Transnationalizing Viet Nam Community, Culture, and Politics in the Diaspora

Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde

“Bridging Asian Studies and Asian American Studies, Transnationalizing Viet Nam is a rich and nuanced study of transnational linkages between Viet Nam and its diaspora in the United States. Through fascinating case studies of Vietnamese popular music productions, Internet virtual communities, diasporic art and community politics, Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde provides a rare glimpse into how Vietnamese have connected their worlds and made meanings for themselves.”
—Yen Le Espiritu, Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego

temple.edu – Vietnamese diasporic relations affect—and are directly affected by—events in Viet Nam. In Transnationalizing Viet Nam, Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde explores these connections, providing a nuanced understanding of this globalized community. Valverde draws on 250 interviews and almost two decades of research to show the complex relationship between Vietnamese in the diaspora and those back at the homeland.

Arguing that Vietnamese immigrant lives are inherently transnational, she shows how their acts form virtual communities via the Internet, organize social movements, exchange music and create art, find political representation, and even dissent. Valverde also exposes how generational, gender, class, and political tensions threaten to divide the ethnic community.

Transnationalizing Viet Nam paints a vivid picture of the complex political and personal allegiances that exist within Vietnamese America and shape the relations between this heterogeneous community and its country of origin.