Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Imagining Saigon: American Interpretations Of Saigon In The Twentieth Century, Evan Cordulack

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Saigon has occupied an important place in the American imagination. Captivated by its French colonial past, a diverse array of American writers romanticized the city's "tree-lined streets" as the "Paris of the East" and the "Pearl of the Orient." as the United States extended its influence in Vietnam over the course of the twentieth Century, culminating during the 1960s, Saigon experienced America's growing presence. Americans composed photographs and writings, both personal and published, to make sense of the changing city and the changing public opinion of the war. The juxtaposition of American-occupied French colonial architecture with the visual manifestations of …