Children on the Boat: The Recuperative Work of Postmemory in Short Fiction of the Vietnamese Diaspora

Kurmann, Alexandra; Do, Tess

doi:10.1215/00104124-6817419

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 22 publications

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“…"In times of war the image of the child has been adopted, particularly in journalistic media, as a symbol of vulnerability." [1] The author condemns the cruelty of the war, indicating that both sides of the civilians in the war are victims, including North Vietnamese soldiers, the South Vietnamese people and the half blood children of United States and the Vietnamese, even the American soldiers who draft the war are victims. Therefore, what should be criticized is American imperialism which interferes with the Vietnamese National Liberation Movement.…”

Section: Refugee Narratives In Rumentioning

confidence: 99%

Refugee Narratives in Ru

Liu¹

2020

Proceedings of the International Conference on Arts, Humanity and Economics, Management (ICAHEM 2019)

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Ru is an autobiography written by Canadian Vietnamese writer Kim Thuy. In this novel, Kim depicts her family's experiences as Vietnamese refugees, as well as how they settle down in Canada. This paper focuses on refugee narratives in the novel from three aspects: war narrative, the experience of refugees and their identity construction. The paper comes to the conclusion that refugee narratives depict the cruelty of war, reveal the harsh condition of refuges, and explore refugees' identity construction. So refugee narratives embody the humanistic concern of literature. IntroductionSince the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Canada in 1970, the number of Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China has dramatically increased, also a large number of Southeast Asians of Chinese origin people have immigrated to Canada, including many Vietnamese of Chinese origin. Southeast Asian Chinese have been good at doing business and have accumulated a great deal of wealth with intelligence and diligence, which makes them vulnerable to political persecution and torture of war. One of the historical and political roots of Southeast Asian immigration was wars in Southeast Asia, the most famous of which was the Vietnam War. People who flee to a foreign country to escape war are refugees.Refugee narrative is a kind of political and historical writing which is a continuation of the realistic literary tradition in Western literature, reflecting the political and historical picture of wars which is a reflection of western hegemony in the world. Moreover, refugee narratives make a realistic writing of the refugee tide like in Southeast Asia. Thus, it is of great value to explore the hegemonism in the world and the division and civil wars caused by the interference in the internal affairs of western countries.In modern Canadian literature, refugee narratives reflect the change of the global political power caused by the neo-colonialism in the western power after the World War II, as well as turbulence of the political situation in the third world, the economic chaos and the frequent occurrence of the civil war. Behind civil wars in many countries are the traces of western power manipulation, so-called "Military assistance".Ru, an autobiographical novel, is written by Kim Thuy, tells the legendary experience of the author's family members who make hazardous journeys to Canada after the Vietnam War, striving to take root in Canada, and finally realizing the American Dream. Although the author gives a full account of her ambition to make her fortunes in Canada, she uses the word "American Dream". This shows that Canada is the representative of western powers, reflecting the same ideological and political and social context as the United States. Although Canada did not directly participate in the Vietnam War, it provided a large number of weapons and materials to America. Ru reflects characteristics of refugee narratives from three aspects: war narrative, the experience of refugees and their identity con...

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Section: Refugee Narratives In Rumentioning

confidence: 99%

Refugee Narratives in Ru

Liu¹

2020

Proceedings of the International Conference on Arts, Humanity and Economics, Management (ICAHEM 2019)

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Writing Vulnerability: Instructing, Conversing, Silencing

Kistnareddy

2021

Migrant Masculinities in Women’s Writing

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African Cultural Memory in Fred Khumalo’s Touch my Blood and its Metafictional Para-texts

Masemola

2020

Journal of Black Studies

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This article gleans its momentum from Ronit Frenkel’s palimpsestic observation that the local and the global exist as “coeval discourses of signification in South African transitional literature,” with the intention to push the boundaries set in a recent issue of the Journal of Black Studies that carried a literature-inspired title, “Cultural Memory and Ethnic Identity Construction in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy” by Zhou Quan. The latter prompted a consideration whether a peculiarly South African literary representation of cultural memory is possible or not, or whether it is monolithic or multiplicitous. Therefore, partly in response, I introduce the transcendent idea of allochthonous memory, taking my cues from Molefi Kete Asante’s Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge where he elucidates that the Afrocentrist “seeks to uncover and use codes, paradigms, symbols, motifs, myths, and circles of discussion that reinforce the centrality of African ideals and values as a valid frame of reference for acquiring and examining data” (p. 6). One such paradigm is Allochthonous memory, which is here defined as a configuration of cultural memory that finds expression in references that are simultaneously intertextual, transnational, transcultural, and ethical.

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Children on the Boat: The Recuperative Work of Postmemory in Short Fiction of the Vietnamese Diaspora

Cited by 4 publications

References 22 publications

Refugee Narratives in Ru

Refugee Narratives in Ru

Writing Vulnerability: Instructing, Conversing, Silencing

African Cultural Memory in Fred Khumalo’s Touch my Blood and its Metafictional Para-texts

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