50 Years Later – The American War in Vietnam
On April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese troops took over the city of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). This event, commonly known throughout the United States as the Fall of Saigon, marks the official end of the Vietnam War, also known as the American War in Vietnam. The exhibits and events presented through “50 Years Later” seek to reconsider and broaden our understandings of this conflict and its aftermath. For some, like the Montagnards of the Central Highlands in Vietnam, the “end” of the Vietnam War was not an end at all, as they continued to fight. For others, this moment is understood not as a loss but as giải phóng, a liberation. For still others in neighboring Laos and Cambodia, this moment was significant but tangential to world-historic events in their own countries like the Secret War and the rise of the Khmer Rouge, respectively. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Vietnam War sparked debates across the country (on campuses, in the press, and on Capitol Hill), deployed over 3.4 million Americans to Southeast Asia, influenced popular culture, and resulted in the largest refugee resettlement effort by the US government. Given the breadth and depth of the conflict’s impact on the U.S., it is little wonder it still looms large in the national memory, 50 years later.
Through performance, lectures, art, and more, this multimedia and multi-sited collection tells the stories of the war, in Southeast Asia and at UNC, and incorporates a diversity of voices and perspectives to provide a deeper understanding of this point in history and its aftermath.
Events
Libretto: Night Sky with Exit Wounds
January 30 & 31, 7:30 and 8 PM
CURRENT Art Space + Studio
Organized/sponsored by Carolina Performing Arts
https://carolinaperformingarts.org/events/night-sky-with-exit-wounds/
This multi-disciplinary experience, set for premiere in 2026, journeys through the memory of war via the poetic cosmos of Ocean Vuong’s literary masterpiece Night Sky with Exit Wounds. With Kaneza Schaal and Bryce Dessner navigating the delicate balance between the raw vulnerability of Vuong’s poetry and the dynamic interplay of music and visuals, the collaborators embark on an exploration that transcends conventional design boundaries toward a universe where live music, poetry and visual art find a seamless, deeply charged flow.
Yu Yeng performance with Lub Suab Roob
Feburary 1, Time TBD
FedEx Global Education Center, Nelson Mandela Auditorium
Organized/sponsored by Carolina Asia Center, Hmong Student Association, Thea Yang
https://unchsac.wixsite.com/hmongexhibit
In conjunction with the semester-long Lub Suab Roob: Hmoob Cov Txiaj Ntsig exhibit, this event celebrates Hmong history and culture through guest speakers, food, and dance. The event also highlights the resilience of the Hmong people through the US Secret War in Laos, from 1959 through 1975, and beyond, as many Hmong sought refuge in Thailand and were eventually resettled to the United States. The event is free and open to the public. Donations to the Hmong Student Association’s scholarship fund are welcome.
My Vietnam, Your Vietnam with Christina Vo
February 10, 12:30 PM
Wilson Library, Pleasants Room
Organized/sponsored by Asian American Center, Carolina Asia Center, Vietnamese Student Association
asia.unc.edu/event/my-vietnam-your-vietnam
In their dual memoir, My Vietnam, Your Vietnam, Christina Vo and her father, Nghĩa M. Vo, delve into themes of identity and heritage, with intertwined stories that present a multifaceted portrayal of Vietnam and its profound influence on shaping both familial bonds and individual identities across time. Nghia left Vietnam in April 1975 and never spoke about Vietnam with his daughter, Christina, who grew up in the US. Not long after graduating from UNC, Christina moved to Hanoi, to experience Vietnam herself.
Disaster Governance and Acoustic Atmospheres in Urban Vietnam
Feburary 25, 2:30 PM
Ackland Art Museum, Art& Space
Organized/sponsored by Carolina Asia Center, Carolina Seminars
asia.unc.edu/event/disaster-governance
Disasters disrupt, altering the course of urban futurity and how people perceive, navigate and make sense of risk and uncertainty. This talk argues for greater attention to the sensory dimensions of disasters—from warfare to pandemics—particularly as experienced through sonic rupture. Such catastrophic events not only generate profound social, economic, temporal, and material disruptions to everyday life. They also effect a radical sensory reorientation—one that compels new ways of being in, caring for, and attuning to urban environments through sound.
Christina Schwenkel is Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside.
Vietnam Film TBD
March 28, 6 PM
FedEx Global Education Center, Nelson Mandela Auditorium
Organized/sponsored by Carolina Asia Center, Film Studies Concentration in English and Comparative Literature
asia.unc.edu/event/asian-cinemas
Part of the Asian Cinemas Encounter the Cold War Conference, March 28-29
Description TBD
Annual Asia Scholar Network Conference and Bringing Southeast Asia Home Workshop
April 12, 4 PM – 6 PM & April 13, 9 AM – 5 PM
FedEx Global Education Center
Organized/sponsored by Carolina Asia Center
asia.unc.edu/event/2025-asn-bseah
The Asia Scholar Network exists to create a community of scholars working on Asia-related topics across the state of North Carolina. Colleagues from across the state are welcomed to conference in Chapel Hill every Spring semester to network and present their research on Asia. The annual Bringing Southeast Asia Home workshop brings together scholars and community members throughout the US Southeast who are focused on Southeast Asia, its people and diasporas. This year, these events will be held in tandem.
Teaching the Vietnam War
April 26, 10 AM – 2 PM
Carolina Hall 220
Organized/sponsored by Teaching Asia Network of the Carolinas, Department of Geography, Carolina Asia Center, National Humanities Center
asia.unc.edu/event/teaching-the-vietnam-war
This workshop showcases lessons by and for teachers interested in how to teach “The American War” using diverse perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches. Presentations by high school teachers Duyen Tong (California), Chris Bunin (Virginia), Vincent Pham (New York), and Elena Samkin (North Carolina) draw on classroom experience, current scholarship, and creative pedagogy. Based on a 2022 NEH Summer Institute at the National Humanities Center led by Christian C. Lentz and Andy Mink, their lessons feature in a forthcoming issue of the American Historical Review.
Ongoing Exhibits
Carolina and the Vietnam War
March 2025 – May 2025
Wilson Library Hallway
Organized/sponsored by Wilson Library, Carolina Asia Center, Arts & Humanities Grant Studio
library.unc.edu/exhibition
Description TBD
Art in the Wake of the Cold War
Spring 2025
Ackland Art Museum, Ackland Upstairs
Organized/sponsored by Ackland Art Museum, Carolina Asia Center, Arts & Humanities Grant Studio
ackland.org
Works by Dinh Q. Lê, Nguyễn Gia Trí, and Hồng-Ân Trương present the enduring nature of the war, as well as the international conflicts and personal journeys that resulted from it. Nguyễn’s work displays the disruption of the landscape during wartime; Lê’s work shows the devastation of Cambodia in the years following 1975; and Trương’s work speaks to generational effects of the war. These pieces are curated as a teaching collection for GEOG 266: People and Environment in Southeast Asia.
Lub Suab Roob: Hmoob Cov Txiaj Ntsig / Mountain Voices: A Hmong Legacy
Spring 2025
FedEx Global Education Center, Nelson Mandela Auditorium
Organized/sponsored by Hmong Student Association of Carolina, Thea Yang, Carolina Asia Center
unchsac.wixsite.com/hmongexhibit
Concurrent with the American War in Vietnam was a much less internationally visible conflict in neighboring Laos. During this Secret War, CIA operatives trained locals—largely Hmong, Khmu, and other indigenous ethnic groups—to militarily resist the communist Pathet Lao. Lub Suab Roob aims to increase the visibility of this still largely unknown conflict and to celebrate the vibrant culture of the Hmong people. If visitors to the exhibit are so inclined, they are encouraged to donate to the Hmong Student Association of Carolina’s scholarship fund.
Southeast Crossings: Refugees of the American War in Vietnam
Spring 2025
Wilson Library Pleasants Room
Organized/sponsored by Wilson Library, Arts & Humanities Grant Studio, Carolina Asia Center
library.unc.edu/exhibition
Violence from the American War in Vietnam and its associated conflicts in Cambodia and Laos unfurled into the 1990s. Curated entirely from archival material in the Wilson Special Collections, Southeast Crossings uses photos to explore one prolonged consequence of the war–mass migration that changed the lives of those who fled as well as the landscape of their resettlement. Three exhibit sections highlight different aspects of this migration: lives in transit, refugee reception in the US Southeast, and refugee lives in North Carolina.