Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (53 page)

Powerful memory: antiwar and peace movements and, 265–67; casualties of war and, 254–60; compassion and empathy in, 267–78; forgiveness and, 262–65; low ground and high ground of, 253–54; poverty and, 260–61; prisons and, 254–60
Prisons, 172–74
Prosthesis, 25
Puerto Rico, 7
Pure forgiveness, 292, 296
Quang Tri province: memorials in, 24–25; unearthed casualties in, 45
The Quiet American
(Greene), 51, 142–43
Racism, 63–66, 124–25, 130; vs. ethnicity, 199, 201; Koreans and, 140–41, 142; patriotism and, 153
Raimi, Sam, 118–19
Rape, 31–32, 227–28
Recognition: of capacity for inhumanity, 72–73; of humanity vs. inhumanity, 97–98; importance of, to remembering, 71–72; of other as victim, 73–79; of power, 81–83; resignation and, 83–93; retribution and, 83–93; visual dimension of, 79–80; in war machine, 112–14
Reconciliation, 45, 69, 295–96
Refugees.
See specific refugee groups
Remembered War.
See
Korean War
Remembering Heaven’s Face
(Balaban), 295
Requiem
(Faas and Page), 183
Resentment, 292
Resignation, 83–93
Restorative nostalgia, 43
Retribution, 83–93
Revolutions, 205
Ricoeur, Paul, 17, 18, 56, 60, 68, 73–74, 185, 262, 294–95
Roh Tae Woo, 139
Romero, George, 174
Rosler, Martha, 225
Round characters, 28–33
R-Point
(film), 145, 148
Rubins, Nancy, 165
Russ, Martin, 130
Said, Edward, 240
Saigon: capitalism in, 41; cemeteries in, 33, 35–39; fall of, 42, 163; museums in, 29
Scarry, Elaine, 264, 272, 277
Screen memories: description of, 104–5
Sebald, W. G., 92, 103
Secondhand memories, 103–5
Secret War, 44
Self-sacrifices, 108
Seoul, 132–35
Shacochis, Bob, 5
The Shadow of Arms
(Hwang), 139–41
Shallow Graves: Two Women and Vietnam
(Larsen and Nga), 209
Shawcross, William, 7
Slavery, 60
“Small Wars” (Lê), 266–67
Sollors, Werner, 3
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 71–72
Sông I Sing
(Phi), 217
Son My Museum, 30, 112–13, 177
Sontag, Susan, 183, 218–19, 268, 269
Sorrow of War
(Ninh), 30, 39
Souls of Black Folk
(DuBois), 53
Southern Vietnamese: exiles from, 9
South Korea: commofidication of war in, 15; fashioning of war memories by, 134; Forgotten War vs. Remembered War, 129–30; hired soldiers from, 142; origin of, 129; transformation of, as depicted in film, 148–49; war memorials in, 134–38
Spiegelman, Art, 87, 304
Spielberg, Steven, 109
Spivak, Gayatri, 124
Story cloth, 281–83
Strategic hamlets, 40–41
Sturken, Marita, 49, 66, 104
S-21 death camp, 83–86, 89–90, 98, 254–55
Sunny
(film), 145, 147–48
Surname Viet, Given Name Nam
(film), 214
The Surrendered
(Lee), 249
Swofford, Anthony, 51–52, 119
The Tale of Kieu
(classic story), 203
Ta Mok, 299
Tanks, 163–65
Tatum, James, 54
Terrorism, 70, 95, 174, 273
Tet Offensive, 105, 110
Tham Phiu, 187–89
The Dinh, 183, 184
The Things They Carried
(O’Brien), 225–26, 244, 247
Thich Nhat Hanh, 281, 291, 295
Thich Quang Duc, 105, 108
To Huu, 26
Tourism, 178, 181, 298–99
Tran, GB, 212–13
Tran, Ham, 233–34
Tran Thi Nga, 209
Transformers 2
(film), 169, 171
Translations, 204
Treachery, 60–61
Trinh T. Minh-ha, 122, 214, 214, 218, 253
Truong, Monique, 206, 209–10
Truong Son Martyrs Cemetery, 24
Tunnels, 180–83
Tuol Sleng, 254, 255, 258, 259, 269
Tuong Niem
(Cuong), 175
2 Live Crew, 179–80
Um, Khatharya, 256
Uncle Ho memory, 28–29
United Nations, 84, 89, 289
United States: affinity for “others” in, 59–60; American character in, 198; cemeteries in, 23; criticism of, by Koreans, 151; culture wars in, 249–50; ethics of remembering for, 9; expansion of, 7; exportation of arms by, 135; hiring of Korean soldiers by, 142; homeland of, during Vietnam War, 231–32; Korean immigrants to, 130–32; in Korean War, 6; lieux de memoire in, 42; memory industry related to, 177–78; others’ depictions of, 112–14; patriotism in, 48–49, 54, 152–53, 274, 275; in Philippine-American War, 5–6; poverty in, 215–17; pro- and antiwar factions in, 8; profit incentive of, 140; race riots in, 130, 153; responsibility for war atrocities by, 288; Vietnam casualties of, 7, 156; Vietnamese immigrants to, 9, 40–45, 69–70; view of Vietnam War by Americans in, 199–200; war machine of, 104–28
University of Southern California, 109
Vang, Mai Der, 281
Vang Pao, 44
Vann Nath, 255
Veterans, of war: American citizens’ rejection of, 48–51; cemeteries for, 23–27, 35–39, 44; forgiveness for, 262, 295; in logistics service, 229–30; love of war by, 51–52; minorities as, 44, 56–59; rebuke of Vietnamese soldiers as, 44; recognition of, in Cambodia and Laos, 66–67; truthful depictions of, in war stories, 224; at Vietnam memorializations, 42–43, 47–49; war stories from point of view of, 225–27.
See also
Casualties, of war
Victims, 218–19, 221, 280, 291
Video games, 109–10
Vieng Xai, 186–87
Viet Cong, 218
Viet Minh, 169–70
Vietnamerica
(Tran), 212–13
Vietnamese language, 15
Vietnamese refugees, 9; American dream and, 204–7; as anticommunist witnesses, 205–6; cultural depictions of, 43–44; family photos of, 193–94; heroic mode of memories of, 43–44; literature of, 197–218; in Little Saigon, 40–44; mourning the dead by, 194–98; remembering by, 302–4; sense of loss of, 43, 45; War on Terror and, 69–70
Vietnamese Women’s Museum of Hanoi, 185, 260
Vietnam syndrome, 48–51
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 24, 44, 47–49, 52–56, 66–68
Vietnam War Monument, 42
Vinh, 24
Vinh Moc, 181
Virilio, Paul, 122, 227
Vo Thi Sau, 172
Voting rights, 60
Walcott, Derek, 283
Walken, Christopher, 110
Wandering Souls
(Karlin), 295
War crimes, 112, 288–89
War machine: vs. arms industry, 106; art and, 269–78; breakdown of, 128; collective vs. individual memories and, 115; of Communist Party, 158; compassion and empathy and, 267–69; ethical vision and, 121; justification of, 108; of Korea, 135–36; logistical support in, 229–30; media’s role in, 105–6, 108–28, 144–45; in photographs, 263–64; power of memories in, 115–16; propaganda in, 114–15; shock of misrecognition and, 112–14; tunnels and, 180; in war stories, 224–25, 229–30
War Memorial of Korea, 134–39
War on Terror, 70, 174
War Remnants Museum, 29, 112, 113, 158, 255
War stories: aesthetic qualities of, 223, 227, 244–45; civilians in, 227–32; content of, 223–24; critics’ judgment of, 236–42, 246–49; individual and national identity and, 245; inhumanity in, 233–36; from memory of Southeast Asians, 232–35; by minority authors, 248–49; patriotism in, 224; rape in, 227–28; of refugees, 242–46; selective humanism of, 240; soldier’s point of view in, 224–27; veterans’ true story in, 224; war machine in, 224–25, 229–30; Westernized authors of, 246–47; Western values and, 240–41.
See also
Literature
Waters, Mary C., 201
Wayne, John, 125, 126
Wealthy memory, 259–60, 261
Weapons: displays of, 162–66; in industry of memory, 166–67; vs. terrain, 170
Weigl, Bruce, 295
Welfare state, 131
We Should Never Meet
(Phan), 206
When Heaven and Earth Changed Places
(Hayslip), 203
When the Tenth Month Comes
(film), 168
Where the Ashes Are
(Duc), 212
White Badge
(film/novel), 142–45, 149
“White Man’s Burden” (Kipling), 251
Whiteness, 221
White War
(Ahn), 141–42
Williams, Raymond, 107
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 205
Woman Native Other
(Trinh), 214–15
The Woman Warrior
(Kingston), 194–95
Wong, Sau-ling Cynthia, 203
World War II: commodification of, 13; memory of, 5; museums of, 261; rape in, 227–28
Yamashita, Karen Tei, 156
Yang, Kao Kalia, 237, 241–43, 245–46, 250
Young, James, 10, 186
Zelizer, Barbie, 15
Zero Dark Thirty
(film), 14
Zippo lighters, 177–78
Žižek, Slavoj, 234, 235