[Tlc] Vietnam Center and Archive

[Maxner, Steve]

Dear Tzianeng Vang:

 

Thank you very much for your message and for raising this interesting
question.  I think this is mostly a matter of perspective and the name
used in describing this or any war must provide clarity for the user and
audience.  When we travel to SEA, especially Viet Nam, when in
discussions with students and scholars there about this war, we use
their reference point and call it "the American War."  However, when
here in the US, if we called it "the American war" - it would be very
confusing to an American audience.  Which "American" war would we be
discussing since all of the wars that the US has been involved in have
been "American."  Perhaps we could change the name to the
American-Vietnam War - but that is redundant to an American audience.

 

Further, I am not sure it is accurate to call this "the American War."
The Republic of Vietnam was very heavily engaged in this war and lost
many more thousands of their soldiers in the fighting than did the US -
and there were other country forces from Australia, South Korea, and
elsewhere.  To call it "the American War" is to negate the important
role of these other nations in this war, especially the former Republic
of Vietnam.

 

Just my two cents...

 

Best regards,


Steve

 

 

From: Txiabneeb Vaj [mailto:txiabneeb at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 11:41 AM
To: Maxner, Steve
Cc: tlc at lists.ucr.edu
Subject: Re: [Tlc] Vietnam Center and Archive

 

Greeting:

For all of the (SE Asian) scholars out there; by SE Asian scholars I
mean anyone who studies SE Asian's and not just those of us who are SE
Asian descents. In the western world, US especially, it is called the
Vietnam War, but in Asia or at least in the regions/areas that I am
familiar with in SE Asia, it is referred to as the American War; the
same goes with World War II; the Hmong in Laos called it the Japan War. 

My question is will the SE Asian scholars on this listserv or anyone
that is involve with SE Asian Studies hereafter ever consider adopting
the name "American War" instead of the "Vietnam War?"

Just my curiosity...await your feed back...

-Tzianeng Vang,
651.238.5300

On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 6:53 AM, Maxner, Steve <steve.maxner at ttu.edu>
wrote:

Greetings:

I am new to this list and I wanted to provide a brief introduction to
you regarding our project.

Since 1989, the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech has been promoting the
study and preserving the history of the US experience in Vietnam,
especially during the Vietnam War.  Since that time, we have collected
more than 20 million pages of material in our traditional archive, have
more than 500 interviews in our oral history project, and provide free
online access to nearly 3 million pages of archival material via our
Virtual Vietnam Archive.  I must admit that, in some ways, I regret the
current name of our project, "The Vietnam Center and Archive" as it is
too restrictive in terms of our actual missions and scope.  We changed
it to this shorter name in the mid-1990s as our board felt the previous
name was too long - the Center for the Study of the Vietnam Conflict.
While it was longer, it was also far more accurate in describing our
work which involves the entire theater and all nations involved - to
include Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.  We have many archival collections
that cover historical events and activities in Laos, Cambodia, and
Thailand.  In addition, our current activities to promote the study of
the role of the US in Southeast Asia as well as reconciliation between
our nations includes scholarships and other university projects in
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

You can learn more about our project online here:  www.vietnam.ttu.edu
<http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu> 

I hope you will visit our website and I look forward to participating in
this discussion about Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia.

Best regards,

 

Steve  

Stephen Maxner, Ph.D.
Director
The Vietnam Center

The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University
Special Collections Library Room 108
15th and Detroit
Lubbock, TX  79409-1041

Phone:  806-742-9010
Fax:  806-742-0496
Email:  steve.maxner at ttu.edu
Website:  www.vietnam.ttu.edu  


_______________________________________________
Tlc mailing list
Tlc at lists.ucr.edu
http://lists.ucr.edu/mailman/listinfo/tlc




-- 
Peb tij kwv koom ib kaus mom! 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/tlc/attachments/20080520/b8665963/attachment-0001.html