How do artists tell stories of forced displacement and migration?
These artists share their reflections on home, place, identity, and belonging in the aftermath of forced displacement.
Introduction
Artists around the world have long documented their journeys of relocation and migration. Their works may reflect their own personal, familial, and ancestral histories of leaving home. Each of us may experience a move to a new home at some point in our lives, but these artworks specifically reflect the experiences of forced displacement and migration as a result of the Vietnam War—or, as it’s known in Southeast Asia, the American War. The artists featured here share stories of the conflict from the perspective of their Southeast Asian communities, giving insight into aspects of the war that are rarely documented in detail or acknowledged in the United States. Artworks like these are important cultural documents that tell untold stories.
Tiffany Chung uses the artistry and discipline of map making (cartography) to chart the mass exodus of many South Vietnamese from their homeland to new places around the world. Ka Zoua Lee’s story blanket depicts her people’s ways of life prior to their displacement. Cy Thao’s series of paintings show many scenes depicting the migration of Hmong people from Laos to St. Paul, Minnesota. These artists share their reflections on home, place, identity, and belonging in the aftermath of forced displacement. Their works tell emotional, sometimes painful stories of leaving home and how their people had to adapt and survive in a new place in the aftermath of war.
Tiffany Chung
Tiffany Chung’s personal and family history is deeply connected to the Vietnam War, a conflict that took place in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1955 to 1975. She came to the United States with her family afterward in a mass exodus of refugees, eventually settling in Houston, Texas. Over many years, and in a wide range of materials, Chung has examined the immigrant experience, the social and political impact of migration, and her father's war experience. The dotted pink lines of thread stretching across the large, intricately hand-embroidered world map show the forced migration flight routes of the South Vietnamese from refugee camps in Asia during the United Nations' Orderly Departure Program. This program resettled approximately 623,000 Vietnamese individuals globally, with roughly 458,000 relocated to the United States. Chung describes her ongoing work to document these untold stories through her Vietnamese Exodus Project as a quiet protest against “politically driven historical amnesia.”
© 2017 Tiffany Chung.
Video: Tiffany Chung: artist profile
Tiffany Chung uses the artistry and discipline of cartography, or map making, to chart the mass exodus of many south Vietnamese to new places around the world. Chung herself was displaced due to the Vietnamese conflicts, coming to the United States in 1975, and eventually settling in Houston. Chung discusses her practice and the ways she sees the act of making her own maps as subversive.
Video Discussion
What do you think are the main ideas Tiffany Chung wants you take away from her interview and art? Provide some examples to support your interpretation.
How do you believe Tiffany Chung’s statement “Us ordinary citizens, we go about our daily lives completely unaware that we were being mapped from above” might relate to your life today?
What do you think Tiffany Chung means when she says she remaps existing maps when she creates her maps? How do her maps help us understand a community within a larger global context?
Chung centers Asia in her map based on an airline map. Why was this important to her?
How does she connect women’s roles during the Vietnam war in this map? What materials would you choose to make a map about your family’s or culture’s history?
Chung speaks to the importance of displacement getting unpacked, discussed, and foregrounded again and again as a way to help us to think about the definition of being a refugee. Why do you think it is important to talk about displacement and to think critically about the term refugee?
Ka Zoua Lee
Starting in 1976, multiple waves of immigration brought many Hmong to the United States as political refugees, and Minnesota is home to one of the largest Hmong communities in the United States. The Hmong, a historically nomadic people, are an ethic group that originated in southern China about five thousand years ago. Their southward escape from harsh treatment in China in the 1800s resulted in a population of Hmong people in Laos. A century later, the Hmong, under the leadership of General Vang Pao, supported American troops in fighting against Communist forces during the Vietnam War. After the departure of American troops from the region in 1975, the Hmong were brutally punished by Communists in Laos, causing thousands of Hmong families to flee to refugee camps in Thailand, eventually resettle in other countries.
While living in refugee camps in Thailand, many of the women were able to supplement family income by adapting their needlework skills, traditionally used for making elaborate clothing, to make distinctive wall hangings. The embroidered pictorial hangings present visual narratives of personal experiences, including memories of traditional life and impressions of the war, and family and community histories. The needlework style - called paj ntaub (pronounced “pan-DOW”)—meaning “flower cloth”-is known for it's colorful threads and fabrics and is a fundamental part of the Hmong visual culture. Over years of migrating, the Hmong lost their written language, and paj ntaub designs became a crucial way for Hmong women to record stories through the language of visual imagery and motifs.
Ka Zoua Lee sewed this story blanked in a refugee camp in Thailand in 1980. It depicts a peaceful way of life in a Hmong village before the war, including scenes of preparations for New Year celebrations in three different villages-a White Hmong village, a Blue Hmong village, and a Lao village. There are two main groups of Hmong in Laos-White Hmong and Blue Hmong, their names taken from their unique style of clothing. The White Hmong women wear pleated white skirts for the New Year festival, and Blue Hmong women are known for their indigo blue designs. Lee shows the traditions, architecture, clothing, and activities typical of each village. The zigzag border around the villages represents the mountains of Laos and serves as protection against evil spirits.
Cy Thao
As a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, Cy Thao started what would become a series of fifty paintings tracing a five-thousand-year history of the Hmong people from an origin story to their immigration to Minnesota. The artist says, "Five thousand years ago the Hmong lived on the basin of the Yellow River. Today the Hmong migration goes through China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Burma, South America, France, Australia, Canada, and America. Where the trail leads to, no one knows." This series is as much Thao's personal story as it is an attempt to assert his cultural history. He and his family fled Laos in 1975 and stayed in a refugee camp in neighboring Thailand until 1980, when they moved to St. Paul.
Photo: Minnesota House of Representatives.
After seeing other Hmong refugees making "story cloth" tapestries in the camp, Thao realized the power of pictures to tell stories without words. His series honors the complex history of the Hmong and does not shy away from the difficulties faced by his family in the migration process. "I want the series to educate the younger generation, to have some closure with the generation that went through the war," he says, ""and hopefully become a historical document for generations to come."
Teaching and Learning Strategies
These three artworks are filled with details. Before discussing the context or content with your students, take some time to practice “slow looking”. Whether looking at a digital image or viewing the artwork in the galleries, have everyone in the class view the image together. After everyone gets some time to look at the artworks, ask them what they are seeing and what they think is going on in the image.
Migration and forced displacement are complex, global issues with historical and contemporary examples. Encourage students to research countries and peoples who have been impacted. The reflective questions and critical thinking prompts in “Exploring Complexity” by Flossie Chua, Karin Morrison, David Perkins, and Shari Tishman of Harvard’s Project Zero is a great learning resource to help spark brainstorming and discussion.
Another framework to support students in making personal connections to complex, global issues is the “Three Whys” part of the Global Thinking Bundle developed by Veronica Boix Masilla of Project Zero. It asks students the following questions:
- Why might this [topic, question] matter to me?
- Why might it matter to people around me [friends, family, city, nation]?
- Why might it matter to the world?
When teaching and learning about refugees, consider if you have students in your class who are refugees themselves. If they want to share their own stories and feel comfortable doing so, provide opportunities. Be mindful not to make students feel targeted or pressured to share their perspectives or experiences.
Research your local or regional history; do you have communities of refugees nearby? Even if your own students themselves have not experienced displacement in this way, you can engage them in a discussion about creating a welcoming community for refugees.
Have your students engage in some personal reflection to encourage critical thinking and empathy building. You can use these artworks, or others you find, as a guide. Questions for reflection can include the following:
- Did your own ancestors experience forced migration? Why?
- Have you ever been forced to leave your home and move far away due to a violent conflict? Do you know anyone who has?
- What would it feel like to be forced to move to a completely unfamiliar place? What kinds of adjustments do refugees and asylum seekers need to make in their new homes? How might that feel? What might they think?
- If you had to move somewhere that you felt like an outsider, how would you want people to treat you?
- How would you feel if members of your family were separated?
- How would you survive if you were sent to a place where you didn’t speak or understand the language?
- How would you maintain aspects of your own identity and culture?
From 1964 to 1973, the United States dropped 270 million bombs on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions, making Laos the most heavily bombed country in history. The bombings, part of a covert operation known as the “Secret War,” destroyed many villages and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.
- The organization Legacies of War is dedicated to raising awareness about the history of the Vietnam War-era bombing in Laos. Similarly, the Pulitzer Center project Laos: Remnants from War reports and shares stories by Laotians of the devastating and long-term impacts on their country, as well as a call to action for a better future.
When teaching and learning about experiences of forced migration and displacement, it is crucial not only to humanize the people we are learning about, but to also examine the root causes of why they have been forced to leave their homes, making sure to acknowledge the involvement of other nations and governments in the original conflict and cause of displacement.