The Dust of Life is a collection of vivid and devastating oral histories oral histories of Vietnamese Amerasians. Abandonned during the war by their American fathers, discriminated against by the victorious Communists, and ignored for many years by the American government, they are also testimonials to human resiliency.
Robert McKelvey is a former marine who seved in Vietnam in the late 1960s. Now a child psychiatrist,he returned to Vietnam in 1990 to begin the long series of interviews that resulted in this book. While allowing his subjects to speak for themseves, McKelvey has organized their narratives around themes common to their lives: early maternal loss,the experince of prejudice and discrimination,coping with adversity,dealing with shattered hopes for the future,and,for some adapting to the alien environment of the United States.
While unique in many reaspects, the Vietnamese Amerasian story also illustrates thems that are tragically universal: neglect of the human by-products of war,the destructiveness of prejudice and racism,the pain of abandonment, and the horrors of life amidst extreme poverty, hostility,and neglect.
1. Who Are the Vietnamese Amerasians?
Amerasians in Vietnam
2. Growing Up without a Mother or Father
3. Prejudice and Discrimination
4. Adventurers and Entrpreneurs
Amerasians in the united states
5. Adapting to Life in the United States
6. Expectations and Later Adjustment
7. Disalbed Amerasians
8. Searching for Father