NATIONAL DESK
In Imperfect Compromise, Exhibit Tells of Vietnam Era
By CAROL POGASH
Published: September 7, 2004
Even as the presidential campaign remains steeped in a debate about John Kerry's military service in Vietnam, another highly charged dispute over the Vietnam War has been resolved -- albeit imperfectly -- between Vietnamese-Americans and a prominent museum here.
An exhibit, ''What's Going On? California in the Era of Vietnam,'' opened late last month at the Oakland Museum of California and is scheduled to run through February before traveling to Los Angeles and Chicago. Five years in the making, it tells the wartime story of California during the 1960's and 70's, ripping at wounds among the state's swelling Vietnamese-American population.
The exhibit's content was significantly changed to reflect the complaints and sensitivities of Vietnamese living in California, particularly those from the war's losing side in the south, who feared the displays would give their viewpoint and experiences short shrift. Some 80 percent of the more than one million Vietnamese in the United States came from South Vietnam, the United States' ally.
''For museums, this is very unusual,'' Dennis Power, the Oakland museum's executive director, said of the long and often difficult negotiations over the exhibit.
The two sides debated things like space allotments, terminology and how much attention to give Ho Chi Minh, the leader of Communist North Vietnam. Under pressure from the Vietnamese-Americans, the museum left out his picture.
The exhibit, which cost $1.9 million and encompasses 7,000 square feet, presents a kaleidoscopic view of California during the Vietnam era. It covers topics like the free speech and antiwar movements of the 1960's and the arrival of the first Vietnamese refugees in 1975 at the end of the war.
Marcia Eymann, the museum's curator, first thought of the exhibit after noticing scrawled messages from American soldiers on walls at Oakland's Army base, where artifacts from the museum are stored.
Last year, the museum hired Mimi Nguyen, its first Vietnamese researcher, whose abbreviated tenure at the museum reflected the deep emotions and often tumultuous negotiations that surrounded the exhibit.
Ms. Nguyen lobbied to include artifacts from the re-education camps, where hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were imprisoned after the war. ''It's about historical accuracy and just giving voice to primary sources,'' she said, ''to people who have lived and survived.''
She pushed for displays that depict the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the thousands of Vietnamese maimed in the war. When she learned that the museum was buying a Vietcong uniform through eBay, Ms. Nguyen argued for the display of a South Vietnamese uniform as well.
She became a persistent critic. Last October, she wrote a scathing memorandum, accusing the museum of simplifying and sanitizing the war. One week later, Ms. Nguyen, who had earlier received e-mail messages from superiors praising her work, was fired.
Mr. Power said Ms. Nguyen had not been fired because of her views, but he declined to discuss the reasons. An online petition, signed by about 500 Vietnamese worldwide, protested the firing but failed to have her reinstated. A Vietnamese-American graduate student hired to replace Ms. Nguyen quit after six months, telling The San Francisco Chronicle at the time that he would be uncomfortable taking his parents to the exhibit as it was then planned.
Ms. Eymann, the curator, said Ms. Nguyen's memo reflected ''the frustration of a broader community that feels it's been ignored.'' In January, Ms. Eymann sought out the leaders of the petition drive and asked for their help, eventually creating an advisory group of Southeast Asians.
''They had been arrogant, insensitive and elitist,'' said Joseph Dovinh, a Vietnamese-American who wrote the online petition and became the head of the advisory group.
In the ensuing months, the museum's outreach efforts included paying for leaders among Vietnamese in Southern California to fly to Oakland for meetings.
The advisory group members insisted that the exhibit refer to Vietnamese-Americans as refugees, not immigrants, because they fled their country for political, not economic, reasons. The museum agreed.
They also wanted their story to be threaded through the exhibit, not isolated in one display. The museum agreed to post written accounts in the exhibit's 11 display areas.
The group also requested a display depicting the suffering of the Vietnamese people with graphic images, like a photograph of a pile of skulls. The museum refused to display the photos, but placed them in a binder in an alcove next to the exhibit.
''We were pushing for about 30 percent of the space,'' Mr. Dovinh said. ''We were satisfied with something closer to 20 percent. Ultimately, we got about 15 percent.''
Not everyone is happy with the exhibit. For example, some complain about a display of baby clothes from Operation Babylift, in which 2,600 ''orphans'' were flown out of Vietnam and placed with American families. Nothing is said about the Vietnamese mothers who sought the return of their children but were blocked by American courts.
Sonny Le, a consultant to the museum and the communications director of the East Meets West Foundation, which provides humanitarian assistance to Vietnam, said the exhibit was the best compromise possible.
''This is as good as it can get,'' he said. ''The inhumanity and destruction of war should have been shoved down our throat. But if you do that, people won't go to see it.''
But Richard Griffoul, the museum's director of marketing and communications, acknowledged that the final result was not good enough for many Vietnamese-Americans.
He said, ''This is not the exhibit they want and need.''
©2004 The New York Times Company
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