Memory Is Another Country: Women of the Vietnamese Diaspora
228Memory Is Another Country: Women of the Vietnamese Diaspora
228Paperback
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Overview
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. 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 returban 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, but also illuminates the experience of the wider Vietnamese diaspora and other refugees.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9798765131183 |
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Publisher: | Bloomsbury Academic |
Publication date: | 10/31/2024 |
Pages: | 228 |
Product dimensions: | 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
List of IllustrationsPreface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Lost Photographs
2. Sisters and Memories
3. Women in Uniform
4. Fragments of War
5. Love across Cultures
6. Returban Jourbaneys
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
What People are Saying About This
"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.'
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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
Catherine Kohler Riessman
"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
Kate Darian-Smith
"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