Vietnamese Refugees Research Articles

Этапы вьетнамской миграции в США во второй половине XX века

An analysis of the Vietnamese migration to the United States in the second half of the 20th century was carried out in this paper. Vietnamese migration is largely a result of US involvement in the Vietnam War. After reunification of the country, Vietnamese refugees fled the country due to political and religious persecution and were resettled in the United States through international resettlement programs.

The Emergence of Chinese Popular Music in Vietnamese Lyrics (nhc Hoa li Vit), 1979-1995

This paper studies the cultural phenomenon of nhc Hoa li Vit, a (sub)genre of nhc Vng music that blends Chinese melodies with Vietnamese lyrics which first gained prominence among the Vietnamese diaspora in the 1980s. The paper traces the historical and cultural origins of nhc Hoa li Vit in translations and adaptations of Chinese popular music, outlining three major historical periods. The first period spanning from 1979-1986, encompasses the genres emergence in Vietnamese refugee communities following the Sino-Vietnamese War, influenced by the popularity of Cantonese wuxia TV dramas. The second period from 1986-1995 marks the genres commercial flourishing due to the i mi policy. The final period after 1995 marks the fundamental transformation of the genre following the normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam, when, energized by the possibility of returning to Vietnam, nhc Hoa li Vit shed the final vestiges of the melancholic and sentimental style it inherited from wartime nhc Vng and became its own genre. This paper examines the importance of nhc Hoa li Vit in shaping the Vietnamese exiled identity and analyzes how the practice of translation allowed the diasporic community to give expression to its refugee experience. The paper helps uncover a new kind of musical fusion that developed from an exiled culture in a transpacific context.

The Emergence of Chinese Popular Music in Vietnamese Lyrics (nhc Hoa li Vit), 1979-1995

This paper studies the cultural phenomenon of nhc Hoa li Vit, a (sub)genre of nhc Vng music that blends Chinese melodies with Vietnamese lyrics which first gained prominence among the Vietnamese diaspora in the 1980s. The paper traces the historical and cultural origins of nhc Hoa li Vit in translations and adaptations of Chinese popular music, outlining three major historical periods. The first period spanning from 1979-1986, encompasses the genres emergence in Vietnamese refugee communities following the Sino-Vietnamese War, influenced by the popularity of Cantonese wuxia TV dramas. The second period from 1986-1995 marks the genres commercial flourishing due to the i mi policy. The final period after 1995 marks the fundamental transformation of the genre following the normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam, when, energized by the possibility of returning to Vietnam, nhc Hoa li Vit shed the final vestiges of the melancholic and sentimental style it inherited from wartime nhc Vng and became its own genre. This paper examines the importance of nhc Hoa li Vit in shaping the Vietnamese exiled identity and analyzes how the practice of translation allowed the diasporic community to give expression to its refugee experience. The paper helps uncover a new kind of musical fusion that developed from an exiled culture in a transpacific context.

‘That is where the similarity ends’: refugee policies, communities, and connections between Cubans and Vietnamese

ABSTRACT This article explores US Cold War refugee policies toward Cubans and Vietnamese, as well as moments of connection between both communities in the United States. First, it identifies the legal and political scaffolding on which US government officials admitted and resettled Cuban and then Vietnamese refugees, since these bureaucracies often viewed Vietnamese refugees in light of, and in contrast to, their Cuban predecessors. Secondly, it explores diasporic connections, reflections, and refractions, highlighting where each community’s experience mirrored one another, differed, or directly crossed. These diasporic recognitions and misrecognitions demonstrate how Cold War refugee policy and politics played out on the ground through the often-unanticipated political actions of the Cuban and Vietnamese communities themselves.

Indonesia as a Transit State in Handling Overseas Refugees from the Aspect of Immigration Policy

Indonesia is a key transit country for refugees in Southeast Asia, particularly for those aiming to reach Australia. Despite not having ratified the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, Indonesia continues to see an increasing number of refugees due to global geopolitical conditions. This increase is not matched by a corresponding increase in refugee absorption quotas by Convention countries. Consequently, Indonesia faces a significant challenge as the number of incoming and transiting refugees exceeds those leaving. The successful handling of Vietnamese refugees over a period of almost 25 years now seems difficult to replicate, with only 13% of foreign refugees and asylum seekers resolving their cases through resettlement or repatriation since 2004. This study aims to analyze Indonesia's immigration policies and their effectiveness in managing the current and uncertain future of foreign refugees. By examining these policies, the study seeks to understand the measures taken by the Indonesian government to address the challenges posed by its position as a transit country.

Exploring Refugee Crises: A Comparative Study of US Withdrawals from Vietnam and Afghanistan

The refugee crisis is a recurring consequence of the long-term conflict and political turmoil. This research aimed to study and compare the refugee crisis resulting from the U.S. involvement in the complex political dynamics of both Vietnam and Afghanistan. The study analyzes the causes, reactions and impacts of these refugee crises and gives insights into the complexity of the displacement and international response. The qualitative research design focused on content analysis. Books, academic papers and reports are used as data sources. The framework of realist and forced migration theory was applied to identify the root causes of the refugee crisis in Vietnam and Afghanistan, allowing comparative analysis. The study examined the US military’s involvement in the refugee crisis since 1975 in Vietnam, highlighting its impact on refugees and host communities. The US’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 led to the Taliban’s takeover, increasing Afghan refugee numbers and posing political tensions and security risks. In Vietnam, an estimated 2 million and in Afghanistan, an estimated 1 million refugees fled the country after the withdrawal due to push and pull factors. The Vietnam and Afghanistan refugee crises share similarities, but they have significant differences. Vietnamese refugees primarily fled by sea, while Afghans used land, air, and sea routes. Vietnamese refugees settled in Southeast Asia and the US, while Afghan refugees sought asylum in various countries. The U.S. government’s policy response to refugees exhibited a mix of welcome and skepticism, influenced by Vietnam’s strategic importance during the Cold War. The study recommended enhancing international cooperation, prioritizing humanitarian aid, implementing comprehensive refugee policies, promoting conflict prevention, enhancing resettlement programs, addressing socioeconomic factors, raising awareness, combating stigma, strengthening legal frameworks, investing in education, and learning from past experiences to address refugee crises.

Archipelago of Resettlement: Vietnamese Refugee Settlers and Decolonization Across Guam and Israel-Palestine. By Evelyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi, University of California Press, 2022, 266 pp.

Archipelago of Resettlement: Vietnamese Refugee Settlers and Decolonization Across Guam and Israel-Palestine. By Evelyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi, University of California Press, 2022, 266 pp.

Heroic Vulnerability and the Vietnamese Refugee Experience in Thi Bui’s The Best We Could Do

Autographics illustrating refugee and migrant experiences are frequently published, proof of the power of comics to engage with representations of trauma and vulnerability. Thi Bui’s graphic memoir The Best We Could Do tells the story of the author and her family as “boat people”, before and after migrating from Việt Nam to the US in the so-called second “wave” of refugees (1978–1980). If, as Judith Butler argues, vulnerable lives are more grievable when exposed and acknowledged, then self-representation of vulnerable lives might offer a site of resistance against precarity. Thi Bui’s graphic memoir is no exception, since she deals with common themes in Vietnamese American literature such as PTSD, inherited family trauma or everyday bordering, inscribing herself and her family in the counterhistory of the US regarding the Vietnam War, while also addressing themes and motifs recurrent in Asian American comics. The author follows a thematic concern present in Vietnamese American narratives, which tends to present the refugee experience from a heroic perspective, but this is limited and antagonised by Bui’s personal story, who feels estranged from her parents, their past in Việt Nam and the war. As this article shows, the recording and commemoration of her parents’ memories help her to identify with the family legacy of heroic vulnerability in her role as a mother.

Refugee livelihood perspectives: Post-traumatic growth in histories of Vietnamese, Bosnian, and Tamil Refugees in Australia

Abstract Refugee livelihood studies have mostly focused on policy and international aid programming and have yet to explore refugee people’s long-term development beyond the initial resettlement period. This article examines the experiences of Vietnamese, Bosnian, and Tamil refugees resettled in Australia during the height of the multicultural agenda in the 1980s and 1990s. Drawing on fifty oral histories, the article argues that refugees’ struggle and transformation of trauma in the past fuelled civic engagement in their new host communities. It explores the nexus of refugee lived experiences, livelihoods, and post-traumatic growth in the context of multicultural Australia to consider refugee livelihood as a long-term process. Crossing disciplinary boundaries of history and psychology, the article shows how some refugees re-interpret their trauma as motivation for positive change, a manifestation of post-traumatic growth, expressed as civic engagement, including becoming political actors in response to their histories of trauma, resistance, and growth beyond resettlement.

Investigating the acceptability of a culturally adapted acceptance and commitment therapy group for UK Vietnamese communities: A practice-based feasibility study.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an empirically supported psychotherapy that offers promise for the mental health of minoritised ethnic populations. Given the diversity of those presenting to inner-city services and barriers to accessing appropriate mental healthcare, we sought to develop a culturally syntonic ACT intervention for UK Vietnamese refugee communities in a practice-based partnership project between a National Health Service and local third-sector service in East London. The aim was to explore the feasibility, acceptability and impact of the adapted intervention to inform culturally inclusive clinical practice and future research. We outline key aspects of Vietnamese belief systems and culture, and consider how these might influence the optimisation of group-based ACT. We then present a mixed-method evaluation of the seven-session adapted ACT group for 11 participants (9 male and 5 female, aged between 44 and 73years). Individual-level change analyses indicated clinically significant improvements in psychological flexibility for the minority of participants and a mixed pattern for impact on well-being. A thematic analysis and descriptive approach examined acceptability, feasibility and narratives of impact. Participants reported positive feedback on group experience, relevance and usefulness, and emergent themes indicate that the group facilitated key acceptance, commitment and behaviour-change processes, promoted social connections and increased engagement in meaningful life activities in relation to new perspectives and values-based action. Limitations are outlined, but overall, findings suggest preliminary support for the potential beneficial effect of the adapted ACT group as a feasible, culturally acceptable therapeutic approach for UK Vietnamese communities that is worthy of further investigation.

“To Live Is a Matter of Time”: Memory, Survival and Queer Refugeehood in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

In his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (2019), Ocean Vuong attempts to reweave the historical threads that have been brutally severed by American imperialism, forced migration and the imperatives of assimilation, as a practice of survival. Drawing on his own experience as a Vietnamese refugee, Vuong situates a Vietnamese American queer protagonist at the centre of his non-linear narrative, which excavates the boy’s family history to trace the multiple histories of displacement informing who he is today. The novel’s temporal disorientation becomes a formulation of queer temporality that activates a critical reorientation of how experiences of refuge are typically represented—a coming into consciousness known as “refugeetude”. Such a critical reorientation serves a dual purpose. Firstly, by foregrounding the protagonist’s—and his family’s—shattered recollections, Vuong challenges dominant accounts of the Vietnam War and recovers the voices of those that are effaced by Western representation, thus assembling a more inclusive “just memory” of the war. Secondly, the novel disrupts the teleological narrative of progressive assimilation that is prevalent in refugee discourse by revealing the enduring forms of violence that displaced subjects must still face in contemporary America. By queering the normative temporality of refugee experience, the novel demonstrates how the characters’ refugeehood is not finite but ongoing, necessitating a continuous search for healing and resilience.

Hận: The Haunt of Home, Vietnamese Refugee Melancholia, and the Challenges to Asian American Critiques

Abstract: Based on writings of first-generation Vietnamese refugees, this article explores hận (a deep hatred and resentment, or a haunting anguish) through the lens of melancholia to uncover the convergence and divergence of Vietnamese refugee politics and Asian American politics. I argue that hận exposes the double forces and geographies of violence (by/in both the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the United States) that produce the constraints that refugee free wills are not just pushing against, but are also bound by, resulting in the divergence between first-generation Vietnamese refugee politics and Asian American anti-imperialism and decolonization politics.

Mnemonic splinterings and disciplinary convergences: Memory studies, Vietnamese studies, and diasporic Vietnamese studies

This article considers memory studies in the context of the Vietnamese case study in order to test and revise previous assumptions on dimensions, levels, and modes of memory drawn mostly from European or Northern American frameworks. In particular, it examines the politics of modern Vietnamese memories about war and migration both in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and in the Vietnamese refugee diaspora to consider the possibilities, limitations, and implications of such contested memory work. Highlighting the particularities of Vietnamese memory politics, the article illustrates what memory studies, Vietnamese studies, and diasporic Vietnamese studies can bring to each other and contribute to important disciplinary discussions ongoing in these fields.

Age at Immigrant Arrival and Career Mobility: Evidence from Vietnamese Refugee Migration and the Amerasian Homecoming Act

Age at Immigrant Arrival and Career Mobility: Evidence from Vietnamese Refugee Migration and the Amerasian Homecoming Act

DEVELOPMENT OF A COMMUNITY-ENGAGED DEMENTIA EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR THE VIETNAMESE AMERICAN COMMUNITY

Abstract Despite the life-threatening escape from Vietnam, Vietnamese refugees’ health data are scarce. To fill this knowledge gap, we developed the Vietnamese Aging and Care Survey (VACS) and examined the health of community-dwelling older Vietnamese (≥65 years) in Houston, Texas, the 2nd largest Vietnamese-populated metropolitan area in the U.S. The data revealed their adverse health conditions including a high prevalence of cognitive impairment. We proposed a Community-Engaged Dementia Education Program to improve the community’s dementia literacy based on the Cultural Exchange Model as a conceptual framework. Using Edwards’ 9-stage Community Readiness Model, 14 Vietnamese key informants assessed their current literacy level (Aim 1). To develop dementia educational materials (Aim 2), the informants formed focus-group discussions. We used thematic analysis to analyze the community’s understanding of dementia and developed educational materials. Key informants were aged 58 years (mean), Vietnam-born (93%), married (79%), college-educated (72%), women (86%), and full-time employees (79%). They lived in the U.S. for 39 years and in Houston for 30 years. Themes such as the Vietnamese community’s low dementia literacy, their perception of dementia as a normal part of aging, and suggestions for introducing dementia conversations to the community emerged. We considered a one-pager as appropriate educational material, and included culturally- and linguistically-appropriate content and its translation, a target population’s image, and dementia warning signs encouraging them to see their doctors for cognitive check-ups. Our next steps include utilizing local ethnic social media, disseminating the one-pager, and offering a “Brain Booth” at various Vietnamese health fairs.

Leftover liquids and the moisture of mourning: the oozes of Ocean Vuong’s oeuvre

Abstract This article tracks the moisture that spills across Ocean Vuong’s poetry and prose. Whereas the oceanic serves as the spectacular site across which Vietnamese refugees are rescued and rehabilitated through the scripts of US humanitarianism, moisture – as an ambient material and process – coagulates a queer, minor mode of refugee mourning and melancholia in the ongoing aftermath of the War in Vietnam. Pooling together these leftover liquids – sweat, mud, blood, amniotic fluid, semen, and urine – this study considers how the literary and chemical properties of humidity can alter extant epistemic configurations of war: not as an exceptional event, but instead as an everyday surround that continues to be weathered.

A culturally and linguistically tailored Community-Engaged Dementia Education Program (CEDEP) for the Houston Vietnamese American community.

Data from the Vietnamese Aging and Care Survey (VACS) showed the high prevalence of disability, depressive symptoms, and cognitive impairment in older Vietnamese immigrants and refugees. We proposed a Community-Engaged Dementia Education Program to examine the Houston Vietnamese American community's literacy on dementia and develop a one-pager educational material. This is a cross-sectional, qualitative study (interviews and focus groups) using the Cultural Exchange Model as a conceptual framework. We interviewed fourteen Vietnamese key informants and assessed the community's knowledge of dementia based on Edwards' 9-stage Community Readiness Model. The community's low literacy on dementia (Stages 2-3: Denial/resistance to vague awareness) was revealed. Approaches to introducing dementia conversations to the community and what to include in the one-pager were discussed. Based on the key informants' insight, we developed a dementia one-pager tailored to the community by using lay language with a representative image of the target population, indicating warning signs of dementia, and encouraging them to see their doctors for cognitive check-ups. The plan for the next steps includes utilizing the local ethnic media, collaborating with the existing pillars of the Cultural Exchange model, leveraging the university students' learning opportunities, and disseminating the culturally and linguistically tailored one-pager.

Review: Archipelago of Resettlement: Vietnamese Refugee Settlers and Decolonization across Guam and Israel-Palestine, by Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi

Review: <i>Archipelago of Resettlement: Vietnamese Refugee Settlers and Decolonization across Guam and Israel-Palestine</i>, by Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi

Collecting Through Absence: Fragmenting Vietnamese Refugee Archives

Collecting Through Absence: Fragmenting Vietnamese Refugee Archives

Bound Passages

Abstract This article traces the settler-colonial histories of Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) in Hawai‘i and Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport (GUM) in Guåhan (Guam) to chart the role of Indigenous dispossession in facilitating ongoing carceral transits across the Pacific. Focusing on the March 2021 deportation of thirty-three Vietnamese refugees from the United States, it situates the deportation flight’s layovers at HNL and GUM within larger processes of racial-colonial violence that constitute the development and operation of both airports. In this sense, HNL and GUM reveal the palimpsestic nature of Hawai‘i and Guåhan as sites of colonial occupation that, in turn, are used to bolster the further transit of global US empire. This essay thus attempts to chart a critical transpacific geography that links the settler-colonial and carceral dimensions of US empire through the issue of Southeast Asian deportation.