Remembering Musical Childhoods in Vietnam

This book offers an in-depth exploration of the childhood musical experiences of Vietnamese elders, providing a unique lens on the intersections between identity, culture, and music education. Centering the stories of five Vietnamese Americans and one Vietnamese person who grew up in Vietnam between 1931 and 1975, the author considers the role that each individual’s childhood musical experiences played in their life as they were impacted by war, political movements, and immigrant and refugee experiences. The book adds a new perspective to research on the global music practices of children by exploring music transmission and repertoire in Vietnam in the context of political unrest and colonialism before and during the Vietnam War. It also explores the evolution of the personal meanings and memories of music over a period of drastic change in each individual’s life, as five of six elders transitioned into a life in the United States.

This book provides both an act of cultural and musical preservation, and relevant implications for music education today. Situating the children’s songs and games of Vietnamese culture in their original context, the author invites those in the field of music education to consider how lived experiences and entrenched systems of teaching affect music learning and identity formation. The volume includes a selection of Vietnamese children’s songs, games, chants, and musicopoetic lullabies (ca dao), offering ways to enrich music educators’ world music curricula. Relevant to music education, ethnomusicology, and Asian American studies, this book provides a nuanced account of Vietnamese children’s music making of the past and presents an analysis of childhood musical experiences in a wider cultural, sociopolitical, and historical context.