Storytelling and Ethnographic Intersections

Abstract

The exit of approximately 2,000 Vietnamese orphans in April 1975 through Operation Babylift is a key part of Vietnam War debates. The Babylift volunteers, American women who aided with the children's evacuation, published autobiographies of their involvement and publicly commemorated the history. This article uses pedagogy, collective memory, and commemoration theory to examine how Vietnamese adoptees negotiate the volunteers' accounts and how they reclaim their history by labeling the volunteers' narratives as inadequate, recognize their community's agency, and create new commemorations. The article uses interviews, participation observation, and Vietnamese adoptee written life stories to discuss Vietnamese adoption. It also explores some issues of using life story texts in ethnographic research.

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