Vietnam as Gothic Space

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I found these images online of abandoned spaces in Vietnam. I found these relics of the war particularly haunting. In the first picture, of the abandoned guard towers, I could easily picture the conversation between Jesse and Hong. The picture of the abandoned church is also particularly haunting and embodies what I picture as a “conventional” gothic space. The second set of photos are equally haunting because it is as if battle locations are frozen in time. The second image of the bunker is especially arresting. It really looks as if the soldiers who were hunkered in there could have left yesterday.

guard tower

abandoned church

http://weburbanist.com/2008/08/06/15-haunting-ruins-of-war/

“Highway 1 is the backbone of Vietnam, and was along the primary axis of the 1975 Easter Offensive that reunified the Southeast Asian  nation under Northern leadership. The church visible here was clearly somebody’s last stand, and hasn’t been touched since 1975; the guard towers have been abandoned since the end of the war (Unknown).”

 Khe Sahn

rusted tank

abandoned bunker

“Khe Sahn is a remote mountaintop near the Cambodian border in Vietnam, and was a critical airstrip and supply base on what was called the “MacNamara Line” to prevent a larger NVA presence in South Vietnam. In addition to being a Marine Corps stronghold, Khe Sahn was a target for the North Vietnamese because they would soon after its fall be able to take the smaller firebases at Camp Fuller and Razorback; instead the Marines held out for three months before evacuating successfully. The North Vietnamese later claimed the base, and in honor of their “victory” shipped in wreckage from other battlefields for a display (Unknown”).

Works Cited

Unknown. “Ruins of War: 15 Places Abandoned Due to Military Turmoil.” 2007-2014. WebUrbanist.com. 18 March 2014.

 

 

 

La Llorona Stories Across Cultures Part 1 of 3

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La_Llorona_II_by_Psychodelicategirl

Photo Courtesy of deviantart.com

Drawing by: Psychodelicategirl

In the next three blogs, I will explore different versions of La Llorona stories throughout other cultures and explore why mothers killing children or endlessly mourning their children is such an enduring theme in mythology and literature. To begin, here is an overview of common La Llorona stories from different cultures. I found analogous figures from Greek mythology, the Bible, Aztec myths and in Europe.

La Llorona: While there are variations of the story, the common element is that a woman fell in love with either a noblemen or someone outside her social class and bore his children. Eventually, the man abandons her for someone of a higher social class. In retaliation, La Llorona drowns her children. She haunts water areas looking for the souls of her dead children. She will kidnap children who resemble her dead children or those that disobey their parents, especially by being outside after dark. She is often identified as La Malinche.

La Malinche: Moctezuma sent a group of women as a peace offering to the Spanish conquistadors. Among them was Dona Maria, who quickly proved valuable as an interpreter. Cortes used her knowledge of the land and language to aid in conquering the empire, resulting in her earning the moniker La Malinche (The Traitor). She became his mistress and bore him two children. Myth takes over history, when Cortes is to return to Spain to his wife, taking his sons with Dona Maria with him. She refused to part with her son, fearing losing him either to Spain or at least to the dangerous voyage overseas. She drowned him, to ensure that his spirit would remain in his homeland, because she was afraid his spirit would wander forever. Legend has it that when she died, “God would not allow her through the gates until she returned with the soul of her son. Legend has it that her son’s soul floated away, and she continues to wander the river and its tributaries on a relentless quest (Duarte).”

Cihuacoatl: This Aztec goddess would snatch infants from their cradles and after killing them would roam the streets of Tenochtitlan at night with a mournful wail. Her mournful wail was supposed to foretell war and misery. According to legend, Cihuacoatl appeared shortly before the invasion of Mexico by Cortes. Other version associate her with midwives, and is described as a skull faced woman with eagle feathers in her hair, who carried spears and a shield as a warrior would, to symbolize the act of childbirth as warfare. Other depictions of her are of her face is painted half white and half red, always wearing white. The spirits of those who died in childbirth known as the Cihuateteo, were depicted with skeletal faces like Cihuacoatl. Like her, the Cihuateteo are thought to haunt crossroads at night to steal children (Aragon), (Gomez-Cano). She is considered to be the pre-Columbian version of La Llorona.

Medea: Perhaps the most well-known story of infanticide is that of Medea, who married Greek hero Jason and bore his two children. Jason forsook her and ran off to marry the king of Corinth’s daughter. Out of revenge, she killed Jason’s new bride, the bride’s father and her two children, in order to inflict more pain on Jason (Lindemans). Though La Llorona and Medea both kill their children to spite their estranged husbands, they differ in that Medea shows no remorse for her actions, while La Llorona is eternally weeping and suffering.

Rachel: She was the wife of Jacob, who bore him two sons after a long period of infertility. She dies while giving birth to Benjamin. In the following passage from Jeremiah, she is weeping for her children, who are led into captivity near the spot where she is buried:

Sad-eyed Rachel, do not weep,

Your children die as martyrs go;

They are the first-born of the seed

Which from your blood began to grow;

In spite of tyranny’s dread days

They bloom in glory to God’s praise.

Jeremiah 31:15

Her children’s exile also represents the sadness over the exile of the northern tribes. In Matthew, she weeps again, and this time it represents the sadness she feels over the massacre of the Infants by Herod. Rachel bears some resemblance to Cihuacoatl, because one interpretation of the latter’s tears is that they represent the sadness she feels over the impending conquest of the Aztecs by the Spaniards. In turn, this also parallels Medea in “The Hungry Woman” who grieves over losing her son Choc-Mool to Aztlan (Lang).

Lamia: Lamia was a Libyan princess who had an affair with Zeus. When his wife Hera found out, she murdered her children, turned her into a snake-like monster (other versions are the Lamia’s grief turned her into a monster) and made Lamia unable to close her eyes, so she could not escape the image of her murdered children. Zeus takes pity on her and allows her to remove her eyes and then put them in again. Lamia envied other mothers, so she acts out by stealing their children and then devouring them. This and La Llorona stories are told to children as a way to make them behave. Like La Llorona, she has no respite from her grief over her dead children. There is another version where Lamia is portrayed as a vampire figure; she takes form as a beautiful woman who seduce, then devour men (Lindemans).

Die Weisee Frau (the White Lady).  According to legend, Countess Kunigunde was a widow with two children who wanted to marry Albercht von Hohenzollern. After he told her that he would marry her “if it were not for four eyes between them”, the countess mistakenly believed he was referring to her two children (he was actually referring to his parents). She wanted to kill them in way to make it look like they died of natural causes, so she pierced their skulls with a golden needle. She was overcome with guilt and confessed to the pope, who promised forgiveness if she devoted her life to monastic work. She died shortly thereafter. The white lady haunts the castles of the kingdom of Hohenzollern as a malevolent presence, bringing terror to those that cross her path (Duarte).

My next two blog entries will center on the themes that these stories share and their significance. Common threads in each legend include: jealousy, to serve as a warning against misbehavior (sexual and otherwise), as an expression of anxiety over cultural or indigenous displacement, and the way in which historically powerless women subvert the existing power structure in devastating ways.

Works Cited

Aragon, Ray John de. The Legend of La Llorona. 1980.

Duarte, Gloria. “La Llorona’s Ancestry: Crossing Cultural Boundaries.” Untiedt, Kenneth. Folklore In all of Us, In All We Do. Texas: Texas Folklore Society, 2006. 107. e-book.

Gomez-Cano, Grisel. The Return to Coatlicue: Goddesses and Warladies in Mexican Folklore. Xlibris Corporation, 2010.

Lang, David. “Why is Rachel Weeping at Ramah?” 20 December 2012. www.accordancebible.com. 17th March 2014.

Lindemans, Micha. “Encyclopedia Mythica.” March 1997. www.pantheon.org. 2014.

Unknown. The Spirit of La Llorona: La Llorona in Other Cultures. n.d.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La Llorona in Juvenile Hall

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Whereas many perceive La Llorona, the story of the Weeping Woman, as an old and somewhat outdated short, mythical story, scholar Bess Hawes illuminates newfound evidence that suggests the contrary. Examining Hawes’ La Llorona in Juvenile Hall, we are able to see instances pertaining specifically to La Llorona in Los Angeles and Southern California. Hawes’ findings work toward showcasing how La Llorona and her myth are still relevant in today’s cultures and in the up-in-coming youth. Hawes focuses upon interviewing children and their experience to La Llorona, and how the tale has been visited within their life living in Los Angeles. Hawes’ first cites a young boy’s death due to a mysterious figure that supposedly rolled a ball into oncoming traffic that caused a young boy to be ultimately killed, due to being struck by a vehicle. Another instance we see of La Llorona in Los Angeles took place in Canoga Park, where Hawe’s writes:

“La Llorona was following a path to Calabasas. A man driving down the street saw her, and his car plunged into the drainage ditch. Neighbors who witnessed the incident wouldn’t go near the scene for some time. The bodies of a man and a wife were encountered and the clothes of a baby but there was no [baby’s] body to be found. She is constantly searching for her children, and she believes all children to be hers” (Hawes, 165).

As well as:

“[Carolyn] saw her one time in Redondo Beach. It is the figure of a lady with a long veil. She killed her baby and walks around the light looking for it. She is followed by a little dog. The police painted the lighthouse white (for purity), so she left” (Hawes, 163).

Though the validity of these encounters is up to the reader to assess, Hawes brings La Llorona into more relevant context thus establishing the fact that “the La Llorona legend is both alive and active within the United States. This is validated by the unusual diversity of form and content shown by all three collections” (Hawes, 161). La Llorona is very much alive within Los Angeles especially, as well as within the Chicana/o culture, as Hawes’ acknowledges that her findings of La Llorona instances in L.A. are mostly made by those of Mexican or Indian descent. These sightings Hawes features in her study differ in two substantial elements from the traditional tale; that being the omission of a body of water, as well as the differing in personality traits. Whereas traditional depictions of the story include the water as the main context in which La Llorona is seen, these Los Angeles based examples exclude this feature. Rather than featuring water and instances of drowning children, Hawes’ examples focus more upon vehicular homicide — a much more gruesome and aggressive form of death, though fitting for L.A. due to the city’s massive traffic, roadway, and pollution problems.

It is interesting to see how both La Llorona functions within our community, as well as how the tale has evolved from its traditional telling: the L.A. La Llorona seems to have adapted to her surroundings by incorporating new methods to both attract and kill her victims — as well as omitting her traditional weeping and compelling attributes. This leads us to believe L.A.’s La Llorona is vindictive, merciless, and less regretful than her traditional counterpart. Whereas we usually hear of weeping and regret after killing her victims, these Los Angeles stories omit any of those features, and create an entirely new persona for the well-known weeping woman. High rates of moral turpitude and gang influence within Los Angeles may of had a strong influence on why La Llorona has changed into this new persona, being that her “new” characteristics mirror those of traditional gang criminality; La Llorona is much more masculine in her killings, much as a gang may be.

gang(Gang graffiti in South Central Los Angeles)

As Hawes’ writes, “these stories, though they include many classic motifs, are certainly not “classic” in stature. Told in cold clear monosyllables of the street, none is longer than seventy-five words” (Hawes, 169), This is one instance of how the story of La Llorona can be altered to both fit the geographical and communal resources and perspective.

Hawes’ work within Juvenile facilities illuminates how young, institutionalized children, whether for delinquent or dependency reasons, learn the tale of La Llorona through their peers. Rather than being learned from parental figures, we see evidence of how the story has adapted to Los Angeles, and why children have cited instances of seeing resemblances of La Llorona in their communities. Being that no major body of water exists within Los Angeles besides on the west; the children have interpreted the story in terms of their own circumstances, situations, and geographic locations. This may be sufficient to see how in other cultures, the myth of La Llorona evolves over time.

 

Word Count: 830

First installment found here.

Cited:

Article: Hawes, Bess Lomax. “La Llorona in Juvenile Hall.” JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

Photos: offtoseethelephant.com, examiner.com

Potrero Hill and Vietnam

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http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Potrero-Hill-Echoes-Vietnam-in-Murder-Mystery-3240048.php

The importance of hills is quite apparent in Gods Go Begging. One of the hills with great recognition is the Potrero Hill in San Francisco. Known for its poor neighborhoods contributing to large gang activity and overall violence, Potrero Hill has great significance for the author, Alfredo Vea Jr. In the attached article, it states, “Vea lived on Potrero hill and represented young people from the nearby housing project against drug and weapons charges” as his time spent as a criminal defense attorney in San Francisco. Vea drew many similarities from his time spent in the Vietnam War to his life in San Francisco. The article states, “the drug dealers communicated by code language, as Vea did as a radio operator in Vietnam.” Vea related the soldiers of Vietnam, often young in age, to the juveniles in Potrero Hill involved in the drug wars of the 1980s and 1990s. And this is due to the fact that he was among these juveniles.

Furthermore, even the geography of the hill reminded him of the jungles of Vietnam. The article says, “The grassy hilltop where the Potrero Hill housing project sits even came to remind him of the hill on the Laotian border where 600 American troops were dropped by helicopter to protect a radio installation against 3,500 north Vietnamese regulars.” Adding to the similarities, the unpredictability of combat and the sense of mystery add to both locations. In regards to Vietnam, Vea states how “nothing happened for three days and then for three days, nothing didn’t happen. Then after three more days, they went away.” On Potrero Hill, Vea never knows what could happen. Potrero hill is like another combat zone with drug violence and gang shootings that seem to occur on a daily basis. This unpredictability adds to the elements of the gothic.

Vietnam in Vea’s Visual Novel

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It is very interesting to analyze the visuals of Vietnam within “Gods Go Begging” because every stereotypical image of the Vietnam War can be found in this book. We see that the images of death with very visual scenes of gore are present amongst the soldiers in combat. Also, the visuals extend to descriptive scenes of combat, “In the darkness, ephemeral flowers of conclusive flame like red trumpet vines had flashed into bloom, then had receded, to quickly wither shut in accelerated time, in savage salvos of impossible time”(Vea,87). The explicit details that go towards the soldiers and their struggles externally as well as internally are very well portrayed in Vea’s book.

As they are in combat many of them begin the loose their minds, “Trench madness was something he had seen before”(Vea,92). This reference came as they continued to fight on the hill and they felt death was very present.”I just can’t stay another night on this hill. I can’t hold it together. I hate the holes on this hill. We’re digging our own graves. I hate living in this grass”(Vea,90). The soldiers on the hill are in constant panic and war mode that people who have not gone through it would never understand. The father who does accompany the boys in the battle line also begins to loose his mind as he begins to question if their is a god. “The padre raised his eyes to the horizon. In a single night he had acquired combat veteran’s hardened eyes and numbed face”(Vea,92). They realize that they will all die eventually and no one will care.

Art of the Vietnam War

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While considering how ‘Gods Go Begging’ gives us an insight into the geography of the Vietnam war and the psychology of the soldiers participating in it, I thought it would be interesting to look at art to supplement this.

 

Though the pieces featured in both videos are of many different scenes and various styles, I believe they share some similar characteristics. For example, unlike in the book, most of the violence appears to take place during the day time, juxtaposing the death and destruction with a colorful tropical landscape. Many Vietnamese characters also appear in the paintings, but they do not appear to be particularly threatening; if shown, they appear mostly as mirror images of the Americans, young boys in uniform, or innocent civilians. This relates to the social unrest surrounding the war and the arguments about the morality of it.

The Reversed Sexual License

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One particular subject that struck me about Gods Go Begging is the power of women. Women serve as a catalyst of sorts—it is because of their deaths that the trial occurs and the reason it continues. Nevertheless, despite the fact that I found it interesting, I made the mistake of setting it on a shelf and not think much of it in my mind. However, upon finding an interview with Alfredo Vea, the interviewer, Randal Holdridge , draws the attention to women being such central force of the novel.

When asked the reasoning and process behind this, Vea admits, “Women became the core of the novel quite unexpectedly.” They became a response to the sexual license that men were starting to feel as though they have earned. As Vea points out, men at during this time period (and even in the present day) media has given young men this notion of war being equal to sex. By associating “John Wayne films [and] cowboy movies” (media that depicts war and power struggle) with a romantic plot in which the “hero” wins the girl, young men relate one to the other. In other words, winning the girl means you have won the war.  It becomes the reason why men go to war—the heroism mirrors the media and the romantic notion of winning a girl (reminds you of the song in Mulan, “A Girl Worth Fighting For” doesn’t it?).

It does raise the question, however, of how this relates to the murder of these women. I personally think it’s an attempt at achieving sexual license by committing actions in the reverse: get the girl first in order to win the war. But in doing so the expectations that are associated with each also get swapped.  Originally, the expectation of war is death; the expectation of the girl is glory. Now, the expectation of war is glory; the expectation of the girl is death. It becomes a reclaiming of this new heroism that requires one to murder for the sake of winning the war for the sake of the glory.

 

http://www.weeklywire.com/ww/09-13-99/tw_book.html

Latinos in Vietnam

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Everyone learns, at some point in their life, about the Vietnam War and how it effected not only the soldiers fighting in Vietnam, but the people home in the U.S. Many of us learned how these soldiers were young men, mostly from middle or lower class families and we know how many were African-Americans, a minority that didn’t even have the same rights as other citizens in the U.S. but were still putting their lives at risk for their country. What they failed to tell us, or perhaps what I failed to learn was that many of the soldiers were also Latinos. As I did a bit of research on the internet, I began to get frustrated because non of the links that would pop up would talk about any Latino soldiers. They all failed to mention that Latinos were a part of the war. Finally, I found an interview about Nick Aguilar, a Latino Vietnam Veteran and Laura Varela, the producer/director of the documentary “As Long as I Remember: American Veteranos.” The interview is based on Varela documentary, which is about three Mexican-Americans vets and their stories in Vietnam and what they and the Latino community went through. I have posted the trailer for the documentary and I want you all to notice one thing right at the very beginning of the video, the narrator says ” It’s not my war. It’s not my people’s war…”. A very powerful statement, especially when you learn that Latinos were among the many men that died and suffered from PTSD. Why are their stories not known?

Works Cited:
Burke, Megan, and Maureen Cavanaugh. “Film Explores Legacy Of Vietnam War On Mexican-American Vets.” Film Explores Legacy Of Vietnam War On Mexican-American Vets. KPBS, 10 Apr. 2010. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9R5pKie-HY

Chicano Moratorium

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I found this short film by LMU film student, Thomas Myrdahl very informative. It shows point of views that Chicanos had during the time of the Vietnam War. More specifically, it talks about an event in East Los Angeles, the Chicano Moratorium. This event was held on August 29, 1970. This was a protest against Vietnam. Chicanos were concerned with the struggles they faced. They wanted social justice in the United States. Groups, such as the Brown Berets were formed in order to educate Chicanos about their political and social rights. During this protest, police cars showed up. Police men started beating up and even killing Chicanos. All Chicanos wanted was to stop being oppressed and opportunities for a better education.

Alfredo Vea Responds to Gods Go Begging

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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.