Vietnamese American Identity in Literature
Vietnamese American identity in literature encompasses the rich and complex experiences of Vietnamese refugees and their descendants, particularly following the Vietnam War and the fall of Saigon in 1975. This literary identity is shaped by diverse backgrounds, with writers influenced by either Northern or Southern Vietnamese traditions, leading to different thematic focuses—Northern writers often delve into political realism, while Southern voices tend to explore personal narratives and themes of alienation. Common issues in this literature include the struggles of cultural survival, the conflict between assimilation and tradition, and the traumatic experiences of exile.
Key works address the challenges faced by refugees, such as piracy and the quest for belonging in a new country, while also reflecting on the perception of American culture as fast-paced and mechanical. Prominent authors like Tran Van Dinh and Viet Thanh Nguyen have gained recognition for their exploration of bicultural identity and the complexities of loyalty across cultures. Contemporary Vietnamese American literature continues to thrive, with a growing number of poets, novelists, and graphic artists contributing to a narrative that seeks to educate broader audiences about Vietnamese heritage and experiences. This ongoing literary dialogue highlights the evolving nature of Vietnamese American identity, shaped by both historical context and individual perspectives.
Vietnamese American Identity in Literature
Background
Asian American groups saw the emphasis on civil rights and ethnic awareness that developed in the 1970’s as an opportunity to explore their identities. This opportunity continued into the years after 1975, when Vietnamese refugees began expressing issues as exiles from their homeland. The war in Vietnam had changed much. Not only was it a civil war; it was also a conflict of two imported philosophies (Western liberal capitalism and communism) that crushed much of traditional Vietnamese culture and identity. Issues varied between the generation who fled Vietnam and the subsequent generations born in the United States, but common themes appear in English and in Vietnamese-language literature. Issues include struggles with Marxist ideology traditional beliefs in fate, different views on cultural survival in isolation, the loss of roots, and the conflict between assimilation and maintaining traditions. There are differing perspectives from men and women writers as well.
Since 1953, two distinct traditions influenced later refugee writers. Writers with a background from North Vietnam tended to carry a Communist emphasis on realism and political themes; the majority of Southern refugees, influenced by French and Chinese literatures, tended to have more romantic, individual voices of a personal bent, reflecting struggles with alienation and isolation.
Images typical of postwar literature reflect resettlement and symbols of success in America, changes in status and language, and themes of justification for voluntary exile. Stories recount being refugees, boat people troubled by piracy, rape, starvation, and the difficulties of becoming Americans. American culture is often perceived as mechanical and hectic.
The growth of the Vietnamese American population after the fall of Saigon led to a boom of publications in the 1980’s and 1990’s that exhibit a wealth of Vietnamese experience. These works are addressed to a wide readership. Important works include Tran Van Dinh’s novels and short stories, notably Blue Dragon, White Tiger: A Tet Story (1983), considered a significant exploration of bicultural identity, of white culture’s penetration into Vietnam, and of the conflict between tradition and Communist demands. Nguyen Ngok Ngan’s The Will of Heaven (1982) also explores the end of tradition as characters survive war to become exiles.
The theme of bringing Vietnamese culture to America also is evident in Le Ly Hayslip’s When Heaven and Earth Changed Places (1989) and Nguyen Thi Thu-Lam’s Fallen Leaves (1989) which focus more on life in Vietnam than the assimilation process. Minh Duc Hoai Trinh’s novel This Side, the Other Side (1985) overlays familial conflicts with the political conflicts of the war.
Writers who choose to work in Vietnamese include Vo Phien, a winner of the Vietnamese National Literary Prize, who came to the United States in 1975 and founded Van Hoc Nh Thuat, a literary journal in Vietnamese. Translated into English, his short stories use the alien landscape of America to represent the difficulty of preserving or adapting traditions in a new land. Like the Vietnamese exile writers publishing in English, Phien attempts to educate Western audiences about his homeland. Elizabeth Gordon, whose first work appeared in Home to Stay: Asian American Women’s Fiction (1990), exemplifies younger writers exploring the issues of racial identity and biculturalism.
Viet Thanh Nguyen became the first Vietnamese American writer to win a Pulitzer Prize in 2016, receiving the award for his debut novel, The Sympathizer (2015). It explores the experiences of refugees from the Vietnam War in the United States through the eyes of a protagonist whose loyalties are divided between North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States. Nguyen wrote the novel to counter common US narratives of the Vietnam War, and a portion of the book is dedicated to directly satirizing films such as Apocalypse Now (1979). Other noteworthy Vietnamese American writers of the twenty-first century include poets Bao Phi, Vi Khi Nao, and Ocean Vuong; graphic novel artists Thi Bui and G. B. Tran; essayist Andrew Lam; and novelists Aimee Phan, Monique Truong, and Thanhha Lai.
Bibliography
Karlin, Wayne, Le Minh Khue, and Truong Vu, eds. The Other Side of Heaven: Postwar Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers. Willimantic, Conn.: Curbstone, 1995.
Lim, Shirley Geok-lin, and Amy Ling, eds. Reading the Literatures of Asian America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.
Pratt, John Clark. Vietnam Voices: Perspectives on the War Years, 1941-1982. New York: Viking Press, 1984.
Rottman, Larry. Voices from the Ho Chi Minh Trail: Poetry of America and Vietnam, 1965-1993. Desert Hot Springs, Calif.: Horizon Press, 1993.
Tran, Qui-Phiet. “Vietnamese Artists and Writers in America: 1975 to the Present.” Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas 20 (1989): 101-110.