Sherluna Vien
ASA2 
Blog #7

Anti-Communism

Valverde’s article on “Creating Identity, Defining Culture, and Making History from an Art Exhibit: Unfinished Story: ‘A tribute to My Mother’” was an interesting read for me as a second-generation Vietnamese American. The article talks about how Vietnamese-Americans view communism as bad and are very emotional when it comes to topics about South Vietnam prior to 1975. Growing up here in the U.S, I viewed communism as a horrible socialist party. I learned about internment camps and how many people fled to the United States after the Fall of Saigon. Throughout history books, I learned that communism in Russia and China is bad and that it must be defeated. This is to show that what our parents have believed in has been passed down to us and that U.S.A textbooks has also informed us that communism is bad. Valverde writes that the Vietnamese American community is very much “diverse in experiences, identities, and historical viewpoints”; however, most of us in America has come to believe in one thing: we support anti-communism. Due to this, we have been very agitated when people speak on bad terms about South Vietnam, which further limits our conversation until this day. Although the topic on communism is very heated, I would like to further analyze how it has affected Vietnamese people today and to see if it is really bad or not. In the article, Valverde states that economically Vietnam is doing better. My question is has Vietnam been doing worse under communism rule or because the U.S came to ruin the infrastructure and placed an embargo? I still want to be skeptical about communism and anti-communism, and do not want to see it from one side only.