“Who’s Community Is It
Anyways”, from “Transnationalizing Viet Nam” by Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde,
focuses on “the cultural and political struggles of Vietnamese Americans for
political representation and dominance within the contemporary Vietnamese American
community” (Valverde 2012). Different aspects of the Vietnamese experience
arose within the Vietnamese American communities because of connections to the
homeland, memories of the war, tension between Vietnamese refugees and their
first generation children, and many other factors. For Madison Nguyen
specifically, these were the things that she needed to balance. When she first
started, her work and politics were met with great approval from the community.
However, when her intentions appeared to conflict with Vietnamese politics and
the homeland, Nguyen was constantly misunderstood and eventually lost many of
her supporters. From this situation, according to Valverde, this tension “stems
from the relationship the diaspora has with Viet Nam, the United States, and
anticommunist members of Vietnamese American communities and it leads to
conflict between genders, generations, and classes” (Valverde 2012). From these
ideas, it shows that thoughtss of the homeland are very complicated. As a
result, the ideas of what a diaspora looks like are further questioned, complicated,
and studied.
Question: Despite the events
and controversies, would it be possible for those against Madison to continue
to support her again?
Valverde, Kieu. Transnationalizing
Viet Nam: Community, Culture, and Politics in the Diaspora. Philadelphia:
Temple UP, 2012. Print.
Image: http://images.schoolinsites.com/Uploads/ElmoreCounty/ElmoreCounty/Sites/PagesLevel1/Community.gif
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