The class topic is “Seeking Refuge from Utopia: Communism, Nationalism, and Early Vietnamese Immigration to the United States” and this class will talk about. What makes for an ideal political world and society? How does radical socialism intend to punish or scare straight the self-interested actor who has been corrupted by capitalism and Western imperialism? Why is nationalism a compelling force in facilitating political change? How did these narratives lead to mass persecutions? This course will uncover answers to these questions by explaining the political ascendance, division, and reunification of Vietnam. The course will also analyze the waves of Vietnamese immigration to the United States, from the Fall of Saigon evacuees to the “boat people” to the Amerasians to the Comprehensive Plan of Action for “bona fide” refugees, while providing insights into international, national, and local responses to and coordination of mass migrations caused by political upheaval. This course will also investigate the struggles of Vietnamese immigrant acculturation in the United States, among those who arrived here between the 1970s to 1990s, given the circumstances that facilitated their arrival.
There are three textbooks that will be used for this class. The first two books “Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels” and “Nations and Nationalism by Ernest Gellner” are classics in the political science literature and will provide students with theoretical and conceptual frameworks for understanding the causes of the Second Indochina War and the political vision of the Hanoi government in North Vietnam (between 1954 and 1975) and in a reunified Vietnam (since 1975). The third book “The Vietnamese American 1.5 Generation: Stories of War, Revolution, Flight, and New Beginnings by Sucheng Chan
” provides more of a historical overview of the Second Indochina War, the mass exodus of South Vietnamese after the Fall of Saigon, international attempts to temporarily shelter and permanently relocate these emigrants, and the various waves of early Vietnamese immigration to the United States.
This is assignment is a research proposal. Please make sure that your proposal is either in a pdf or doc file, and upload your file submission here. Make sure that you identify your research topic, state your research question, explain why your inquiry of this topic is important, and include your annotated bibliography with at least five distinct sources.
You will need to submit a research proposal (about three pages long) on a topic related to the course. Acceptable research topics may include issues relating to political ideologies, civil wars, international relations, refugee policy, or immigrant acculturation. In your proposal, you need to specify what the topic is about (what is your research question?), why the topic is important (i.e. why should people know more about it), and how you plan to find answers your research question (i.e. annotated bibliography with at least five sources). Research proposals that require more than one revision may receive point deductions. Late submissions of proposal drafts are subject up to a 6-point deduction.
