Literally Displaced: Writing the Southeast Asian Diaspora – Exhibit

Literally Displaced: Writing the Southeast Asian Diaspora centers the voices, memories, experiences, and desires of writers from the Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, and Vietnamese diaspora. Exploring their selected published works alongside materials from the University of California, Irvine Libraries Southeast Asian Archive, this exhibit asks how literature illuminates the conditions of displacement for Southeast Asian Americans and what new understanding emerges when we write from the position of the displaced. Through these writers’ masterful storytelling and representation, we are invited to delve deep into themes such as the role of language in refugee families, vexed identity formations, familial connections, negotiating cultural memory, and more.

Curated by Dr. Thuy Vo Dang (UCI Libraries Southeast Asian Archive), Mary Nguyen (OC&SEAA Student Assistant), and Louis Heine and Annie Nguyen (Humanities Out There Undergraduate Interns), the digital exhibit will launch on February 3, 2022. A physical exhibit opening in the Orange County & Southeast Asian Archive Center (lower Gateway Study Center) in March 2022 will allow for campus and community engagement opportunities. Visithttps://ocseaa.lib.uci.edu for our hours and additional information.

The exhibit is a partnership between the UCI Libraries, the Humanities Center, and Illuminations: the Chancellor’s Art & Culture Initiative. For more information, contact thuy.vodang@uci.edu