by Julia López-Robertson, Lisa Stockdale & Amber Hartman, The University of South Carolina

A man without history is a tree without root.
Confucius
. . . students are often disinterested in their own culture because their parents have worked so hard to help them blend into the Western world and environment.

We close our blog this month with another graphic novel, Vietnamerica, and leave you with a few questions regarding students’ language and culture and its place in the classroom. The main character, G.B.,  is a Vietnamese American who learns about his family’s past in Vietnam and America through family stories and also by visiting his home country of Vietnam. G.B.’s parents fled Vietnam during the war in Saigon to keep the family safe and to find new life in America. Although G.B.’s family struggled to adapt to their new life in America, they wanted what was best for their children so they didn’t go back right away. G.B. grows up in the United States and it is obvious throughout Vietnamerica that he has definitely assimilated to the American culture and become extremely “Americanized.” When his parents ask him to visit Vietnam with them years later, G.B. wants nothing to do with it. He questions why they still care about Vietnam when they left it so many years ago. Eventually, G.B. comes to the conclusion that his family’s past is important, and he tries his hardest to grasp what he can before the history goes away.
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