The cultural adaption and integration of diasporas: a qualitative study of the Vietnamese community in Australia

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore the national identity that Vietnamese diasporas have conserved and developed within the Australian multicultural society. This research conducted a qualitative study whose data were collected through 7 in-depth interviews with 1 male officer living in Western Australia, 1 male officer living in South Australia, 1 female officer living in New South Wales, 1 female overseas student living in Victoria, 1 female officer living in Victoria for less 1 year, and 2 female officers living in Victoria for between 1 and 5 years. The data were analysed using content analysis themes development. Data were collected between February 2022 and March 2022. Three themes that emerged from the data were language barrier, cultural differences, and ideological differences. The cultural adaption and integration of Vietnamese diasporas from other occupations interpreted into several positive outcomes, including spreading the Vietnamese cultural image. However, a number of unfavorable outcomes are also indicated in the data such as ideological conflicts. Through purpose-sampling technique, this article also discuss about the experience within the early Vietnamese community in Australian multicultural society in relation to the acculturation strategy of Vietnamese diasporas. Increasingly, the Vietnamese comprises of various origin, professional training, and regional culture. The findings make an effort to inform the policy-maker and administrator in community focus on the growing reality of mobility in the population of North Vietnamese overseas students and professionals. Since data was collected from the early Vietnamese diasporas as well as from the current Vietnamese diasporas, this article looks forward to providing a different viewpoint from previous studies which largely focused on the cultural adaption and integration of only one-way process (the early Vietnamese diasporas or the current Vietnamese diasporas).