Week6_Dyana Lam_ASA150E

The reading for week six mainly covered the Vietnamese diaspora and the social, political, emotional, and physical difficulties within Vietnamese communities and how these are changing amongst generations and geographic areas. The readings relate to the issue of how the SEA community is typically seen in popular media and how this has affected older and current generations in their discovery of self-identity and their culture. There is this need to seek truth and you can see it in the faces and unsettling silence of those within the SEA community to discover the truth, understanding, and meaning to what essentially was forced displacement, but is portrayed as otherwise within popular media. I feel like when the dominant culture seeks to portray a marginalized group in a certain light, it is purposely a form of suppression and control to keep the SEA community as the "other" who needed rescuing and asylum.

The reading connects to the theme of the week because it directly touches on the experiences of Vietnamese communities beyond the homeland and how having to relocate was done and sought out. The reading showed the difficulties, racism, and suppression these communities have faced having to move to new countries and leaves us thinking about how that affects a community mentally and physically. I feel like this connects to the overall issue in the U.S. of wanting to create this "safe land" narrative you can immigrate to and that "all are welcome", but in reality, the larger system is against marginalized and minority communities and also creates skewed narratives in popular media for the majority to perceive us as a certain way. There is so much irony in the U.S. calling itself the "land of the free", for whom is it truly free for? The reading and topic for this upcoming week has left me wondering, how do we educate future generations within the SEA community about the truth, especially those who are unable to obtain a college education?