Melanie
Manuel
ASA 114
001
6 February
2020
In reading
Professor Valverde’s “Defying and Redefining Vietnamese Diasporic Art and Media
as Seen through Chau Huynh’s Creations” and watching Saigon, USA, the
most striking phenomenon was the use of “communist,” not only as an insult but
as an identifier for folks not following the normative ideology. There is
something so jarring in seeing the way that the Vietnamese American community
was so quick to go against Chau Huynh and the Nguoi Viet Daily. Somehow,
I find the immediate responses to be unproductive in the grander scheme of
keeping peace i.e. keeping communism as bay. I understand that the community
members reacted as they did, because the war has negatively impacted them in
such a way that it has caused them pain, trauma, anger, resentment, but I also
don’t see how inciting fear in those they deem as “communists” is the way of
going about maintaining whatever “peace” they’ve created in the United States. Having
a freedom of speech is a large part of the United States’ appeal, social media
spaces are no stranger to outlier views, so it makes me wonder how such displays
akin to Chau Huynh’s work would hold up in this modern age.
Somehow, I
don’t think it would so much, considering how up and arms folks are on the
Internet one moment and then switching sides on the argument the next. It feels
like the nuances would make themselves evident, and these notions of being a “communist”
would not hold the same weight as the once did a decade ago.
I’ve included
the only photo of Chau Huynh’s “Pedicure Basins” that I could find.
Works Cited
Valverde, Kieu-Linh
Caroline. “Defying and Redefining Vietnamese Diasporic Art and Media as Seen
through Chau Huynh’s Creations.” Transnationalizing Viet Nam: Community,
Culture, and Politics in the Diaspora, 2012, pp. 90-112.
Image
Used
https://www.ocregister.com/2008/12/31/little-saigon-protests-raise-questions-about-freedoms/
No comments:
Post a Comment