Films are a reflection of their time, and portrayals of the Vietnamese in film are reflective of the attitudes of American culture and society toward Vietnamese people. Films are particularly important because for many viewers, all they know about Vietnam and the Vietnamese is what they have seen on screen. This is why it is so important to examine the racist portrayals of the Vietnamese that have been presented, where they come from, and how and why they have changed. The significance of this study is that it combines historical studies of issues such as immigration, race relations, and cultural history with literary narratives of these films to explore the reasons why the Vietnamese have been portrayed initially so negatively and why that portrayal is only recently beginning to become more positive. I use six major Hollywood films and three recurring images to explore the ways that the portrayal of the Vietnamese has changed over time. Through a study of the images of the dehumanized enemy, the Vietnamese woman as prostitute, and Vietnamese civilians as backward peasants, the changing nature of racism in the films becomes evident. Blatant racism is found in the films of the 1960s and 1970s due to a long history of racism toward Asians and Asian Americans and the nature of the war itself. The films of the 1980s and beyond, coupled with the waves of refugees and opening of relations with Vietnam begin to show the Vietnamese as human beings. The most recent film of the twenty-first century honors the former enemy. There have been vast improvements, but other advancements remain to be made in race relations on screen and in real life.

This paper examines the evolution of government policy through Congressional debate and citizen involvement on the topic of Agent Orange. Use of primary sources from newspaper and journal articles, Congressional records, scientific studies, and press releases and some secondary literature by scholars from multiple disciplines builds a picture of the ongoing debate of Agent Orange and its two component herbicides from circa 1940 to 1991. Within this paper are four primary focuses, divided into three parts. First, the Congressional discussions prior to 1970 of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, the two herbicides that comprise Agent Orange. Second and third, discussed in the same section, the involvement of the scientific community and the ratification of the Geneva Protocol. Lastly, the movement after the Vietnam War for veteran benefits due to Agent Orange exposure.

Thesis advisor: Seth Jacobs / The vice presidencies of Lyndon B. Johnson and Humphrey H. Humphrey were momentous stages in both of their political careers. After leaving the position of Senate majority leader to become John F. Kennedy’s vice president, Johnson underwent a swift, total decrease in political efficacy. Those dark years impacted how he tackled the presidency, particularly in the handling of his own vice president. As Johnson’s vice president, Humphrey also watched the political power he had accrued as Senate majority whip evaporate. In an attempt to impress Johnson, Humphrey overcompensated and became a disciple for the Johnson administration’s unpopular war in Vietnam, destroying any chance Humphrey had to further his political career past the vice presidency. I argue that while their terms as vice presidents—Johnson’s was less than three years long and Humphrey’s was four years—were short periods of time in the grand scheme of their long careers, they were highly consequential for both men and severely damaging for Humphrey. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: History.

The sheer size of the baby boomer cohort has prompted a great deal of research on life outcomes and potential social strain or benefit of such a large cohort. A major contingency for the baby boomers was the experience of the Vietnam War. Many young men had their life course trajectories interrupted when they were drafted to military service or enrolled in college in an effort to evade the draft. This study uses the Life Family Legacies data to investigate how the Vietnam War may have affected later-life health outcomes of this cohort. Comparing physical health as captured by activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), this study found that baby boomer veterans' outcomes are similar to those of their nonveteran peers. When comparing mental health outcomes by prevalence of PTSD, findings show that those veterans who served in combat or combat support units are much more likely to show persistent signs of PTSD. Findings from this study suggest that the effects of combat are a crucial distinction when comparing outcomes between veterans and nonveterans.

The purpose was to determine how husbands and wives who had been separated because of the war in Vietnam perceived ea ch other during separation. Martial roles were used as the vehicle to convey perception. A random sample of Jl couples was selected from among the married officers and enlisted men of Marine All Weather Attack Squadron 225 which was based at DaNang, South Vietnam. A questionnaire des igned to determine perception of spouse was sent to men in Vietnam and to their wives who resided in various parts of the United States. The major findings are summarized as follows: l. Correlation of roles ranked in order of importance before and after separation by respondents was significant at or beyond the .05 level for all roles except that of mother. This indicates that there was really very little change in the importance of roles during separation. Tne mother role was most variable. 2. Husbands were significantly more accurate than wives in duplicating the ranking of roles by spouse. 3. Both husbands and wives were significantly more accurate predicting the role ranking of the other before separation than they were in predicting how the other would rank his roles after separation. 4. Wives were more congruent than husbands in perception of the spouse in roles they ranked as being highly important for the spouse. 5. Men who had children tended to be congruent between thought patterns about their wives and the roles they ranked as important for them. They usually ranked the roles of wife and mother high and often thought of their wives in these roles. This congruency did not exist with the men who had no children. 6 . There was significantly greater marital satisfaction before separation. 7. Perception of very high marital satisfaction after separation indicates that ideolization or glossing of the absent situation and absent person occurred.

“Beyond the Battlefield: Direct and Prosthetic Memory of the American War in Viet Nam” examines shifts in American, Viet Namese, and Philippine memorial, literary, and cinematic remembrance of the war through the cultural lenses of later wars: the Gulf War (1990-1991) and the “War on Terror” that began in 2001. As opposed to earlier portrayals of the American War in Viet Nam (1964-1975), turn-to-the-twenty-first-century representations engage in an ever-broadening collected cultural memory—a compilation of multifaceted, sometimes competing, individual and group memories—of the war. “Beyond the Battlefield” begins with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982) because it serves as the impetus for active participation in the reception and creation of memory. It traces a multifaceted collected cultural memory pattern through the stages of recognition for servicewomen, American women, Viet Namese Women, and reconciliation between soldiers and civilians as well as between Americans and the Viet Namese—veterans and civilians alike. Ultimately, a collected cultural memory of the war encourages prosthetic memory—memories of the war acquired via mediated representation by those with no direct experience in or hereditary connection to the war. Prosthetic memory permits an ongoing memory of the war that refuses to relegate the war to the forgotten past.

This essay examines why Vietnam veterans, who were draft motivated enlistees, enlisted when drafted or threatened with the draft. Data is taken from 63 oral history interviews conducted by The Vietnam Archive Oral History Project at Texas Tech University and is analyzed using the phenomenological research approach. The background of this paper briefly explains the Vietnam Draft and the draft avoidance options available to those men who were drafted. The results section utilizes quotes from the oral history interviews to show the main themes of why men chose to enlist when faced with the draft. The discussion section discusses these themes in a wider context and brings up areas for further research.

The Vietnam antiwar movement developed in the American Southwest out of a coalition of Chicanos, GI's, and students who agreed that the Vietnam War was racist, imperialist, costly, and negatively affected them and their communities. The antiwar movement in the Southwest formed in 1967, made possible by the emergence of the Chicano and GI movements. Chicanos criticized the military for a disproportionate number of Mexican American combat deaths in Vietnam. The military sent activist youth from across the country to bases in the Southwest, where they protested the war alongside Chicanos and college students. Connections between Chicanos, GI's, and students developed into a strong antiwar movement in 1968-1969. Beginning in 1970, the coalition fell apart as Chicanos increasingly pursued a strategy of separatism from mainstream American society as the key to self-determination. Frustration over perceived lack of progress in ending the war led the antiwar movement into an escalation in protest tactics and radicalization of its message, pushing out moderate voices and further weakening the movement. This thesis offers an original contribution because historians have failed to pay attention to the vibrant antiwar movement in the Southwest, instead, mostly focusing on the East Coast and San Francisco Bay Area. Historians of the Chicano movement have not adequately shown how it allied with other movements in the 1960s to achieve its goals. The use of underground newspapers allows a window into the writings and ideas of the protestors.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Uppsula University, 1998.

Thesis--Freie Universität Berlin. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 562-582).