They're also reading criticism of how the war is portrayed. Oral history projects with Vietnam veterans and refugees account for 40 percent of the grade. The Vietnam War offers a rare opportunity to look at history, Ottaway said. Unlike other wars, this one is recent enough that students can talk with actual participants. Yet the war has been over for a quarter of a century.
Memories are likely to have changed over time.
This class gives students an opportunity compare history that is personal with history that is academic. And it provides mortar between the bricks of generations. As a child, Lo often heard his grandfather tell stories about how he worked on Air America, heaving bags of rice over the side of airplanes to people waiting on the ground. One of his earliest memories is playing with the children of his sponsor family, who treated him as if he were their own. He didn't think about what his parents and grandparents had left.