RIPENING BANANAS: A CASE STUDY OF INTERGENERATIONAL CONFLICTS WITHIN THE VIETNAMESE DIASPORA IN CZECHIA

What is it about?

To show the nature of the inter-generational conflicts within the Vietnamese diaspora living in the Czech Republic (CR), the chapter analyzes four main areas of these conflicts, i.e., disputes between children and their parents over education and future career, the children’s intimate relationships and choice of marital partner, and following the Vietnamese traditions of the 1.5 and second-generations of the diaspora. Also the endless efforts of the first-generation Vietnamese to maintain the good reputation of the family in the diaspora is depicted as aditional source of inter-generational conflicts. The analytical data were collected through participant observation in four families over a period of three years, and through semi-structured interviews with 20 members of the second-generation and 19 members of first-generation. The chapter also shows that those conflicts, together with the racist/xenophobic attitudes of the society at large, are the main agents in the identity formation of the 1.5 and second-generation Vietnamese living in CR. It argues that, as a result of those antipodal identity-making agents, the identity of the young Vietnamese living in the CR is articulated as an exclusive cultural identity located somewhere in between the Czech and Vietnamese socio-cultural environments.

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