On March 6, the Department of Asian Languages & Literature convened a distinguished gathering of community leaders, scholars, writers, translators, humanitarian activists, and film artists for a day of talks, presentations, and film screenings to commemorate fifty years since the end of the Vietnam War. Each of the conference's speakers, panelists, and discussants were united by their deep connections to postwar Vietnam and Cambodia, and shared personal stories, insights, and experiences that have shaped and sustained their careers and communities -- from Southeast Asia to Seattle -- over the past fifty years.
Organized by Prof. Bich-Ngoc Turner, with support from the Department of Asian Languages & Literature, the Center for Southeast Asia and Its Diasporas, and the Simpson Center for the Humanities, this one-day conference successfully commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. It also celebrated the accomplishments of Vietnamese and Cambodian communities, scholars, artists, and activists who live and work within, between, and across Seattle, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere in the U.S. and around the globe.
Panels included Sokha Danh (mam's books), Quynh Pham (Friends of Little Saigon), and Hoang T. Dieu-Hien (University of Washington); Judith Henchy (Greater Seattle Vietnam Association), Claire Yunker (PeaceTrees Vietnam), and Bich-Ngoc Turner (University of Washington); Harriet Phinney (Seattle University), Jonathan Warren (University of Washington), and Christoph Giebel (University of Washington); and Tony Bui (Columbia University), Quan Manh Ha (University of Montana), and Kieu Bich Hau (Vietnamese Writers' Association).