Trauma Narratives: Collective Memories as Literature by Indochinese Refugees in the United States
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Abstract
Indochinese refugees in the United States are part of Asian Americans, whose narratives portray their life in their home countries, journeys to the new world and life in the United States, their new world. This study investigates three primary texts by American authors of Indochinese descent, including Lan Cao’s Monkey Bridge, Sichan Siv’s Golden Bones and Sucheng Chan’s Hmong Means Free. These three texts are highly historicised, portraying traumatic experiences of Indochinese refugees who suffer from war and communist persecution in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, respectively. These texts are considered trauma narratives serving as collective memories of those people, which help them to remember their pasts and constitute their group identity. The narratives in the three primary texts also explain how Indochinese subjects come to be Asian Americans and reveal that in fact the United States is considered an important cause of their diaspora and trauma. The authors of those narratives are unable to eradicate the traumatic memories from their psyche, so they yearn for voices to vent out those memories as a form of healing. Their trauma narratives have become part of American culture which is partially constituted by trauma suffered by different groups of people in this country.
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