Remembering Toward Loss: Performing And so there are pieces…

Abstract

In the spring of 2002, I developed a performance based on the life-narratives of “Chị Toi,” a Vietnamese woman I first met at a dinner with friends held while she was attending law school in the United States. As our friendship deepened, I gradually heard more about her and her family’s experiences of living in Vietnam during the “American War.” The array of perspectives she offered though her family narratives and commentary were new to me. Prior to speaking with her what I knew of the “Vietnam War” was limited to news accounts and personal perspectives from an American standpoint, usually pertaining to the 1960s era protests or the combat hardships of U.S. soldiers. I did not know about the struggles of Vietnamese individuals and families, or about the complex divisions between Northern and Southern Vietnam. Wishing to hear more, I asked Chị Toi if we could continue our conversations as part of an independent project for an ethnography class. She agreed, and the discussions that started over dinner gradually grew into a class project, a Masters’ thesis, a series of public performances, and now, a dissertation based in part on extensive fieldwork in Vietnam.1