CRAFTING A NEW SELF IN DIASPORA: A STUDY OF THE 1.5 GENERATION OF VIETNAMESE AMERICANS

Abstract

This dissertation is a study on the identity construction process of members of the 1.5 generation of Vietnamese Americans by examining their personal narratives. With a focus on strategies used by informants when crafting their narratives instead of looking at narratives as evidence of experience, this project has significant contribution to migration studies, transnational studies, and Asian American Studies because it provides a different approach to narratives and narrative analysis in studying identity and identity formation. The findings show that to members of the 1.5 generation narratives serve as sites where they can make sense of their disrupted and chaotic life, and where they highlight their struggles to survive in a new homeland with a haunting past. Narrative is a process of identity formation. To members of the 1.5 generation, it is an especially important site for making sense of disrupted and chaotic lives, in order to survive in a new homeland with a haunting past.