The American Dream in Vietnamese

(Paperback)

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Description

In her research on popular culture of the Vietnamese diaspora, Nhi T. Lieu explores how people displaced by war reconstruct cultural identity in the aftermath of migration. Embracing American democratic ideals and consumer capitalism prior to arriving in the United States, postwar Vietnamese refugees endeavored to assimilate and live the American Dream. In The American Dream in Vietnamese, she claims that nowhere are these fantasies played out more vividly than in the Vietnamese American entertainment industry.

Reviews

"Nhi T. Lieu insightfully demonstrates how important popular culture is to the self-fasionioning of Vietnamese Americans. Her groundbreaking book validates what many Vietnamese Americans demonstrate in their everyday lives: that the pursuit of leisure and the rituals of entertainment are as crucial to community formation as political advancement and economic empowerment." Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America

Author Bio

Nhi T. Lieu is assistant professor of American studies, Asian American studies, and womens and gender studies at the University of Texas at Austin.