Elizabeth ai six year old day to create New wave (2024), a documentary capturing the experience of post-war resettlement of Vietnamese Americans in the 1980s, was interrupted in March 2020 due to the COVVI-19 pandemic. She moved from the realization to archiving, a screen of family photographs only to come up against the limits of the Vietnamese-American archives. She opened her research on the internet, creating a Instagram page And invite others to share photos and family videos of their personal collections. In the resulting images, the aunts and the sport uncles have caused permanent hair and the black adjusted blacksters while dancing categorically to the disco of the new wave of the 1980s, capturing the essence of this fleeting cultural moment.
For AI and many other Vietnamese Americans who grew up in the 1980s, New wave was the soundtrack of their childhood. But if the link between Euro synthpop bands such as Depeche Mode and American Vietnamese refugees in Orange county seems to be a section, you are not alone. Elizabeth called family members to explore these links, noting that they met these synthpop recordings alongside In Phước LộC Thọ, or Asian Garden Mall, in Westminster, California. Many refugees had settled in the county of Orange because of its warm climate and its proximity to the Camp Pendleton, the first refugee camp to open to the resettlement by the sponsorship of the church, leading to the creation of many places where the cultures mixed.
The documentary and his support book, New wave: rebellion and reinvention in the Vietnamese diaspora (2024), rewrites the story of Vietnamese Americans after the war before the 50th anniversary of the Falling from Saigon. Western popular culture has historically represented the Vietnamese people as victims (southern refugees) or enemies (communists of the North), gangsters or model minorities, leaving little room for the nuance to represent the experience of the millions of people who have been forced to flee their country of origin. For refugees born in Vietnam who came to the United States between five and 12 years old, or the so-called “generation of 1.5”, music allowed an escape from the binary between the house and the school, where they were in a hurry to maintain Vietnamese traditions and to assimilate to American culture simultaneously.
New waveDesigned by my Linh Trieu Nguyen de Lhooq studioCapture this hybrid identity well by tilting between a photo archive – with complete differences in family photos and daring cassette cover conceptions – and a collection of tests, including stories of passage from AI and other Vietnamese researchers who capture the progress of the movement during the decades. The project highlights cultural icons such as Lynda Trang đài, whose performances in varieties' programs such as Paris per night (1983) aroused international interest in the style and music of New Wave. Its ability to combine traditional Vietnamese music tropes with the fresh and optimistic synths of Eurodisco has captured the height of the large V-Pop appeal to a multigenic and bilingual crowd.
“Our rebellion was not only a demonstration, but rather a symphony and a dance of liberation,” writes the sociologist Thao Ha. “In these moments, we did not only know our culture; We made a transformative world, where to be the American Vietnamese was a celebration of resilience and individuality. ” In accordance, New wave Also extends beyond its initial function as a documentary project, including autobiographical details such as AI reconnecting with its mother in a sincere but imperfect meeting during filming. Despite the chances, New Wave's Resounding presence in the history of resettlement of this generation Illustrates its key role in filling it with cultural gaps, managing generational trauma and the creation of safe places to feel joy.
New wave: rebellion and reinvention in the Vietnamese diaspora (2024) Written by Elizabeth AI and published by Angel City Press, is available for online purchase and via independent booksellers.
Publisher's note2/5/2025, 10:40 am HAE: A previous version of this article wrongly said that 45 million Vietnamese had been forced to flee the country after the Vietnam War. This figure was corrected at A more precise approximation.
