Honors Professor Dr. Steven Dike and His Experience in Vietnam Last Summer
I saw online that you specialize in US History and “labor and working class history, intellectual history, cultural history, the history of Puerto Rico, and the history of poverty in America.” Can you tell us more about your research/studies?
I’ve taken the scenic route as a historian. I started out studying the history of the working class and of the labor movement, of radical workers and their political movements. I wrote my dissertation about a cultural anthropologist, Oscar Lewis, who coined the phrase “culture of poverty.” His most popular book, La Vida… is about poverty in Puerto Rico and the problem of colonialism. That was my introduction to Puerto Rico, which is sometimes called “the world’s oldest colony.” And I’ve also been interested ever since in the history of cultural anthropology.
But it turns out that when it comes to teaching there’s only limited interest in any of that. So I began teaching classes about the history of warfare and the history of the Vietnam Wars. People love classes about war! My graduate adviser, who also writes about the history of poverty and poverty policy, used to joke that he was going to add “And WAR!” to the end of the titles of all his courses. It turns out I love teaching classes about war. And that’s where I’ve wound up doing most of my teaching and research for the last several years. Hence my recent trip to Vietnam.
This semester I’m teaching African American History for the first time. It’s very important and fascinating too and I’m spending a lot of time reading new things and re-reading old favorites to teach it. Maybe I should just change my bio to read Jack of all Trades, Master of None.
What is your favorite part about working in the Honors program?
I really like working in Honors and the Honors Residential Academic Program because we have small classes with students who like discussing interesting ideas. I enjoy the activities with students–movies, coffee hours, and so forth. I even like going to HRAP’s formal dance every spring.
I heard you went to Vietnam last summer. Can you tell us about that experience? What were your biggest takeaways?
Oh do I have photos–hundreds of them. I’ve attached one here that I think is my favorite and that I’m using for the opening of the symposium I’m giving in HRAP this spring about my trip. It’s taken in Hanoi, in Ba Dinh Square outside of Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. In September 1945 Ho read Vietnam’s Declaration of Independence there. It’s an important historical place in Vietnam. The kids in the picture came up to me as I was taking some photos of the mausoleum and asked if they could practice their English with me. This is a common thing in Vietnam; kids get assigned to do this by their teachers, and when tourists are at the major attractions they will often be asked by schoolkids to speak for a little while. Americans are a relatively small percentage of the foreign tourists in Vietnam, so sometimes people are a little surprised to meet one. The girl in the center with the glasses had the best English. She told me that she “wants to be a polyglot,” which I think is a pretty impressive goal for someone her age. We talked for about a half an hour about many things, such as how rapidly Vietnam is changing, and how some people in more traditional areas like her home province of Ninh Binh feel uncertainty about the pace of change. She told me that she has a theory that Ho’s body in the mausoleum may be fake. I assured her that it’s really Ho Chi Minh in there. I taught them that Americans tell everyone to say “Cheese!” when they take a picture and they thought that was pretty funny.
As a historian I spent almost my whole trip in museums and other historical sites. I was interested in how Vietnam tells the stories of their own history, of French colonialism and their war against France, and of their war against the United States. It was certainly fascinating for me. I remember seeing a fellow American tourist really upset in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) because he found the exhibits so offensive. The museums in Vietnam do not hesitate to call the United States the aggressor in our war there and to claim much of what we did as war crimes. This does not sit well with many Americans.
I guess I have a somewhat detached view of it as an academic. I was more interested in the selectivity of the history. For instance most of my students are surprised when they read the opening of Vietnam’s Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” But in Vietnam’s current public memory of their independence, the invocation of America’s Declaration of Independence doesn’t exist. Quotations from the document alongside statues of Ho Chi Minh are plain statements such as “Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country.” Another selective piece of history: in the telling of the history of Vietnam’s wars against France and the United States, the fact that China gave massive assistance to Vietnam is almost never mentioned. Vietnam has been at odds with China for almost its entire history, and is so again.
Outside of research, what were your favorite parts of the country?
The other takeaway I have from my trip is that Vietnam is a beautiful country and pictures never do it justice. Everyone had told me that you have to see it for yourself, and that turns out to be true. The city of Hue and the surrounding countryside is almost achingly pretty. Similarly, I went to Dien Bien Phu mostly to see firsthand where one of the most important battles of the 20th century took place. But I hadn’t anticipated how gorgeous the place would be. Me being a nose to the grindstone academic I took not nearly enough time to see the natural beauty of the country. If I ever go back that’s ALL I’m doing.
The other takeaway? Food. I knew that I would eat some really good Vietnamese food, and I did. I had pho almost every day, bun cha, spring rolls, chicken and rice dishes, banh mi, lots of Vietnamese coffee, and all of it was consistently delicious. What I had not anticipated was how good other food would be there. I was in Hanoi looking for restaurants and found a pizza place with amazing google reviews. So I went in and had maybe the best pizza I’ve ever eaten in my life outside of Italy (and it may even have been as good). I had the best Japanese food I’ve ever eaten while in Ho Chi Minh City, one of the best cheeseburgers I’ve ever had in Hue. The food in Vietnam is GOOD.
One last recommendation–if you ever go to Vietnam, download the GRAB app and see the cities from the back of a motorbike while a local does the driving. It’s cheap and fun!