Vietnam in the American Mind from the Colonial Era through the 1950s

The first Americans arriving in an official capacity in Saigon in 1955 waded into a complex legacy of colonialism, war, and sex. Long before the first ground forces settled into their barracks in Saigon, Americans already perceived Vietnam and its people through a colonial lens. After more than sixty years of rule under the French beginning in 1887, a world war under the Japanese Empire, and the return of French colonizers in 1945, Vietnam found itself again in a state of transition. When the French returned with financial backing from the United States earmarked to fend off global decolonization, they