Vietnam, the Philippines, Guam and California: Connecting the Dots of U.S. Military Empire

In the 2015 Asia Lecture at the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR), Dr. Yen Le Espiritu views the Vietnamese refugee flight— from Vietnam to the Philippines to Guam and then to California, all of which routed the refugees through United States (U.S.) military bases—as a critical lens through which to map, both discursively and materially, the legacy of U.S. military expansion into the Asia Pacific region and the military’s heavy hand in the purportedly benevolent resettlement process. She makes two related arguments: the first about military colonialism, which contends that it was (neo)colonial dependence on the U.S. that turned the Philippines and Guam into the “logical” receiving centers of the Vietnamese refugees; and the second about militarized refuge, which emphasizes the mutually constitutive nature of the concepts “refugees” and “refuge” and shows how both emerge out of and in turn bolster U.S. militarism

Gender, Migration, and Work

Since the 1960s, the Philippines has sent the largest number of professional immigrants to the United States, the majority of whom are Filipino health care practitioners. Linking U.S. imperialism and migration to the United States, this article argues that the overrepresentation of nurses among contemporary Filipino immigrants is the result of intertwined influences of U.S. (neo)colonialism in the Philippines, the establishment of Americanized professional nursing training in the Philippines, the recurring shortage of nurses in the United States, and the aggressive recruitment of Filipino nurses by Philippine and U.S. agencies. The global historical relations that set the context for Filipino nurse migration has ramifications for the personal and family lives of Filipina health professionals. Accordingly, the second half of the paper explores how marriage and family relations are reconstituted in the United States when it was the wives who pioneered migration.Sexe, migration et travail : les professionnels Philippins de la santé aux Etats-Unis.Depuis les années 1960, les Philippins ont envoyé un grand nombre d’immigrants professionnels vers les États-unis, la majorité d’entre eux étant des praticiens de la santé. En liant l’impérialisme américain et la migration aux États-Unis, cet article avance que la sur-représentation des infirmières parmi les immigrants philippins actuels est le résultat d’influences imbriquées : le néo-colonialisme américain aux Philippines, l’établissement de centres de formation d’infirmières aux Philippines, le manque récurrent d’infirmières aux États-Unis et le recrutement « accrocheur » des infirmières par l’État Philippin et les agences américaines. Les liens historiques qui sont à l’origine du contexte de la migration des infirmières philippines ont des ramifications dans les vies personnelles et familiales des professionnelles de la santé. Par conséquent, la deuxième partie de l’article traite de la façon dont les relations familiales et matrimoniales se reconstituent aux États-unis lorsque les épouses étaient les premières à partir en migration.Sexo, migración y trabajo : las profesionales filipinas de la sanidad en Estados UnidosDesde los años 1960, un gran número de inmigrantes profesionales filipinos, la mayoría de entre ellos practicantes de la sanidad, se ha instalado en Estados Unidos. Asociando el imperialismo americano y la migración a Estados Unidos, este artículo sugiere que la representación de las enfermeras entre los inmigrantes filipinos actuales es el resultado de diferentes influencias que se imbrican unas con otras: el neo-colonialismo americano en Filipinas, el establecimiento de centros de formación de enfermeras en Filipinas, la carencia recurrente de enfermeras en Estados Unidos y la contratación de « enganchador » de enfermeras por el Estado Filipino y las agencias americanas. Lo

Militarized Refuge : A Transpacific Perspective on Vietnamese Refuge Flight to the United States

特集：移民・難民・市民権 : 環太平洋地域における国際移民Special Topic: Immigrants, Refugees, Citizenship : International Migration in the Pacific Regio

Vietnamese masculinities in lê thi diem thúy's The gangster we are all looking for

The defeat of South Vietnam in 1975 transformed Vietnamese men into fleeing refugees, boat people, and state-sponsored asylees. Writing against the popular and scholarly representations of Vietnamese refugee men as incapacitated objects of rescue, this paper provides an in-depth analysis of the intimate, insightful, and intense portrayal of Vietnamese masculinities in lê thi diem thúy’s novel, The Gangster We Are All Looking For. Focusing on the “sad and broken” father in the novel, the article conceptualizes his bouts of domestic violence neither as a private family matter nor an example of individual failing, but as a social, historical, and transnational affair that exposes the conditions—war, urban neglect, poverty—under which Vietnamese masculinity is continually produced, negotiated and transformed.La derrota de Vietnam del Sur en 1975 transformó a los hombres vietnamitas en refugiados, huidos por mar y asilados con subvención estatal. Con la intención de contestar las representaciones populares y académicas que muestran a los hombres refugiados vietnamitas como incapacitados que han de ser rescatados, este ensayo ofrece un análisis exhaustivo de la representación íntima, profunda e intensa de las masculinidades vietnamitas que presenta la novela The Gangster We Are All Looking For, de lê thi diem thúy. Centrándose en el personaje del padre “triste y roto”, el artículo conceptualiza sus arrebatos de violencia doméstica no como un asunto familiar privado, ni como un ejemplo de fracaso individual, sino como un asunto social, histórico y transnacional que muestra las condiciones —guerra, abandono urbano, pobreza— bajo las cuales la masculinidad vietnamita es continuamente producida, negociada y transformad

Negotiating Memories of War: Arts in the Vietnamese American Communities

In the United States, the writing on the Vietnam War involves the highly organized and strategic forgetting of the Vietnamese people. In a highly original work that investigates the production of American cultural memory, Marita Sturken shows that in the United States, the narrative of the Vietnam War foregrounds the painful experience of the Vietnam veterans in such a way that the Vietnamese people are forgotten: “They are conspicuously absent in their roles as collaborators, victims, enemies, or simply the people whose hand and over whom (supposedly) this war was fought” (Sturken 1997, 62). Likewise, US scholars have refused to treat Vietnamese refugees as genuine subjects, with their own history, culture, heritage, and political agendas.