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Charles Dailey and Brian Doan hosted the talk and panel discussion, "Vietnam War Revisited," in the Art Building lecture hall on Tuesday.
More than 30 years later, the Vietnam War still persists and weighs heavily on the conscience and memory of both American[s] and Vietnamese, according to an art department flier announcing the event.
Phung Huynh, Valley art instructor introduced Charles Dailey as a Vietnam War veteran and dean at Ribet Academy. Huynh is herself a refugee who escaped communist Vietnam in a small motorboat in 1978, roughly three years after America's withdrawal from the war.
Because he did not want to kill people, and as an African American did not feel like a first class citizen, Dailey registered with his draft board as a conscientious objector, when he received his notification to register. Irrespective, the Army drafted Dailey.
"On Dec. 11, 1967, my birthday, I received a notice that I had been drafted into the Army and I was leaving [for the Army] on Jan. 3," said Dailey. "By July 31, I'm on my way to Vietnam."
Because he was a conscientious objector, the Army trained Dailey as a medic.
Dailey proceeded to describe his Vietnam experiences in words and photos, detailing both the oddities of military life and the horrors of life in the combat zone.
The ex-Army medic related his arrival in Saigon. "Six medics had just got killed in the big red one," said Dailey. "They said, ‘You're a medic. You're in the big red one from now on.' They shipped me off to Lai Khe, north of Saigon."
Near the end of his tour of duty, Dailey had shrapnel removed from his body at Valley Forge Hospital, but also continued duties as an Army medic. As he transitioned from military to civilian life, he also returned to the world of art. His many extreme experiences fueled his artistic endeavors. He created one of his first, post-Vietnam art works after a failed breech birth delivery.
"I built this cross and I painted this painting, and you can see the embryo and the soldier's marching in the sky behind her, said Dailey. "The skulls on the cross on the sticks go all the way around in the sky, based on German Renaissance painting."
After the Army, Dailey returned to school and became an illustrator. "Water color," said Dailey. "…who knew? I became a commercial artist. I become that artist that I wanted to be. I come to California. The rest is history."
Huynh next introduced Brian Doan, associate professor at Long Beach City College. Doan emigrated from Vietnam more than 14 years ago. He is a photographer whose work focuses on the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Doan's search for truth and meaning in his work has taken him back to Vietnam and the Philippines where many Vietnamese refuges/boat people fled. He refers to the exodus of people from Vietnam after communist take over as a ‘Vietnamese Diaspora.' One of his photos showed the remains of a sunken boat marks where 100 boat people drowned.
Anonymous graffiti, in another of the Vietnamese immigrant's photos, covers a wall in the Palawan refuge camp in the Philippines.
It reads, "Where can a refugee find happiness? Which country will record my footprint?"
Twin sisters, shown in a 1995 refuge camp photograph by Doan, now reside in Little Saigon in Orange County, California.
Some of Doan's work created significant controversy in the Vietnamese community in Orange County. The most notable example was a photograph of a Vietnamese woman wearing a shirt with a red star. She sits next to a table holding Chairman Mao's Little Red Book and a gold bust of Ho Chi Minh. An article in the Orange County Register details reactions to Doan's art.
"He didn't know his photograph would prompt many in the local Vietnamese community to protest, denounce him as a communist, and cause a rift in his own family. He could not foresee that the protests would prematurely close a diverse show of 50 young Vietnamese American artists, or that his own work would be vandalized with scratches, spit and red spray paint."
When Doan attempted to document the now defunct Army of the Republic of Vietnam (1955 -1975), Doan's father, a veteran refused to cooperate. However, his father's the best friend posed for a photo in the uniform.
"Vietnamese men, every year they wear the old uniform. They fought for freedom. They are freedom fighters to the end," said Doan. "My father spent 10 years in a communist camp and came here and be denied by both sides. To the Vietnamese, he a traitor; to the Americans he a loser. The people [Vietnamese refuges] adapt, but they feel small and confused.
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