Ho Chi Minh: A Leader for Vietnam and a Legacy of Unification

Kiera Peterson
Senior Division
Individual Website

Why did I chose this topic:

The theme this year is leadership and legacy, so when I went to choose a topic, I
wanted to choose a person who was not commonly thought as a leader in the United
States. I began to talk to my parents and history teacher about who they believed would
be an unusual person in history to create a presentation on. The Vietnam War came into
the conversation I thought that Ho Chi Minh would be an interesting because of his
ability to combine his communist and nationalist beliefs. Lastly, I decided display my
research from the perspective of the Vietnamese people after receiving the idea from my
history teacher.

How I conducted my research:

When I began to conduct my research I gathered twenty-three secondary sources,
such as a book named Vietnam. This book explained why there was an excerpt of the
U.S. Declaration of Independence in the Vietnamese Declaration. Next, I collected
sixteen primary sources that were all pictures and letters written by Ho Chi Minh that I
found on the national archives. After gathering these sources, I went back and reviewed
them a second time so that I was able to have a better idea about who Ho Chi Minh was
as a person and a leader. In addition, I met with a college professor to discuss Ho Chi
Minh and found some interviews online with several historians. Once all of the research
was collected, I was able to start creating the website.

How I created and developed my exhibit:

When I began to create my website, I started out by making a layout of what I
wanted it to look like on a sheet of paper. After I finished my layout, I began to write my
thesis and started to create my 21 pages. While inserting information, I documented all of
the words that were my own for the word count. Later, I decided to add several primary
source pictures of Ho Chi Minh, a short video clip about him, and an interactive map
about the war into my website. Then, I checked to make sure I did not exceed the media
requirement. While creating my website, I had to go back and add more sources to my
bibliography. Finally, I inserted my bibliography and process paper to the website to
finish the project.

How my project relates to the theme:

The topic of my project was Ho Chi Minh and his influence before, during, and
after the Vietnam War. For this project, the category was leadership and legacy. Ho Chi
Minh was a man who provided hope to the people of Vietnam. When Minh grew up, he
was very involved politically and used his experience to help to achieve his goal: to gain
independence for Vietnam and to unify the country. Ho Chi Minh will always be
remembered as a great leader and hero to all of the Vietnamese people.

(Word Count: 469)