Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive News and Updates

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Armed Forces Day

Today is Armed Forces Day, a day to pay tribute to the men and women who serve in all branches of the United States’ armed forces.  The Vietnam Center and Archive would like to take a moment to thank all our veterans and active duty service members.

The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to be the home to collections of materials from all branches of our military.  To see a few of these items, please visit our online exhibits page, which includes the following exhibits:

US Air Force

US Army

US Coast Guard

US Marine Corps

US Navy

Posted by at 6:30 am
Labels: exhibits,general news
Monday, April 16, 2012

The 4th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Film Festival Continues Today

The 4th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Film Festival continues today with two films:

Indochine – 3:30pm

Thanh’s War – 7:30pm

And concludes tomorrow with:

The Scent of Green Papaya – 3:30pm

Sita Sings the Blues – 7:30pm

All showings will be 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

Monday, April 9, 2012

The 4th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Film Festival Begins Today

The 4th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Film Festival begins today with two films:

Sita Sings the Blues – 3:30pm

The Scent of Green Papaya – 7:30pm

And continues tomorrow with:

Thanh’s War – 3:30pm

Indochine – 7:30pm

All showings will be 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

Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Guest Lecture Series Presents Dr. Raymond Scurfield

The Vietnam Center and Archive is proud to present Dr. Raymond Scurfield on Thursday, April 19th at 7:00pm in the Lanier Auditorium of the Texas Tech University School of Law.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

A former professor of social work at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast, Scurfield is an expert in PTSD. He served as an Army officer on a psychiatric team in Vietnam from 1968-69, and has spent three decades working with hundreds of combat veterans of the Vietnam War and other conflicts. Scurfield is the author of numerous books and articles on the effects of PTSD.

The mission of the Vietnam Center and Archive Guest Lecture Series is to enrich the intellectual and cultural life of students, faculty, and the community at large by bringing distinguished individuals to campus for presentations on specific aspects of the Vietnam War, its lasting impact on American politics, society and culture, and on contemporary issues in Southeast Asia.

This lecture series is funded in part by a generous grant from the Helen Jones Foundation.  For more information on the 2012 VNCA Guest Lecture Series see http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/GLS, or contact Mary Saffell at 806-742-9010 or mary.saffell@ttu.edu.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The 4th Annual Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Film Festival

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 9th
– 7:30pm
Tuesday, April 17th – 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 9th
– 3:30pm
Tuesday, April 17th – 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 10th
– 7:30pm
Monday, April 16th – 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 10th
– 3:30pm
Monday, April 16th – 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

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

2012 Conference Announcement

With regret, attendance at this year’s conference workshop will be by invitation only.  We realize this is a significant departure form our past events, but the purpose and focus of this workshop, as well as much more limited space and time, require us to develop a more limited forum.  The conference in 2013 (that will result from this workshop) will be hosted in Washington, DC, and will be open to public attendance.  As soon as we have firm dates and the location for that event, we will post information at this website as well as send out notifications via our newsletter and email notification system.

We regret any inconvenience this might cause.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Dr. Steve Maxner, director, Vietnam Center and Archive, at 806-742-3742 or via email at steve.maxner@ttu.edu.  Thank you.

Posted by at 6:00 am
Labels: general news
Monday, February 20, 2012

Sorley Lecture Available Online

Dr. Bob Sorley’s lecture as part of the 2012 Guest Lecture Series is now available online at http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=999VI3193.

The next speaker in the series is Brigadier General Tom Draude on March 1st at 7:00pm in the Lanier Auditorium of the Texas Tech School of Law.  For more information on the lecture series see our website at www.vietnam.ttu.edu/gls.

Posted by at 10:33 am
Labels: general news
Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Vietnam Center and Archive Receives Three Year Grant to Digitize FVPPA Files

The Vietnam Center and Archive has received a three year, $144,000 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to digitize the Orderly Departure Program (ODP) files of the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association Collection (FVPPA).  This collection of approximately 250,000 pages is comprised of the records of more than 10,000 Vietnamese applying to immigrate to the United States following the end of the Vietnam War.  Many of the applicants were former re-education camp detainees.

The FVPPA collection, brought to the Archive in 2005 by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation, is one of the largest and most significant collections available to researchers studying the Vietnamese American immigration experience.  The ODP files, according to Associate Director Mary Saffell are  “as important to the study of Vietnamese Americans as the Ellis Island records are to the families of immigrants from the early 20th century.”

It is expected that digitization, which will begin in February, will take three years to complete.  As the items are digitized, they will be added to the Virtual Vietnam Archive.  You can also follow the progress of the project and see recently digitized files from the collection at http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/vahp/digitization.php.

This is the second grant the Center has received from the NHPRC for this collection, including funding received in 2008 to originally process the collection.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Latest Issue of the Friends of the Vietnam Center Newsletter Available Online

The Fall 2011 issue of the Friends of the Vietnam Center Newsletter is now available online.  This issue contains an article on the ten year anniversary of the Virtual Vietnam Archive and an overview of the Center and Archive’s scheduled events for 2012.

If you would like to receive a full color printed version of this newsletter in your mailbox, please consider becoming a friend of the Vietnam Center. Membership information can be found on our Friends of the Vietnam Center webpage.

Links:

Fall 2011 Issue: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/items.php?item=999nl00050

Newsletter Back Issues: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/friends/newsletters.php

Membership Information: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/friends/

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Christmas in Vietnam

The Vietnam Center and Archive would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and to have a safe and happy holiday season and a wonderful new year!

Donald L. Swafford Collection, undated (vas002449)

The Center and Archive will be closed from December 24th-January 1st.

Posted by at 7:00 am
Labels: general news
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