“The connection became so much more visceral when I was confronted with the primary sources, the documents and archival footage and living veterans who attended, told their stories.”
The Waging Peace in Vietnam exhibit, companion book, and website were created to increase understanding of the GI Movement and encourage scholars and students to include it in their writing and teaching.
This is why, as much as possible, we are touring the exhibit on university campuses and why we wrote the companion book. We continue to receive enthusiastic and appreciative responses to this exhibit strategy from activists and antiwar Vietnam veterans as we travel the country.
In Washington, DC, we decided to add an essay contest to our outreach efforts to encourage students to take a closer look and reflect on what they have learned by viewing the exhibit and/or reading the book. We included an essay contest and a documentary film contest in our events in North Carolina, and an essay contest is on the agenda at our upcoming week at Sonoma State University’s Social Justice Week.
Some Veterans For Peace chapters have helped to support this effort by offering $500 prizes for the best essays on the subject of “The Waging Peace in Vietnam Exhibit: What it Means to Me and Lessons for Today.”
Our first contest, held at George Washington University, asked for essays between 650 and 1,200 words. Current and future essays are calling for shorter op-ed size essays of 400 to 650 words.
The winning essay from GWU, by Zaynab Quadri closes with a compelling summary:
“The Vietnam War is a fraught but essential human story. This exhibition provided a rich, provocative, and deeply moving opportunity to remember both the horror we are capable of inflicting on one another, and our simultaneous potential to empathize across time and borders, and grapple with what kind of world we might create, if only we are wise and brave enough to create it.”
Ms Quadri is a fourth year graduate PhD candidate in American Studies at GWU. She was presented the award by Linda Yarr, the Director of GWU’s Partnerships for International Strategies in Asia. And, the prize money was provided by Veterans For Peace Chapter 34.
We look forward to sharing future works and encourage you to visit our site again to read these prize-winning reaction pieces as they are unveiled.