UC Santa Barbara

How is memory created through discourse, and design, and how it is curated for the public? These questions have guided research at national sites of memory. This research adopts this line of questioning, applying it to a Vietnam veterans’ community in Santa Barbara, California. The approach to understanding these questions is an ethnographic one. Ethnographic methods rely on participant observation allowing for researchers to gain a deep understanding about how humans make sense of the past and actuate it in the present. This research emerges from more than six years of fieldwork with Santa Barbara’s Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 218. It adds to the existing body of literature on Vietnam veteran memorialization, applying ethnographic theories and methods to trace the memorial projects, discussions, and debates Chapter 218 has undertaken, and the history of the group. Where previous research on memorial communities have focused on the political rhetoric that politicians, institutions, and public figures have deployed at sites of memory, this research focuses on the ordinary citizens who practice memorializing the Vietnam War and what they convey to audiences. Where past research has highlighted the disagreements between groups involved in memorialization this research discusses the debates and differing views that emerge in one group. Three memory projects have motivated Chapter 218’s activities and energized debates about how to memorialize the war. One is revitalization of a memorial built at a park in the 1990s, another is participation in parades, and finally they have discussed how to best care for, display, and memorialize their UH-1 helicopter. The methods employed in this research have been participant observation, informal interviews, semi-structured interviews, and archival research. This research demonstrates that, for the members of Chapter 218 memorialization of Vietnam War is not only about pride for having served honorably in a contentious war, but a reflection on how their experiences at war changed them. This research seeks to relay the stories of this group as they continue to wrestle with those changes.