Empire’s Residuals

Abstract

This chapter argues that Ho Chi Minh City (also called Saigon) manifests the contradictory historical processes that shaped the city, once the capital of South Vietnam, into the economic hub it is today. For historical context, it first gives a brief summary of urbanization and class transformation under U.S. military rule in Saigon, especially during the time of Vietnamization, and how this period arguably produced a form of “neocolonialism” as many of its critics claimed which never dissipated after the Americans left. By tracking the migration of overseas Vietnamese or Viet Kieu back to the homeland, we can view the ways global change is localized. Through a cultural geography and ethnographic lens, the chapter involves participant observation and interviews with locals and former exiles. Scholars who write about Ho Chi Minh City today tend to focalize contemporary industrialization and globalization processes as manifestations of state governmental reforms or foreign corporate encroachment. This chapter provides this same focus but make connections between current urbanizing developments to the city’s history of war.