The large-scale redistribution of land, which was taken from wealthy landowners and given to landless peasants, by the North Vietnamese government from 1954 onwards. Although millions of rural peasants benefited from the program, it was implemented through repression and violence: the government killed several thousand landlords during the redistribution process. During the Land Reforms, the North Vietnamese government expropriates and redistributes Bố’s grandmother’s land in the family village near Hải Phòng. She forever remembers the fear and danger she endured at the time.
The Land Reforms Quotes in The Best We Could Do
The The Best We Could Do quotes below are all either spoken by The Land Reforms or refer to The Land Reforms. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5
Quotes
Every casualty in war is someone’s grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, brother, sister, child, lover.
In the decade of the First Indochina War, while my parents were still children learning their place in the world…
…an estimated 94,000 French soldiers died trying to reclaim France’s colony.
Three to four times as many Vietnamese died fighting them or running away from them.
This was the human cost of ending France’s colonial rule in Southeast Asia…
…and winning Việt Nam’s independence.
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Explanation and Analysis:
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The Land Reforms Term Timeline in The Best We Could Do
The timeline below shows where the term The Land Reforms appears in The Best We Could Do. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5: Either, Or
...conformity of the North, Bố wants to return to Sài Gòn in the South. Plus, the land reforms mean his grandmother will lose her property—and the whole family could be killed. Bố and...
(full context)
Chapter 7: Heroes and Losers
...families’ complicity in the war. Teachers start disappearing, and Bố’s grandmother worries, since she remembers the land reforms .
(full context)
