UCLA

In my dissertation, I examine the literature of the francophone Vietnamese diaspora in order to explore the interrelated issues of colonialism, racism, migration, culture, and aesthetics. This project operates on two theoretical planes. First, I examine a variety of historical and cultural sources to identify the ways in which food and racial hierarchies were used together to depict Vietnamese people in colonial France. I then move from historical to literary analysis in the remaining chapters by following these currents into the novels of three contemporary diasporic Vietnamese writers: Linda L�, Kim Th�y, and Monique Truong. Tracing food from the colonial past through to the literary present, I suggest, on the one hand, that the legacy of the French Empire has historically overdetermined the relationship of the Vietnamese to the culinary, even in contexts of diaspora. On the other hand, I argue that writers of Vietnamese origin challenge the dominant paradigms of postcolonial studies. I suggest that their writing affords a means of negotiating the chasm between accommodation and resistance in order to see what forms of subjectivity might be possible for the diasporic Vietnamese. To study these questions is to scrutinize the repercussions of French colonialism, as well as to consider processes of cultural assimilation, exchange, and creation within the contemporary Francosphere.

Even as discussions at the intersection of postcolonial literature and food studies currently preoccupy many scholars, my dissertation is the first to apply these questions to diasporic Vietnamese literatures in francophone contexts. I also demonstrate the importance of reading for creative formal innovations in literature, film, and the arts alongside historical materials from the archives. Vietnamese experiences with postcoloniality and migration are conditioned by the legacy of colonial racism that continues to be in effect today, thus a study of contemporary artistic production demands to be examined in light of this history. By approaching such issues from the vantage point of the diasporic Vietnamese, my project lends an alternative viewpoint to an enduring discussion on racism and aesthetics in France.