Memorialization

“If a community creates and sustains memory, the reverse is also true: memory creates and sustains the community.”

~Hue-Tam Ho Tai, 2001

Vietnamese Americans create and sustain specific memories of war and migration to define themselves and the boundaries of and membership in their community.

In privileging memories of war and migration, Vietnamese Americans affirm that their community stems from refugee roots. This refugee origin story enables Vietnamese Americans to negotiate their positionality and establish themselves in and stake claims to specific local and transnational places and spaces—Vietnam, the U.S., and the Vietnamese diaspora—entangling them in the memoryscapes of these entities.