John Benedict B.

Azarcon
ENLIT 12 WW

Globalization and Cultural Tensions in “War Years” by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The short story “War Years” by Viet Thanh Nguyen is a perfect representation of globalization
which depicts the cultural tensions that a boy faces between the American cultural identity he clearly
identifies with and the upbringings of his family’s Vietnamese culture 1 . The boy particularly
experiences a certain degree of deterritorialization when the question of his identity between the socio-
cultural norms of the two contrasting culture began to grow. As a form of defense mechanism with these
different cultural positions, the boy makes his cultural rebellion more explicit by telling the readers that
he prefers to be Americanized. His reaction can be well-understood in the context of American
imperialism, where the relationship between American Culture and Vietnamese culture, being markedly
different from each other, have been put in the politics of social power that puts the American culture,
including its language, above Vietnam’s. This is one of the reasons why the English language even
penetrated his Vietnamese roots, to the point that he hated being in their New Saigon Market because
everybody there speaks Vietnamese only. In this particular place, the New Saigon Market is a perfect
representation of an old culture that the boy is steeped in and may be seen as a type of localization, a
form of opposition or resistance of his parents to the process of globalization that is seen as hegemonic.
This mutually exclusive opposition is exemplified by the idea why the boy’s parents retreat in their New
Saigon Market as their local niche and as a defense against the overruling process of globalization. Thus,
this is a place where most of the Vietnamese community in San Jose go since this place bounds them
by a common culture. However, the boy sees the Vietnamese upbringings of his parent’s local niche as
a burden since he feels more associated with North American values which are more familiar to him.
Despite being surrounded by the food of his home country, he prefers to be immersed on a dominant
American culture which is seen in his high regard of going to school because everybody there speaks
English. Moreover, this is also evident from his fascination in American history and being an avid fan
of Marvel comics, which can be mainly attributed to cultural homogenization, since the local niche he
is a part of is inevitably absorbed by the dominant American culture.

When the boy was asking why the store can’t sell quintessential American products such as TV
dinners and bologna, he pulls himself away from his Vietnamese identity unconsciously. The reaction
of her mother, on the other hand, tells us that she doesn’t feel the need to assimilate into the new
American culture, which even further divides her relationship with the boy. The gap between them may
be explained by their corresponding contexts since the mother clearly remembers their country and the
lives that she had to leave while the boy only merely experiences the consequences of being displaced.
The different experiences of the boy from his parents exacerbates the dilemma of cultural tensions he
faces between the American identity that he prefers to be identified with versus the Vietnamese
upbringings being practiced in his very home and in their local niche. Again, this can be seen when the
boy wants to fight the Communists but his knowledge about the matter was only derived from President
Reagan, the American president of the story’s time setting, whereas his parents actually endured the
fallout of the regime. As the young boy drifts away from his parents’ culture, his sister has already done
so. Instead of adhering to the priorities of their parents regarding what program course study she should
apply in college, she decides to pursue her own passion by taking up Philosophy. Apart from this, the
boy’s apathetic regard on hearing her mom’s haunting story as a nine-year-old girl can be also perceived

1
Thanh Nguyen, Viet, The Refugees: War Years (New York: Grove Press, 2017), 49-72.
as his ignorance on the events that occurred in Vietnam since he was too busy reading his Captain
Marvel comics and taking care his possessions rather than paying attention to the experiences that
actually shaped her mother’s identity.

The boy has also cultural stereotypes instilled in him as a result of growing in America and this
can be particularly seen in the robbery incident. Even though he is Vietnamese, he trusts the voice of a
white man more than he would trust the voice of a Vietnamese person, showing that he exhibits an
internalized bias against his own culture and for the predominant culture in America. The robbery
incident also demonstrates that even after moving into a new country, many refugees still face
extensions of the persecution that they experienced in their home country. This implies that minorities
are being marginalized such as the robber thinking that they can be easily targeted. This can be seen
again when the boy was serving as a translator during the police investigation as he fails to accurately
translate his mother’s concerns, showing his resistance to her and to portray that she is weaker than him.
Along with this incident, the news that broke out regarding unknown assailants who had firebombed a
Vietnamese newspaper editor’s office in Garden Grove, California and another editor who was shot to
death further exposes the struggles that the refugees face: conflict can still follow people around the
globe even after they have left their country and that a displaced community can be so protective of its
own identity to the point that it tries to maintain its attitudes and opinions at all cost as for the case of
Mrs. Hoa. When the boy’s mother refuses to donate money, Mrs. Hoa sees it as an act of rebellion
against their culture and themselves, and so she must work to rectify the situation in order to maintain
a good standing in the community. Even though the boy’s mother has clearly moved on from the horrors
of the war, she soon realizes that Mrs. Hoa is still haunted by the Vietnam War. This proves that even
if someone has migrated to another country, one can still be attached in one’s country or culture as
evident on Mrs. Hoa’s forced attempts on launching another invasion in Vietnam to save her people,
when in fact the communists have already won.

At the end of the story, the mother giving the boy an allowance, as well as saying “Go buy” in
English, shows that she is starting to acknowledge the cultural differences that her son is gaining while
growing up in America as opposed to how she grew up. The mother’s gesture can be viewed as a form
of acculturation, a way of moving out of the past and out of her culture, and inevitably into a future that
is more bent on assimilation into the United States.

References:
Thanh Nguyen, Viet, War Years, The Refugees. New York: Grove Press, 2017.
John Benedict B. Azarcon
ENLIT 12 WW

“E is for Epal” by Paulo Manalo: A Representation of Filipino Attitudes in the Philippine

Context

Selected poems of Manalo’s interval collection “E is for Epal”: Labalot, Epal the Sonnet and
The Sala Set, collectively depict a common Filipino attitude of being “epal”, a Filipino slang word for
annoying or for being an attention seeker1. Paulo Manalo creatively executed his message through the
playful use of English, Tagalog and Taglish enunciated in the Philippines. This is partly the reason why,
compared to other literary texts discussed, the poem as a collection lacked some representations of
globalization since the poems are oriented in the Philippine context. Moreover, the collection
particularly requires a deep understanding of Philippine culture in order to interpret the Philippine
conventional tropes that the poem entails such as the use of various metaphors and metonymy, making
it difficult for a foreign reader to grasp the messages of the poem. Despite this, the poems do possess
some elements of globalization to a certain degree just like all of the literary texts discussed, since
globalization is a complex process and seems to be default precursor already in most of the
contemporary literature.

In the poem Labalot, certain elements of globalization can be observed as evident in the creative
interplay of the English and Tagalog language to describe a Filipino attitude, particularly Overseas
Filipino Workers, of glorifying U.S. as a way of feeling superior among their Filipino counterparts
living in the Philippines. Additionally, the poem has some form of wittiness as observed in the “forced
English” of the OFW persona, to creatively depict how Filipinos romanticize the idea of being in the
U.S., the “yurem pire” or empire, as opposed to the Philippines, the “di land op plod en pire” or the
land of flood and fire 2 . Manalo particularly did this by using words that would sound similar to
substitute to the original orthographic representations of the words used in the poem. For instance, the
title: Labalot, is a substitution of the English word “Love a Lot”, depicting the intensity of the love of
an OFW to his “inaanaks” living in the Philippines by going to abroad and work there in the expense
of their emotional security. However, the real point of the poem is to depict in a mockful way of how
the “epalness” is manifested among OFWs through bending the English and Filipino language to
creatively depict their yearning of superiority by trying to celebrate the idea of colonial mentality. This
is particularly done by giving us a sense that the persona of the poem is trying to assert himself to be an
English speaker, when in fact, he’s clearly more well-versed in speaking in his own native language.
Yet, the poem entertains these errors and say that they are not a mistake and to actually show and point
out that language is sometimes a slum, and is always evolving and vulnerable to dominant languages
such as English. It tries to show conventionally incorrect transliterations of English words for
intentionally disruptive purposes. Consequently, the poem effectively reveals a dark truth of how some
Filipinos relinquish the love of their homeland, a kind of identity that is still existing among OFWs.

Unlike Labalot, the two other poems, Epal the Sonnet and The Sala Set, have even lesser
representations pertaining to globalization since the poems are more situated in the Philippine
milieu. For instance, in Epal the Sonnet, the poem mainly attempts to reiterate “epalness” of Philippine
politicians who commit themselves by putting their names in tarpaulins everywhere particularly in the
slums and by giving false hopes and promises to the masses just to get the votes that they need to win

1
Manalo, Paulo, E is for Epal. (Quezon City: UP Press, 2018).
2
Ibid
the election. This poem especially targets politicians who engage in premature campaigning for image-
building and self-promotion in the Philippines. On the other hand, The Sala Set, which literally means
“the living room”, is an allegory of a common culture of the Philippine middle-class of their try hard
attempts to show that they are rich to other people. Since the living room is the place where visitors
stay, the poem tries to depict the intense desire of the persona, a Filipino, to have an impression of being
wealthy. Due to this, the persona settles himself to a mindset that their living room is their “source of
joy and pride since its newness spread like news to their neighbors”. Yet despite this, the poem depicts
a dark reality behind the scenes that despite of their attempts to look rich to feel a sense of pride, they
are actually full of debt and that their house is at risk of being taken by the bank. In the second stanza,
the playful use of “so what, they’re all inggit”, also points out a common Philippine linguistic and
cultural phenomenon: coño talk. The use of this type of discourse essentially identifies and differentiates
people of power from the common masses, which mainly got its roots from the impact of Spanish and
American colonization. The use of this coño phrase is used as a strategy by the persona of the poem to
give the impression of being privileged socially and economically, even if this is not always the case.
The switching between languages conveys the multiple and complementary identities the persona of
the poem has created for himself. This may be due to the ‘social community’ created by the Filipinos
by taking on the role of stereotype images of colonizers that have exist in the Filipino imagination by
adding a local color to their language discourse. Moreover, the very fact that the The Sala Set is an
elementary school declamation piece is an iconic take that this a story that has transcended throughout
Philippine generations since it is a cyclic story that is commonly observed in the country.

All of the of the three poems which were clearly not resolving to anything reveals the depth of
the Filipino attitude problem: “epalness”. The poems are brilliantly weaved to be structured and
layered with laughs and provocation in the Philippine milieu rather than emphasizing the direct effects
of the overruling globalization. Thus, the underlying messages of the poem as a collection is
distinctively Filipino, and is naturally well-understood by Filipino readers who have the right context.
The effective use of language in the poem creates a mind map for readers by the creative interplay of
English and Filipino that has deliberate purpose of depicting dark realities and attitudes that dominate
in the Philippine context.

References:
Manalo, Paulo. E is for Epal. Quezon City: UP Press, 2018.