Maya Ying Lin Memorial Summary

Imagine arriving back home after fighting in a foreign war and being spat on. All of the hard work and treachery that just ended with the war turned out to continue after it was over. During the 1960s-1970s, American soldiers fought in the Vietnam War. When the soldiers arrived back home after the war, they were looked down upon and were never truly honored for their dedication and sacrifice. Nearly 58,000 service men and women went missing or died in Vietnam, and were never properly honored until ten years after the war. In 1980, a competition was held to design a memorial to honor all of those who died or went missing during the harsh, foreign war. The winner of the design contest was a twenty-one year old young woman, named Maya Ying …show more content…
Maya Lin had a very specific idea for the memorial. After visiting the National Mall in Washington D.C., she decided that she wanted to create a horizontal figure that embraced its spectators. The names would be engraved into black granite, so that visitors could reach out and touch the names of departed or missing loved ones or friends. By choosing black granite, the memorial would stand out from the other memorials in the Mall, while representing the connection between the dead and the living. She wanted the memorial to be unique and attract attention, yet didn’t want it to disturb the peace of the park. Lastly, she wanted the memorial to be a place where the dead and the missing could be remembered. This further explains Maya Ying Lin’s vision for the memorial because she describes in the text how she wants the memorial to look. It also describes how she wanted it to impact the people admiring it and how it should relate to the surrounding area. Lin wanted the memorial to remind people of the loss of the Vietnam War, but not take away from the peaceful feeling of the mall at Washington