Reframing the Archive

Vietnamese Refugee Narratives in the Post-9/11 Period

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4570839
AutoresMai-Linh K Hong (0000-0001-7807-7305, Bucknell University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2016
Volumen41
Número3
Páginas18-41
Fecha de publicación2016-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaMELUS Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0163-755X • E-ISSN: 1946-3170
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/melus/mlw021
OpenAlexW2518889711
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8
Referencias citadas13

This article considers how recent narratives about Vietnamese refugees engage with the Vietnam War’s visual archive, particularly iconic photographs from the war and ensuing “boat people” crisis, and contribute to present-day discourses on American militarism and immigration. The article focuses on two texts, a National Public Radio special series about a US naval ship (2010) and Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again (2011), which recounts a Vietnamese child’s refugee passage. By refiguring famous photojournalistic images from the war, the radio series advances a familiar rescue-and-gratitude narrative in which the US military operates as a care apparatus, exemplifying a cultural habit Yến Lê Espiritu dubs the “we-win-even-when-we-lose-syndrome.” Lai’s novel, by contrast, represents a new generation of Vietnamese American texts that find narrative possibilities outside the teleology of the grateful refugee, in part by challenging a hegemonic visual culture that has rendered refugees frequently seen but seldom heard. Refugee narratives stemming from the Vietnam War continue to find an eager audience, as they prime the social imaginary to make sense of the newest US wars; the article concludes by analyzing echoes of the sentimental rescue-and-gratitude narrative in media coverage of the recent Iraq War and its refugees.

Art · Linguistics · Literature · Media studies · Militarism · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Sociology · Vietnamese · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Gender Studies · History · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies