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Cover Girl: A Gift from God

A gift from God, she possesses the uncanny ability to sing in perfect Vietnamese. She mimics its beautiful cadences and difficult tones and imbues the songs with her very unique signature melancholy style. Dalena is a blond-haired, blue-eyed, all-American white woman who is also a Vietnamese American pop star. The video resists a simple dismissal of Dalena as yet another instance of cultural appropriation by focusing attention on the complex reception of Dalena by Vietnamese American fans. Using clips from music videos, concert performances, and actual interviews, I suggest that within the context of Vietnamese American musical production and consumption, a context marked by a recycling of a pre-1975 musical repertoire, the novelty and innovation of the star-text "Dalena" allow overseas Vietnamese music fans to negotiate the pressures of assimilation and reflects their desire to preserve a memory of what it means to be Vietnamese while living in America.