Learning About the Vietnam War From a Vietnamese Refugee
My students need to read about the Vietnam War from perspectives other than America's; The Best We Could Do offers a glimpse into the experience of Vietnamese citizens and refugees.
Students in our school district hail from an increasingly diverse background. More often than not, they are balancing the demands of school with the realities of poverty. With a total student population hovering near 10,500, as last reported to the Oregon Department of Education, over 11% of our students self-identify as homeless and are actively served by the district who distribute student necessities via federal assistance. Our neighborhood is identified both as the epicenter of poverty in Multnomah County and where the highest density of adjudicated adults reside in the State of Oregon.
We are 42% Hispanic and 37% White.
The remaining 21% are also students of color. Nearly 1 in 5 total students at our school were born outside of the United States. As a majority-minority district, our students' parents and guardians were often marginalized in education and the workforce, further compelling them to low-income status. With few exceptions, our graduating seniors accessing post-secondary education represent first-generation college attendees within their families.
My Project
My high school seniors study the Vietnam War in a more thorough and challenging way than they did as younger students. Unfortunately, the books we have access to on this topic are all written by American authors. In order to truly understand this history, students need to read about the experience from multiple perspectives. The Best We Could Do is a memoir written by an author from Vietnam.
Like many of the families of my students, author Author Thi Bui fled the Vietnam War as a refugee to the United States.
Her memoir offers an important perspective in understanding this history. Fleeing their home country to live in a refugee camp in another country before finally arriving in America is an experience many of my students have shared.
Bui's memoir demonstrates the kind of reflective insight that all of my students will be challenged by, whether they were born in the U.S. or they, like this Caldecott Medal winning author, were brought here as a child.
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