|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Memory Is Another Country |
|
Women of the Vietnamese Diaspora |
|
Nathalie Huynh Chau Nguyen |
 |
|
|
Imprint
|
Praeger
|
|
Publication Date |
08/2009 |
|
Subject
|
World History
|
|
Pages |
212 |
|
Volumes |
1 |
|
Size |
6 1/8x9 1/4 |
 |
|
Format |
Price |
ISBN |
ISBN-13 |
| Print |
$39.95
£27.95 |
0-313-36027-8 |
978-0-313-36027-5 |
| eBook |
Call |
0-313-36028-6 |
978-0-313-36028-2 |
|
|
|
|
|
Description
This volume reveals the experiences of Vietnamese women refugees since the end of the Vietnam War.
The act of remembering is a means of bringing the past alive, and an imaginative way of dealing with loss. It has been the subject of much recent scholarship, and is of particular relevance at a time of widespread transnational migration. For refugees, memory acquires a particular power and poignancy, since the country that they remember is now lost to them. The memories of Vietnamese refugees have been molded by their experience of diaspora, and many guard these memories with silence, a silence that relates not only to the departure from Vietnam and the exodus itself, but also to the impact of loss and grief on individual family members. In one of the twentieth century's major diasporas, more than two million Vietnamese left their country after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. They settled in countries as diverse as Norway and Israel and established large, thriving communities in the United States, Australia, Canada, and France. Vietnamese women played a major part in this migration.
Testimonials
"A compelling and exquisitely written book. We learn from the narratives of Vietnamese women who recount memories of war and exodus about a collective vernacular history that is missing from official accounts. Women become custodians of suppressed and silenced stories in families and nations. Their personal narratives are eloquent and moving to read, bringing the past to life and supplying the detail and specificity that is a hallmark of narrative. Nguyen’s meticulous research and literary gifts provide a model for future narrative scholars: she sensitively comments on moments where stories in families converge and diverge, examines the close relationship between content (what is said) and form (how a story is structured), and she charts a course for contemporary theory about memory, narrative and trauma. I loved every page of this stunning book.'
"
-Catherine Kohler Riessman, Research Professor of Sociology, Boston College and Emerita Professor, Boston University
"This path-breaking study not only gives a public voice to Vietnamese women who fled their homeland following the fall of Saigon in 1975, but explores the extraordinary resilience of the human condition amid the disrupture of war and the displacement of migration. Leading cultural scholar Nathalie Huynh Chau Nguyen examines the histories of women of the Vietnamese diaspora with unusual empathy, and her analysis of their many experiences – as mothers, daughters, workers and even soldiers – is nuanced and rich. Nguyen reminds us that the act of remembering serves to keep the past in the present, mediating personal and collective loss and suffering and empowering Vietnamese women as they have forged their new lives in another country. Compelling and reflective, I recommend this important book as essential reading for anyone interested in the processes of migration and memory more broadly, and in the Vietnamese diaspora in particular.'
"
-Kate Darian-Smith, Professor of Australian Studies and History, the University of Melbourne
|
|
Highlights |
This book is a valuable and original contribution to the field of diaspora studies. Based on in-depth oral narratives of forty Vietnamese women, it deals with themes both universal and specific to this diaspora: divergent memories in families, the significance of homeland, the return to Vietnam, cross-cultural relationships, intergenerational tensions, and the issues of silence and unspoken trauma among Vietnamese refugees. It is the first study to apply memory and trauma theories to a substantial base of oral narratives by Vietnamese women in the West. Nguyen argues that understanding of these narratives provides not only an insight into the way Vietnamese women have dealt with loss, it also illuminates the experience of the wider Vietnamese diaspora and other refugees.
|
|
|