And the Research Begins…

In Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, the author Chizu Omori from the Northwest Asian Weekly newspaper based in Seattle, Washington discusses the documentary based on Maya Lin and her life and career as an architect. Though the article is brief it discusses some interesting topics. Omori praises Lin for being a strong Asian American woman with “a spine of steel”, which may be eluding to the fact that the young Lin faced many who opposed her design, but also leads one to believe that the Asian American community was proud of her accomplishments.

Although I found it interesting that the article praises her for breaking down preconceived notions of Asian American women, I focused more Maya Lin’s intention for the Vietnam Memorial. She discusses that her goal was for people to cry, in other words, the design of the memorial was to cleanse the soul of the grief and pain that accompany’s war. Though this does not answer my research question, it provides me with the first paint strokes on the picture I am trying to paint of what her intentions were with the design.

After reading the article I was intrigued by the documentary. And I searched for it on YouTube. There I found a short (poorly edited) YouTube video that showcases some parts of the documentary A Strong Clear Vision, which can be viewed  by following this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjhOvutbXw. Now my next step in my research is to search for the reaction of Vietnam Veterans and why they found the memorial so offensive or not. Now I’m asking myself why they didn’t see Maya Lin’s purpose what made them view it as negative or positive.