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 Beautifuclass="underline" 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
Index
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
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