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

Casualties, of war: art as acknowledgment of, 175; burial of, 23–25; as depicted in war stories, 229; forgiveness for, 287–88; industry of memory and, 156–57; in Korean War, 129; in Korean war films, 145, 146, 147–48; memorials to, 24–27, 35–36, 42–43, 44, 49, 52–56, 66–68, 153–55, 187, 258–59; memories of, 25–33, 50–51; museums related to, 29–30, 39–40, 112–13, 254–61; natural affinity for, 28–29; number of, in Vietnam War, 8, 156; otherness of, 68–69; personal mourning of, 194–98; photographers as, 183–84; as result of Korean soldiers, 145, 146, 147, 150–51, 155; shock of recognition and, 112; unearthing, 45; Vietnamese refugees’ memories of, 45; women and children as, 30. See also Veterans, of war

Catfish and Mandala (Pham), 206, 208

Caves, 186–89

Cemeteries, 23–27, 35–39, 44, 45

Chang, Juliana, 235

Chan, Jeffery Paul, 124

Cheah, Pheng, 90–92

China: in Korean War, 6

China Gate (film), 125

China Men (Kingston), 225

Chin, Frank, 124

Choeung Ek, 254, 255, 256, 258

Chong, Sylvia Shin Huey, 65

Chow, Rey, 74

Chum Mey, 255

Chun Doo Hwan, 139, 143

Cimino, Michael, 109–10

Cinematography, 122

The Circle of Hanh (Weigl), 295

Class inequality: just memories and, 17

Close Quarters (Heinemann), 64, 235

Collective memories: definition of, 10

Collective memory: definition of, 10

Colonialism, 84, 93, 197

Commemoration (Cuong), 175

Communist Party, 26–30, 41, 158, 205–6

Con Son, 172

Coppola, Francis Ford, 116–18, 119, 137

Cosmopolitanism, 266, 270–72, 275–76

Cotter, Hollan, 269

Cuba, 7

Cu Chi, 181

Cumings, Bruce, 143

Dachau concentration camp, 258

Dang Duc Sinh, 175

Dang Nhat Minh, 167–69, 183

Dang Thuy Tram, 168–69, 212, 274–75

de Antonio, Emile, 119, 137

Debord, Guy, 14

The Deer Hunter (film), 109–10

Demilitarized Zone, 133

de Palma, Brian, 77

Derrida, Jacques, 287–88, 290, 291

The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram ( Nhat Ky Dang Thuy Tram; Tram), 274–75

Díaz, Junot, 219–20

Didion, Joan, 27

Dien Bien Phu, 169–70

Dinh, Linh, 43, 215, 216, 218

Disremembering, 63–68

Documentation Center of Cambodia, 259

Dominican Republic, 6, 219–20

Dong Ha, 24, 45

Don’t Burn (film), 168

“Don’t Cry in California”; (“Khong Khoc O California”; Thiep), 280

Downey, Robert Jr., 123

DuBois, W. E. B., 53

Duch, 84–86, 89, 93, 98–100, 256

Dunlop, Nic, 299

Duong, Lan, 211

Duong Thu Huong, 61–62, 80

Eastwood, Clint, 123, 124

The Eaves of Heaven (Pham), 212

Education, 206–8, 276

Ehrhart, W. D., 295

Eichmann, Adolf, 95–96

The Elimination (Panh), 84–85, 88, 100

Ellison, Ralph, 63

“The Emergence of Vietnamese American Literature” (Truong), 209

Enemies: as flat characters, 28–29; lack of affinity for, 28

Engels, Friedrich, 107

English language: of ethnic literature, 198–99; in industrial memories, 15

The English Patient (Ondaatje), 276–77

Enlightened forgetting: definition of, 18

Entertainment Weekly (magazine), 237, 241–42

Espiritu, Yen Le, 124, 195–96, 206

Ethical vision, 121

Ethics of remembering: of American Vietnamese, 40–44; artistic works and, 160; characterizations of people in, 28–33; description of, 9–19; heroic vs. antiheroic mode in, 43–44; humanity vs. inhumanity and, 96–100; injustice of forgetting and, 68; of minority people, 43; natural affinity and, 27–29, 59–60; otherness and, 68–69; thick relations in, 54–56, 59

Ethnicity, 199, 201

Ethnocentrism: influence of, in memory industry, 13

Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia, 289

Faas, Horst, 183

Family bonds, 55

Farocki, Harun, 105

The Fifth Book of Peace (Kingston), 277

Filkins, Dexter, 284

Films: about Korea’s role in Vietnam, 143–49; of horror genre, 174; importance of, 87; of Khmer Rouge era, 86–89, 97; most vivid war images from, 105; power of American cinema in, 171; power of voice in, 214; role of, in war machine, 108–28, 144–45; as secondhand memories, 103–4; on war and memory, 168

Fine Arts Museum, 29, 160, 175–77

First person shooters, 110–11

Flat characters, 28–33

The Forever War (Filkins/Haldeman), 284

Forgiveness, 262–65, 279–80, 287–95

Forgotten War, 129

Forster, E. M., 28, 29, 277

Foucault, Michel, 91

French colonialism, 197

French troops, 169–70, 172, 173

Freud, Sigmund, 16, 55

From Vietnam to Hollywood (Lê), 233, 268

Fuller, Samuel, 125

Full Metal Jacket (film), 145, 179

Fussell, Paul, 62–63

The Gangster We Are All Looking For (thuy), 194, 208, 213

The General Retires (Thiep), 238–39

Genocide, 83–100

Ghost stories, 195–96

Gibson, Mel, 123

Gillam, Victor, 252

Gilroy, Paul, 68

Ginzburg, Natalia, 8

Giving, 296–97

Going Back (Ehrhart), 295

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (Butler), 209

Gooks, 62–64, 140–41

Gordon, Avery F., 195

Gran Torino (film), 123–25, 126

The Green Berets (film), 125–26

Greene, Graham, 51, 142–43

Grenada, 6

Griffith, Philip Jones, 66

Griffiths, D. W., 117

Griswold, Charles L., 292

Guevara, Che, 3

Gulf War, 14, 49, 118

Gustafsson, Mai Lan, 157

Haeberle, Robert, 30

Halbwachs, Maurice, 10

Haldeman, Joe, 284

Hallyu, 132

Ha My memorial, 153–55

Hanoi: cemeteries in, 26; museums in, 29–30

Hanoi Hilton, 173

Haunting: of defeated people, 40

Hawaii, 7

Hayslip, Le Ly, 150–51, 195, 203, 207–8, 228, 262, 264, 266

Heinemann, Larry, 64, 235, 295

Helicopters, 117–20, 137–38

Herman, Judith Lewis, 228

Herr, Michael, 35–36, 103, 117, 122

Hirsch, Marianne, 268

Hmong people: films about, 123–25, 126; psychological trauma of, 234–35; transformation of trauma for, 281–83; in war stories, 242–43, 244–45

Ho Chi Minh: art of, 160–62; characterization of, 28–29; mausoleum of, 157–60; memorial to, 24; Vietnamese people’s view of, 158

Ho Chi Minh City. See Saigon

Ho Chi Minh Museum, 159

Ho Chi Minh Trail, 25

Hoi An, 154

Holden, William, 130

Hollywood, 13–14

Holocaust, 87, 258

Hong, Cathy Park, 215

Hudson, Rock, 130

Human waste, 243–45

Hussein, Saddam, 49

Hwang Suk-Yong, 139–41

Hyde, Lewis, 296

Ieng Sary, 299

Imperial powers, 139

Industry of memory: casualties of war and, 156–57; components of, 107–8; ghosts of war and, 183–87; inequities in, 183–84; vs. memory industry, 106; power and, 107, 108; prisoners of war and, 172–73; propaganda in, 114–15; of small country vs. superpower, 157–89; structures of feeling in, 107; in the United States, 108–28; weapons and, 166–67

In Every Neighborhood ( O moi xom; Sinh), 175, 177

In the Year of the Pig (film), 119

Invisible Man (Ellison), 63

Iraq War, 2, 6–7, 14, 42, 83

Irish Americans, 201

Islamists, 95

Iyer, Pico, 109

Jager, Sheila Miyoshi, 135

James, William, 232

Japanese army, 227–28

Japanese goods, 140

Jarhead (film), 118

Jeffords, Susan, 145

Jewish Americans, 201