Freedom and Heritage: Vietnamese American Articulations of Denizenship as Polite Critique Colloquium with Thuy Vo Dang, Postdoctoral Fellow at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center
Monday, February 08, 2010
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Charles E. Young Research Library Presentation Room
UCLA Campus
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Thuy Vo Dang, Postdoctoral Fellow at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center will speak in the UCLA Asian American Studies Center Breaking Ground Speaker Series. She is the recipient of the 2009-2010 UCLA Institute of American Cultures postdoctoral fellowship and is a lecturer for the UC San Diego Department of Ethnic Studies.
In her talk, Dang will discuss Vietnamese Americans who demand formal recognition of the South Vietnam flag. She explores how historically marginalized groups in the U.S. challenge national belonging through launching a “polite critique” of the US multicultural logic, by focusing on San Diego as a hub of Vietnamese American lobbying for the former South Vietnam flag, or the “Freedom and Heritage Flag,” to be recognized by US municipalities. Dang asks how the flag may serve as a “technology of memory” and signal ambivalence, tension, and unresolved sentiments in a community slowly moving away from its refugee identity.
The talk is co-sponsored by the Asian American Studies Graduate Students Association, the Asian American Studies Department, UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies,Vietnamese Student Union, Southeast Asian Campus Learning Education and Retention (SEA CLEAR), Higher Opportunity Program for Education (HOPE), PacTies, the UCLA Library, and the Institute of American Cultures (partial list).
Cost: Free and open to the public.