Indochinese Adaptation and Local Government Policy: An Example from Monterey

Abstract

Since 1975, many of the approximately 1500 Indochinese refugees (predominately Vietnamese) who resettled in the Monterey Bay area of central California have been working in the local fishing industry. This industry is presently under the control ofa well-established business and occupational community, and is regulated by a four-tiered set of Government institutions: 1) the local harbor commissions; 2) the County boards of supervisors; 3) the state Department of Fish and Game; and 4) the U.S. Department of Commerce. By means of an ethnographic approach, the authors explore the relationship between the refugee community and a set of policy mandates and decisions which operate on the local level around three specific issues: 1) the role of the Indochinese Resettlement Assistance Program in refugee adaptation to the fishing industry; 2) the response of local governmental bodies to the influx oflndochinese into marine activities; and 3) the social and economic stresses among the Indochinese caused by the transfer of the fishing cultural ecologic system to the U.S. context, and the potential role of various agencies in mitigating those stresses. Much of the basis for the conflict which the appearance of the Indochinese has engendered is due to differing cultural perceptions and conflicting value orientations; ethnographic analysis is a useful tool in both assuaging conflict and in developing rational local-level policy adapted to the needs of both refugees and host groups.