Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi is an associate professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. (Click photo to learn more)
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Archipelago of Resettlement: Vietnamese Refugee Settlers and Decolonization across Guam and Israel-Palestine by Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi (University of California Press, 2022)
This academic monograph examines Vietnamese refugee resettlement in Guam and Israel-Palestine as a means to trace two forms of critical geography: first, archipelagos of empire — how the Vietnam War is linked to US military build-up in Guam and unwavering support of Israel; and second, corresponding archipelagos of resistance — how Chamorro decolonization efforts and Palestinian liberation struggles are connected via the Vietnamese refugee figure. This project analyzes what she calls the “refugee settler condition”: the vexed positionality of refugee subjects whose very condition of political legibility via citizenship is predicated upon the unjust dispossession of an Indigenous population. Chapter one examines Vietnamese-CHamoru relationships that were forged during the Vietnam War. Chapters three and five examine Operation New Life and its afterlives, focusing on Vietnamese refugees’ complex relationships to CHamoru decolonization struggles.
“[C]amp residents carved out social spaces in which to continue living, refusing to let the war and the refugee crisis define them. They found moments of joy and entertainment within the camp’s confines. Refugees attended mass in silk aó dàis, swam in the ocean, played volleyball and basketball, learned English, painted art that would be exhibited in Guam’s Government House, traded comic books across a fence with children of naval families, and greeted Smokey
the Bear. At Camp Asan, ‘the G.I.s would show animated shorts in the open area in front of the barracks,’ where refugees would sit, ‘midway between Vietnam and the New World, with a full moon above us, and a huge white screen in front of us,’ watching Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner, Popeye the Sailor Man, The Cat in the Hat, and Sinbad the Sailor. These anecdotes do not diminish the fact that the refugees were separated from the rest of Guam’s residents by ‘barbed wire, chain-link fences, and armed guards’ or that many felt depressed and homesick, to the point of considering suicide. The US military’s narrative of humanitarian rescue was underwritten by the refugees’ carceral reality. Through everyday acts of survival, however, refugees could challenge the US military’s totalizing control” (99-100).
“What role can Vietnamese refugee settlers, shaped by a history of US war-turned-rescue operation, play in native Chamorro decolonization efforts? Given their inadvertent role in humanizing and justifying the US military’s occupation of Guam during Operation New Life, as elaborated in chapter 3, Vietnamese refugees embody ‘the power to represent or enact’ settler militarism on native Chamorro lands and waters. As settlers who stayed in Guam, they contribute to the ongoing dispossession of native Chamorros. However, Vietnamese refugees’ experiences of US military imperialism also present potential points of solidarity with Chamorro decolonization activists who resist US settler militarism. US intervention in Vietnam was predicated upon the colonization of Guam, after all, as outlined in chapter 2. The decolonization of Guam could therefore inhibit future US military interventions in Asia and Oceania, preventing further displacement of refugees by war. In other words, settler militarism in Guam harms not only native Chamorros but also refugees displaced by US military ventures; as such, effective
organizing around archipelagic histories of US empire could activate a coalitional critique of US military violence in its myriad forms” (153).
This academic monograph examines Vietnamese refugee resettlement in Guam and Israel-Palestine as a means to trace two forms of critical geography: first, archipelagos of empire — how the Vietnam War is linked to US military build-up in Guam and unwavering support of Israel; and second, corresponding archipelagos of resistance — how Chamorro decolonization efforts and Palestinian liberation struggles are connected via the Vietnamese refugee figure. This project analyzes what she calls the “refugee settler condition”: the vexed positionality of refugee subjects whose very condition of political legibility via citizenship is predicated upon the unjust dispossession of an Indigenous population. Chapter one examines Vietnamese-CHamoru relationships that were forged during the Vietnam War. Chapters three and five examine Operation New Life and its afterlives, focusing on Vietnamese refugees’ complex relationships to CHamoru decolonization struggles.
“[C]amp residents carved out social spaces in which to continue living, refusing to let the war and the refugee crisis define them. They found moments of joy and entertainment within the camp’s confines. Refugees attended mass in silk aó dàis, swam in the ocean, played volleyball and basketball, learned English, painted art that would be exhibited in Guam’s Government House, traded comic books across a fence with children of naval families, and greeted Smokey
the Bear. At Camp Asan, ‘the G.I.s would show animated shorts in the open area in front of the barracks,’ where refugees would sit, ‘midway between Vietnam and the New World, with a full moon above us, and a huge white screen in front of us,’ watching Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner, Popeye the Sailor Man, The Cat in the Hat, and Sinbad the Sailor. These anecdotes do not diminish the fact that the refugees were separated from the rest of Guam’s residents by ‘barbed wire, chain-link fences, and armed guards’ or that many felt depressed and homesick, to the point of considering suicide. The US military’s narrative of humanitarian rescue was underwritten by the refugees’ carceral reality. Through everyday acts of survival, however, refugees could challenge the US military’s totalizing control” (99-100).
“What role can Vietnamese refugee settlers, shaped by a history of US war-turned-rescue operation, play in native Chamorro decolonization efforts? Given their inadvertent role in humanizing and justifying the US military’s occupation of Guam during Operation New Life, as elaborated in chapter 3, Vietnamese refugees embody ‘the power to represent or enact’ settler militarism on native Chamorro lands and waters. As settlers who stayed in Guam, they contribute to the ongoing dispossession of native Chamorros. However, Vietnamese refugees’ experiences of US military imperialism also present potential points of solidarity with Chamorro decolonization activists who resist US settler militarism. US intervention in Vietnam was predicated upon the colonization of Guam, after all, as outlined in chapter 2. The decolonization of Guam could therefore inhibit future US military interventions in Asia and Oceania, preventing further displacement of refugees by war. In other words, settler militarism in Guam harms not only native Chamorros but also refugees displaced by US military ventures; as such, effective
organizing around archipelagic histories of US empire could activate a coalitional critique of US military violence in its myriad forms” (153).