SEA-ing the Past, SEA-ing Ourselves: Meaning Making Processes of the Children of Southeast Asian Refugees

• In Event: Exploring Asian American Youth Identity Construction

Abstract

With an understanding that intergenerational trauma creates a disconnect that may be addressed by surfacing different forms of remembrance, this study explores how ruptures between generations are reconciled when the “generation after” makes meaning of the past with which they have a heritage connection. Recognizing the unique subjectivities that the second-generation, Southeast Asian American population embodies (and the implications that those have for how the U.S. perceives and produces itself), I plan to answer the following research question: How do the children of SEA refugees negotiate memories and historical representations to make meaning of the past? This question is composed of two sub-questions: How do they engage in postmemorial practices? How do their historical understandings impact their self-making?

Author

• Van Anh Tran, Teachers College, Columbia University