The event described in the passage above, observed in 2002, illustrates how technology, culture, and capital move in the era of globalization (Clifford 1994; R. Cohen 1997). It also highlights the convoluted and often contentious history involving Viet Nam, the United States, and the Vietnamese diasporic community. The termdiasporatends to evoke a sense of positive connections to a homeland, but sometimes a country and parts of its overseas population do not have good relations; they are instead ideologically hostile to one another. Sometimes precarious relationships and negative attitudes exist between the diasporic groups and the host country, and...

The events described in the two passages above are not unique to this family; they are fairly common among working-and middle-class Vietnamese adults in both Viet Nam and the United States. Beyond a frivolous fixation with popular music, entertainers, and performers, the videos represent a peculiar, quotidian (re) construction of shared culture across borders. Complex and variegated dimensions inform these multilayered discussions, including aesthetic and artistic concerns, social gossip, copyright infringement, government restrictions, and technological advances. Vietnamese American popular music and music cassettes, videos, CDs, DVDs, and Internet downloads have found their way into nearly every overseas Vietnamese home and...

The event described in the passage above speaks to the obstacles that many in Viet Nam and in diaspora experienced in their initial attempts to connect with one another via the Internet. Creating lines of communication and sharing ideas between Viet Nam and its diaspora had been challenging in the decades following the Viet Nam War. Isolation lessened with developments in information communication technology (ICT) beginning in the 1960s that evolved into the proliferation of Internet access in the 1990s (Abbate 1999).³ From the early 1990s, ICT aided transnational connections and community-building activities, allowing dialogue where none had previously existed...

An impetus behind the exhibit and James Du’s one-man protest described in the passages above was the artist Chau Huynh. She is notorious for a controversial reworking of three pedicure basins painted entirely in yellow with three red stripes, symbolizing the former Republic of Viet Nam (South Viet Nam) flag. First publicly displayed as part of a student exhibit at the University of California in 2006, the image of one of these basins alone made her infamous within the diasporic community in the United States. When disgruntled Vietnamese Americans saw thePedicure Basin, they protested in front of the largest...

It is difficult to imagine that a controversy over the naming of a business district would erupt into a full-scale recall election, but because she did not support their choice of the name Little Saigon for a San Jose business district, a group of Vietnamese Americans determined to oust a council member. As in the case of the artist Chau Huynh and her controversialPedicure Basininstallation, divisive politics led the Vietnamese American community to attack council member Madison Nguyen with slander and accusations of corruption. Madison’s ability to keep her seat in the end signaled a new beginning for...

On September 3, 2009, Phương Hô., a twenty-year-old Vietnamese international student studying math at San Jose State University, California, was brutally beaten by four San Jose police officers. Apparently, one of Phương’s roommates, Jeremy Suftin, had slopped soap onto Phương’’s steak. Phương reacted by taking up a knife and saying, “In Vietnam, I would kill you over that.” His roommates laughed at the incident, but Suftin took it seriously and called the police. Witnesses reported that when the police arrived, Phương was unarmed and nonviolent. Police, however, claimed that he was uncooperative and resisting arrest. Fortuitously, our digital era allowed...