Viet Nguyen - Nothing Ever Dies - Vietnam and the Memory of War

Truong Son Martyrs Cemetery. Photo by Sam Sweezy

Ho Chi Minh City Martyrs Cemetery. Photo by Sam Sweezy

Mourning soldier, statue, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by Gregory Farris

Defaced tombstone, National Cemetery of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. Photo by Sam Sweezy

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Maya Lin. Washington, DC. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Three Soldiers, Frederick Hart. Washington, DC. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Vietnam Women’s Memorial, Glenna Goodacre. Washington, DC. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Photographs of faces, S-21, Phnom Penh. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

“No laughing” sign. S-21, Phnom Penh. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Defaced photograph of Duch. S-21, Phnom Penh. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Missing Picture, film still, dir. Rithy Panh. © CDP/Bophana Center

Pens and necklaces supposedly made from American bullets. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Rusted tank, Doc Mieu firebase, near the demilitarized zone. Photo by Sam Sweezy

Helicopter diorama, War Memorial of Korea, Seoul. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

R-Point, film still, dir. Gong Su-chang. 2004 CJ Entertainment / Cinema Service

Sunny, film still, dir. Joon-ik Lee. 2008 Tiger Pictures / Achim Pictures

Ha My Memorial, near Hoi An. Photo by Sam Sweezy

Dien Bien Phu Martyrs Cemetery Memorial. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Mosaic, Cu Chi tunnels. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Russian jet, B-52 Victory Museum, Hanoi. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Thich Quang Duc’s car. Photo by Sam Sweezy

Dien Bien Phu of the Air, Military History Museum, Hanoi. Photo by Sam Sweezy

Nancy Rubins, Chas’ Stainless Steel, Mark Thomson’s Airplane Parts, about 1,000 lbs. of Stainless Steel Wire & Gagosian’s Beverly Hills Space at MOCA , 2002. Airplane parts, stainless steel armature, stainless steel wire cable, 25 x 54 x 33 feet. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, purchased in honor of Beatrice Gersh with funds provided by the Acquisition and Collection Committee; the Broad Art Foundation; Linda and Bob Gersh; David, Susan, Steven, and Laura Gersh; and Eugenio López. © Nancy Rubins. Photo by Brian Forrest

Frieze, Dien Bien Phu Martyrs Cemetery, 2009. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Diorama, Con Son Island Prison Complex, Con Dao Islands. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

In Every Neighborhood, Dang Duc Sinh. Photo by Sam Sweezy

Commemoration, Nguyen Phu Cuong. Photo by Sam Sweezy

Zippo lighters, Ho Chi Minh City Museum. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Vinh Moc tunnels, 2009. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Dinh’s only surviving photo. Courtesy Viet Nam News Agency (VNA) Photo Department. F.8420

Tham Phiu Cave, Plain of Jars, Laos. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Graphic novel excerpt from Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey by G. B. Tran, copyright © 2011 by Gia-Bao Tran. Used by permission of Villard Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Homeless man, Philadelphia. Photo by Linh Dinh

“Cleaning the Drapes,” from the series House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home , c. 1967–1972. Martha Rosler

Photo, in American Sports, 1970: Or How We Spent the War in Vietnam (Aperture Press, 2008), Tod Papageorge. Yale University Art Gallery.

“The White Man’s Burden (Apologies to Kipling),” Victor Gillam. The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

Choeung Ek stupa skulls. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

29 Palms: Night Operations III , 2003–2004. © An-My Lê, courtesy Murray Guy, New York

Small Wars (sniper I), 1999–2002. © An-My Lê, courtesy Murray Guy, New York.

“Untitled Cambodia #4,” Cambodia: Splendor and Darkness , Dinh Q. Lê

Story cloth, Chue and Nhia Thao Cha. All rights reserved. Bailey Archive, Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Pol Pot tomb, near Anlong Veng, Cambodia. Photo by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Abandoned Field: Free Fire Zone (film), 119, 120, 168

Acosta, Oscar Zeta, 219

Adams, Eddie, 105

Affirmation, 204

Afghanistan, 2, 6–7, 14

African Americans, 53, 153, 200, 218

Agamben, Giorgio, 244

Agent Orange, 230

Aguilar-San Juan, Karin, 40

Ahn Junghyo, 141–42

Air America (film), 123, 124

Air Defense Museum, 165

Aki Ra, 172

American PX, 140

American Sniper (film), 14

American Sports, 1970: Or How We Spent the War in Vietnam (Papageorge), 231–32

American War, 4, 6–7

American Way: exclusivity of, 10

Angkar (Organization), 84, 89

Angkor Wat, 269

Anlong Veng, 297–99

Antiwar movements, 265

Apocalypse Now (film), 13–14, 64–65; power of, 127; as secondhand memory, 103; in U.S. war machine, 116–21; worldview of, 120

Apostol, Gina, 111

Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 271–72, 274

Appy, Christian G., 50–51

Arendt, Hannah, 96

Arlington National Cemetery, 44

Army of the Republic of Vietnam: memorials to, 335

Art: acknowledgment of dead through, 175; commodification of, 13; as gifts, 296–97; of Hmong trauma, 281–83; of Ho Chi Minh, 160–62; importance of, in ethics of memory, 12–13, 87; inequities of memory industry in, 184; in just forgetting, 286–87; of Khmer Rouge era, 87; to memorialize Korean forces, 137–38; recognition of human and inhuman in, 99; in shock of recognition, 113; and the war machine, 269–78

Asian Americans: as model minority, 131, 153

Assman, Jan, 50

Augé, Marc, 25–26

Balaban, John, 295

Baldwin, James, 218, 219

Ban Me Thuot, 163

Ban Vinai refugee camp, 242–43

Bao Ninh, 30, 37–38, 55

Bars, 179

Barthes, Roland, 183

Bataille, Christophe, 84

Battambang, 188

Battle Hymn (film), 130

Baudrillard, Jean, 64–65, 116–17, 127

Bercovitch, Sacvan, 10

Bergson, Henri, 109

The Betrayal ( Nerakhoon; film), 292–93

B-52 Victory Museum, 165

Bhabha, Homi, 248

The Birth of a Nation (film), 117

Black April, 42

Blackness, 141

Black Ops (video game), 109, 110

Black Panthers, 218, 219

Black Virgin Mountain (Heinemann), 295

Bombings, 276–77

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Kundera), 94

The Book of Salt (Truong), 206, 208, 209–10

Borges, Jorge Luis, 19

Boym, Svetlana, 43

The Bridges at Toko-Ri (film), 130

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Díaz), 220

Buddhism, 295

Bui Thac Chuyen, 171

Bush, George H.W., 49

Butler, Judith, 75–76

Butler, Robert Olen, 209

Call of Duty (video game), 109

Cambodia: acknowledgment of conflict in, 7, 288; commodification of war in, 15; extension of war into, 6; under Khmer Rouge regime, 7, 83–100, 129; memorials to, 260; prosecution for war crimes in, 289–90; recognition of veterans in, 66–67; war casualties in, 7, 8, 156; war photographers from, 184

Cambodian refugees, 234

Cambodia: Splendor and Darkness (Lê), 268–69

Cao, Lan, 203, 212

Capitalism: industrialization of memory in, 13–16; just memory and, 18; in Korea, 130–31, 149–50, 151–52; Korean immigrants’ effect on, 131–32; in museum gift shops, 175, 177–79; national power and, 15–16; perpetual war and, 285; reconciliation and, 295–96; success of South Korea in, 129; of tourist industry, 178; of Vietnam refugee communities, 40–41

Carter, Jimmy, 114