Twentieth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

This paper examines G. B. Tran’s Vietnamerica and Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do in a comparative framework. Both graphic memoirs weave together the authors’ personal experience growing up in the United States with their familial history and the public history of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Both books reveal the narrators’ feeling of disconnection with their refugee parents and with their Vietnamese heritage while growing up, their reactions to and experiences of visiting Vietnam as adults, and their efforts to piece together fragments of familial history. The authors’ narrative and artistic styles differ: Tran’s drawings favor a direct approach, vibrant colors, and explosive details while Bui’s work leans towards subtle storytelling, demure color tones, and quiet expressions. Collectively, these works help construct a new framework the historical narrative of the Vietnam War and contribute to the existing body of literary and cultural productions representing the complexity and nuances of Vietnamese American experience.