About the book: The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars
Book discussion led by Dean of Liberal Arts Stephen Joseph
Thursday, April 13 from 12:45-2:00PM
Here’s the link to join the discussion virtually:
https://meet.goto.com/837139813
Once wealthy landowners, Thong Van Pham’s family was shattered by the tumultuous events of the twentieth century: the festering French occupation of Indochina, the Japanese invasion during World War II, and the Vietnam War.
Told in dazzling chapters that alternate between events in the past and those closer to the present, The Eaves of Heaven brilliantly re-creates the trials of everyday life in Vietnam as endured by one man, from the fall of Hanoi and the collapse of French colonialism to the frenzied evacuation of Saigon. Pham offers a rare portal into a lost world as he chronicles Thong Van Pham’s heartbreaks, triumphs, and bizarre reversals of fortune, whether as a South Vietnamese soldier pinned down by enemy fire, a prisoner of the North Vietnamese under brutal interrogation, or a refugee desperately trying to escape Vietnam after the last American helicopter has abandoned Saigon. This is the story of a man caught in the maelstrom of twentieth-century politics.
About the author- Andrew X. Pham
Andrew X. Pham trained and graduated from UCLA as an aerospace engineer. He worked at United Airlines as an aircraft engineer before switching career to become a writer while pursuing dual graduate degrees, M.B.A and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, specializing in orbital debris. His brother's suicide was the catalyst in his pivotal life changing decision. He writes and lives on the Thai-Laos border in a traditional wooden farm bungalow he built on the Mekong River. He teaches writing and occasionally lead bicycle tours in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. He is the author of Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam (1999) and The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars (2009). He is also the translator of Last Night I Dreamed of Peace (2008).
Virtual visit to the Japanese American National Museum
AND
Q & A Session with a survivor of a
World War II Japanese Internment Camp
Tuesday, April 4 @ 12:45PM
Here's the link to attend:
The Japanese American National Museum is located in Los Angeles, California, and dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. The virtual object-based guide visual presentation will chronologically explore the Japanese American experience, beginning in the late 1800s with the early days of the Issei (first generation pioneers) and continuing through the World War II incarceration, post-war resettlement, and the redress movement.
Manzanar National Historic Site today
