My Culture's Trauma Hidden from History

Thanksgiving 2015

The artifact I will be introducing is my paternal grandmother. My grandmother was one of the strongest woman ever in my whole entire life. She came to the United States to escape from the Vietnam and Secret War with her children and grand children as a widow. She built a foundation with her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren here in the Bay Area. I have always wondered what would happen if my grandmother and everybody didn’t come to the US if the Vietnam War and the Secret War didn’t occur. I will be focusing on the history of the Vietnam War and the Secret War. Including to know more about the refugee camps my grandmother and our family members used to be in. And know more about what people have faced in this historical disaster. 

The keywords I will be using are #VietnamWar, #VietnamWarDates, #RefugeeCamps, #Immigration, #Laos, #Thailand, #Cambodia, #Vietnam, #Refugees, #IndoChina, #BoatPeople, #Immigrants, #SecretArmy, #SecretWar #Insurgency, #Laotians, #Hmong, #Taidam. 

#SecretWar Legacies of War. “Secret War in Laos.” Legacies of War, http://legaciesofwar.org/about-laos/secret-war-laos/. The article focuses on a secret war in Laos that has happened during the Vietnam War. Laos is the country with the most bombs in the whole world. This article interests me is because this one of the huge reasons why my grandma and her kids escaped Laos. They used to be refugees at a camp.

#Refugees Suárez-Orozco Marcelo M. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the New Immigration. Routledge, 2001. This book focuses on the different perspectives of people all around the world who have immigrated to the US. In chapter 9, it explains about the refugees of Vietnamese, Thai, and Laotian people and what they went through in the refugee camps. And it includes more specific information on how many refugees were there. This topic interests me because most of my dad’s family were refugees for a while in a camp and I never know what they have faced. 

At first, I wanted to interview my cousins and ask them the following questions :how did they feel facing violence and despair, what they have experienced, have they seen something that has scarred or changed their life forever, how did they get to the US? By boat? How did my grandma manage to take all of her kids and grandchildren all by herself? Where would they go if US wasn’t an option? But since the interview had to be on Thanksgiving weekend, I felt not ready and uncomfortable to talk about the trauma my cousins have faced and open their closed wounds. So, my professor, Ms. Norton, allowed me to do review of my family's history. I did a review of a documentary called "The Hmong and the Secret War" published on PBS and an article called "“In remembering Vietnam War, more stories of Lao refugees deserve to be told” by Bryan Thao Worra.