Week 4 - Harry Manacsa

Second-wave Vietnamese immigrants brought their mediumship to the U.S., but they could not bring props and talents. Local academics and residents regarded the practices as primitive, and Vietnamese officials developed a negative attitude back home. Moreover, mediums and followers that persisted onward encountered competition and exploitation from one another, both in the U.S. and Vietnam. It seems that the second-wave marks an international paradigm shift, and an entire subculture to Len Dong practices develops. It is no longer about continuing tradition, but finding ways in cassette tapes, Vietnamese imports, and garnering U.S. followers to proliferate it. This change resonates with other immigration stories, mainly religious persecutions. Fjielstad laments that when people are under the stresses of day-to-day life, religion is pinned lower on our priorities. Military violence in Syria prompts droves of refugees outward, which leads to an abandonment of their cultural norms for survival. Once in France, for example, recent legislative attempts tried to ban burqas and head dresses; this prompted a social-media subculture to educate the youth on Islamic culture and promote cultural tolerance. But some people in academia want to extend this online revolution into classrooms. This firstly requires acknowledgement of shamans as potentially scientific mediators capable of teaching us knowledge not obtainable in reality. Broomfield argues that this will birth new fields of research. However, he does provide anecdotes from his journey with an “eagle” to demonstrate the intriguing mystery of shamanic rituals. If the public became aware of these stories, especially those of spirits guiding immigrants in the second-wave, then perhaps we may diminish the stigmas that challenge mediums and shamans in their work today.

Question: What tents of practices like shamanism make it “absurd”? Is there really a set guideline from which we adhere to judge such practices?

Chua An Lac Buddhist Temple in San Jose, CA

Works Cited:

Broomfield, John. "“We Are Not Alone” The Shamans Of The World Tell Us."Collective

Evolution. N.p., 14 Nov. 2015. Web. 22 Apr. 2017.

Fjelstad, Karen, and ThiÌ£ HieÌ‚Ì€n. Nguyễn. Possessed by the Spirits: Mediumship in

Contemporary Vietnamese Communities. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia Program Publications, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell U, 2006. Print.

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