During its secret war in Laos (1961-1975), the United States recruited proxy soldiers among the Hmong people. Following the war, many of these Hmong soldiers migrated to the United States with refugee status. In History on the Run Ma Vang examines the experiences of Hmong refugees in the United States to theorize refugee histories and secrecy, in particular those of the Hmong. Vang conceptualizes these histories as fugitive histories, as they move and are carried by people who move. Charting the incomplete archives of the war made secret through redacted US state documents, ethnography, film, and literature, Vang shows how Hmong refugees tell their stories in ways that exist separately from narratives of U.S. empire and that cannot be traditionally archived. In so doing, Vang outlines a methodology for writing histories that foreground refugee epistemologies despite systematic attempts to silence those histories.
| Sobre o Livro |
Durante a guerra secreta no Laos (1961–1975) os Estados Unidos recrutaram soldados proxy entre os Hmong, muitos dos quais migraram para os EUA com status de refugiado. Ma Vang conceitualiza essas trajetórias como histórias fugitivas que se deslocam com pessoas em movimento e oferece uma análise metodológica para escrever histórias centradas em epistemologias de refugiados. Por meio de arquivos incompletos, documentos estatais com trechos censurados, etnografia, cinema e literatura, a autora mostra como narrativas hmong circulam fora dos arquivos tradicionais e exigem formas alternativas de relato.
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