The Viet Nam War the American war: images and representations in Euro-American and Vietnamese exile narratives

691 Pages·1995·1.72 MB·English

by  Renny Christopher

The Viet Nam War/the American War :
title: Images and Representations in Euro-
American and Vietnamese Exile Narratives
author: Christopher, Renny.
publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
isbn10 | asin: 1558490086
print isbn13: 9781558490086
ebook isbn13: 9780585253558
language: English
Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975--Literature
and the conflict, American literature--20th
century--History and criticism, Vietnamese
Americans--Biography--History and
subject
criticism, Vietnamese literature--20th
century--History and criticism, Exiles--
Vietnam--Bio
publication date: 1995
lcc: PS228.V5C47 1995eb
ddc: 813/.5409358
Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975--Literature
and the conflict, American literature--20th
century--History and criticism, Vietnamese
subject: Americans--Biography--History and
criticism, Vietnamese literature--20th
century--History and criticism, Exiles--
Vietnam--Bio
Page iii
The Vietnam War/The American War
Images and Representations in Euro-American and
Vietnamese Exile Narratives
Renny Christopher
Page iv
Copyright © 1995 by Renny Christopher
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
LC 95-19687
ISBN 1-55849-008-6 (cloth); 009-4 (pbk.)
Designed by Milenda Nanok Lee
Set in Monotype Bembo by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Printed and bound by Braun-Brumfield, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Christopher Renny.
The Viet Nam War/the American war: images and representations in
Euro-American and Vietnamese exile narratives / Renny Christopher.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-55849-008-6 (alk. paper). - ISBN I-55849-009-
4 (pbk.: alk. paper)
I. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975Literature and the conflict.
2. American literature20th centuryHistory and criticism.
3. Vietnamese AmericansBiographyHistory and criticism.
4. Vietnamese literature20th centuryHistory and criticsm.
5. VietnamExilesBiographyHistory and criticism.
6. Literature. ComparativeAmerican and Vietnamese.
7. Literature. ComparativeVietnamese and American.
8. Soldiers' writings, AmericanHistory and criticism.
9. War stories, AmericanHistory and criticism.
10. VietnamIn literature. 11. Narration (Rhetoric) I. Title.
PS228.V5C47 1995
813'.5409358dc20 95-19687
CIP
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available.
This book is published with the support and cooperation of the
University of Massachusetts Boston.
Acknowledgments for permission to reprint selections from
previously published material appear on the last printed page of this
book.
Page v
The United States . . . desires only that these peoples should be left
in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way . . .
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, U.S. Congress
(Nothing is more important than independence and freedom.)
Hô Chí * Minh
Page vii
Contents
Preface ix
One 1
Introduction
Two 25
Vietnamese Exile Narratives
Three 111
U.S. Wars in Asia and the Representation of Asians
Four 165
Euro-American Representations of the Vietnamese
Same Old, Same Old 168
Trying, but Failing, to Break the Mold 217
Subtracting the Fear from the Landscape 246
Five 297
Conclusion: Ban
* tri âm
Notes 311
Works Cited 327
Index 339

Page ix
Preface
I came to write this book because I experienced a complete
turnaround in my perceptions of what I, like most Americans, used to
call "Vietnam," and what I now call "the American war in Viet Nam."
That transformation came about largely through my reading of
noncanonical works concerning that war. My aim in this book is to
work toward bringing my readers around to the same transformation,
but the only way to experience that transformation completely is to
read the primary sources I discuss in chapter 2 and in the third section
of chapter 4.
My first knowledge of the war came during my earliest childhood in
rural California, from watching the news on television. The war lasted
for my entire youth; it was always there, small, on the television
screen. The chronology of the war lies like an overlay in my mind on
the chronology of my childhood. I was born in 1957-the year after the
elections failed to take place that were supposed to unify North and
South Viet Nam according to the Geneva accords. There were already
American "advisors" in the country, and it had started to become a
regular feature in the news. I was six when Diem and Kennedy were
assassinated. I do not remember Diem; I remember not Kennedy's
death, but his funeral: the black horse with the empty boots backwards
in the stirrups. I was in second grade when the infamous Tonkin Gulf
incident took place. I have a vague memory of Johnson's voice
droning, and Johnson looking very earnest, and my mother
disapproving of everything he did.
I was eight when the man who would become my husband fifteen
years later went with the earliest marines to Chu Lai to build the
landing strip there, from which so many planes would take off for the
next eight years. From the years 1967 to 1969 I remember vividly four
news events: the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King,
Jr., "Tet" (which I have now learned to call the Tet Offensive of 1968,
or Têt Mâu
* Than), and the lunar landing. There was news of the war every
night, like background noise, and that background noise focused on
the American boys fighting the war.
My family followed that typical 1960s practice of eating dinner in
front of the six o'clock news. We watched Huntley and Brinkley. My
brother and I regularly said "Good night, Chet" "Good night, David,"
at bedtime. From the time I was old enough to pay attention, I heard
about mythical places