Week1_Anson Saechao_ASA150E

This idea of the refugee comes with so many narratives of struggles and issues that have risen from a traumatic past. We’ve come to see this view as something that’s more than what we’ve imagined. To our parents, it was just a part of the better life. For that reason, our own histories may even be confused with the immigrant’s struggle. However, Espiritu breaks down the pure struggles and emphasizes key points in which the refuge from a war can be so despairing. In connection with current Southeast Asian communities today, we still face a struggle in which our identities are shrouded by this refugee story. One can only wonder when we can move forward and discuss the new challenges that we face today. The new challenges that we face today now pertain more to our own identities and how we now fit into the American society. Are we just like others and have become part of assimilated society or do we still try and pursue this idealistic cultural persona because our history is still somewhat young? Perhaps this can be answered if we took a larger perspective on the Viet Nam War as a whole rather than what the U.S. has taught us to be.

Caption: Southeast Asian youth group from South Sacramento youth going ice skating for the first time.

Source(s): Espiritu, Yen Le. Body Counts : The Vietnam War and Militarized Refugees, University of California Press, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ucdavis/detail.action?docID=1711008.