I would say that even though I come from Vietnam-and whether I wanted it or not, I certainly do belong to this whole context of Asia whose cultural heritages cut across national bordelines-I don't see my location as being primarily Asian or American. There are so many ways to situate oneself and to determine our alliances. I spent some of the most important years of my life in West Africa, for example, and I was strongly politicized by African and North African contexts. Living in the States has also, from the very beginning, sensitized me to the struggles of Black people and of Native Americans. So when I speak of the Other of the West, it is never only Asia. Within the Asian communities, if you speak to Chinese or to Japanese people, for example, what they know of Vietnamese culture is likely to be less widespread than, let's say, what the Vietnamese know of Chinese and Japanese cultures. The "minorities" are always socialized to see from more than one points of views. So my positioning in relation to Asia and within the Asian community is already slightly off and different. The tendency to locate me within a geographically specific fight-whether in Vietnam, in Asia or in the States-can be very confining and reductive. Even when I was directly asked by some governmental representatives of Vietnam in international events, "how do you think you can be useful to your country?" I could only reply by saying I hoped I could be useful, not merely to the Vietnamese community-even though I would be most happy if the tools I devised could serve this community-but to a larger context of Third World non-aligment or of hybridity in the diaspora.
Trinh T. M. Ha
