The Vietnam Center and Archive’s May 28th, 2008 opening ceremony of the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (FVPPA) Collection, donated by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation (VAHF), was a great success. The Vietnam Center and Archive co-hosted the event, entitled “We Did Not Forget Those Left Behind,” with the VAHF. The ceremony marked the collection as fully processed and available to researchers. The Vietnam Center and Archive held the ceremony to raise awareness of the FVPPA collection and to thank those individuals and organizations who helped these Vietnamese refugees emigrate to the U.S.

Speakers at the event included: Dr. James Reckner, Executive Director, Institute for Modern Conflict, Diplomacy, and Reconciliation; Ms. Nancy Bui, President, Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation; Ms. Khuc Minh Tho, Founder and President, Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association; An Hoang Le, Humanitarian Operations Participant; Dr. Stephen F. Maxner, Director, the Vietnam Center and Archive; Mr. T. Kumar, Advocacy Director for Asia & Pacific, Amnesty International; Ms. Anna Mallett, Project Archivist, the Vietnam Center and Archive; Dr. William M. Marcy, Provost, Texas Tech University; and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) deputy regional representative Thomas Albrecht was scheduled to speak, but had to cancel his flight and attendance due to events in East Africa, Kenya.

Distinguished guests at the May 28th Opening Ceremony included Khuc Minh Tho, T. Kumar of Amnesty International, Major General Dudley Faver, representatives of the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation, and Texas Tech University Provost William M. Marcy.

Awards were given from the VAHF to Dr. James Reckner, Dr. Stephen Maxner, Mary Saffell, and Ann Mallett. The Vietnam Center and Archive also presented an award to Ann Mallett.

Letters of written for the May 28th Opening Ceremony by Senator John McCain, Senator Bob Dole, President George H. W. Bush, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Robert L. Funseth (Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and Acting Director of the Bureau for Refugee Programs) are posted on our website for researchers to read when they look the FVPPA collection. These letters, along with the FVPPA collection’s scope and content note, administrative history, finding aid, and names search database, may be viewed on the following webpage of the Vietnam Archive’s Virtual Archive: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vietnamarchive/fvppa/index.htm

-All photos are were taken by The Vietnam Center’s Victoria Lovelady

View more pictures of the opening ceremony

A delegation from Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training visited Texas Tech University today to discuss plans to bring 100 Vietnamese students to TTU annually for graduate programs. The Vietnam Center and Archive was the first stop of a day packed with meetings and tours. After a presentation on our mission and our projects and partnerships in Vietnam, the delegation spent time viewing and photographing the Tram diaries. More information about the visit and the role of the Vietnam Center and Archive in Texas Tech’s interactions with Vietnam can be found here.

Documents tell story of U.S. allies and employees sent to Vietnamese reeducation camps.
Texas Tech University’s Vietnam Archive hosted the grand opening of its Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association Collection May 28 in the Marshall Formby Room of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library. At the conclusion of the Vietnam War, thousands of U.S. allies, employees and Vietnamese dissidents were imprisoned in communist reeducation camps. The collection provides more than 10,000 primary sources for studying the experiences of these prisoners and refugees and their families who immigrated to the U.S. once they were released. Donated in 2005 to Texas Tech by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation, the collection contains 156 linear feet of documents meaning the materials stretch approximately 52 yards when stacked end-to-end. “We hope this collection will help historians and others understand the experiences of this group of Vietnamese immigrants,” said Ann Mallett, project archivist for the collection. “These people were our allies; they were U.S. employees or they didn’t agree with communism and they were forced into reeducation camps. The collection contains photographs and handwritten letters, so it is very personal, and it gives another piece of the story of the Vietnam War – what happened after the war ended to these people who were our allies.”

Texas Tech University Press Release

Amy Hooker, C.A., Reference Archivist for the Vietnam Center and Archive, has been invited to participate in a panel discussion at this year’s annual meeting of the Society of Southwest Archivists in Houston, TX, on May 24, 2008. The panel is titled “CA-Wannabes: aWeb 2.0 Lifeline” and will discuss how Internet tools such as blogs, wikis, listservs, and chatrooms aid archivists in preparing for the Academy of Certified Archivists Examination. Ms. Hooker earned her archival certification in 2007.

Academy of Certified Archivists

The Vietnam Archive is pleased to announce that Amy Hooker, C.A. has joined the Vietnam Archive as the new Assistant Archivist for Reference. Ms. Hooker’s primary duties will involve responding to reference inquiries by email and telephone, as well as assisting patrons and researchers in our reading room. She will also contribute to the development of reference policies and public service projects to include online reference tools, outreach activities, and exhibits.

A native of Midland, Texas, Ms. Hooker earned a B.A. in Anthropology with a minor in History from Texas Tech University. She completed a master’s degree in Museum Science at TTU in 2000. As part of her degree program, Ms. Hooker completed an internship at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum in Juneau, Alaska. She returns to Tech after seven years at the Petroleum Museum in Midland, where she served as Director of Collections and Archives. She became a certified archivist in 2007. We are happy to welcome her to the team!

The Vietnam Archive is pleased to announce that Dr. Kelly Crager has joined the Vietnam Archive as the new Head of the Oral History Project. Dr. Crager will coordinate and manage all aspects of the project, to include outreach, interviewing, transcription, and other administrative duties.

Dr. Crager earned a B.A. in Political Science and an M.A. in History from Pittsburgh State University in Pittsburgh, Kansas. He completed his Ph.D. in History at the University of North Texas. While at UNT, he worked under Dr. Rob Marcello in the Oral History Program. Dr. Crager comes to the Vietnam Archive from Texas A&M University, where he taught United States History and American Foreign Relations. His forthcoming book, Hell under the Rising Sun: Texan POWs and the Building of the Burma-Thailand Death Railway, will be published by Texas A&M Press later this year.

The Vietnam Center & Archive is pleased to announce that Steve Maxner, PhD, has been appointed as the new Director of the Vietnam Center. Maxner replaces James Reckner, PhD, who founded the Vietnam Center in 1989 and served as its director for 18 years. Reckner now serves as Executive Director of the recently created Institute for Modern Conflict, Diplomacy, and Reconciliation (IMCDR).

The Vietnam Archive is also pleased to announce that Mary McLain Saffell, C.A. has been named Associate Director and Archivist of the Vietnam Archive. Saffell held the position of Associate Archivist at the Vietnam Archive before accepting this new position.

It is with regret that we announce Thomas Reynolds, Archival Specialist, has left the Vietnam Archive in pursuit of other opportunities. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors. If Reynolds served as your point of contact, please refer all future forms of correspondence to Associate Archivist Ty Lovelady at (806) 742-9010 or vietnamarchive@ttu.edu.