Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Much of Vietnamese history is overshadowed by the Vietnam-American War, furthermore, conventional perspectives are male dominated. Classic Vietnamese literature invoke memories of a matriarchal society that existed prior to Chinese rule. While upper-class families in the North upheld many values of a patriarchal society, it was less common among poor and rural families in the South. Deeply affected by my mother’s death, I began to examine her past but uncovered the memories of her family and their stories of survival through compliance, adaptation, and immigration. The goals of this paper are to provide evidence of a matriarchal society in South Vietnam; to give nuanced perspectives of civilian life during Vietnamese conflicts; and to recreate a layered past of their memories. In this family ethnography, the observations presented are the oral histories and memories of my Vietnamese family, Southerners from the rural and proletariat class. I document interviews using film to capture their stories beyond the Vietnam-American War and focus on three aunt’s lives whose stories support a strong matriarchal presence in South Vietnam. The eldest daughter, both obedient and successful, was the cultural and feminine ideal. The second eldest daughter, who like my mother, sought to gain independence from their parents. And the fifth daughter, the first to leave Vietnam (post-Liberation) under the Orderly Departure Program. Using these three incredible stories of survival, I reconstruct a layered past to unify my own knowledge of my mother’s life and the collective memories from these exceptional women.