TY - JOUR T1 - “Fruit of Violence”: The Subaltern Refugee and the Intersection of Oppressions in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous AU - Eren, Fatma PY - 2022 DA - November JF - Journal of American Studies of Turkey JO - JAST PB - American Studies Association of Turkey (ASAT) WT - DergiPark SN - 1300-6606 SP - 23 EP - 44 IS - 56 LA - en AB - This article examines Ocean Vuong’s semi-autobiographicalnovel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by focusing on how the oppressions of race, gender, class, and sexuality overlap for the Vietnameserefugees and immigrants in America. Among many difficulties, manyVietnamese lives are marked by the intergenerational transmission ofemotional pain, and it deterred parents from forming a healthy relationship with their offsprings. As a queer, second-generation VietnameseAmerican writer, Vuong is raised in a toxic household since he is subjected to physical and emotional abuse of his war traumatized mother.On Earth, written in epistolary form, offers a glimpse into the many-layered anxieties, insecurities of Vuong’s family and reveals howthe legacy of the Vietnam War still pervades their life in all spheres inAmerica. His narrative, “as a line of communication,” is a significantstep towards liberating the women in his family from the subalternstatus. Speaking from the terrain of otherness and rejecting castrationby the forces that victimized his mother and grandmother, Vuong alsoproves that it is possible to transform the resentment he harbors intosomething fruitful, and anger can be instrumental in reconciliation andhealing. KW - The Vietnam War KW - Ocean Vuong KW - Vietnamese American KW - Trauma KW - the Subaltern CR - Aguilar-San Juan, Karin. Little Saigons: Staying Vietnamese in America. 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