Book Reviews

DAVID HAMILTON Editor

Alien Winds: The Reeducation of America’s Indochinese Refugees by James Tollefson New York: Praeger, 1989, 224 pp., $39.95

Reviewed by Daniel Shanahan, Centre Sautes Etudes Commercrales, Paris.

The Vietnam War and its impact will not soon be forgotten, a fact that remains undiminished by the apparent-and one must say very superficial-unanimity with which Americans pronounce the war “a national tragedy ” “Vietnam was a mistake” is a remark that could as easily come from Ronald Reagan as from Jesse Jackson But such superficial agreement belles the contradictions which still exist beneath the surface of a nation unable to come to terms with so palpable a “mistake ”

The premises upon which the war is interpreted as a mistake can differ widely for those we once called “doves,” it was a mistake to have become involved m a civil war m an Asian country, for the “hawks,” it was a mistake to have half-committed ourselves to defending an ally against a communist threat But such confhctmg premises themselves barely take us beyond the tip of the iceberg For the fact that the Vietnam War still provokes such strong and polarized feelings m the United States tells us that there are deeper conflicts embedded within those feelings, conflicts that reflect the very structure of the American mmd And it is this deeper structure that is revealed, both intentionally and unmtentionally, m James Tollefson’s Alzen Wznds

On its own surface, Tollefson’s book is an analysis of the way refugees from post-Vietnam Indochina-not only Vietnamese, but Thaws, Cambodians, Laotians, and a myriad of national sub-groups from the region effected by the war-are prepared for their entry mto life m the United States Tollefson is a sociolmgmst from the University of Washmgton who spent several years trammg ESL teachers at refugee “relocation” camps m the Philippenes, and his analysis is a scathing one Tollefson points to a variety of shortcommgs, not only m the format of the ESL teaching, but m the very philosophy upon which the entire resettlement program has been built, arguing that the real goal of the trammg which takes place m the camp-indeed, of everything from textbook materials to the admmistration of the camp itself-is not to prepare the refugees for life m an advanced mdustnal democracy to which they

The Social Science Journal, Volume 28, Number 1, pages 131-141. Copyright 0 1991 by JAI Press Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 0362-3319.

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may contribute m their own mdlvldual fashion The underlymg alms of the trammg, accordmg to Tollefson, IS to “launder” the refugees of their ethmc backgrounds and values, to regiment their lives to a degree unthmkable m the US, and, perhaps most importantly, to so convmce them of then subordmate posltlon m American society that they will be wlllmg to accept uncomplammgly-even gratefully-the lowest- paying Jobs the economy has to offer

The heart of Tollefson’s analysis of the refugees “reeducation” 1s contamed m a chapter entltled “Counterfeit Universe,” m which he uses a variety of examples to demonstrate the assumptions that underly the materials used m camp classes A part~ularly msldlous game, the “Free Money Game,” for instance, dlvldes a class into two groups those who have Jobs, and those who receive welfare checks The former enjoy the benefit of courtesy from the teachers and the nght to sit on chairs, while the latter are treated rudely and must sit on the bare floor The avowed purpose of the game is to provide negative remforcement about relying on the American social welfare system, but Tollefson argues such materials reveal much more They suggest that those who have created the matenals-and those who have formulated the philosophy upon which the resettlement programs have been based-believe that refugees are, by defimtlon, reslstant to hard work, that they feel the US owes them repayment for dlsrupted hves, and that they will mevltably become a social hablhty unless they are appropnately condltloned m the camps

Tollefson’s analysis 1s far-reaching for so brief a book He provides, among other things, an mformatlve hlstorlcal sketch of the attitudes which have characterized Amenca’s approach to emigrants and their reeducation, a vlvld and troublmg account of the life m refugee camps, and a shockmg expose of the use of asbestos m camp construction. The book’s well-documented account of the government’s unwlllmgness to review the nsk at which the latter has put both refugees and camp staff members leads one to suspect that an “Agent Orange”-type phenomenon could lurk down the road when refugees who have been resettled m this country begm to suffer adversely from their exposure to asbestos-still another tlckmg bomb which may explode and perpetuate the legacy of Vietnam m the future The strength of Tollefson’s analysis 1s that it 1s based, not on mere assertlon, but on first-hand expenence and thorough documentation, both of the attitudes towards refugees which underhe reset- tlement pohcy and of statlstlcs which prove those attitudes mappropnate and culturally myopic

However, the book’s real slgmflcance may he at an even deeper level than the overt analysis it offers For Ahvz Wznds IS itself a part of the dialogue about the Vietnam War which continues m this country, and an attempt to come to terms with what that war revealed about the substructure of the Amencan mmd

While Tollefson does not say so himself, the refugee resettlement program and Its philosophy reflect a deeper tension that has existed throughout American hlstory, the tension between liberal largesse and conservative self-rehance, between the values mhented from the Enlightenment and those inherited from Calvmlsm In the case of resettlement, Amenca’s liberal side feels compassion for (or sometlmes mere undlf- ferentlated guilt about) the refugees and their phght, and It wishes to make some kind of gesture on their behalf But Its conservative side IS extremely SUSPlClOUS Of

outsiders, thoroughly convinced of the moral supenonty of Its own cultural heritage,

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and unwtllmg to help anyone who cannot help him or herself Thus, whtle Amencans may agree m prmctple that a “fan shake” 1s owed to those whose hves were disrupted by the war, whether that disruption was the result of American “tmperiahsm” or a national failure of will, few are magnanimous enough to tmagme that Southeast Asians might want to retam their cultural traditions, and vutually no one seems able to imagine that those traditions might actually contribute to the society at large Inevitably, the fear 1s that refugees, by vntue of then cultural differences, will flock to welfare opportunities tf they are made available to them

These very polar attitudes, one could argue, mform not only America’s refugee pohctes, but tts attitude toward the Vietnam War Itself. Thmk only of the US Secretary of Defense mststmg that it was the Amenca’s duty to “enforce” democracy around the world, of the “Vietnamization” of the war, or of the paradox that the president who launched the most aggressive fight against domestic poverty since Franklin Roosevelt also launched its most aggressive and reactionary armed conflict, and one 1s tempted to see the Vietnam War as some Greek tragedy m which inherent tensions m American society doomed it to such a colossal blunder

Tollefson 1s openly cnttcal about popular attempts to portray Vietnam as a cataclysm to which Amenca was subjected, and within the framework he takes, his criticism 1s entirely accurate He feels the charactertzation of the Vietnam War as a fate which befell and tarrushed this country ignores American culpabihty and fails to force us to a reassessment of why it was allowed to happen at all Of course, the tragic hero is not sublected to hts fate, he walks mto it himself, blmdly, but fully responsible for hts blindness, and our culpabthty does not belle the tragtc nature of our experience But Tollefson 1s nght m assummg that the word “tragic”, when applied to the Vietnam War, often implies undeserved mtsfortune-a euphemisttc outlook at best

Tollefson’s attempts to deal with the question of what Vietnam “really was” and how it should be treated m the collecttve American memory are the weakest parts of his analysts, not because his perspective is flawed, but because the question itself is a morass almost as deep as the war, and tt cannot be solved m the short space afforded it m the book’s final chapter Tollefson’s assertion that, Amenca’s memory of Vietnam must include a “suffermg mfhcted” alongside “suffermg shared” 1s a powerfully suggestive one, but its very suggestiveness warrants an extended a detailed discusston which is lacking-but which, one hopes, might be taken up m a subsequent work But this weakness is minor when compared with the wealth of mformation and mstght offered into contemporary refugee pohcy and its place m American history Moreover, those insights help demonstrate how long-standing tensions inherent m American society continue to play themselves out m the way that society relives its contemporary past Alzen Wznds IS both an important contnbution to the ongoing dialogue about the Vietnam War and a demonstratton of how such a dialogue may eventually help reveal Americans to themselves.

In the Jury Box: Controversies in the Courtroom Edited by Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Saul M. Kassln and Cynthia E. WIIIIS Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1987, 264 pages, Hardcover edition $35, Softcover edition $17.95.