Southeast Asian Histories: A Thematic Overview from Early Times to the Present

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Past Wars, Present Wisdom Negotiating for a
Southeast Asian American Vision through Memoir
Writing and Reading
July 21, 2011
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Asian American Literature A Contested Ground
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Kien Nguyen, dentist and
writer

(May 12, 1967, Nhatrang,
South Vietnam)  
The
Unwanted (2001, memoir)

The Tapestries (2002, novel)

Le Colonial (2004, novel)
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Plot Book begins with a prelude that describes
Kiens 5-year-old-birthday party in 1972 at the
Nguyen Mansion. Fast forward to the fall of
Saigon in 1975 and back to his childhood of being
ridiculed and insulted (school parade marshal,
Luu, three potatoes, half-breed, burnt-rice,
little muck, trash), and then the years of
hardship, including being raped by Lam, failed
attempt to flee by boat, being jailed, and the
desperate preparation to flee.
Mothers Relationships An American civil
engineer/Kiens father, left money,
enabling the mother to join a bank
partnership An American officer/Jimmys father,
left money, enabling the mother to
build Nguyen Mansion Nguyen Mansion 3 stories,
24 rooms, at least 8 bedrooms, Western furniture,
Sears catalog clothes, with gardener Mr. Tran,
one cook, Loan, plus two other maids A
Vietnamese guy/Be Tis father, called Lam raped
and impregnated the familys maid and nanny,
Loan also raped Kien Cui Ba, the community
commander, Kims father, imposed himself on
Kiens mother

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capitalist corrupt counterrevoluntary
half-breed/burnt-rice/little/muck/trash
victim of war and communists rescued by
America freedom-loving grateful to USA
model minority   SYMPATHY
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The memory of Kim flooded my mindNow I
understood the price that I had to pay for my
revenge. Whether Kim forgave me or not, I had
broken her physically and emotionally. I was no
better than Lam, or her father, or any other
loathsome creature that ever crossed my path.
Worst of all, I had to live with that
knowledge.
The Unwanted, page 322
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RIGHT AFTER THE VIETNAM
WAR Many Americans shunned the veterans upon
their return from the battlefield, treating them
as visible symbols of the Unites States
humiliating defeat in Vietnam. Refugees
were unwelcome. 25th
ANNIVERSARY/YEAR 2000 Los Angeles Times The
Orange County Register Time The New York
Times The San Diego Union Tribune Newsweek The
Washington Post The San Jose Mercury
News American veterans Vietnamese
refugees the innocent and the might heroes the
liberated and grateful refugees the loving family
guys the anticommunist Model Minorities the
friends and the rescuers in the Land of the
Free
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Directing attention away from the geopolitical,
military, and economic causes and the ongoing
devastation of the Vietnam War for the majority
of Vietnamese people. Underrepresenting many
Vietnamese Americans whose life is characterized
by unstable, minimum-wage employment, welfare
dependency, and participation in the informal
economy. Naturalizing the great economic
disparity between the two countries, depicting
the two economies as unconnected rather than
mutually constituted. Confirming the
superiority of a white American middle-class way
of life and the righteousness of rescuing
projects. Making Vietnamese refugees become the
featured evidence of the appropriateness and even
necessity of U.S. world hegemony.
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If you want to ever achieve happiness,
dont dwell on the past. Instead, start living.
What is the point of obsessing over something
that has already happened, and that you cannot
change? Live! And be merry.

Epilogue
Page 312
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personal healing healing for 50,000 Amerasian
children healing for friends as well as
enemies healing for all or humanity how and
when the personal becomes the public how and
when the singular can represent the
collective War produces no winner. I am the
enemy you killed, my friend. by Wilfred Owen
develop views
that are deeply rooted in the past as well as the
present, there and here, us and you enabled to
deliver not only sympathy but also
EMPATHY