The Vietnam war was one of the most devastating tragedies that occured in the global south, that started years before fighting even began. As explained to me in my Arts Seminar class at the University of British Columbia, this tragedy began with North Vietnam and South Vietnam fighting in cold war about who would eventually rule all of Vietnam, however, through their own country’s turmoil, the United States found their way into this conflict, and ended up contributing to the death of 1.5 million Vietnamese civilians. According to scholar Seth Offenbach in his book “The Conservative Movement and the Vietnam War”, the war was centered around South Vietnam’s fight against the overthrowing communist government of North Vietnam, but unfortunately after the victory of North Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese people were forced to flee overseas, and unfortunately a third of these people ended up losing their lives. Despite this war and tragedy being an internal conflict of Vietnam, the United States ended up taking this war and built their own narrative that once again highlights the American lives in the tragedy. Memorials and museums have been set up all over the US celebrating the American lives lost in the Vietnam war, and how their contribution was essential to resolve the conflict in Vietnam. 

The problem that has occured for centuries, and can be perfectly applied to this scenario is how the narrative of the Western world is constantly applied to events that occur all over the globe, and overshadows the true components of what happened. The physical monuments and buildings created specifically for these Western narratives surrounding global events are highlighted as an example in the Wisconsin State Journal. They wrote an article about how a Wisconsin museum was transformed to recognize the young American veterans that served in the Vietnam war, but shockingly showed no focus on the veterans, or innocent civilians of Vietnam. This is something that is often overlooked in the memorial and museum system, because the overpowering image and narrative that people get when they visit them, or even think of the term memorial or museum is something positive. This connotation and connection comes from a place of good feelings and remembrance, and many people feel like they are honouring the tragedy that happened, and paying their respects to lives lost in these monuments. However there is little questioning that happens in terms of what they are honouring, and is it even the true event, or someone’s version of it? 

Something that I’ve been taught over the past year is that it is crucial to question what is right in front of you, even if it may seem the most mainstream and obvious to the rest of the world, there is always the possibility that there is a totally different perspective that doesn’t have the light shining on it. Not every narrative includes all perspectives, especially the original perspective. In terms of the Vietnam war, and the American museums and memorials, those are artifacts, pivotal permanent reminders of how the real true perspective will never be accepted by the world. The curated narrative by the Western world will always overpower what has truly happened due to the forceful stance they take through the images, statues, artistry, and buildings they have put in place. What’s important is that we think twice about what we see in front of us. When presented with a museum or memorial, we should be asking ourselves many questions before believing the narrative that we are first confronted with. With the Vietnam war in American museums, we must think to ourselves, what role did American soldiers play in the war? What is the history behind the war and how did the American military find themselves involved in the war? We must also think about not just the American lives that were lost, but what about the Vietnamese lives? How were the generations of civilians impacted, how many were killed, how many had to flee the country? What is interesting is that now, the American museums and memorials are receiving funding, and attention from people all over the world, and the veterans killed receive such honour, but what about the Vietnamese veterans and civilians? We must think what is happening in their lives? Do they get museums and monuments and funding put in their name? It appears to most of the Western world that they get washed away, forgotten about, and never recognized, which in every single situation should never be the case. The original, and true narrative of every event, including the Vietnam war, should always be front and centre of the public eye.

Image from Wisconsin State Journal Article of Wisconsin Vietnam War Museum

After watching the last CEL talk of the year, I felt really inspired after hearing all three speakers talk about what they would want their futures to look like, and I feel like we have similarities in what our futures would look like, but I want to touch upon what I found intriguing about their future visions. I really liked how the first speaker said that in their future they imagine taking power away from corporations and putting power back into the hands of the people. I think in her vision she was more specific about climate justice, and taking power away from corporations to save the environment, but even for me just hearing her say that, makes me reflect and think how much power corporations have over governments, and everyday people. I would agree that power needs to be taken out of their hands because it has me worried for what the future looks like if it’s just corporations running the world without a care for any human being. Another thing that the second speaker said that stood out to me was that his future vision would look like a much less colonized future. If I’m being honest this is something that has slipped my mind when thinking about the future, maybe because I don’t experience the colonization that Indigenous peoples do, but when I do think about it, I would agree and say that I would like our future to be much more colonized. I feel like the world would be so much more connected and more cared for if the world was less colonized, and that’s something I would really be interested to see. 

After reflecting on what the word research means to me, I’ve thought a lot and realized that research to me means uncovering information that you do not even know about yet. I used to think that research meant finding information that no one else knew, but now being older and having done so much research in high school, I realized that it means just finding information that you did not know yet. I also realized that just because I didn’t know this information, doesn’t mean that other people haven’t spent their whole life researching it, and have become experts on it. I think after shifting from high school to university research I have realized that research is not just about finding information that other people have researched, or uncovered, but it’s also a part of contributing to the field of knowledge you are researching. By researching a topic, you then use that research and more to write your own paper, which means that potentially things people research could come from you. Research then becomes a continuing cycle that is used forever once the information is posted, as information never goes away, and never becomes useless, it can always be used in a certain context. For my essay specifically, I think that research will mean not just uncovering what’s out there on my topic but also taking the research that already exists and finding holes in the meaning of it. Uncovering how I see the research and not just how it is first presented. 

After watching this week’s CEL talk on refugee supports, I found it really interesting and helpful for my upcoming research paper which questions what it means to be a refugee and how they are affected, so I found this talk crucial to my paper with the information provided. One thing that was said that caught my attention was how they talked about how we are all in the process of settlement, we are all trying to get from point A to point B. Obviously this point is made more specifically towards refugees, but I question if we are all in transition from one place to another, how does that determine what it means to be a refugee? This is also something I struggle to find the meaning in with my research paper, but it’s making me realize how much of a worldwide issue this is. As mentioned in the talk, whether people are going to other countries legally with the right processes, or illegally by seeking asylum, it all has the same meaning. I struggle to agree with that because I feel like the certain terms given to certain types of refugees give light to the struggle behind their situation. Someone seeking asylum may have had a very difficult time getting out of their country and finding shelter in another, but how is that comparable to someone who had the resources, money, or connections to secure a proper exit from one country into another? Some journeys for refugees are very inaccessible, and most times end up dangerous for the people on the journey, so I feel it’s important to recognize that in the different meanings behind it.

A scene I chose to close read is the scene where Saul’s brother is being taken by his family to go be buried in a catholic church and cemetery instead of being buried in the land of their family. In this scene, Saul’s older brother after being in the residential schools has seemed to have contracted tuberculosis, and has died out in their family’s land in the forest up north. There is a major conflict within the family as Saul’s parents wanted to take his brother to be buried by a catholic priest in a catholic cemetery, while his grandmother wanted him to be buried in the lands of their family, and in the ways of their culture and community. This scene can be extremely important to the text as a whole as this represents inner family conflict and intergenerational trauma, and abuse that follows from the residential school system towards Indigenous people. It first starts by demonstrating the lasting effects of abuse that are still within the Indigenous peoples who went to a residential school, and how relevant and persisting the eradication of their culture is. Saul’s parents won’t even consider having their son buried in the lands of their people because in their minds that’s not what’s right, that’s not what was taught to them. The Holy Spirit would be disappointed in them if their son did not have the proper catholic way of saying goodbye. Their Indigenous heritage, way of life, and culture has been erased from their brains, and is now starting to be implemented into their children, like Saul’s brother. This is significant to the text as it’s just one example of the intergenerational trauma that has happened to Saul’s family, and all Indigenous families, and we can later see it with Saul’s life as the abuse that he receives from the residential school system, and from his hockey career. 

After watching the Black Cultures in Vancouver Community Engaged Learning Talk, I was really interested to hear how the speakers felt about their sense of community and culture being a black person. I had never really thought of or noticed before that there was not a large black community here at UBC or around the Vancouver area, but I think that definitely comes from my position as being a white person, it’s not something I have to think about. I think it’s really important that everyone notices and recognizes their perspective and background when thinking about our communities in society and where we are, because we can really take advantage of it and overlook other communities. I really liked how Crystal mentioned in the talk that the Black community in Vancouver is not just one place that people come and join, and if you don’t live there you aren’t apart of that community, she mentioned how it’s an ever growing and evolving space and culture that people from all across Vancouver and the world become apart of, and grow together.  I liked how they also talked about making sure that each little bubble that is their own community is not a community that needs to be on its own, and there are so many opportunities and it’s important for all of the little bubbles to come together to create one community all together that can be found in many places. I think this talk can be really inspiring for many Black people at UBC and can give hope for the sense of community there is for all Black people in Vancouver. 

For my research paper I would really like to develop research questions surrounding Exit West, as it was my favourite text that I read last semester and I really enjoyed it and feel it would be a good book to write a paper on. I’m thinking of developing a question that talks about the refugee experience as that’s a common theme throughout my close reading assignment and literary review from last semester. I don’t have an exact question yet as I’m still trying to find connections between the book and my two assignments, and still trying to question what can be researched and what I can investigate. I really like the idea of counter narratives and am interested in how refugees are able to tell their own stories the proper way, so I’d like to make my research surround that. I really want to question how Exit West challenges the traditional refugee story through the use of the doors and through negating borders like no one has ever done before. Once again I really want to figure out and question how refugee stories can be told by people who have never actually experienced these refugee stories, and I want to search for and uncover the actual stories to properly educate myself on these topics. 

After reflecting on term 1, I realized I have learned an abundance of information, and have really been more exposed to issues happening through literature and seeing the counter narratives presented to me. I really enjoyed learning about how most refugee stories and how most history is told through a very western perspective, and most times the story itself isn’t even told by the refugees who have experienced the displacement, but from people very far away who have no idea of the journey they went through. I found it really important to learn about that counter narrative that was presented to us, especially in “The Best We Could Do”. Continuing in term 2, I would love to learn more about counter narratives, and open my eyes to what else in the world is being presented to me in an artificial way. I love uncovering stories for their true meaning, and in this case I would love to read from the true authors of some of these real life experiences like refugee displacement. I would also really like to learn from some of my mistakes last term and work on cutting down the word counts on my assignments and practice really getting to the point so that I don’t lose marks for going over the word count. I hope to do this by going to office hours and getting lots of peer edits to try and synthesize my assignments. 

For my last blog, I have decided to blog about how I have found the course so far after the first semester, and do some reflecting. Before coming into this class, I didn’t have much of an idea of what I was expecting, I just knew that the class was some type of English class. The previous knowledge I had of high school English was very different compared to what I learned in the class. This class really made me rethink the way I write, who I’m writing for, and what the message is behind my writing. I found myself very fortunate to learn about all of the new strategies that I could use in my learning, like how summaries don’t just need to be thematic, and that it’s always important to have an audience for every piece of writing. I also was opened up to the conversation of citation, and learned how important it is to cite authors and scholars for their work. I also found it valuable to know that it’s not about just putting citations at the end of facts or sentences, but that we can create our writing in a way of telling the reader what other authors are saying, we can create a puzzle of how they relate to each other, and what they are intending to say. I learned how to do better analysis of texts through this class and how that not all pieces of writing are essays with a specific thesis and are all about research. I learned a great deal from this class and am very eager to see what we do next semester. Thanks professor Luger! 

I wanted to share my thoughts on Exit West, as I haven’t had an opportunity to blog about it yet. I found Exit West to be a very enjoyable book, and was something that I had a very hard time putting down. This is something that I found shocking for myself as I am not someone who usually reads books, and always has a hard time focusing on the books that I’m reading. I did not have this problem with Exit West, and was very impressed by the book. I found his writing to be very easy to read, and quite simple and to the point, I always noticed that after reading every sentence I was left wanting to know more, what happens next. To me, this shows how great of a writer Hamid is if he is able to have that ability to draw people in so much to his books. I am really inclined to read the rest of his books now that I have read Exit West. I also found his ability to tell such a realistic but fictional story at the same time to be quite impressive. He was really able to draw on the real life refugee experience, and the hardships that come along with it, but also bring in this fantasy element that brings a whole new light into what it means to be a refugee. I applaud him for his ability to bring in two distinct genres the way he does. Overall I found this to be one of my favourite books and I am very glad I got to read it!