lê thị diễm thúy
lê thị diễm thúy is a novelist, poet, and performer. She was born in Phan Thiết, Vietnam in 1972. In 1978, she and her father left Vietnam by boat and stayed at a refugee camp in Singapore before settling in San Diego, California. In 1990, she moved to Massachusetts where she attended Hampshire college; there, she formed the foundation for her first solo performance work Red Fiery Summer (Mùa hè đỏ lửa). In 1996 she went on to produce her second solo performance piece the bodies between us as well a prose piece that eventually became her novel The Gangster We Are All Looking For.
Where Are We Going?
By: Anne Murray
Included in Generations: 40 Hues Between Black and White, Organized by the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art (OCCCA) and the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA)
Anne Murray's video Where Are We Going? visually encapsulates a refugee's escape from Vietnam
The Gangster We Are All Looking For by lê thị diễm thúy intricately details the story of a Vietnamese family escaping Vietnam and the struggles they face settling in the United States. Through a child's perspective, she describes the constant pull between the past and the present, life in Vietnam and life in America. Past trauma plagues her and her family as they navigate the American Dream.
Boats used to escape Vietnam
Conditions at refugee camps
Repurposing boats at refugee camps
Children at the refugee camps
Above: Images of Boat People from the Rosenblatt (Lionel) Collection on the Interagency Task Force for Indochina Refugees, UCI Southeast Asian Archives
“We each thought of those long nights floating on the ocean, rocking back and forth in the middle of nowhere with nothing in sight. We remembered the ships that kept their distance.”
~ lê thị diễm thúy, The Gangster We Are All Looking For (2003)
In The Gangster We Are All Looking For, lê thị diễm thúy mentions a recurring memory of a brother who drowned at sea. In Vietnamese, "nước" means "water", but it also means "country." Because of the numerous lives lost to the water, nước is often associated with death, darkness, and uncertainty. However, with the dual meaning of "country," it also signifies a sense of familiarity for those who have left and resettled in another country after the Vietnam War.
Benediction
Dao, Vu Bang
Thuyen Dan Viet Nam
Le, Khac Vinh
In 1993, lê thị diễm thúy traveled to Paris for academic research. Her TED talk "Origin Song" details how her experience in Paris strongly resembled her experience when she first came to America- struggling with language and coping with the idea of distance and loss. She opens up about her escape from Vietnam and how as a child, she had difficulty understanding the concept of distance- distance from her family, distance from her hometown, distance from familiarity.
“Ma says war is a bird with a broken wing flying over the countryside, trailing blood and burying crops in sorrow. If something grows in spite of this, it is both a curse and a miracle… She could have stomped on it in the dark, and danced on it like a madwoman dancing on gravestones… War has no beginning and no end. It crosses oceans like a splintered boat filled with people singing a sad song.”
~ lê thị diễm thúy, The Gangster We Are All Looking For (2003)
Other Solo Performances by lê thị diễm thúy: Red Fiery Summer, the bodies between us, Carte Postale