On Becoming Vietnamese
Chapter 1 examines the mythologization of the Hmong and other minorities by mainstream performing artists to show how those minorities have been inscribed into Vietnam’s national consciousness through popular music. The chapter traces the early history and migrations of the Hmong into the mountains of Southeast Asia to their formal identification as an ethnic group in French Indochina. From revolutionary songs (ca khúc cách mạnh) in the 1950s and 1960s to independent creative artists in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the multivalent superculture that comprises the Vietnamese mediascape has perpetuated a series of stereotypes about the minorities. Songs, artists, and composers are linked to historically situated political developments to illustrate the gradual assimilation of Hmong and other minorities into Vietnamese culture and society.