The Right to Pain and the Limits of Testimony by Ai Binh Ho A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English Language and Literature) in the University of Michigan 2020 Doctoral Committee: Professor Jennifer Ho, Co-Chair, University of Colorado Boulder Associate Professor Melanie Yergeau, Co-Chair Professor Michael Awkward Professor Sara Blair Associate Professor Ashley Lucas Ai Binh Ho [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0002-4158-2532 © Ai Binh Ho 2020 Table of Contents List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... iii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ ivv Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1// Disabled Nation: The Disability Aesthetics of Ugly and Beautiful Suffering in the War Remnants Museum ................................................................................................................ 27 WRM Background ........................................................................................................................ 42 National Testimony ................................................................................................................... 43 Audience/ Tourism .................................................................................................................... 46 Disability as Testimony ............................................................................................................. 58 Disability Aesthetics, Guerilla Aesthetics .................................................................................... 60 Ugly Suffering ........................................................................................................................... 63 Beautiful Suffering .................................................................................................................... 79 Heroic Suffering ........................................................................................................................ 91 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 102 Chapter 2// “pain itself was a voice”: Witnessing Rejected Experiences in Le Ly Hayslip’s Memoirs ...................................................................................................................................... 105 The Economy of Gender under Militarism and Transhistorical Pain ..................................... 119 Witnessing Incompatibility ..................................................................................................... 134 Illness Testimony and Healing Strategies ............................................................................... 147 Testimony as a Gift ................................................................................................................. 162 Chapter 3// The Disabled Structure of Testimony in Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth ... 164 Embodied Testimony .............................................................................................................. 170 Constructing Intimacy ............................................................................................................. 181 Adopting Narrative .................................................................................................................. 186 Re-Witnessing ......................................................................................................................... 191 Becoming and Forgiveness ..................................................................................................... 210 The Ellipse of Testimony ............................................................................................................ 217 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 224 ii List of Figures Figure 1: Poster description of Thanh Phong Massacre ............................................................... 34 Figure 2: Collage of Mr. Bui portrait, his daughter, and Mr. and Mrs. Bui’s graves ................... 35 Figure 3: Three portraits of the three witnesses of the Thanh Phong Massacre ........................... 36 Figure 4: Framed photograph of the famous “Napalm Girl” ........................................................ 42 Figure 5: Portrait of a young boy whose face has been damaged by phosphorous bombs........... 65 Figure 6: A collage, produced by the author, of photographs of maimed or dead bodies ............ 66 Figure 7: A black and white photograph of Vietnamese bodies spread on top of each other ...... 67 Figure 8: A photograph of Ho Van Dang ..................................................................................... 69 Figure 9: US war machines from the Vietnam-US War ............................................................... 71 Figure 10: A profile-view portrait of a middle-aged man, Vo Van Khiem .................................. 74 Figure 11: A framed photograph of young male, Bui Nhat Quang .............................................. 75 Figure 12: A family portrait of US veteran Dan Loney ................................................................ 80 Figure 13: Large photograph of eight-year-old boy, Do Duc Duyen ........................................... 84 Figure 14: Black and white photograph of the faces of mutated fetuses ...................................... 85 Figure 15: A collage of photographs of disabled children interacting with people ...................... 88 Figure 16: Life Exhibition of Disabled Vietnamese ..................................................................... 90 Figure 17: Nine photographs of disabled people performing various actions .............................. 96 Figure 18: Collage of extraordinary disabled Vietnamese ........................................................... 96 Figure 19: A corner of the temporary exhibit ............................................................................... 99 Figure 20: Crossword puzzle with handwritten letters ............................................................... 164 iii Abstract “The Right to Pain and the Limits of Testimony” centers on two questions: Who has the right to pain? Who is permitted to speak about issues of injustice affecting them? I contend that the indifference, disavowal, or appropriation of pain results from a structure of witnessing that accepts violence and injuries on some subjects as deserving, natural, or unreal. Pain, illness, and disability are naturalized within marginalized communities because the terms of death are gendered, racialized, classed, and ableist. By analyzing Vietnamese American memoirs, novels, photography, and the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City as testimonies, I make connections among Critical Refugee Studies, Disability Studies, and Visual Culture Studies to reveal the military, economic, and racial systems that expose immigrants and refugees to overlooked danger. These textual, visual, and physical sites present the debilitations produced by the Vietnam-US War by adopting strategic frames of reference, narrative construction, and language in order to connect with the observers, revealing that witnessing maintains an asymmetrical power structure. Models of witnessing give too much interpretive power to the witness, allowing a privileged group to define what counts as pain, the identity of victims, the language of testimony, and appropriate reparation and healing methods. In the closed system of witnessing, the savior is often also the perpetrator. By looking at moments in which witnessing fails the testifier, I deromanticize witnessing, shift interpretative power, and assemble an alternative archive on the Vietnam-US War, pain, and healing. My dissertation presumes that witnessing fails while clings to the potential of testimony. iv Each chapter examines the body as testimony—the visible Agent Orange impairment and invisible illnesses of transhistorical pain and synesthesia—as another way to know the war. The disability as an index of debilitation is a bridge that links history to the present, event to language, self to an audience, imbuing the testimony with urgency and ethical dimensions. My attention to the limitations of witnessing raises concerns and strategies for accounting for silent voices. My project promotes the value of the victim’s language, frame of reference, unique vision, and particular demands in order to resist the listener’s power as ultimate savior in the exchange. I view testifiers as neither innocent victims nor unfeeling objects but as complex agents, intensely negotiating motives, languages, frameworks and multiple audiences. The focus on pain accounts for the complexities and the ongoingness of debility of Vietnamese affected by wars, colonialism, poverty, and dislocation. Recognizing the limits of visibility to engender compassion and necessary changes, my work also attends to personal and communal healing strategies. The attention to marginalized forms of care emphasizes agency and rejects the white savior complex that underlies leading scholarship on ethics by Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Riceour,