Annotated Resource Guide

Annotated Resource Guide

Southeast Asia Post-Vietnam/American War

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Annotated Resource Guide

Southeast Asia Post-Vietnam/American War

Cynthia Chan Imanaka and Tracy Lai

SeattleCentralCommunity College

April 2005

Nonfiction

History

Longman,Patrick Hearden. The Tragedy of Vietnam. New York: Longman, 2005.

At just over 200 pages, Longman’s narrative is a brief overview of the causes and consequences of U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia. The writing style is accessible and the text would work in a survey setting.

Kimball,Jeffrey P. To Reason Why. New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 1990.

A multifaceted analysis of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The anthology includes primary documents, many written by key players in the debate over the war, from 1945-75.

Templer,Robert. Shadows & Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.

Templer uses his journalistic skills to examine the social, political, and economic conditions and issues facing Vietnam in its efforts to modernize.

Hein,Jeremy. From Vietnam, LaosCambodia: A Refugee Experience in the United States. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995.

Using a historical and sociological paradigm of analysis, Hein discusses the migration, adaptation of S.E. refugees to the U.S. He examines the Communist regimes in S. E. Asia and within the U.S. he addresses core issues facing S.E. Asians—racial conflict, political empowerment, family, and economic and occupational development. A resource filled with well-documented research.

McCoy,Alfred. The Politics of Heroin. Chicago, Illinois: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003.

Subtitled “CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (Afghanistan/Southeast Asia/Central America/Colombia)”, the book explores drug trafficking, especially the U.S. government’s covert roles.

SarDesai, D.R. Southeast Asia. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2003.

SarDesai’s textbook is in its fifth edition. The topics include ancient cultural heritage, colonial conflicts, as well as the contemporary period. Each part concludes with a review and commentary to help interpret the chronology of development.

Multiracial Children

Bass,Thomas A. Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home. New York: Soho Press, 1996.

Through the use of interviews with U.S. and Vietnamese officials, social workers and the children of mixed descent who remain in Vietnam, Vietnamerica depicts some the stories of the bui doi, "the dust of life” who are reminders and often forgotten products of the war.

McKelvey, Robert S. The Dust of Life: America’s Children Abandoned in Vietnam. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.

McKelvey was former marine during the Vietnam-American War in the late 1960s and is currently a child psychiatrist who returned to Vietnam in 1990. This book is a collection of his interviews with Vietnamese Amerasians. The work is thematic organized around issues of parental loss, experiences of prejudice and discrimination, coping with adversities, and adaptation. His book explores these issues with Amerasians both in Vietnam and in the U.S.

Nguyen,Kien. Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood. Boston: Back Bay Books, 2002.

Memoir of Nguyen and his family after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Nguyen is the son of a wealthy Vietnamese woman and American businessman. He recounts his experience as an Amerasian in war torn Vietnam, and later his adjustment to life in the U.S.

Culture & Identity

Pham,Andrew X. Catfish & Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam. New York: Picador, 2000.

The bicycle odyssey of Pham from the landscapes of theU.S. to Mexico and Japan. He ultimately lands in Vietnam where he begins his journey of self-discovery in defining his sense of place in America, his adopted homeland, and his country of birth, Vietnam.

Terry,Simeon, et al. Through the Eyes of the Judged: Autobiographical Sketches by Incarcerated Young Men Gateway Program at The Evergreen State College. Olympia, Washington, 2001. “Truth,” Tuan Ngoc Dang.

Dang’s personal struggles, experiences traversing through and rising above cultural differences, feelings of alienation, and incarceration to ultimately define his sense of place on his own terms and not be judged.

Fifield, Adam. A Blessing Over Ashes: The Remarkable Odyssey of My Unlikely Brother. New York: Perennial, 2001.

Fifield narrates a coming of age story that cross-culturally intersects between his and his family’s life with that of their foster brother/son, Soeuth, a 14 year old refugee from Cambodia. We follow Soeuth’s efforts to adjust to the U.S., but lingering in his mind is the hopes that his family is still alive in Cambodia. We are taken on a journey that results in a visit by Adam and Soeuth to Cambodia to meet the family Soeuth once thought was dead.

Clark,Thekla. Children in Exile: The Story of a Cross-Cultural Family. New York:Ecco Press, 1998.

A memoir about the growing relationships of two refugee families, one ethnically Chinese from Vietnam, one Cambodian, who are “adopted” by an American family who reside in Tuscany, Italy.

Social Experience in Vietnam

Hayslip,Le Ly and Jay Wurts. When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace. New York: Plume, 1993.

A young girl’s account of her family’s harrowing struggle during a time of war where one’s political loyalties defined one’s ability to survive and tested one’s endurance and faith.

Mote, Sue Murphy. Hmong and American, Stories of Transition to a Strange Land. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2004.

Mote’s interest in the Hmong community awakened through her work as a reporter. In the introduction, Mote states, “My wish in writing this book is to follow a few Hmong – friends, now – from their home world into the middle forest of the tigers.” Through individual and community stories, Mote conveys the enormity of change experienced.

Impact of Agent Orange

“Long-Term Consequences of the Vietnam War: Public Health.” Report to the Environmental Conference on Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam.

One of a series of reports produced from the 2002 Environmental Conference on Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. An analysis of the long-term public health consequences resulting from the Vietnam-American War.

“Long-Term Consequences of the Vietnam War: Ecosystems.” Report to the Environmental Conference on Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam.

One of a series of reports produced from the 2002 Environmental Conference on Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. An examination of the long-term ecosystems consequences resulting from the Vietnam-American War.

“Apocalypse Still, Robert Dreyfuss, January/February 2000, Mother Jones, 25, no. 1: 42-51.

An assessment of the toxic consequences of Agent Orange on Vietnam’s social and environmental landscape.

Zumwalt, Jr., Admiral Elmo, and Lt. Elmo Zumwalt III. My Father, My Son. MacMillan Publishing, 1986. Dell (reprint), 1987.

In 1968, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Jr., commanded the U.S. naval forces in Vietnam. He ordered the use of Agent Orange during a 3 year period, believing that the defoliant would help make the rivers safer for his sailors. His son, Elmo Zumwalt III, volunteered for riverboat duty during this time. Years later, he was diagnosed with two different forms of cancer and died at age 42 in 1988. This book is a collaboration between father and son.

Trafficking

Brad Wong’s expose, a series of articles detailing the exploitation of garment workers and the escape of 12 women from sweatshop slavery.

Nicholas D. Kristof’s series of Op—Ed articles on sex trafficking in Cambodia.

Fiction

Doi Moi - Renovation

Huong, Duong Thu.Paradise of the Blind. New York: Perennial, 2002.

Previously banned in Vietnam. The focus is after the US – Vietnam War. Growing up with her mother and aunt, Hang fights to survive in a northern village and a Hanoi slum. Hang leaves Vietnam for Soviet Union as an export worker. While there Hang is summoned to Moscow by her Uncle Chinh, who played an integral role in imposing land-reform in their native village. In this novel we are spectators to the role Communism plays in the lives of the villagers and Hang’s family, and Hang’s struggle to moderate between tradition and a need for self independence.

Huong, Duong Thu and et al. Memories of a Pure Spring. NY: Penguin, 2001.

Plot centers on Vietnam just before the end of the war and during Doi Moi. Hung, the main character heads a wartime musical troupe that is sent to the front to entertain the soldiers. His artistic career ends when he runs afoul with the authorities. Subsequently, his marriage to singer Suong starts to falter. Frustrated with his fate in life, Hung takes to opium, engages with prostitutes, resulting in contracting venereal disease. Hung’s deteriorating life mirrors the erosion of Vietnam.

Huong, Duong Thu. Novel Without a Name. NY: Penguin, 1996.

The after effects of the war are told from the perspective of a North Vietnamese, Quan. His return to village confronts him with an understanding of the toll war has played on the lives of others and the sense of disillusionment felt as villagers find that communism does not produce glorious results that they had hoped for. This novel landed Huong in jail for seven months in 1991.

Ho,Anh Thai and et al. The Women on the Island. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001.

Takes place in the 1980s during Doi Moi and explores the lives of female veterans of the war, as well as men who came of age during the war and are confronted with the contradictions of rebuilding Viet Nam.

Operation Babylift and Multiracial Children

Phan, Aimee. We Should Never Meet (stories). New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004.

Weaving stories from Saigon, 1975 to current day “Little Saigon” in Southern California, Phan dramatizes the story of eight characters as they intersect at different times and places. The stories examine Operation Babylift and the children of mixed descent, orphaned by the war, Americans and Vietnamese whose lives were reshaped by the Vietnam-American War, and the refugees who fled Vietnam yet struggle to define a sense of place in the U.S.

Voices from Vietnam

Ninh, Bao. Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam. New York: Penguin Group, Inc., 1996.

From the voice of a North Vietnam veteran we are infused with the anguish of Kien as he recalls the horror of the Vietnam-American war.

Khue, Le Minh. The Stars, the Earth, the River. Willimantic, Connecticut: Curbstone Press, 1997.

Anthology of 14 stories. Each work sketches the experiences of those whose lives were shaped by and after the Vietnam-American War.

Tran,Barbara, et. al., eds. Watermark, Vietnamese Poetry and Prose. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: TempleUniversity Press, 1998.

Temple distributes this anthology for the Asian American Writers Workshop, New York. The anthology adds many dimensions beyond the expected theme of war. The aesthetic, humor, themes and issues reveal a maturity in this diasporic community.

Karlin,Wayne and Ho Anh Thai.Love After War (Voices from Vietnam). Willimantic, Connecticut: Curbstone Press, 2003.

Anthology of works by contemporary Vietnamese writers. Their stories lend voice to current issues, struggles of everyday life in Vietnam.

Nguyen DuandHuynh Sanh Thong. Tale of Kieu. New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1983.

Vietnam’s epic national poem. Through the fate of Vuong Thuy Kieu the reader learns the role that Confucianism plays in the Kieu’s life. For many, Kieu represents the voice of the Vietnamese culture and spirit.

Life in America

Thuy,Le Thi Diem. The Gangster That We Are Looking For. New York: Knopf, 2003.

A narrated account of a Vietnamese refugee family’s adjustment to America. Life begins after an escape from the sea. Pieced together are the stories of the narrator, her family, and other Vietnamese refugees. We follow the accounts of their struggles to find a sense of place in America, the narrator’s lingering need to discover what her family left behind in Vietnam, and the resulting tensions that arise from the hidden past.

Strom,Dao. Grass Roof, Tin Roof. Boston: Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin, 2003.

Tran, a Vietnamese writer who faces government persecution flees Vietnam during the exodus of 1975. Accompanying her to the U.S. are her two children. In the U. S. she marries a Danish American, a survivor of a different war. As the story unfolds in America, the character development falters with the constant shifting of characters and story lines. This causes some confusion about whose story is being presented.

Other Novel Written by S. E. Asian Authors

Cao, Lan. MonkeyBridge. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.

Cao is a law professor at William and Mary School of Law. Her novel explores the interconnections between her own life as a young immigrant in the U.S. with the experiences of her mother.

Khang, Ma Van. Against the Flood. Willimantic, Connecticut: Curbstone Press, 2000.

Highly controversial in Vietnamwhen first released because of its depictions of sex and politics, it is the third in the series Voices from Vietnam. The characters in this modern-day Vietnam experience conflicts and challenges in their jobs, the political culture and their personal lives.

Nguyen Khai.Past Continuous. Willimantic, Connecticut: Curbstone Press, 2001.

Described as a documentary novel, Past Continuous follows the stories of three people who were active in the National Liberation Front. Their lives during and after the war reveal some of the issues in rebuilding Vietnam.

Tai, Ho Anh. Behind the Red Mist. Willimantic, Connecticut: Curbstone Press, 1998.

Tai is regarded as one of the most important writers of the post-war generation. Through satire and surrealism, he explores and exposes many social tensions in post-war Vietnam. “Behind the Red Mist” is a novella and is accompanied by a range of short stories.

Thiep,Nguyen Huy. Crossing the River. Willimantic, Connecticut: Curbstone Press, 2002.Thiep’santhology of short stories is a clear alternative to proletarian fiction during the highly politicized years. Three of the stories have been made into films.

Thiep retells folk myths for their contemporary parallels. His characters often demonstrate overcoming the difficulties of contemporary Vietnamese society.

Videos

Hearts & Mind, Peter Davis (1974) 112 minutes. A “classic” documentary released while the public outrage against the Vietnam War was still fresh. Davis uses both historical footage, as well as interviews to convey both the depth of feeling, the confusion, as well as the collisions between values and priorities.

Story of Vinh. Keiko Tsuno (1990) 60 minutes. Vinh is an abandoned child of a US Serviceman and Vietnamese mother. His experiences in foster care and trying to fit in have many rough edges.

Kelly Loves Tony. Spencer Nakasako with Kane Ian “Kelly” Saeteurn and Nai “Tony” Saelio (1998) 57 minutes. The video diary of Kelly and Tony portray the lives of a young couple trying to negotiate the expectations of Iu Mien (Laos) tradition and the possible opportunities in the U.S. through education and assimilation.

AKA Don Bonus. Spencer Nakasako and SoklyNy (1995) 55 minutes. 18-year old Ny creates a video diary that expresses his struggle to graduate from a San Francisco high school and his family’s difficulties in adapting to the U.S.

Regret to Inform. Barbara Sonneborn (1998) 72 minutes. Companion website With the help of Xuan Ngoc Evans as a translator, Sonneborn visits Vietnam to try to understand the circumstances of her husband’s death in combat in 1968. While there, she interviews other war widows and through their shared pain of loss, they confront the purpose and meaning of war.

Refugee. Spencer Nakasako and Mike Siv (2002) 60 minutes. Mike and two friends decide to try to reunite with family in Cambodia after having been separated for twenty-two years. “A simple reunion becomes a journey of self-discovery, maturation and acceptance, against a backdrop of war, broken families and long separation” (

Vietnam: After the Fire. J. Edward Milner (1988) two 53 minute episodes. “Examines the extensive damage to the Vietnamese environment and people by the war, including the bombing which cratered the landscape and left thousands of unexploded bombs, and the use of defoliants such as Agent Orange which devastated the country's eco-system and are now resulting in cancer and deformed births among the populace. The program also shows Vietnam's environmental restoration efforts, including reforestation, treating acid soil, and replacing wildlife.”

Xich-lô. M. Trinh Nguyen (1995) 20 minutes. Nguyen meditates upon the socio-economic contradictions of her family history interweaving home movies and traveling to visit relatives on a pedi-cab.

Letters to Thien. Trac Minh Vu (1997) 56 minutes. Thien Minh Ly, 24 years old, was violently murdered in 1996 in Southern California. The murderers made casual reference to having killed a “jap,” and the community struggles to confront the classification of Thien’s death as racially motivated hate crime.

Daughter from Danang. Gail Dolgin (2002) 81 minutes. Mai Thi Hiep is one of the mixed race children who is brought to the U.S. through Operation Babylift. Adopted by a family in Tennessee, she is separated from her birth family for 22 years. Heidi goes to Vietnam to reunite with her family only to discover painful cultural chasms.