May 2006

Thang Dao FP '06 Receives the 2006 John Lax Prize

In Violent Dream:  Vietnamese American Women and Violence, Thang Dao provides a rereading of Vietnamese American literary and filmic texts that are usually interpreted as coming of age immigrant narratives and reduced to the simplistic trope of “culture clash.” Instead, Thang reinterprets these texts through the lens of gender, generation, and class, focusing on articulations of violence in the lives of Vietnamese women at home (in the form of domestic abuse) and in the work place (in the form of labor exploitation). She argues that these articulations of violence stem from shifts in gender roles and relations brought about by the displacement of Vietnamese refugees. Thang tracks the way the Vietnamese women in these texts negotiate with violence, showing that the strategies they deploy are both complicit and disruptive of patriarchy.

The prize was awarded by Antonio Tiongson, thesis director, and Simone Weil Davis, acting chair of American Studies, during the May 2006 At-Home.