http://www.c-span.org/video/?156770-1/vietnam-war-cultural-fallout
I found a great C-Span video that has a panel of authors responding to a Q & A regarding their respective books for the L.A. Times Festival of Books. Each author presented the Vietnam War in different ways. Around the middle of the video, author Alfredo Vea responds to questions in relation to his book Gods go Begging. Vea was born in Arizona and worked as a migrant farm worker as a child. After serving in Vietnam, he had a number of jobs back in the states and he put himself through law school.
At 17, he lived in Berkley which gave him a number of influences into Liberal anti-war protests. He wrote the book because he didn’t see a lot of Vietnam wars out there addressing the motives of young men entering war. Why is that kids like him wanted to go? What was behind the ignorance into the allurement of war? He spoke anti war slogans but wanted to go fight for his country. He was in a conflicting world but knew he wanted to “slay the dragon”.
I thought it was interesting that he states that one of the reasons Vietnam was a different war was because it coexisted with the Civil Rights Movement. It was not only a war overseas, but it was a war domestically on our own soil. The two notions become a merging idea of anti-violence. Even on our own turf, “the battle still wages on”.
I also found a great written interview with Vea on the book:
In the interview, Vea explains identifying with the notion of “Chicano author”:
“No, I don’t like the idea of being characterized as a Chicano author. I would rather be characterized as an author who is Chicano. The problem with the former is that there is, whether we wish to admit it or not, a category of art that is generated by minorities when it first considers an “assault on the American canon.” That art is usually marked by nostalgia for a mythological past; by infighting and disputes about the “authenticity” of the particular art and the intentions of the artist” (Holdridge).
On the same topic of Chicano, Vea goes into even more detail:
“Implicit in the concept of “Chicano” literature is the political agenda rather than the agenda of sighting the artistic bar and endeavoring to surpass it. I know that many who read this opinion will be stunned by it and recoil in righteous indignation. But they are not artists. The Mexican people in Norte America have artists in their midst to compete with any artists on earth. As Irish literature has surpassed its English overlords, so Chicano literature will rise to the fore much as Irish and African writing have done . The act of rising is political, the result is art” (Holdridge).
Works Cited:
Holdridge, Randall. “Alfredo Vea’s ‘Dogs go Begging’ Is a Luminous Third Novel”. Books: Crimes with Passion. N.p., 13 Sep. 1999. Web. 11 Mar 2014. <http://www.weeklywire.com/ww/09-13-99/tw_book.html>
“The Vietnam War: Cultural Fallout”. C-Span. N.p., 30 Apr. 2000. Web. 11 Mar 2014.