Friday Notes: Films and Aimee Phan’s We Should Never Meet
- bui doi = less than dust, Amerasians
- The Amerasian Homecoming Act
- “compassionate” communities of mixed race war families
- promises that Am. couldn’t fill
- very lil records on military dependent families
- citizenship – Am. born vs. naturalized
Themes:
- class difference, ex: shoes vs. no shoes
- Vietnamese class vs. Am. class
- hierarchies within hierarchies
- no such thing as “post-colonial”
- language as connector but also as colonializer
- higher visibility of mother figures
- war marks coming of age
- loss of innocence, forced to grow up
- before & after
- no quotations for dialogue
- title significance
- children as legacy, future, symbol of promise and hope, esp. for immigrant families
- sacrifice
- Bridget, Vien, Phuong, etc
- jade bracelet, jewelry imagery
- Kim
- personal representations of general Civil War/war
- Truc and Phuong
- generation gaps, what elders sacrificed for babies
- Ving and Bac
- not leaving family, home behind – responsibility
- “Emancipation”
- foster system as social warfare
- all diff. experiences with foster and adoption experience