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ethn2notebook-blog · 8 years ago

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Notebook 3

Alan Mai A13031721

Relational analysis - Notebook 3

The Vietnam War is a product of American Imperialism, which is a result of American Capitalism. Thus a side effect of the war is the Diaspora of Vietnamese Refugees. Due to the ongoing social events in America (continuing civil rights movement and the War on Drugs), America took this opportunity to use Vietnamese refugees as an investment in antiblackness, through the racial project of the “good refugee” and the “Model Minority.” Thus the object for this notebook is my father’s house, car, computer, job. The object is his family, it is himself, the 2.5 kids (the .5 being me which is (hopefully) closer to a 1). It is these things that define his life as a suburban, middle class family. While in Notebook 1 the object was the South Vietnamese Flag, and Notebook 2 was about my father’s pass to the US, both serve to inform and his socioeconomic status came to be. The flag is part of the national bindings that reinforced the traditional values of Vietnamese culture, which scholars and politicians have reworked and remodeled to fit the “Model Minority” racial project. The pass to the US reflects the ease of citizenship and the social structures that helped my father immigrate to America, and while the social structures helped immigrants, they put them into a position to further reinforce antiblackness.

Important Racial Projects: The “good refugee” → The “Model Minority”

Important Social Structures: Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975, 1975 Appropriations for Vietnamese and Cambodian Refugees, Refugee Act of 1980

Source: http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2007/5/464302994/vietnamese-refugees-well-settled-china-await-citizenship.html

The Pass

The Vietnamese immigrants in relation to Chinese immigrants during the 1800s

Key points of relations: The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1875 & Refugee Act of 1980 vs. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

Why did my father have to migrate in the first place? → Vietnam War → Caused by US interference in Vietnam because of Communism → Cold War → Empires + Capitalism → Settler Colonialism

Thus America passed the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, giving special status to these refugees as well as relocation and education aid, as well as the Refugee Act, which allowed more refugees to immigrate into the US. This is what allowed my father’s “pass” to the US. It allowed allowed him and many others to be sponsored to the live in the US. It allowed him to get an education in electrical engineering at UC Santa Barbara. It allowed him to get a house in the middle of suburban Silicon Valley. This comes at a stark contrast to The Chinese Immigration Act, which suspended Chinese immigration, preventing families to be united, impeding the progress of many Chinese immigrants. What lead to this stark difference? Or maybe they are actually similar after all.

The Vietnamese immigrants in relation to Chinese Immigrants.

The Figure of the Vietnamese and Settler Colonialism

The War against Drugs and the figure of the “model minority”

What ended up motivating both acts were America’s attempt at protecting settler colonialism, the chinese exclusion act in the direct form by pushing out those that threatened to take away land from the “settlers.” The Refugee Acts were in response to a failed war at protecting/expanding American Imperialism and the American Empire, the globalization of American settler colonialism. In the aftermath of the Vietnam war, in order to protect and reinforce ideology behind the American Empire, the Vietnamese refugee story was reduced “into a single story about communist persecution [...] ‘to be used in justifications of empire by those who claim to have fought for [their] freedom’” (Espiritu, 95-96). Both the groups were exclude /included to protect the land and the ideologies behind the expansion for land, America’s empire. Part of this is also the fight for citizenship. While Chinese immigrants were trying to (unsuccessfully) sue to be classified as “white” in order to be granted citizenship, Vietnamese immigrants had no such troubles. This is in part to do with the national bind of whiteness and the adoption of anti-blackness. Those classified as “chinese” could not be classified as “white” as they were in direct competition for land, failing to make way for settler colonialism, and thus is pushed towards blackness. On the other hand, my father, like many other vietnamese immigrants, were given the opportunity to get an education and financial assistance, in order fill in the middle class

These acts that were used to protect American interest in imperialism at the same time were used by my father to gain an education and to live with his brothers and sisters in the California and it is with that education, along with the binds of hard working Vietnamese tradition and the strong community of the vietnamese immigrant “nation,” that he was able to afford a middle class life. But in the wake of the “chinese model minority” before them, the Vietnamese would be put into the racial project of the “model minority” as well.

Some extra background:

The change from the Indochina Migration and Refugee Act to the Refugee act. The first wave of Vietnamese immigrants in 1975 were political refugees, followed shortly by those in urban and wealthy areas. Then came those that escaped overland or by boat after 1978-1982. Most that followed were those that seeked asylum or wanted to resettle. My father was part of those that left by boat and immigrated in 1982, and thus marked the transition from refugees that were wealthy to those that were poorer. And it was at this time that the Refugee Act of 1980 passed, seemingly marking a difference between refugees that were wealthy and those that were not.

Source: http://uclajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.17953/amer.25.1.7kv016m154389166?code=ucla-site

So how did my father get to this economic class? How does American Media depict people like him?

The South Vietnamese Flag → a bind for a nation, the flag symbol of a “model minority”

The Vietnamese “Model Minority” in relation to blackness.

“two racial categories had emerged—“model minority” and “underclass”—to refer to nonwhite groups who were deemed independent of or reliant on the state, respectively.” (Espiritu, 94)

“In the midst of the civil rights movement and race rebellions in cities across the United States, the popular press and social scientists began to publicize the alleged economic success of Asian Americans in part to delegitimize black and brown demands for economic equity and formal political claims.” (Espiritu)

With the onset of the War on Drugs and the continuous presence of the Civil Rights movement, not only did the refugees, like my father, play a role in reinforcing the American Imperialism, they also played a prime target for the racial project of the “Model Minority.” This was played upon as an attempt to form a counter narrative against those of the Civil Rights movement, and support the War on Drugs as an investment in antiblackness/blackness. In order to do this, the narrative of the vietnamese refugee was spun into the racial projects of the “good refugee” and the “Model Minority.” These stemmed from the support that was given to the Vietnamese immigrants, and the national binds that bonded the nation of immigrants to work together and traditional values that helped allow them to form a middle class. Education aid allowed my father go to UC Santa Barbara, (instead of helping those in the wake of slavery), and his nation allowed him to form a family. But this narrative, like many, but not all, other vietnamese immigrants around him, would be stretched and morphed into one that could be used to reinforce blackness,, the one of the “good refugee.” They were those “that successful, assimilated, and anticommunist newcomers to the American ‘melting pot.’” (Espiritu 94). (This ‘assimilation’ is similar to what the US tried to do with indigenous people, except instead of forcing it, many vietnamese embraced it instead). In other words, in contrast to the minorities that were trying to subvert the terms of blackness that were imposed on them, an unknowing victim of the racial formation. From this, they would play into the racial project of the “Model Minority.” They would serve as an example of those that adopted “whiteness” instead of following the counter hegemonic social justice movements that aim to disrupt the definitions and social structures that impose blackness/whiteness. In addition, they served as a barrier, with interminority fighting for scarce resources and helping to preventing blackness from peeking past the middle class. Many Vietnamese immigrants will embrace this middle class, as they seem to be living in the “American Dream”. However, with their label as a “minority” they, immigrants like my dad will not still feel the pull of blackness, and will not be able to pull away from that label.

Counterargument for the success of the “Model Minority” - a creation, not a truth.

“In 1990, the poverty rate of Vietnamese in the United States stood at 25 percent, down from 28 percent in 1980 but still substantially higher than the national average of 12 percent. 39 According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Vietnamese families living below the poverty line had dipped to 12 percent but were still higher than the national average of 10 percent.” (Espiritu, 157)

It must be noted, that this current analysis plays heavily into the success of the hegemonic narrative the “good refugee” and that this displacement of Vietnamese people was an ultimately good thing for them, that America is the final destination of movement. However, these created racial projects of the “good refugee” and “Model Minority” creates the image of the “before” and “after,” were the “before” is the narrative that the “poor” vietnamese refugees. ““before” (shot) of the refugees languishing in backward and impoverished Vietnam, and an “after” (shot) of them flourishing in cosmopolitan and affluent United States.” (Espiritu 158). Note however, that this narrative was not only pushed by hegemonic press, but also by Vietnamese press. Being put in the “Model Minority” essentially puts you into a position of power over those that are considered part of “blackness.” It doesn’t frame the vietnamese in a total power position, but it is an investment to keep them from being at the bottom of the power hierarchy.

The role of the “model minority” as a racial project and social structures help protect and promote that ideology (the indochina refugee act and the propping of the vietnamese as a middle class barrier between those that “black” (latino/a(s), blacks, indigenous people).

Zine Cover

Zine Page

How this can be viewed as an investment in antiblackness/blackness/whiteness

→ the reinforcement of these racial projects.

→ “model minority” → asian → antiblackness but not whiteness

→ relation → “gentlemen farmer” → in relation to Chang and Eng Bunker

(An incomplete thought, but something to think about nonetheless)

Vietnamese in relation to pocahontas princess (racial project/social structure)

→ pocahontas princess → submit to whiteness, allowing for the seizure of land

→ fetishization of vietnamese (“asian” “oriental”) women → the continuation of sexual/male dominance over women?

→ Feminizing asians → model minority →

→ Hard time finding a relation with the seizure of land however.

Sources:

Espiritu, Yen Le. Body Counts : The Vietnam War and Militarized Refugees (1). Berkeley, US: University of California Press, 2014. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 6 February 2017.

#AAAAAAAAAAAAA #:/

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ethn2notebook-blog · 8 years ago

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Notebook 2

(Notebook 2) Alan Mai

“The figure of the refugee, as a socio-legal object of knowledge, has been metaphorically central in the construction of U.S. global power” (8, Yến Lê Espiritu)

The focus of this notebook is the ticket my father used to get the America. It represents his status as a “refugee”, following the aftermath of a war and the subsequent communist government of Vietnam. However, it should also be noted, that part of the refugee status comes from the American interventions in Vietnam, and how American ideology impacted both those in Vietnam, and the views of Vietnamese refugees as they immigrated to America. This object more closely relates to the theme of War and the Figure of the Refugee, however, I believe that it is an important part to analyze as it gives insight into what is American citizenship to an immigrant, and conversely, what is an immigrant is to the US. Thus this topic was chosen to explore the figure of refugee in the context of (Im)migration and citizenship as a consequence and intersection with the theme of War and the Figure of the Refugee. It links and attempts to analyze what is the Vietnamese Refugee, and how does that impact the ideas about citizenship and the settlement of IN a new nation. (Notebook 2)

(Sources and details)

Source: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/04/28/san-jose-vietnamese-community-thrives-recalls-what-was-left-behind-40-years-after-fall-of-saigon/

Caption: The sign welcoming people to “Little Saigon” in San Jose. It can be seen in the emblem, to the left of the US flag, is the former South Vietnam flag, also known as the Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag.

“Like other communities in exile, Vietnamese in the United States feel keenly the urgency to forge unified histories, identities, and memories.” (3, Yến Lê Espiritu, Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refugees)

“‘refugeeness’ connotes ‘otherness,’ summoning the image of ‘people in a Third World country’ who ‘carried the scraps of their lives in plastic trash bags,’ wore ‘donated clothes,’ and slept ‘on the floors of overpopulated shelters.’” (4)

“The assimilation narrative constructs Vietnamese as the “good refugee” who entusiastically and uncritically embrace and live the “American Dream.” (6, Yen) → This narrative is echoed by my father about his first time in America and how that narrative has also shaped Vietnamese immigrant ideologies about the US. “ I saw beautiful landscape and big high way network along 101 highway. It looks like the new world for me. Everything looks so big and beautiful. The highway was so clean and had many lanes that I never saw before.” (TODO citation for this mini interview with my father).

“U.S. refugee policy constitutes a key site for the production of Vietnamese refugees as griefstricken objects marked for rescue and the United States as the ideal refuge for the “persecuted and uprooted” refugees. This representation of the conjoined refuge(es) “write[s] out the specificities of forced migration and the legacy of the Vietnam War,” enabling Americans to remake themselves from military aggressors into magnanimous rescuers.”

Espiritu, Yen Le. Body Counts : The Vietnam War and Militarized Refugees (1). Berkeley, US: University of California Press, 2014. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 30 January 2017.

(National binds)

Some of the national binds that these Vietnamese refugees together is the South Vietnamese flag as well as the memory and traditions that have been brought over from Vietnam and serve as the root of new communities in a new nation. The flag serves as the symbol for those who have fled the totalitarian communist vietnamese government. It serves as a unifying and (something here) symbol in the wake of both the american imperialism as well as the totalitarian vietnamese government. Additionally, for many immigrants, the memory of their youth, as well as the keeping of traditions serve to unify not only the first generation of immigrants, but their children as well. Dense communities vietnamese, most starting from congregation of refugees, help foster and endure traditions. These communities often dub themselves as “Little Saigon”, in remembrance to the city now known as Ho Chi Minh City. Traditions continue such as Tết (Vietnamese New Years).

(Analysis)

America presenting the US as the land of opportunity (7 yen)

Whiteness linking Vietnamese “success” to being good at assimilating. Thus the Vietnamese become the new “model citizen” for the US for working to try to achieve whiteness (6, yen, also part of http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white-supremacy-asked-im/ ). → racialization of Vietnamese people as good workers and smart → good minority, but not yet white and therefore don’t get the same perks.

Thus for many Vietnamese, American citizenship may not the ultimate destination, but it may be a part of that ultimate destination.? (maybe)

Tradeoff between the labeling as a “refugee” and the blackness that is associated with the term, with the opportunities granted by not being associated with blackness while not yet reaching whiteness.

The racial projects of “refugee” as well as “model minority”

social structures that help insert Vietnamese immigrants as a middle class ‘race’?

Favoring South Viet > North Viet

(Intersectional Analysis)

Vietnamese immigrants live in the wake of other asian minorities before them, also being attached the label of “model minority” seemingly putting them above blackness but can not be considered being a part of whiteness. Thus they serve to occupy that middle class between blacks and whiteness, using class as a barrier between whiteness and blackness. This propping up of Vietnamese immigrant most likely helped with the “assimilation” economically especially for Vietnamese people, making it more likely for them to be hired as well as giving them opportunities for schooling. However, this may not have the same impact socially as it did economically.

Is the figure of a woman vietnamese refugee than that of a man’s. Or are these just “refugees”, genderless being that are used to reinforce US ideological notions that they are saviors, especially after the events of the Vietnam war. Thus citizenship is granted easily compared to other refugees (such as the modern syrian refugees. The us does not have as much to gain from allowing such refugees due to the current dominating ideologies concerning race and islamophobia)

How can I relate this with other intersections such as gender, sexuality. How could the immigration affect differently or the same? I’m not sure. Men and women most definitely experienced the war differently, women had to take care of the house, of the family, especially if men were fighting or were working. This can lead to a difference in the perspective of an immigrant. (There was some story about this in Body Counts of a woman taking care of her family in Vietnam and was separated from her family? for 18 years before being able to make it to the US → different view on what citizenship meant).

Going back to the ticket, the object I chose to analyze. In one way, it represents a new opportunity for a refugee. However, it must be realized, that this ease of getting into the US is due to what the the Vietnamese Refugee represented to the US.

nation building: How does US schools teach the Vietnam war. Most ofthe time, it is only from the US perspective, has very little to do with the vietnamese perspective of the war. → sensoring and concealment of the war’s costs at the expense of the removal of the vietnamese identity that is a part of that history.

→ How to relate the figure of the refugee back to Citizenship and (Im)migration

(Sources)

(All of these sources are from Mercury News because they report on San Jose. Should find some other places though).

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/24/san-jose-council-unanimously-approves-banning-communist-vietnamese-flag/ (San Jose bans Socialist Republic of Vietnam flag) (a view on what the new flag means to many vietnamese immigrants (but not all))

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/23/san-jose-proposal-to-oppose-displaying-flag-of-vietnam-draws-opposition/ (Argument whether banning the flying of Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s flag is unconstitutional (first amendment) or not (on city property)) (talks about some ideologies that differ between new and older generations).

http://www.mercurynews.com/2008/10/11/finally-little-saigon-banners-fly-over-san-jose/

(Importance of the South Vietnamese Flag to Vietnamese Immigrants) (Effect of it)

Lê Espiritu, Yến. Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refugees. 1st ed., University of California Press, 2014, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt7zw04n.

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ethn2notebook-blog · 8 years ago

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Notebook 1

Possible alternative if the current object is not specific enough - father’s story/picture when he was young, else some other topic entirely

Theme: (Im)migration and Citizenship

Circulated from Vietnam (1890 to 1975) → the Philippines (refugee camp on Palawan) (~1975ish) → San Jose, California, United States of America (1975~1980 to present day)

The Vietnam war (1955 - 1975), Indochina Refugee Crisis, Cold War (Vietnam War → proxy war for the cold war)

(Note: try not to get trapped into looking at this view from one angle, should include other viewpoints).

Vietnam (1959 - 1980)

events: Vietnam War, Reunification of Vietnam as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

social conditions:

government control + oppression (result of the aftermath of the war)

some disillusionment about the communist led government, or wanted to avoid it entirely.

San Jose, California (Feb 1981 - present)

events:

Influx of Vietnamese (Indochina refugee crisis) Immigrants

Latter part of the Cold War (communism/socialist counter hegemonic movements?) (Vietnam war)

social conditions:

End of the California Master Plan for Higher Education

end of Ford → Carter → Reagan, US Presidencies

Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act (1975), Refugee Act of 1980

“From 1978 to 1982, 280,500 Vietnamese refugees were admitted to the U.S.”

Initial resentment towards Viet immigrants due to loss, developed into a more average view.

object’s meaning:

Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag

used to form a “nation” of vietnamese people but do not identify themselves as part, or is a supporter of, the current vietnamese government.

a “nation” of vietnamese refugee + their future generations

(from the immigrant’s (father’s) perspective) → new life and opportunities (“American Dream” like)

The changing of meaning from within Vietnam → vietnamese communities

It was the flag to represent a unified Vietnam

represents the Republic of Vietnam, as well as the democratic ideology backed by South Vietnam + America

represents those of that have left Vietnam. Still represents a “nation” however is less of a geographical one than a representational one for those that have moved away.

Sources below:

Preliminary Sources (a lot of wikipedia) TODO: Proper sources.

http://thanhnien.vn/thoi-su/nguyen-phuong-uyen-bi-phat-6-nam-tu-dinh-nguyen-kha-10-nam-tu-29203.html (attempts to display this flag has resulted in prosecution for “propaganda against the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam”)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_South_Vietnam

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ff-south-vietnamese-flag-20141228-story.html

http://vietnamese-archive.org/archive/2015/4/9/the-cap-anamur-ii-the-journey-to-hamburg (information regarding a boat that went to help rescue refugees in the ocean)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indochina_refugee_crisis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_boat_people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

http://naasurvey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/NAAS12-sep25-issues.pdf (The Policy Priorities and Issue Preferences Of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (2012))

https://anthropology.ucr.edu/people/faculty/schwenkel/books/CultAnt_articleFeb2006.pdf (might be important)

Wieder, Rosalie. "Vietnamese American". In Reference Library of Asian America, vol I, edited by Susan Gall and Irene Natividad, 165-173. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1996

Bankston, Carl L. “Vietnamese American.” In Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America vol 2, edited by Judy Galens, Anna Sheets, and Robyn V. Young, 1393-1407. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1995

http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/186716/historical-review-americans-views-refugees-coming.aspx (short little bit in the middle with a poll about how americans reacted to vietnamese refugees living in their area and such)

http://time.com/4034925/vietnamese-refugees-united-states-history/

(sort time article on the Vietnamese immigration as a sort of precursor to how syrian immigration might be handled)

http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/recognizing-the-south-vietnam-flag-is-long-overdue/

(on the Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag) (opinion article)

#ethn2a14

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