NGUOI VIET - Oakland Museum opens Vietnam era exhibit

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Oakland Museum opens Vietnam era exhibit
Wednesday, September 08, 2004 Commentary by Vu-Duc Vuong

OAKLAND, Calif. — The long-awaited exhibit, “What’s Going On? California and the Vietnam Era” finally opened last week at the Oakland Museum and proved to the first visitors to be an exercise in nostalgia.

For those who lived through the Vietnam War, it brings back bits of memories but sheds little new light.
For the younger generation looking for answers or seeking to form their own opinions about the fighting, the show may not offer enough information.

Still, the exhibit — which runs through Feb. 27, 2005 — is a must-see for grandparents, parents and children over age 10, provided that the older ones refrain from injecting too many of their own prejudices and the younger ones keep an open mind and learn before making conclusions. It will be a long journey of discovery and a slightly expensive one at $13 for adult admission, but this first step will be worth it.

The exhibit Museum directors deserve praise for undertaking this effort: a look back at U.S. policies and actions toward Vietnam from the end of World War II and an assessment of their impact on California.

More than 7,000 square feet of exhibit space is filled with some 500 artifacts of the period. There are newsreels, documents, photos, uniforms, individual souvenirs and testimonies of the period. From part of a fuselage of an actual World Airways plane to the baby bottles of the infants secretly flown out of Saigon in the last days of April 1975 in “Operation Babylift” to Tran Thai Van’s campaign posters, Vietnam history is represented.

Moreover, a “listening room” lets visitors hear personal stories of how the war affected people both in California and Vietnam.

The public and private experiences mingle freely in the show. Viewers can go through the displays at their own pace as well as keep pace with their thoughts, helped along by hand-held audio guides that offer commentary in one of three languages: English, Vietnamese and Spanish.
The exhibit took four years to plan. Veterans groups, activists, government agencies and immigration centers helped to collect the artifacts, museum officials say. A Southeast Asian Community Advisory Committee was formed to support the project.

“The focus of this exhibit is California,” said Marcia Eymann, its curator. “We try to look at the impacts of the conflict in Vietnam on this state, and we supplement archival and newsreels with personal perspectives from people who lived through the period.”

The reviews reactions to the opening weekend of the exhibit were mixed, with museum visitors readily willing to offer their take.

Hanh Ngoc Nguyen, a well-known photographer from the war, called the work “cong phu,” saying the museum “gave its best effort.” One of his photos, depicting South Vietnamese soldiers planting their flag after re-entering the Forbidden City in Hue, is on display.

Ngoc Bich Nguyen, an engineer in San Diego who served on the advisory committee, would have liked more documents included, but noted, “Generally, I give them a pass. They tried their best.”

But Phu Van Bui, a high school and community college teacher in Oakland, said the show likely reinforces visitors’ perceptions rather than changes them. “The Vietnam War is still open to debate, and one’s position still depends largely on which side you are.”

Then, too, there were harsh words.

“The show is strictly California-centric, incapable of grappling with world issues, and lacks a connecting narrative,” said filmmaker George Csicsery. “It’s all over the place, full of snapshots of the period, and seems to cater to people with 12-second attention spans.”

Isabelle Thuy-Pelaud, an ethnic studies professor at San Francisco State University and a member of the advisory committee, agreed that the exhibit was incomplete, even though she said museum officials made some changes recommended by the committee to present a fuller context.
“It’s frustrating that the exhibit did not revisit the whole history of the period, so it lacks the complexity of both the Vietnamese and American history,” she said. “There are not enough artifacts, and what’s more, the missing links between sections of the exhibit make the artifacts included look like add-ons, or second thoughts.”
What could have been the resettlement of, and contributions by, Southeast Asian refugees in California since 1975 are not addressed. In education, tens of thousands of children — now adults — have achieved the highest level of learning and are now sharing their knowledge. In business, refugees have revived neighborhoods and practically taken over certain fields of work. In farming, the Hmong, in particular, have introduced vegetables and herbs across the state.

Similarly, the normalization with Vietnam, arguably one of the most important events affecting California and Vietnamese Americans alike during the post-war period, is ignored.

That it happened in 1995 and that it opened the door for Americans of Vietnamese descent to visit, help or do business in their homeland; that it shed light on Vietnam’s social and political system; and established California as a major trade partner for the future, is not mentioned.

In the end, because the exhibit is so broad, so ambitious, it lacks in focus. But come on by, immerse yourself and judge for yourself.

Writer Vu-Duc Vuong teaches social science at the University of California, Berkeley. He can be reached at: vdvhoabinh@berkeley.edu.

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