The Border Within: Vietnamese Migrants Transforming Ethnic Nationalism in Berlin

218 Pages·2022·7.013 MB·English

by  Phi Hong Su

THE BORDER WITHIN

THE BORDER WITHIN
Vietnamese Migrants Transforming
Ethnic Nationalism in Berlin
PHI HONG SU
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©2022 by Phi Hong Su. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free, archival- quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data available upon request.
ISBN 9781503630062 (cloth)
ISBN 9781503630147 (paperback)
ISBN 9781503630154 (electronic)
Cover photo: Berlin Raoul-Wallenberg-Straße. Claire Greenstein.
Cover design: Rob Ehle
Typeset by Kevin Barrett Kane in 10/14 Minion Pro
Cho ba mẹ

Contents
Preface ix
1 Border Crossings 1
2 Making Northerners and Southerners 27
3 Making Refugees and Contract Workers 49
4 Ranking the Ethnic Nation 74
5 Choosing Friends and Picking Sides 93
6 Buddhist Meditations in Northern and Southern Accents 117
7 After Border Crossings 141
Acknowledgments 147
Appendix: Research Notes 159
Notes 163
References 175
Index 189

Preface
The Vietnamese language was the last thing my sister, Phung, and I
expected to miss during our high school study abroad in Germany.
Like other children of working- class immigrants and refugees in our
Southern California suburb, my sister and I spoke elementary Viet-
namese at home. We translated as best we could for our monolingual
parents at medical and welfare offices. In fact, we associated our heri-
tage language with this burden of cultural brokering. But the German
language and our brief study abroad offered something entirely dif-
ferent. Our stay with our host families in the town of Gummersbach
allowed us to peer into an alternative upbringing, where members
of a household and community communicated fluently in the same
tongue. Parents could navigate the society in which they lived and
therefore trusted their children to attend parties and walk around at
night without fear of an unknown milieu. At fifteen, I saw the German
and Vietnamese languages as representing forking paths: expanding
versus constricting horizons, freedom versus captivity.
But after two weeks of speaking only English or faltering German
with our host families, something odd happened. Strolling down the
street on a day trip to Bonn, my sister and I paused at the sound of
that familiar yet unexpected language, dancing with its six tones. Our
eyes hunted for the source: an Asian woman clad in a thick autumn
jacket, calling after a child who was scuttling about on the cobble-
stone streets. Phung eagerly accosted the woman to ask, “Auntie, are
ix