This ppt is intended to an American Literature class. It talks about one of the many aspects of IDENTITY LITERATURE. In this case, the literature of one social group: the VIETNAMESE-AMERICAN people. It takles the case of ANDREW LAM.

1. IDENTITY
LITERATURE
Vietnamese-American
Literature
AMERICAN LITERATURE
TEACHER: ANDREA PUCHMULLER
 STUDENTS: MARCELA CLARK
ADELA PÉREZ DEL VISO



2. VIETNAM AND THE U.S.
**The Vietnam War, a.k.a. the Second Indochina
War, was a War that occurred in Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia from November 1955 to April 1975.
** Casualties and losses:
South Vietnam 195,000–430,000 civilian de ad,
220,357– 313,000 military dead.; and
1,170,000 wounded
United States
58,220 dead; and 303,644 wounded
There were also dead and wounded people from
SOUTH KOREA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND,
THAILAND, PHILIPPINES, NORTH VIETNAM AND
THE SOVIET UNION.
Total dead: two million people both sides.
Total wounded: two million 200.000 people from
both sides.

3. VIETNAM AND THE U.S.
**The U.S. government viewed American
involvement in the war as a way to prevent a
communist takeover of South Vietnam. This was
part of their wider strategy of ‖containment‖,
which aimed to stop the spread of communism.
**During the war, from 1961 to 1971, the
―HERBICIDE ORANGE‖ (HO, or AGENT
ORANGE) was used against vietnamese civilian
people. More than 400.000 people were killed or
maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth
defects as a
result of the use of the compound.

4. VIETNAM AND THE U.S.
**The ―Fall of Saigon‖, 1975—ended the warprompted large-scale immigration from Vietnam.
**People with ties with E.U. feared communist
reprisals.
**1975: 125,000 left South Vietnam. Highly
skilled and educated. Airlifted by the U.S. to the
Philippines and Guam, and then transferred to
centers in the U.S.
** Now: Vietnamese Americans: political power in
Orange County, Silicon Valley, California and
Texas.

5. ANDREW LAM.
**Born 1964. Vietnamese American Writer.
**Born in South Vietnam, the son of General Lam
Ouang Thi of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam.
**Left Vietnam with his family during the fall of
Saigon, April 1975.
**Attended the University of California, Berkeley,
where he majored in biochemistry.
**Then he entered a creative writing program at
San Francisco State University.
**1993 won the Outstanding Young Journalist
Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

6. Identity literature
Who will Light Incense When Mother´s gone




Essay by Andrew Lam
Setting: no place nor time explicitly
mentioned.
Characters: writer, his mum, family
members
Plot:
Who will light incense to the dead when we´re
gone?

7. Identity

―Honestly , I don´t know”(...) “None of my
children will do it and we can forget the
grandchildren. They don´t even
understand what we are doing. I guess
when we´re gone, the ritual ends”
Writer´s point of view:
“Such is the price of living in America. I can´t
remember the last time I lit incense sticks and
talked to my dead ancestors. Having fled so far
from Vietnam, I no longer know to whom I should
address my prayers or what promises I could
possibly make to the long departed.”

8. A matter of generations



She “lives in America the
way she would in Vietnam”
“Every morning(...) she
piously lights a few joss
sticks for the ancestral
altar.”
“Every morning she talks
to ghosts. She mumbles
solemn prayers to the
spirits of our dead
ancestors, asks them for
protection.”

9. Language

―Once when I was still a rebellious
teenager and living at home, Mother
asked me to speak more Vietnamese
inside the house. ―No,‖ I answered in
English, ―what good is it to speak it? It´s
not as if I´m going to use it after I move
out‖ ‖

―Vietnamese appropriated the word
―cowboy‖ (...) to imply selfishness. A
cowboy in Vietnamese estimation is a
rebel who leaves town to ride alone in

10. Other reflections
―America,(...) had stolen my mother´s
children, especially her youngest and
once obedient son. America seduced
him with optimism, twisted his
thinking, bent his tongue and dulled
his tropic memories‖
 ―I visit her. I take her to lunch. I come
from for important dates – New Year,
Thanksgiving,‖


11. 2 different worlds
―We live in two different worlds, Mother and I‖

―Mine is a world of
travel and writing
and public speaking,
of immersing myself
in contemporary
history.‖

―Hers is a world of
consulting the
Vietnamese
horoscope, of
attending Buddhist
temple on the day of
her parents´ death
anniversaries and of
telling and retelling
stories of the past‖

12. Concern
―What will survive my mother?‖

―She is what connects me and my
generation to a traditional past. (...) I
share her fear that the generation (...),
what preserves us as a community,
will fade away‖

13. Last lines

―I fear she´ll leave me stranded in
America, becoming more American
than I expected, a lonely cowboy
cursed with amnesia‖

14. Conclusion

In Andrew Lam´s essay Who Will Light
Incense When Mother´s Gone? Many
aspects of Identity Literature can be
identified. Such as the issues related to
acculturation, the use of L1 and L2, the
feeling of belonging, the building up of
identity. And how all these factors impact
in different ways in the immigrant
individuals who have left their beloved
land behind to find shelter in a new
country.

15. SOURCES.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/AndrewLam/83033371568?ref=stream
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_American
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
Lam, A.: Who will light incense... Retrieved from:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-lam/whowill-light-incense-wh_b_3259904.html
Google images.