Vietnamese Refugees Research Articles

�Nothing ever dies�: memory and marginal children�s voices in Rwandan and Vietnamese narratives

Memory is a highly contested notion insofar as it is claimed by the collective (Halbwachs, Young) and deployed within a variety of political and socio-cultural contexts. For Viet Thanh Nguyen, the �true war story� can be told by those who lived through it, thereby wresting power from �men and soldiers� and dominant structures (Nothing Ever Dies, Harvard UP, 2017: 243). Examining the dialectics of remembering and forgetting, this article examines narratives which reclaim memory as a personal and as a collective plea to understand the structural discrepancy at play from the child, who is victim of war. It examines the memoir of a Tutsi refugee child, Moi, le dernier Tutsi (C. Habonimana, Plon R�cit, 2019) and an autobiographical narrative by a Vietnamese refugee in Canada, Ru (K. Th�y, Liana L�vi, 2010), to gauge the extent to which such narratives create their own memorial spaces and in so doing reclaim their marginal memories and centre them, while grappling with the imperative to forget. Ultimately it tests Nguyen�s theory that memory can be just and that in this ethical recoding of memory, the humanity and inhumanity of both sides is underlined.

Experiences of Intergenerational Trauma in Second-Generation Refugees: Healing Through Occupation.

Trauma experienced in one generation can affect the health and well-being of subsequent generations, such as impairing life skills, personal contentment, behaviour patterns and sense of self. This phenomenon has predominantly been explored with descendants of European refugees and is not fully understood from an occupational perspective. This research explores how intergenerational trauma manifests in the occupational lives of second-generation Ilankai Tamil and Vietnamese refugees. Using qualitative narrative inquiry, 12 adult children of Tamil and Vietnamese refugees residing in the Greater Toronto Area participated in semi-structured interviews. Narratives were thematically analysed. Findings illustrate how sociohistorical, cultural and familial contexts influence the way second-generation refugees view what they can and should do. Many healing responses to intergenerational trauma include occupations focused on communal care. Findings from this study reveal the unique struggles and needs of two understudied populations and the possibilities for healing through occupation.

Involuntary migration, context of reception, and social mobility: the case of Vietnamese refugee resettlement in the United States

ABSTRACT In this study, we examine the Vietnamese population of the United States as a case study in the integration of a refugee group. We first offer a brief review of Vietnamese refugee resettlement in the US and the making of a new ethnic community. We then provide a quantitative analysis of socioeconomic mobility among Vietnamese refugees using American Community Survey data from 1980 to 2015 and other national-level data. We examine how this ethnic population has changed over time by focusing on key socioeconomic indicators, such as levels of education, occupation, and income, as well as poverty rates. Third, we seek to explain what enables Vietnamese refugees and their children to overcome initial disadvantage and move up in society based on our own work over the span of 20 years with qualitative data. We consider how policies, institutions (government, civil society, and ethnic), and patterns of social relations in the Vietnamese American community have interacted with individual agency to shape mobility.

The resettlement of Vietnamese refugees across Canada over three decades

ABSTRACT Welcoming 60,000 Southeast Asian refugees in the 1979–80 period has become a celebrated part of Canada's history, but the eventual integration of these refugees into Canadian society has received insufficient attention. This study provides a comprehensive overview of Vietnamese refugees’ economic outcomes over the three decades after their arrival. This study also explores how regional contexts contributed to shaping economic outcomes. Based on analyses of multi-year census data, this study finds that adult Vietnamese refugees arrived with little human capital, but they had high employment rates, and over time they closed their initial large earnings gap with other immigrants. Childhood Vietnamese refugees out-performed other childhood immigrants and similar-aged Canadian-born individuals in educational attainment and earnings when they reached adulthood. The geographic region of residence was associated with some large variations in refugees’ socioeconomic outcomes; and regional differences in refugees’ human capital characteristics, ethnic enclave, and economic conditions played varying roles depending on the outcome measure and length of residence.

Differentiated embedding among the Vietnamese refugees in London and the UK: fragmentation, complexity, and ‘in/visibility’

Integration has become an increasingly topical and important issue both in terms of a key policy objective relating to the resettlement of refugees and migrants, and in popular public debate – with...

Competing contexts of reception in refugee and immigrant incorporation: Vietnamese in West and East Germany

ABSTRACT Scholars have long recognised the importance of contexts of reception in shaping the integration of immigrants and refugees in a host society. Studies of refugees, in particular, have examined groups where the different dimensions of reception (government, labour market, and ethnic community) have been largely positive. How important is this merging of positive contexts across dimensions of reception? We address this through a comparative study of Vietnamese refugees to West Germany beginning in 1979 and contract workers to East Germany beginning in 1980. These two migration streams converged when Germany reunified in 1990. Drawing on mixed qualitative methods, this paper offers a strategic case for understanding factors that shape the resettlement experiences of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in Germany. By comparing two migration streams from the same country of origin, but with different backgrounds and contexts of reception, we suggest that ethnic networks may, in time, offset the disadvantages of a negative government reception.

‘월남 패망’의 한국적 전유와 타자화된 난민의 재현－영화 〈가위 바위 보〉(1976)와 〈웨딩드레스〉(1990)를 중심으로－

이 글은 영화 <가위 바위 보>(김수용, 1976)와 <웨딩드레스>(이혁수, 1990)를 중심으로 하여 1975년 베트남전쟁 종전 이후 구성된 베트남 난민 표상의 영화적 재현 양상을 분석한다. 파병 시기 활발히 이루어졌던 베트남전쟁 소재 영화의 제작은 철군과 종전이후 1987년 한국의 민주화 시기가 오기까지 소강상태에 이른다. 그러나 ‘월남 패망’의 프레임과 ‘나라 잃은 사람들’로서의 베트남 난민 표상을 활용하여 반공 선전을 강화한 박정희 정부의 전략은 1980년대 중반 이후까지도 미디어 장을 통해 꾸준히 유지ㆍ갱신되고 있었다. <가위 바위 보>와 <웨딩드레스>는 그러한 맥락 속에서 종전 직후의 난민표상과 1980년대를 경유한 이후의 난민 표상을 각기 영화화한 작품들이다. <가위 바위보>는 빈곤 아동 실화를 극화한 1960년대의 영화들 및 1970~1980년대 소년소녀가장 담론과 유사한 태도로 베트남 난민 여성 및 아동들의 수난사를 재현하면서, 국가의 역할을 은폐하고 한국인들을 온정적인 개인들로 정초함으로써 한국(인들)이 연루된 베트남전쟁의 구조적 문제를 회피하는 장치를 겹겹이 배치한다. 이를 통해 베트남 난민들은 한국인 관객에게 공포와 연민을 불러일으키는 비극적인 존재로서 타자화된다. <웨딩드레스>는 1980년대를 거치면서 형성된 베트남 난민 표상의 젠더화 작업을 호스티스 영화의 스타일로 구현한다. 국외자이자 성매매 여성으로서 이중적인 타자의 위치에 놓인 베트남 난민인물이 온정적인 한국인 남성과의 결혼에 성공하는 과정은 남성화된 한국-여성화된 베트남 간의 가부장적 관계에 대한 상상력을 재현한다. 한국은 파병 국가로서 베트남 난민의 구호에 책임을 요구받는 위치였으나, 이 영화들은 ‘우리’는 베트남 난민을 처분할 권한이 있는 위치로, ‘저들’은 자신의 적합함을 증명해야 하는 존재로 그려내고 있었다. 파병시기 영화들이 베트남 인민들과 한국군 간의 관계를 우열화하던 방식이, 종전 이후 난민의 재현에서는 한국군의 참전이라는 사실을 지움으로써 되풀이되고 있었던 것이다. 전쟁의 구조적 문제와 한국 사회의 책임을 비가시화하고, 해외의 전쟁 난민들을 복잡한 정치적 관계 속에서 탈각시켜 인도적인 연민의 대상으로 고립시키는 시선이 여전히 유효한 현상황을 생각할 때 이 글은 시의적인 의의를 지닐 수 있다.

Interaction of Religions and Expression of National Identity of Immigrants in Works by Vietnamese Diasporic Writers Living in France

Vietnamese writers living in France such as Linda Le or Thuan have integrated into the stream of contemporary European literature. They delved into the lives and the fate of Vietnamese refugees who had migrated to France, of “Étranges étrangers” (as called by Linda Le), of those who did not belong anywhere, of people with no roots. Thus, Linda Le and Thuan reflected the ambivalences in the national identities of immigrants. One of the main factors that lead to these ambivalences in the national identity of immigrants is religious interaction. Vietnamese religions (indigenous religions and the three religions Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism) have deep traces in the minds of Vietnamese people, influencing their thoughts and behavior, giving them a perception of the world and the way of life. Despite being surrounded by Christian culture, they never considered themselves to be purely French. They also did not identify themselves as immigrant minorities. They can be called “Étranges étrangers”, those that live between two religions and two cultures. This paper examines the relationship of religious interaction and national identity in the image of Vietnamese refugees in France and explores the ambivalence and ambiguity in their ideas about national identity. Received 29thDecember 2019; Revised 18thApril 2020; Accepted 20th April 2020

Unearthing Racial Histories of Sexology in the Global South

Race, war, and geography remain unmarked domains within the historiography of sexuality. This article analyzes the work of Joseph M. Carrier, a seminal figure who helped develop the study of homosexuality. In this article, we examine the ways Carrier incorporated studies of various populations from the Global South, from Vietnamese refugees to Mexican MSM (men who have sex with men). In his attempt to collect knowledge about subaltern groups—first as a RAND Corporation researcher and later as an anthropologist and epidemiologist—Carrier shows us that the genealogy of homosexuality studies is not clear-cut. It is situated across multiple spaces of (inter)disciplinary power and knowledge. By comparing these trans-regional areas of study, we examine the ways in which Western social scientists can draw research from one social context into another.

The Philippine Refugee Processing Center: The Relational Displacements of Vietnamese Refugees and the Indigenous Aetas

Essays 118 YẾn Lê Espiritu and J. A. Ruanto-­ Ramirez The Philippine Refugee Processing Center: The Relational Displacements of Vietnamese Refugees and the Indigenous Aetas Established in 1980, the Philippines Refugee Processing Center (PRPC) on the Bataan Peninsula served as the most prominent transit center for almost all of the Southeast Asian refugees making their way to permanent resettlement in America. By the time the PRPC closed in 1995, approximately four hundred thousand Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong refugees had transited through it before resettling in the United States (Barr 2011). The story of the PRPC is often told as one of international cooperation to ease the acute “Boat People” crisis: the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) administered the center; the United States provided most of the funds for establishing and maintaining the center;1 and the Philippines donated the land on which the center was built. While other works have critically examined the humanitarian claims touted by the UNHCR and the United States,2 this article assesses the role of the Philippines as land donor in the PRPC international partnership. Specifically, it focuses on a largely hidden fact of the Marcos government’s “donation” of land for the construction of the PRPC: the eviction and relocation of the Aetas,3 members of the Magbuk ún tribe of Negritos believed to be the first inhabitants of Morong, Bataan (Tebtebba Foundation 2008, 17–­ 18; Cruz and Romero 2012, 5). By focusing on the PRPC and the relational displacements of Vietnamese refugees and the Indigenous Aetas, this article merges and extends the fields of critical refugee studies and settler colonialism studies. Using the lens of critical refugee studies, it shows how the Marcos government’s motivation to host Vietnamese refugees in the 1980s derives from its need The Philippine Refugee Processing Center 119 to project itself as a liberal democracy to divert attention away from its much-­maligned martial law policies. But this is an incomplete story. Drawing on settler colonialism studies, the article points out that the Marcos regime’s ability to recast itself as a humanitarian state required not only the refugee figure but also Indigenous land. This productive convergence of critiques—­critical refugee studies and settler colonialism studies—­is enabled by the article’s focus on a non–­Global North postcolonial nation. By underlining the mythologies of rescue and benevolence deployed by the Philippines, a Global South nation, the article disrupts the focus on Global North resettlement countries that typifies much of the work in refugee studies. And by highlighting the ongoing displacement of the Aetas in the postcolonial Philippines, it exposes the settler disavowal that collapses histories of genocidal violence and dispossession of Indigenous peoples into a story of “postcolonial ‘survival’” (Day 2019, 7). Methodologically, the article relies on Yến Lê Espiritu’s analytical technique of critical juxtaposing : “the bringing together of seemingly different and disconnected events, communities, histories, and spaces in order to illuminate what would otherwise not be visible” (Espiritu 2014, 21). In critically juxtaposing displaced Vietnamese refugees and the dispossessed Aetas, this article makes visible both the geopolitical violence that accompanies refugee aid and the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous land and peoples in postcolonial nations. In short, the relational displacements of refugees and Indigenous peoples, when refracted against one another, expose the ongoing and linked effects of global militarism and settler colonialism. 6 Critical Refugee Studies: Martial Law, Humanitarian Claims, and the PRPC The interdisciplinary field of critical refugee studies reveals how imperial and militaristic projects often masquerade as refugee aid (Espiritu 2014; Nguyen 2012). In Body Counts: The Vietnam War and Militarized Refuge(es), Espiritu (2014) argues that the figure of the Vietnamese refugee, the purported grateful beneficiary of the U.S. “gift of freedom” (Nguyen 2012), has been key to the (re)cuperation of American identities and the shoring up of U.S. militarism in the post–­ Vietnam War era. Indeed, the image of thousands of Vietnamese risking death to escape “communism” and resettle in the United States appears to affirm the United States’ uncontested status as a nation of refuge (Espiritu 2014). However, in reality, the granting of refugee status to displaced Vietnamese was a highly contested and...

Refugees and Foreign Direct Investment: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from U.S. Resettlements

We exploit the designs of two separate U.S. refugee dispersal policies to provide causal evidence that refugees foster outward FDI to their countries of origin. Drawing upon aggregated individual-level refugee and project-level FDI data, we first leverage the quasi-random distribution of refugees without U.S. ties after the enactment of the 1980 Refugee Act, to show that outward FDI to refugees' countries of origin grew more from those U.S. commuting zones that hosted greater numbers of refugees after 1990. Secondly, we exploit the specificities of the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act, which resulted in a quasi-experimental dispersal of Vietnamese refugees in 1975, to provide causal evidence that Vietnamese refugees fostered FDI to their home region, while national domestic reforms in Vietnam amplified the positive FDI-creating effects of the overseas Vietnamese diaspora. Overall, our results highlight a new mechanism through which refugees foster development to their origin countries.

The Impact of Trauma on Vietnamese Refugees in Robert Olen Butler’s A Good Scent from A Strange Mountain (1992) and Viet Thanh Nguyen The Refugees (2017)

The Impact of Trauma on Vietnamese Refugees in Robert Olen Butler’s A Good Scent from A Strange Mountain (1992) and Viet Thanh Nguyen The Refugees (2017)

“Outsiders No More?”: The Discourse of Political Incorporation of Vietnamese Refugees in the United States (1975–2020)

“Outsiders No More?”: The Discourse of Political Incorporation of Vietnamese Refugees in the United States (1975–2020)

Sticky Rice: A Politics of Intraracial Desire by Cynthia Wu

Reviewed by: Sticky Rice: A Politics of Intraracial Desire by Cynthia Wu K. Ian Shin (bio) Sticky Rice: A Politics of Intraracial Desire, by Cynthia Wu. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2017. Viii + 194 pp. $29.95 paper. ISBN: 978-1-4399-1582-0. In Ray Yeung’s 2016 indie romance Front Cover, Ryan, an openly gay Chinese American stylist in New York, meets Ning, a closeted film star from China. In one scene, Ning asks Ryan whether his parents know and approve of his homosexuality. “They’re not Chinese in that way,” Ryan replies. The dramatic tension behind Ryan and Ning’s eventual coupling as “sticky rice”—a colloquialism used by LGBTQ Asians who prefer sexual and romantic partners that are also Asian—trades on the conflict between “traditional” Chinese culture, which supposedly avoids overt displays of queer sexuality, and “modern” Asian American sensibilities that have accepted it. Cynthia Wu suggests that “sticky” stories like Front Cover have a deeper genealogy. In her aptly titled book, Wu interrogates the politics of intraracial same-sex desire through queer readings of five key works of Asian American literature and drama. Wu sets out to demonstrate that intraracial and intraethnic same-sex desire hold the potential to resolve conflicts and build coalitions within the Asian American community—though not without problems. She makes clear at the outset that Sticky Rice is not a “recovery project,” but rather one that “shows how a slice of the existing canon has always been queer” (19). Wu supplements close textual analysis of each work with attention to the histories of their publication and reception. The book engages broadly with questions about Asian American sexuality and masculinity that scholars like David L. Eng, Daniel Y. Kim, and Nguyen Tan Hoang have debated. In particular, it urges a reconsideration of characters that are typically portrayed as alienated or homophobic, as “agential envoys of queer thinking” (19) and queer connection instead. Following an introduction that discusses Nguyen’s 7 Steps to Sticky Heaven (1997), each of the book’s five chapters examines a different set of conflicts. Chapter 1, on John Okada’s No-No Boy (1957), explores reconciliation between draft resistor Ichiro Yamada and Army veteran Kenji Kanno. Wu reads Ichiro’s homoerotic desire for Kenji as signaling an embrace across the divisions among Japanese Americans created by the U.S. government’s loyalty oaths during World War II. Chapter 2 centers on Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt (2003). Wu contrasts the unsatisfying and problematic liaisons between the protagonist, Binh, and two non-Asian characters, against Binh’s idealized encounter with another Vietnamese man. She argues that Binh’s relationship with his compatriot—later revealed to be Ho Chi Minh—is a call for reunion between South Vietnamese refugees and the Vietnamese state, as well as between pro- and anticommunist camps in the diaspora. Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg You Die (1988) is the subject of chapter 3. The relationship between [End Page 302] two Asian American actors resolves intergenerational tensions between the younger Bradley’s cultural nationalism and the elder Vincent’s willingness to play stereotypical roles in order to earn a living. Wu problematizes this resolution by showing that Bradley’s attempts to connect with Vincent by looking past Vincent’s homosexuality risks an apolitical multiculturalism that is dangerous right at the height of the AIDS crisis in the late 1980s. Chapter 4 pairs H. T. Tsiang’s And China Has Hands (1937) with Paul C. P. Siu’s classic sociological study of Chinese laundry workers. The conflict to be reconciled here is an economic one. Wu analyzes passages depicting homosocial intimacy and figurative sexual contact between Tsiang’s protagonist and working-class Chinese men and finds that they pave the way for a “rejection of consumer capitalist fantasies for a labor movement that . . . mobilizes through a same-sex encounter within ethnic lines” (116). The final chapter examines Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s controversial novel Blu’s Hanging (1997). Wu argues that the seemingly progressive pairing of two Japanese women, Big Sis and Sandi, masks the structural advantages of being East Asian in Hawai‘i, and elides the effects of settler colonialism on the islands...

Network Sorting and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from the Chaotic Dispersal of the Viet Kieu

Immigrants' social networks exert considerable influence over their labor market opportunities and yet the pre-sorting of co-nationals by ability and across space, endures as a key challenge for empiricists attempting to establish causal network effects. To surmount this issue, we leverage the chaotic dispersal of Vietnamese refugees across the U.S. in 1975, which was demonstrably exogenous in both initial network size and quality, in tandem with an absence of pre-existing networks of co-nationals, to causally identify the effects of network size and network quality on refugees': occupational outcomes, skill intensity and skill upgrading. Our administrative data provide refugee's precise initial locations and pre-placement characteristics in Vietnam, which we uniquely employ as additional controls, as well as longitudinal information about their locations and occupations six years hence. We construct instruments from the initial quasi-random refugee allocations of network size and quality and leverage refugees' geo-locations to insulate our results from the Reflection Problem. Overall, network quality is a far more important determinant of refugees' labor market outcomes when compared to network size, one interpretation of which is that the type of referrals network members receive are more important than the overall number of referrals. Blue-collar networks: increase the probability of refugees' working in blue-collar jobs, draw additional workers into more manual and less complex intensive employment and serve to up-skill individuals along the manual skill dimension. Given the protracted circumstances under which the Viet Kieu entered the U.S., the composition of their networks played a pivotal role in their ultimate success.

Editor’s Preface

Editor’s Preface Rick Bonus Our first essay in this issue, on the experiences of Arabs/Muslims as “censusless” in U.S. society, opens a conversation about what it means for a group to be considered outsiders by a state or a community. For Loubna Qutami, who writes about the racial classification of Arab Americans in official counts and social discourse, this status is perplexing and paradoxical, reflecting both the targeting of Arabs as suspect subjects especially in the aftermath of 9/11 as well as their continuing designation as “white” in census data. To be sure, Arab “whiteness”—what Qutami calls racial invisibilization—has a tendency to obscure the violence of racisms against these populations while depriving them of their right to self-determination. These are challenging conditions to be in, most remarkably because claiming due recognition in order to arrive at inclusion often leads to greater state surveillance in the service of violent exclusion. Is there any way to escape the double-edginess of exclusionary practices and inclusionary attempts? The answer may prove to be impossible, although referencing what has been done in a moment of legalized Asian exclusion from the 1900s to the 1920s might offer some viable insights. Found in our second essay, “Orientalism and the Orator,” Swati Rana carefully parses the autobiographical work of Dhan Gopal Mukerji, aptly titled Caste and Outcast, to highlight his role as a “soapbox orator” in subverting Orientalist constructs—itself a model for undermining the polarities of East and West. The process of disrupting Orientalism here is ingenious, in Rana’s reading, for it entails the deployment of rhetorical skills in “asserting” then “undoing” and in “exposing” then “undermining.” [End Page v] Fast-forward to the present, and we get a distilled variety of such a strategy of in-and-out intervention in “‘Outsiders No More?’ The Discourse of Political Incorporation of Vietnamese Refugees in the United States (1975–2020).” Here is a fresh take, through a study by Ly Thi Hai Tran, on the realities of boundary making from the perspective of a minority group. It is notable that the essay’s title is in question form, a telling reminder of the vagaries of policing the constitution and edges of any group that seeks to define who is and is not a part of it. Tran is careful not to make an impression that formal representation in conventional politicking, something that many believe Vietnamese Americans have attained already, is the culminating story here. Group interests will remain disputed within and outside of affinities as long as uneven relationships of power exist. We get that similar sense of the ebbs and flows of exclusion/inclusion within social fields of domination and resistance in Meredith Oda’s piece, “’Kikkoman, USA’: The Economic and Residential Integration of Japanese Americans and Japanese Foods.” Narrating a history of fascination with Japanese cuisine in the 1950s and 1960s, Oda is right on cue in considering “outsider” as a status that cannot simply be overturned by inclusion. Otherwise, this formula may just as well be followed with certainty. Interest and access to Japanese foods were indeed made possible through the efforts of key importers, restaurateurs, and opinion leaders. But the mainstreaming of Japanese food cultures, as Oda argues, depended on quite a narrow range of acceptance that emphasized rather than erased the status of Japanese Americans as forever foreigners. In all of these essays, we are reminded of the pains of exclusion. At the same time, we are also encouraged to consider some ways in which adversity can also generate innovative resistance, whether it be through self-generated information campaigns proposed by Qutami or by way of autobiographic troping as interpolated by Rana, representation and recognition as reported by Tran and gastronomic interventions as historicized by Oda. Such an out-of-placeness can have the capacity to produce transformative agency. And quite coincidentally, it is also a fitting refrain that strings together the essays in our reviews section that regard the lives of American Muslim women, the “unnamable” feature of Asian American art, a politics of intraracial desire, an environmental history of Japanese American incarceration, and speculative fiction in relationship to speculative finance. During such a...

Hong Kong's Last English Bishop: The Life and Times of John Gilbert Hindley Baker by Philip L. Wickeri (review)

Reviewed by: Hong Kong's Last English Bishop: The Life and Times of John Gilbert Hindley Baker by Philip L. Wickeri Rob York (bio) Philip L. Wickeri. Hong Kong's Last English Bishop: The Life and Times of John Gilbert Hindley Baker, vol. 6. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2021. 212 pp. $62.00, isbn 9789888528714. Philip L. Wickeri had a unique story to tell with the life of John Gilbert Hindley Baker, the last English priest to head the Diocese of Hong Kong and Macau. Sandwiched between his venerable predecessor, Ronald Hall, and the first Chinese bishop of the territory, Peter Kwong, Baker was not considered as towering a figure as the former—nor did he have as long a tenure—and his time was perhaps less transformative than the latter, who oversaw the diocese's transition to the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui. However, Baker's journey was noteworthy, which is why the efficient-to-a-fault treatment he receives in Wickeri's Hong Kong's Last English Bishop: The Life and Times of John Gilbert Hindley Baker is so frustrating. Wickeri ultimately seems content—or perhaps was only permitted—to summarize Baker's life story and provide little deeper [End Page 229] analysis or grappling with the deeper themes of that story, ultimately producing a book of little interest to people other than those with an inherent interest in related subjects. Chapter 1 begins the book with Baker's early life from 1910–1934, including his upbringing in the Anglican Church and his family's interest in missionary work, sparked by missionary literature and an aunt's work in India, plus his pastoral training before his recruitment for work in China. Chapter 2 describes this work across the Middle Kingdom from 1934 to 1951, working against factors such shallow church penetration in some areas, complacent church members elsewhere, but also the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and China's fall to communism in 1949. Here, the book reveals that Baker, through his personal writings, had sympathy for the communists and their revolution despite his commitment to the church and the Communist Party's denunciation of missionaries. Chapter 3 discusses his time outside China, including pastoring at an Episcopal Church in Connecticut and authoring the study booklet The Church Faces Communism, designed to provide a nuanced take on the phenomenon amid the Red Scare. He then moved back to the United Kingdom to take up new responsibilities, including overseeing missionary strategy. The chapter ends with his return to Hong Kong, with what seemed, at the time, to be an interim position. But in Chapter 4 readers learns that Bishop Ronald Hall was preparing to step down—he was seventy at that point, and had been a bishop for more than three decades. Hall favored other candidates as his replacement and negatively assessed Baker's leadership potential (Wickeri notes that Hall's stated reasons were vague). Yet these nominations fell through for assorted reasons, and Gilbert was eventually chosen due to the support of Chinese-speaking priests with memories of Gilbert's earlier service on the mainland. This chapter is truly the meat of the book, as it depicts Gilbert promptly going to work at his surprising new ministry, usually quietly, but sometime impactfully, such as through the ordination of women priests. While successful, Gilbert's time was tumultuous, coming amid the riots of 1967, and Gilbert, sympathetic to calls for equitable distribution, spoke out for managers to treat laborers fairly as Hong Kong's economy expanded—along with its inequalities. Chapters 5 and 6 continue with his time as bishop, with the former noting his interest in addressing the territory's problems with drug abuse, with documenting church history, and dealing with an influx of Vietnamese refugees following the fall of Saigon. In the latter, the book notes the death of Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, with whom Baker and other priests had struck up a relationship and saw as a stabilizing figure during the Cultural Revolution, leading to a surprisingly reverential eulogy from Baker. It also notes the suicide of Baker's wife Patty, who had been living with constant pain for several...

INTEREST GROUP SESSION—INTERNATIONAL AGING AND MIGRATION: AGING SOCIETY: INDIVIDUAL, FAMILY, AND COMMUNITY COLLABORATION FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

The purpose of this symposium is two-fold: (1) to promote mutual understanding and communication regarding the long-term caregiving plans for older immigrants/refugees between policymakers and researchers in the fields of behavioral and social sciences and (2) to discuss the needs for connecting local needs of older immigrants/refugees and their families with a global plan for aging society. The symposium is structured by three empirical studies on older adults and their caregivers by behavioral and social sciences researchers, followed by a presentation of the needs for an international convention on the rights of older people by an advocate in the global network to promote older people’s health. Miyawaki and colleagues focus on the residential status quo, family relations, and prevalence of chronic diseases among older Vietnamese refugees in Houston, TX, U.S.A. Liu’s qualitative study on Taiwanese professional caregivers’ perceptions of clients in adult daycare services reveals the relation between staff’s negative image of aging and their practice. Toyokawa conceptualizes middle-aged Mexican immigrants’ sense of family obligation, as their obligation for reducing children’s caregiving burden and the endorsement predicts their well-being. Three presenters point out the need for standards for basic needs of refugees/immigrants, staff training, and the quality of long-term care, and discuss the meaning of culturally sensitive support based on their studies. Finally, Marumoto advocates the need for an international convention of the rights of older people and standardization of the quality of long-term care. Specific approaches to ‘harness the network’ between local and global efforts are discussed.

CAREGIVING CULTURES: RACE, REGION, AND RELATIONS

Although families have always cared for their aging members, changes in contemporary society have added to the stress and challenges of providing daily care and support for relatives experiencing physical and/or cognitive decline. Personal characteristics, geographic location, and family structures and relationships influence beliefs about family care; thus, recognizing differences within and across families is crucial for developing culturally informed caregiving programs and practices. This symposium focuses on four diverse groups of caregivers. Recognition of caregiving cultures and the barriers caregivers encounter is the central theme of all four papers. Using daily diary interviews and GIS data, Savla and colleagues discuss the unique cultural and geographical challenges caregivers in rural Appalachian Virginia face when caring for a family member with dementia. J. Angel employs quantitative and qualitative data from two nationally representative datasets to discuss the effects of immigration on family structures and caregiving for Mexican-American older adults with dementia. Miyawaki and her colleagues provide a profile of caregivers of older Vietnamese refugees, the resources they use and support structures they rely on. Finally, Roberto and Savla expand the definition of family caregivers to include extended and fictive kin who are providing dementia care and provide an in-depth view of the circumstances that influence the responsibilities they assumed, the type of care they provide, and the coping strategies they use. Dr. Rosemary Blieszner will discuss the presenters’ collective findings considering their unique caregiving practices and beliefs as well as the common grounds between the different races, regions and relationships.

Returns of War: South Vietnam and the Price of Refugee Memory

More than a history of Vietnamese emigration and refugee resettlement abroad, Returns of War is Long T. Bui's challenge to “the view of the Vietnam War as ‘over’” (p. 201). In it, he adroitly musters the historical record, critical cultural studies, and political economy to “[theorize] South Vietnam as an incomplete, ongoing search for personal and personal freedom” (back cover). Returns of War refers most prosaically to the return of refugeed Vietnamese to the former South Vietnam, often with their accumulated fortunes turned into investment capital. But before getting to that in a chapter that parses the many iterations of “Vietnamization,” he plies the metaphorical senses of “return” as they manifest in social memory, representations in literary fiction, and public commemoration. Bui's conceptual creativity is a signature quality of the book. The distinction he makes between dismemberment and rememberment is intriguing: the first referring to the fragmenting of communities by the privileged remembering of some identities over others, e.g., the military veterans of the Saigon government over women and familial identities; the second referring to the efforts to “reassemble broken lives” into something whole and workable for the future through the use of art and cultural practices to reconstruct a South Vietnamese national identity (p. 89). He brings that distinction to life by recounting veterans' opposition to a 2009 “Art Speaks” show in Santa Ana, California, organized by women. The show's lean toward nonmilitary imagery was seen by veterans' groups as communist-inspired feminism and an affront to masculinity.