplomatic relations, 1994

 

IV. Experiences of Migration

A. About 1,000,000 Vietnamese migrate to US
B. Dilemmas faced by Vietnamese immigrants

1. Family loss and separation
2. Gender and age relationships

a. English language
b. Employment
c. Loss of economic and educational status from VN

 

V. The Refugee Turned Model Minority

A. Yen Le Espiritu: narratives of success and rescue in images of "desperate turned successful" Vietnamese Americans
B. Problems with "desperate"

1. Victimization narrative seems to render Vietnamese passive
2. Shores up sense of Americans as rescuers
3. Focus on culture and assimilation
4. Reinforce perceptions of America as always a land of opportunity

C. Problems with "successful"

1. Seen as due to enduring Vietnamese cultural values
2. Implicitly blames other minority groups for their supposed lack of success

D. Category of Asian Americans erases differences of history and experience
E. Question category of "refugee"

1. Process of leaving shaped by longer history, including of US involvement
2. Explore diverse Vietnamese perspectives

 

VI. Stories

A. Story versus history
B. Multisensory
C. Gender
D. Othering