Little Saigons Essay
The following voice project will discuss second generation Vietnamese Americans struggling with cultural expectations. In this assignment of exploration of literature, I will be discussing Karin Aguilar-San Juan book Little Saigons: Staying Vietnamese in America. Little Saigons: Staying Vietnamese in America, is a book exploring place-making and identity in Vietnamese American communities. Throughout the chapters the author had a clear argument. She stated that retaining one’s identity in an American immigrant community requires more than simply passing down cultural traditions between generations or remembering the past by retaining one’s language. She suggests that in order to retain their Vietnamese identity, Vietnamese Americans use elements of the physical domain as well as social relationships to reflect and preserve their Vietnamese histories.
For ten years beginning in 1994, Juan conducted interviews with Vietnamese American living in Boston and Orange County. Her goal is to understand how Vietnamese refugees maintain a sense of being Vietnamese. The stories she collected while interviewing residents are included in her book and helped her with her conclusion. Juan’s conclusions are also influenced by her personal history. She grew up in a Filipino American community. She developed an awareness of immigrant
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Vietnamese refugees relocated to a handful of locations in the United States, particularly places that had similar climates, people and homes that provide a semblance of Vietnam. The significant centers of Vietnamese population in the United States are known collectively as little Saigons. Saigon is the former name of the capital of the former South Vietnam. Some are more sophisticated and concentrated than others. Little Saigons are sites of adjustment, adaptation and accommodation, as people uprooted have to define and negotiate what it means to be Vietnamese in
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