The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to announce the films for the 4th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) Film Festival, co-sponsored by the Texas Tech University Libraries:

The Scent of Green Papaya:
Monday, April 9^th – 7:30pm
Tuesday, April 17^th – 3:30pm
Set in Vietnam in the 1950s-60s, the film follows Mui as she leaves the rich household where she had served as a child to work in the home of a classical pianist. Mui finds beauty in the smallest things.

Sita Sings the Blues:
Monday, April 9^th – 3:30pm
Tuesday, April 17^th – 7:30pm
An animated retelling of the Hindu legend Ramayana, paralleled with events in the film’s creator’s real life in San Francisco, this film features a variety of animation techniques and musical styles.

Indochine:
Tuesday, April 10^th – 7:30pm
Monday, April 16^th – 3:30pm
Set in the turmoil of the French Indochina War in Vietnam, Indochine follows a French rubber plantation owner, an Annam Princess, and the French Naval Officer they are both in love with.

Thanh’s War:
Tuesday, April 10^th – 3:30pm
Monday, April 16^th – 7:30pm
At age 12, Pham Thanh was severely wounded by a US grenade that also killed his family.  Now an American citizen, Thanh tries to balance his Vietnamese and American identity and heritage.

All films will be presented in the Formby Room of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library.  Admission is free and open to the public.

For more information see www.vietnam.ttu.edu/2012filmfestival

Douglas Pike Collection. Mid Autumn Festival Celebration "Moon Men" Enterprising Merchant in Saigon uses Display of Lunar Astronauts to call Attention to "Moon Cakes"

Monday, September 12th, 2011 marks the Mid Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon or Full Moon Festival. Traditionally celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon appears larger than it does on any other night of the year, the Mid Autumn Moon Festival (Tet Trung Thu) is the second biggest holiday in Vietnam and is widely celebrated throughout Asia.

Vietnamese Mooncakes. Photo courtesy of morning_rumtea (Lê Hoàn Nhã) (the photographer) and http://www.flickr.com/photos/vietnamfriendly/ (morning_rumtea's Flickr page)

   It is a time for family and to celebrate life, prosperity, and the harvest. During the Mid Autumn festival, parents prepare their children’s favorite dishes and buy them new toys. Children hear the story of Chu Cuoi (the man in the moon) and other fairytales. Hanging and floating lanterns are set out to decorate and people dance the lion and dragon dances. Mooncakes (made from lotus seed, ground beans, and containing a bright salted egg yolk in the center) are given to family and friends. Pomelo fruit and watermelon seeds are a special treat. At night children parade through the streets to the beat of drums wearing Paper Mache masks and carrying lanterns in the shapes of stars, rabbit heads, fish (carpe), butterflies, or lanterns with a lit candle inside that makes shapes spin representing the seasonal spinning of the earth.

 

Pomelo. Photo courtesy of wikicommons.

Photo from FVPPA Collection's ODP Application Files

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM), a nationally recognized time to celebrate the many achievements and contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans to the United States’ history, culture, and society. According to the U.S. Census Bureau 2005-09 American Community Survey there are 13,201,056 Americans of Asian descent and 447,591 Americans of Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander descent residing in the U.S.

May was chosen as APAHM due to two important historical dates and events relating to the contributions of Asian and Pacific Americans to the U.S. taking place in May. First, May 7, 1843 is the date the first Japanese immigrants to the U.S. arrived. Second, May 10, 1869 is when the transcontinental railroad was completed; many Chinese immigrants labored laying the tracks.

To find out more view our APAHM online exhibit.

The Vietnam Center and Archive’s 3rd Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Film Festival starts this week with Green Dragon on Wednesday at 3:00pm and Rashomon at 7:00pm.  The festival continues on Thursday with Rashomon at 3:00pm, and The Toll of the Sea at 7:00pm.

Next week’s showings include Kim’s Story at 3:00pm on Tuesday, followed by Green Dragon at 7:00pm, and on Wednesday The Toll of the Sea at 3:00pm, and Kim’s Story at 7:00pm.  All showings will be in the Formby Room of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, and admission is free and open to the public.

For more information about the festival and all of the films see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/2011filmfestival.

Kim Phuc, the subject of the film Kim’s Story, will be speaking as part of our Guest Lecture Series on Thursday, April 14th at 7:00pm in the Allen Theatre of the Texas Tech Student Union.

We hope to see you at one or more of these events!

The Vietnam Center and Archive and the Texas Tech University Libraries present the 3rd Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Film Festival from April 6th-13th.  This year’s festival features four films: Green Dragon; Rashomon; The Toll of the Sea; and Kim’s Story: The Road from Vietnam.  Each film will be shown twice at different dates and times, and all showings will be held in the Formby Room of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library.  Admission is free and open to the public.

Green Dragon tells the story of a group of Vietnamese refugees in 1975 at Camp Pendleton, and the Marines assigned to protect them as they await sponsorship in the United States.   Wed. 4/6 3:15pm; Tues. 4/12 7:00pm.

Rashomon is a classic Japanese crime mystery that depicts the rape of a woman and the murder of her samurai husband through the very different perspectives and accounts of four witnesses: the rape victim, the rape victim’s murdered husband speaking through a medium, the bandit/rapist, and the narrator. Wed. 4/6 7:00pm; Thurs. 4/7 3:15pm.

The Toll of the Sea is the tragic love story of a Hong Kong girl who saves a drowning American man and falls in love with him. Show Times: Thurs. 4/7 7:00pm; Wed. 4/13 3:15pm.

Kim’s Story: The Road from Vietnam is a documentary film based on the inspirational life story of Phan Thi Kim Phuc, “the girl in the photo” who was severely burned in a Napalm attack on her village of Trang Bang, South Vietnam in 1972.  Show Times: Tues. 4/12, 3:15pm; Wed. 4/13 7:00pm.

Kim Phuc, the subject of Kim’s Story, will be speaking as part of the VNCA’s 2011 Guest Lecture Series on Thursday, 14th of April at 7:00pm in the Allen Theatre of the TTU Student Union Building.

For more information on the film festival or each of the films, including a complete list of show times, see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/2011filmfestival.

See also: 2011 APAHM Film Festival Poster

From Left to Right: Ambassador Sichan Siv, Anna Mallett, Martha Pattillo-Siv

The Vietnam Archive is pleased to announce that on September 14, 2010 Mrs. Martha Pattillo-Siv participated in its Oral History Project and was interviewed by Ann Mallett, Vietnamese American Heritage Archivist.

Martha Lee Pattillo was born and raised in Pampa, TX. Her parents, both educators, helped instill in her a lifelong love of languages, reading, education, libraries, and helping others. These lifelong loves have been a constant and binding thread throughout her life.

During her career she worked at the Atlantic Institute in Paris, France (1972-74), UNESCO in Bangkok, Thailand (1974-76), various agencies of the U.N. (1977-89), and the World Bank (1989-2006). While working for UNESCO in Bangkok she visited Thai refugee camps. Upon seeing the conditions of the camps, she helped provide the refugee women with an income by buying their handmade goods and then selling them outside the camps at no profit for herself. In 1988 she formed the South China Seas Company to help impoverished, displaced women sell their textiles. In 2000 Mrs. Pattillo-Siv became the Vice-President of Friends of Khmer Culture. In 2005 she became a member of the Board of Directors of Teachers Across Borders, Inc.

Martha Pattillo-Siv resides in San Antonio with her husband, Ambassador Sichan Siv, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. They met when Siv was a new immigrant from Cambodia, where his entire family had been killed by the Khmer Rouge, and have been married since 1983.

Listen to the Complete interview here

Today is the start of Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration and 2011 is the year of the cat.  To celebrate this great holiday, we have created an online exhibit that is an exploration of the Tết holiday and its customs, history and traditions supplemented with photos and documents from our collection.  If you would like to learn about this unique holiday please click on the link below to see our exhibit.

 http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/exhibits/tet/ 

Written by: Ann Mallett

The Vietnam Archive is pleased to announce that the archive’s Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (FVPPA) Collection, donated by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation, is spotlighted in the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) publication, The American Record. The spotlight can be found on page 44 of the Spring/Summer 2010 issue, The American Record: Success Stories from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. The feature is titled Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association, and contains the caption, “Archives provide people with the access to records that protect individual rights. The Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association continues to help political dissidents find asylum in the U.S.”

This is the third article NHPRC has written on the FVPPA Collection. They previously published an article in their September 2009 Newsletter, and posted an entry on their Facebook page on February 23, 2010.

Click here to read the NHPRC’s The American Record article on the FVPPA.

Vietnamese Mooncakes. Photo courtesy of morning_rumtea (Lê Hoàn Nhã) (the photographer) and http://www.flickr.com/photos/vietnamfriendly/ (morning_rumtea's Flickr page)

 Happy Mid Autumn “Moon” Festival. Today, Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 is the Mid Autumn “Moon” Festival.  It is a magical time for family and friends.

Pomelo. Photo Courtesy of Wikicommons.

  The Vietnamese American Heritage Archivist, Ann Mallett, has fond memories of living in Taipei, Taiwan and spending the “Moon” Festival with friends, barbecuing,  hearing stories about the beautiful woman in the moon, eating delicious fruits and mooncakes, watching children make hats out of Pomelo peelings (a large, pale green to yellow citrus fruit), and seeing the beauty of hanging and floating lanterns lighting the dark night.

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Pomelo. Photo courtesy of wikicommons

 What are your favorite memories of the Mid Autumn “Moon” Festival? You can share your favorite memories and recipes for barbecue and mooncakes on our facebook.

Sliced Pomelo. Photo courtesy of wikicommons.

Pomelo photos courtesy of wikicommons

Charcoal Mooncake and Cantonese Mooncake. Picture courtesy of wikicommons

 Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 marks the Mid Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon or Full Moon Festival. Traditionally celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon appears larger than it does on any other night of the year, the Mid Autumn Moon Festival (Tet Trung Thu) is the second biggest holiday in Vietnam and is widely celebrated throughout Asia.

Mooncake paper box package. Photo courtesy of wikicommons.

  It is a time for family and to celebrate life, prosperity, and the harvest. During the Mid Autumn festival, parents prepare their children’s favorite dishes and buy them new toys. Children hear the story of Chu Cuoi (the man in the moon) and other fairytales. Hanging and floating lanterns are set out to decorate and people dance the lion and dragon dances. Mooncakes (made from lotus seed, ground beans, and containing a bright salted egg yolk in the center) are given to family and friends. Pomelo fruit and watermelon seeds are a special treat. At night children parade through the streets to the beat of drums wearing Paper Mache masks and carrying lanterns in the shapes of stars, rabbit heads, fish (carpe), butterflies, or lanterns with a lit candle inside that makes shapes spin representing the seasonal spinning of the earth.

Mooncake. Photo courtesy of wikicommons.

Photos courtesy of wikicommons