Cultural Exchange

A hallmark of the center's work has been its commitment to exploring issues of culture and cultural understanding. A primary tenet of the center has been the belief that this type of study is central to any work in studying causes and consequences of war. From its initial invitation for Vietnamese writers to attend its writers workshop, to its work in translating the poems contained in the notebooks of the Captured Document Collection, to work in organizing the first exhibit of Vietnamese and American artists with the Indochina Arts Project, to co-sponsoring the first conference of veteran writers from the U.S. and Vietnam, to working with the Harvard-Yenching Institute to bring English teachers from Vietnam to the university's Masters in Bilingual Education program, to organizing its Vietnam Today or Rockefeller Fellowship Programs, the center's focus has been fixed on the importance of cultural understanding and cultural exchange.

Recent initiatives include hosting a U.S. State Department sponsored visit of twelve younger writers from Vietnam on a study tour of the U.S.; initiating with the U.S. State Department a Joiner Fellows Program, bringing writers from Northern Ireland, Vietnam, Rwanda, and Bosnia to the U.S for three month residencies, publications of bilingual poetry collections through Curbstone press, and recent or special upcoming issues of Manoa and the Irish journal, Cyphers.