The Vietnamese American Experience

Description

Completed 6 hours core communication. This course introduces students to the making and transformation of the Vietnamese diaspora in the United States since the early days of a community in exile to the contemporary transnational and multi-generational diaspora. Through the course, we will 1) investigate the root of trauma and displacement of Vietnamese Americans from the early French colonial exploitation, communist¿nationalist conflicts, US imperialistic intervention, wars and destruction, to the 1980 Cold War politics; 2) examine the conflicts and reconciliations within and outside the Vietnamese community in its often intertwined and multifaceted struggle to survive and thrive; 3) probe the future of Vietnamese America in a transnational and global era. In this course, we will not only explore the Vietnamese diaspora and the Vietnamese American identity in lights of war and imperialism, culture and memory but also gender and sexuality, race and ethnic relations, intergeneration and class, migration and assimilation, and transnationalism and globalization. We will address both the structural forces that have shaped and continue to reshape Vietnamese American experience and the ways in which Vietnamese Americans negotiate and often resist such forces through political engagement and cultural expression.