UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Wasteland : The Social and Environmental Impact of U.S. Militarism in Laos Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8x12m9cc Author Sisavath, Davorn Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Wasteland: The Social and Environmental Impact of U.S. Militarism in Laos A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies by Davorn Sisavath Committee in charge: Professor Yến Lê Espiritu, Chair Professor Kirstie Dorr Professor Jin Kyung Lee Professor Curtis Marez Professor Kalindi Vora 2015 Copyright Davorn Sisavath, 2015 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Davorn Sisavath is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2015 iii DEDICATION For my father and my mother iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page………………………………………………………………………. iii Dedication…...……………………………………………………………………… iv Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………… v List of Figures ……………………………………………………………………… vi Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………. vii Vita..……………………………………………………………………………....... x Abstract of the Dissertation………………………………………………………… xi Introduction Military Wasteland…………………………………………………… 1 Chapter 1 “What Kind of Place was Laos?”..…….………………………………… 40 Chapter 2 Retelling Refugee Testimonies...…….……………..…………………… 67 Chapter 3 Humanitarian Government: “To Serve the Nation” …….……………… 97 Chapter 4 Harvesting War: The Value of Military Waste………….……………… 121 Epilogue....…….…………………………………………………………………… 150 Bibliography..…….………………………………………………………………… 155 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1, Artist: 27 years old………………………………………………...……... 91 Figure 2, A Vietnamese trader’s family.…………………………………….……… 140 Figure 3, Sou Lin poses next to a dud……………………………………….……… 146 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This is a project I love very much but also that stems from so many various and violent sites. How do I write about the violence my father can only recollect with his eyes closed? How does one tackle a project with so little body of evidence? This dissertation grew out of my attempts to understand my family’s presence in the United States, and has developed into an intellectual stake and task, once I arrived to UC San Diego. I am very fortunate to work in Ethnic Studies where scholars create and sustain crucial and intellectual spaces for I and so many other graduate students. I am grateful to Yến Lê Espiritu for providing important mentorship, guidance and encouragement throughout my time at UC San Diego. Despite not having the vocabulary or analytics to articulate my project, Yến’s critical insight helped transform the writing of this dissertation that seem so impossible to sustained possibility. I thank Kirstie Dorr for her continuous words of encouragement that have reminded me why my presence in the academy matters. I thank Curtis Marez for always asking difficult, but necessary questions. Marez’s questions to consider unlikely connections have shaped the direction of my dissertation. I thank Jin Kyung Lee for always being present, providing productive and critical feedbacks, and pushing me to situate my work outside the U.S. contexts. I thank Kalindi Vora so much for her kindness, support and generous mentorship, which have enabled me to remain enthusiastic about this dissertation and as a scholar. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Mariam B. Lam who has encouraged and supported me throughout my graduate career. I am grateful to Solin Phann who believed and supported my process as I was applying to graduate schools. I would not be here without her love and support. Over the vii past six years, I have had the opportunity to learn from and work with extraordinary, kind, generous friends and colleagues who have contributed to the intellectual and political spaces at UC San Diego, and beyond: Ma Vang, Kit Myers, Long Bui, Thea Quiray Tagle, Angela Kong, Chien-ting Lin, Amanda Solomon-Amorao, Theodara Dryer, Kyung Hee Ha, Marilissa Navarro, Jose Fusté, Anthony Y. Kim, Mohamed A. Abumaye, Jennifer Mogannam, Lisa Ho, Rawan Arar, and Violeta Sanchez. I am so fortunate to my wonderful writing group at UC San Diego: Lauren Heintz, Rujeko Hockley, Ashvin R. Kini, Christopher Perreira, and Sara Mameni have been key in creating a strong intellectual formation, community and kinship. I look forward to continuing our writing group, near or far, in the years to come. I am especially grateful to Ashvin for his brilliance, invaluable critical engagement, and our many conversations provided crucial encouragement and clarity. Josen Masangkay Diaz, whose big heart, warm friendship, and one of the best listeners I know kept me thinking and talking about dreams during late night writing sessions at Twiggs Coffee House. Ashvin, Josen, Sarika Talve-Goodman and Victor Betts have shaped 4627 Campus Avenue into a place of refuge, love, care, inspiration, and laughter. Their presence has made San Diego home. I also want to thank Joo Ok Kim for her friendship, love, support and intellectual acumen. I am lucky to have Linh Thủy Nguyễn as my cohort, friend, interlocutor, and writing companion. Linh has consistently and tirelessly read multiple drafts of my chapters, providing crucial and rigorous feedbacks at different moments of the dissertation process. I could not have written this dissertation without her, and I am forever grateful for her love and support. I extend my deepest gratitude to Raymond viii Othello Elkins for his loving patience, endless support and kindness, and generous forgiveness during the dissertation process. Raymond has been the best intellectual companion of all – his curiosity, patience and wisdom have been extraordinary. Finally, I am indebted to the love and support of my family who have always been there when I needed them, encouraging and assisting my work in infinite ways. To them – Onechanh Sisavath, Chome Sisavath, Somboun Sisavath, Sombath Sisavath, Sanith Sisavath, Sandy Sisavath, Michele Tom-Sisavath, my niece Sienna Sisavath, and nephews, Ramsey Sisavath, Davian Souvannaphoungeun, and Keo Sisavath – I am eternally grateful. ix VITA 2000 Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, San Jose State University 2006 Master of Arts in Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University 2015 Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego FIELDS OF STUDY Major Fields: Ethnic Studies, American Studies, Critical Refugee Studies, Environmental Studies, and Militarism and U.S. Empire x ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Wasteland: The Social and Environmental Impact of U.S. Militarism in Laos by Davorn Sisavath Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies University of California, San Diego, 2015 Professor Yến Lê Espiritu, Chair My dissertation addresses the absence of the Secret War and environmental racism in Cold War histories. I show how U.S. Cold War logics of “containment” were linked to the production of making “debris,” which was strategically contained in Laos. This research asks the following questions: 1) how was Laos designated and made to serve as a U.S. military wasteland?; and 2) how does the persistence of war bear on the material environment? Through archival materials, literary analysis, and analysis of cultural texts, my study highlights the racialized construction of Laos as “nonplace” in xi order to naturalize violence and justify the U.S. aerial war. I argue Laos’ battered landscape and military waste left behind reveals how forgetting the U.S. war and violence in the country is impossible because the debris encroaches, disrupts and inhabits the lives of Laotians and the land. This dissertation comprises two parts. Part 1 examines the symbolic violence of war to reveal the racial, gendered and spatialized process that enabled U.S. bombings in Laos with impunity. Part 2 examines the material violence of war to reveal how military waste have been domesticated or revitalized for tourist consumption. This dissertation brings together critical geography, war/humanitarian discourse, and postcolonial studies frameworks, but fundamentally I situate my work in critical refugee studies, environmental studies, Ethnic Studies and American Studies that conceptualizes the Secret War in Laos as a critical moment in U.S. imperial dominance during the Cold War. xii Introduction Military Wasteland Introduction After the “Fall of Saigon” in 1975 and the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Vietnam, the U.S. sought to recast a humiliating defeat in the region as a moment of valor.1 The same year, Washington quickly staged Operation Babylift, a mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United Sates to gain sympathy from the public. In a widely circulated black and white photograph taken by photojournalist David H. Kennedy, President Gerald R. Ford carries a Vietnamese baby off a plane in San Francisco, thereby rescripting the United States role in Vietnam as meaningful and benevolent. In contrast to the massive public relations effort by Washington to rescript U.S. role in Vietnam, the U.S. quietly withdrew from its Secret War in Laos in 1973, leaving behind a military wasteland. The much-publicized U.S. commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War in 2015 failed to mention the extensive Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) operations in Laos, even as Laos and its people have continued to suffer the deadly