Zine: Cindy Lu - https://foryourinsight.tumblr.com/
Summary: Cindy’s zine is about the massive amounts of political unrest and colonization caused by the spread of communism in Vietnam, originating in the 1960s. Many were forced to flee in search of a better life and were faced with life threatening situations, as there were many who risked their lives by leaving via boat. These boat journeys lasted for weeks and had scarce amounts of food, which meant many did not survive. The sacrifice and risk they were willing to take emphasizes that this was truly a result of an ultimatum for them. She appears to be bringing this story to the light in honor of her mother and mother’s family members, and also to draw parallels to those fleeing Libya, as a result of the repercussions of 9/11.
Quote: “… , slowly people started dying of hunger and what they did was whenever a person died they would hit a gong to signal someone was dead. After the gong, they threw that person into the sea. After a while, there were too many deaths that they just threw them into the sea without the gong. “ (Cindy Lu - Notebook3) This quote from Notebook #3 is especially moving when paired with the image, and could potentially be its own page in the zine. It conveys the difficulty and severity of the situation, and together they convey that fleeing the country was not an automatic guarantee of freedom, but was in some ways equally as painful as if they were to remain.
Anecdote: “My mother was around eighteen years old at that time when she decided to leave the country to find a safer place to live. With her aunt and two of her cousins, she tried different ways to get out of the country. One was to give gold to someone they knew that lived close to the shore to ensure that they would be able to go on the boat; however, with overloading of people, the boat was docked there for 30 days. Within those 30 days, people began to starve as the supply of food was decreasing by the day. The people then began to be malnourished and in the end died before they got to go to another country. After a while, she finally got on a boat to go to the refugee camp at Bidong Island in Malaysia.” I think this anecdote is crucial to your Zine as the personal connection gives added insight to a historical event and demonstrates the importance this topic to you. Also, I would add the connection made to Libyan refugees as this shows its relevance today and how the issue of “War and the Refugee” is in constant circulation.
Images: The image of the stick figures in the water surrounding the boat is simple, yet somehow very powerful as it conveys the experience of the refugee. I think it would be really cool to implement multiple images into your Zine that are similar in style to this one, to help carry the theme throughout the Zine. I also think you should include the picture of the national anthem of Southern Vietnam because I like what it represents as an object, in terms of solidarity and strength of an indigenous peoples.
Relational Analysis: “I wanted to relate this to what happened to this present day where there are people in Libya who are crossing the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe for a better life. It is said that the numbers rose over the year of 2016. A fact from one of the articles below states that the deaths in the Mediterranean pushed the global death numbers by about 7,000. These people came from Syria, Tunisia, Libya and the Palestinian Territories. This is the result of the Middle East crisis, which could be tailed back to the 9/11 Terrorist attack. With the U.S. and other nations in the Middle East people are dying and I mean civilians who just happened to live in their own home. The refugees who left Libya to go to Europe were people just like the south Vietnamese people who were trying to find a better life, a safe place, and a guarantee that they won’t end up a civilian that died because of a war that does not deal with them. These refugees looking for a better life were sent in boats that break down or sink before any rescue boats can go save them...” I think your analysis is strong, as it connects groups of people that share the identity of the refugee. To strengthen it even further, I would relate it to the frameworks of settler colonialism and the correlation between land and indigeneity, that Professor Yang talked about in lecture. The repercussions of settler colonialism play a huge role in what caused the Vietnamese to flee in the first place, and how settler colonialism in general can totally infiltrate and uproot indigenous peoples.