$1000 more to publish DVAN book on Southeast Asian Women’s Art and Lit

The Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN, our parent organization) needs your support to publish its anthology of Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora, Troubling Borders: Literature and Art by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora.

DVAN needs to raise $1,000 in the next 25 days to match a grant from anonymous donor on OneVietnam (http://onevietnam.org/dvan ). With this amount, DVAN will finish financing the high cost of publishing over 60 color images of artworks by Southeast Women in the Diaspora.

DVAN and the anthology’s four editors–Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Lan Duong, Mariam Lam and Kathy Nguyen–outreached to the community. They selected and edited the best works of women who trace their ancestry to Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia, Burma/Myanmar, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei or East Timor. They also reached out to ethnic minorities from Southeast Asia, namely ethnic Chinese and Indians, the Mien, Hmong, and Cham.

DVAN recently received a book contract with the University of Washington Press. This will be the first book about Southeast Asian women to be taught in universities in the country. It will inspire, empower and unify future generations of Southeast Asian women American and show the connections between us.

Anada Yoeu Ali, Palimpsest for Generation 1.5, 2010

The scope of the manuscript is large and unique. The final manuscript totaled over two hundred pages from sixty-one contributors, mostly based in the United States but also a few from abroad. It has 63 color images of artworks, which is rare for anthologies. The editors regard these images as an integral part of the stories.

These voices and visions are important. Despite their strong presence in our society, Southeast Asians remain underrepresented. Women are even less represented and therefore problems of patriarchy and sexism tend to be overlooked. As it fills this gap, the anthology counters degrading stereotypes of Southeast Asian women as dragon ladies, prostitutes, and “bar girls.”  Together, the poems, stories and artworks make visible the enormous ruptures caused by colonization, wars, globalization, and militarization.  They reflect upon the ways that women negotiate with the past, form and reform fluid identities, as well as sustain memory and imagination in their present lives.

Kou Vang, Letter from Laos, 2008

Troubling Borders is DVAN and the four editors’ gift to the Southeast Asian American community. The goal is to deepen public opinion and understanding about who we are as people from Southeast Asia, while establishing a firm presence in academia. The hope is that this book will inspire future generations of women artists and students to articulate their own voices through essays, poetry, and visual art…and be proud of who we are.

To help DVAN complete its final stretch of fundraising for the anthology and not lose its matching grant donation of $1,500, please go to OneVietnam website http://onevietnam.org/dvan 

Click the big blue “Fund this organization” button, enter a dollar amount, and your credit card number. There are even some rewards for donating to DVAN’s matching grant campaign. This is the chance, if you do not have it yet, for your name to be listed in the acknowledgements section of the anthology (for $50).

Vi Ly, Box of Water, 2008

OneVietnam is the brainchild of very energetic young people whose aim is to use social networking to build a collective mass of people to work for Vietnamese interests. You can join the OneVietnam network, too, and meet such people. OneVietnam’s fundraising campaign is designed to help a group of worthwhile community organizations with established track records raise more money and visibility.

Thank you so much for your support.

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