The Daily Bulletin Archive

Kathryn Edwards, assistant professor of modern French history at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, will present "The Women of Little Vietnam: Decolonization and the Repatriate Experience" on Thursday, March 3, from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. in Bulger Communication Center East.

In the wake of the Indochina War (1945–1954), French citizens of Indochinese descent, many of whom were women with young children, began arriving in France to start new lives. Called "repatriates," even though they had never set foot in France before, they faced a host of challenges as they struggled to support their families, maintain certain cultural practices, and deal with colonial-era stereotypes and assimilationist rhetoric from those running rural reception centers.

Edwards will examine the experiences of women repatriates, their place within French discourse on assimilation, and their contributions to collective memory within the repatriate community, as well as broader reflections on gender and war remembrance in France.

Her latest book is Contesting Indochina: French Remembrance between Decolonization and Cold War, 1954–2014 (University of California Press, July 2016).

This event is sponsored by the Buffalo State College Faculty-Student Association and the History and Social Studies Education Department.