The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a bloody and brutal war that took place in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from November 1, 1955-April 30, 1975, ending with the fall of Saigon. Occuring during the Cold War era, the main conflict was between the communist North Vietnamese army and its South Vietnamese guerrilla force allies known as the Viet Kong, backed by the Soviet Union, and the South Vietnamese government, backed primarily by the United States. The North Vietnam regime wanted to unite the entire country under a communist regime, while the South wanted to keep a more democratized nation. This was a very costly war, with Vietnamese casualties estimated at around 3 million soldiers and civilians, and over 58,000 US military casualties.

It was also a very controversial war, with many Americans protesting US involvement in what appeared to be an unnecessary conflict. The Anti-Vietnam Movement gave birth to many political movements and organizations, as well as bolstered and solidified many others, including the Black Power Movement (with the Black Panther Party) and the Asian American Movement (with the Asian American Political Alliance and Asian Americans for Action). The AAPA and the AAA started in college campuses and were initially spurred by the anti-war sentiments of post World War II, but they took a sharp stance against the Vietnam War, mainly motivated by the anti-Asian nature surrounding this war from Americans. With the reintroduction of “gookism” in US troops, a military strategy that involved training US soldiers to view their Vietnamese “enemies” as something less than human in order to make killing them easier, anti-Asian sentiments were rampant in the US during this war. This mobilized the Asian American movement, and Asian American protesters utilized protests, marches, demonstrations, fliers, signs, etc. to voice their opinions and show support for the Vietnamese, with whom they identified as fellow Asians.

The Vietnam War also established the Asian American movement as pan-Asian, as Asians of all ethnicities became victims of the hatred towards the Vietnamese during this period, as well as made it a global issue, as Asian in America began to draw parallels between the imperialism and brutal colonization forces that the West (including the US) were inflicting upon Asian countries around the world.

Sources:

Densho. “In the Belly of the Monster: Asian American Opposition to the Vietnam War.” Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment, 18 Dec. 2017, densho.org/asian-american-opposition-vietnam-war/.

Maeda, Daryl Joji. “The Asian American Movement,” in Oxford Handbook of Asian American History, ed. David Yoo and Eiichiro Azuma (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).