Melanie
Manuel
ASA 150E
001
31 January
2020
Viet Thanh
Nguyen’s Nothing Ever Dies talks about how, quite simply, nothing ever
dies, not memories, impacts of war, or even folks that have died. There are memories
embedded in ideologies, monuments, policies, and many of the like, there are
reasons for war that resonate to present day, particularly in the subjugation
and control over countries that western powers deem as assets veiled behind protecting
the people of said countries, such as Vietnam and Korea. Nguyen does an
interesting thing by connecting th Korean and Vietnam War, which surprisingly
enough, I find that I do not know enough, if at all, about the Korean War. But
it is claimed to still be an ongoing war because of the separation of the North
and South. I find this interesting, because that also plays into the pervading
theme present in the novel. This war is also ongoing, still influenced by the
United States, and truthfully, it makes me wonder about the role the United
States has played in exacerbating the war in Korea and how might this alter our
perception of the country, just as Korean Americans had been seen as the most ‘unsuccessful
Asian group’ (131). It is interesting to consider since the interest in Korean
culture has recently boomed with the popularization of K-pop.
I included
the image of a Korean War memorial located in Washington D.C., because memorial
hold a special kind of place in the present world, in which they represent a
moment in history that the white hegemony would prefer to remember, whether it
is right or not is another debate, however. But this is a testament of how
things do not die, wars included.
Works
Cited
Nguyen,
Viet Thanh. Nothing Ever Dies, 2016.
Image
Used
https://washington.org/dc-guide-to/korean-war-veterans-memorial
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