THE ENTANGLEMENTS OF CANADA'S NATIONAL IDENTITY BUILDING AND VIETNAMESE CANADIAN COMMUNITY CONFLICTS: RACIAL CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY AND THE COLD WAR NEOLIBERAL MULTICULTURAL SUBJECT ANH PHUNG NGO A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SOCIAL WORK YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO June 2019 © Anh Phung Ngo, 2019 Abstract This study weaves Cold War Epistemology, critical multiculturalism, racial capitalism, and critical refugee studies to theorize how the Vietnamese Canadian subjectivity is related to Canada’s national identity formation. Adopting a critical ethnography methodology and discourse analysis, this study asks: What are the conditions of community conflicts within the Vietnamese community and how are those conflicts related to the processes of Canadian national identity formation? The production and contestation of Vietnamese Canadian subjectivity in the making of Canadian national identity is traced through three major sites of analysis. This first site is the debate on the Memorial to Victims of Communism as captured in the media. The second site is the parliamentary and community commemoration of the “Fall of Saigon” on April 30th, 1975 which includes debates on the Journey to Freedom Day Act and local community events. The final site is a Toronto community agency conflict of identity. This study reveals the logic of racial capitalist democracy underlying Canadian national identity as free, humanitarian, democratic, and peace-making. This is constructed through the production of Vietnamese Canadian subjectivity as a particular model minority and model refugee framed within Cold War neoliberal and multicultural discourse with significant consequences to the wellbeing of the community. ii Dedication To my parents, Đảo Thị Tứ and Ngô Sách Vinh. iii Acknowledgements I have drafted this piece in my mind hundreds of times over the years of completing this dissertation, waiting for the long-anticipated moment I would be able to write it post-defense. But now I find I am at a loss for words. There were so many people who have helped me bring this work to life, mere words are not enough to express my gratitude. I am grateful to my supervisor, Yuk-Lin Renita Wong. I drew from your integrity and your firm ethical stance in the early years of this work when I was building my trust in myself to complete this project. Thank you for your generosity of time and care, for your steadfast support of me through the inevitable failures and successes. Thank you for lending your brilliant intellect and for your keen sense of just where to place the scaffolds ahead of me so that I may pull myself further and deeper into the analysis. I am humbled by the courage and compassion of my friend and mentor, Kim Phuong Nguyen. Thank you for teaching me how to be in community with its joys and heartbreaks. I am grateful to my committee members Sarah Maiter and Soma Chatterjee. Thank you, Sarah, for the many years of your mentoring, the moral encouragements, the generous tangible support, and for seeing me through to the final stages of this process. Thank you, Soma, for inspiring the later iterations of this work and the motivational words I still hear. Thank you as well to my former committee members, Amy Rossiter and Eve Haque for seeing value in my work in its very early stages which gave me the confidence to set forth. Thank you to Barbara Heron for showing up at the critical moments in my doctoral journey. You have been a steady presence throughout these years . Thank you to Tania Das Gupta and Jane Ku for your thorough examination of my defense, for your critical questions and generous discussion of my work. Thank you to the doctoral peers, faculty, and staff at the School of Social Work. In this space I found inspiration from the critical and provoking scholarship, warmth and support from giving mentors and friends, and effective support which eased my path in countless ways. I am particularly grateful to Andrea Daley, Maurice Poon, Susan McGrath, Luann Good Gingrich, Maria Liegghio, Anne O’Connell, Uzo Anucha, Emma Posca, Chenale Reynolds, Shana Almeida, and Ameil Joseph. I am grateful to my thesis buddy Chizuru Nobe-Ghelani. You have made this doctoral journey feel so much lighter and even joyful. I am nourished by our many conversations from theoretical discussions, to everyday challenges in mothering, and to our vast range of dream projects. Thank you for walking alongside me on this journey, my friend. iv Thank you to members of my cohort, Nimo Bokore and Dalon Taylor. Through these long years I am grateful we have remained present for one another to the very end. I am grateful to the warm friendships I have found in my writing group for the encouragement, companionship, and support without which I may not have overcome the final writing hurdles of this dissertation. Thank you, Julia Janes, for setting the tone of giving and caring solidarity, and thank you Maria Bernard, Marisa Barnhart, Jennifer Kujath, Sangyoo Lee, and Brenda Polar. Thank you to my editor-turned-friend, Johanna Reynolds, for reading the countless drafts and for the generous and critical care you put into helping me to improve this work. Thank you to the Faculty of Social Work, Wilfrid Laurier University. Home again in Brantford with the BSW team, I was given the encouragement and space from kind and generous colleagues to fully complete this work, and for this I am grateful. To my dear children, Quynh and Khai, thank you for your unconditional love and need for me which allowed me to achieve and to grow in so many ways that have nothing to do with academia. Thank you also to the multitude of loving caregivers who provided care for my children so that I can pursue my work, from the daycare educators and to our family physician, I thank you. To my wonderful sisters who gave me and now my children love and protection, forming the supportive net beneath us, I thank you. From the gift of time away so that I can do this work, to gifts of school supplies, you both have given me exactly what I needed when I needed it. Thank you also to my brother-in-law for joining this safety net so naturally. Thank you to my life partner Vikram, you are unfailing in your patience, encouragement, and conviction that I need to follow my path. Your words “your dreams are our dreams” have sustained me during this journey. I am grateful to my parents who have loved and supported me, who held me forward on a path that they knew little of, relying only on their trust in me. I am grateful to my generous participants. To the Vietnamese diaspora of the Greater Toronto Area, thank you for the lessons on community and survival. v Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Dedication ..................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 3 Background: “Problems” in Vietnamese community ................................................................................ 7 Research Problem: Flattened Vietnamese subjecthood and Canadian nation-building .............. 13 Theoretical lens ................................................................................................................................................... 15 Significance: Unpacking our positioning to one another ...................................................................... 18 Organization of Chapters ................................................................................................................................. 20 Chapter 2: Weaving a Conceptual Framework ....................................................................... 22 Critical Multiculturalism .................................................................................................................................. 23 Racial Capitalism and Neoliberalism ........................................................................................................... 28 Cold War Epistemology ................................................................................................................................... 39 Critical Refugee Studies ................................................................................................................................... 45 Summary ................................................................................................................................................................ 51 Chapter 3: Method, Design, and Data ...................................................................................... 53 Foucauldian Power, Discourse, and Subject ............................................................................................. 54 Critical Ethnography ........................................................................................................................................