Vietnamese Americans
Living in between
Outlines on Research Essay
General Problems with the Outlines:
Lacking in substantial and specific ideas
Too broad in scope; need focusing
Thesis statement needs to be interpretive, asserting a view about the topic
Bibliographies should show more reading on the topic
Five-Step Writing Process
(from Donald Murray, Write to Learn)
Collect
Focus
Order
Draft
Clarify
Thesis Statement:
Theme + Assertion about the Theme = Thesis Statement
Find Your Focus With
A title
A category
A key image
A comparison/contrast
An example or examples
A list
A metaphor or symbol
A sequence
Etc.
Southeast Asian Facts
A diverse group: refugees and immigrants form Laos, Kampuchea, Thailand, Indonesia,
Myanmar, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam.
Vietnamese Americans: 593,213 in 1990
Southeast Asian Context
South-East Asia: term became current during World War II
Area of ethnic mixings and differences. D.G.E Hall: “’a chaos of races and languages’”
(Lim and Chua xi)
Two main cultural spheres: of Indian influences, of Chinese influences
Kinship systems; East Asian Confucian values; influences from Hinduism, Buddhism,
Islam and Christianity; syncretic religious practices and belief systems
Separation into territories, and “This tendency to fragmentation was exacerbated by the
actions of Western colonial powers” (Lim and Chua xi). Portugal, Spain, Holland,
England, the United States
Southeast Asian Context 2
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, “colonized by the French as ‘Indochina,’ share a
francophone colonial history” (Lim and Chua xii).
ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, inaugurated in 1967, created
regional identity devoted to “common security and economic goals” (Lim and Chua xii).
SE Asian population: ~500 million; total economy = nine tenths that of China
Southeast Asian Context 3
SE Asian Americans in 1990: 2.5 million, the largest bloc of Asian Americans (larger
than the 1.64 million Chinese Americans) (Lim and Chua xiii).
Vietnamese American Chronology
1954, “Vietnamese forces defeated the French to regain Vietnam’s independence in the
battle of Dien Bien Phu. Vietnam had been a French colony since the late nineteenth
century” (Baron and Gall 93)
1960, “The National Liberation Front, also known as the Vietcong (South Vietnamese
Communists), was formed in South Vietnam” (Baron and Gall 96)
1965, passage of the Hart-Cellar Act constituted “the relaxation of anti-Asian U.S.
immigration laws”; it “removed ‘national origin’ as a basis for immigration quotas and
allowed form family reunification” (Lim and Chua xiv).
Vietnamese American Chronology 2
1975, “More than 130,000 refugees from Vietnam, Kampuchea, and Laos enter the
United States as Communist governments come to power in their homelands” (Chan 198)
1975, April 29-30, “when 86,000 South Vietnamese refugees were airlifted from their
homeland in the wake of the failure of American military and political strategy after the
decade-long Vietnam War against the North Vietnam-led Communists” (Lim and Chua
xiv).
Vietnamese American Chronology 3
1976, April 30, “South Vietnam surrendered to the Communist forces of the North.
The fall of Vietnam and neighboring Cambodia caused large-scale immigration of
Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees to the United States. The first-wave
refugees came mainly from urban areas, especially Saigon (a former capital of South
Vietnam). Later, repression within Vietnam and Laos resulted in a second wave of
refugees, called ‘boat people,’ who fled their homes to seek immigration to the United
States” (Baron and Gall 112)
Refugees and Immigrants
1965 Immigration Act gave the U.S. Attorney General to “parole” aliens into the U.S.
for “emergency reasons”
1975, U.S. Attorney General grants parole status to 130,400 Vietnamese and
Cambodian refugees
Receiving countries:
First asylum countries, in same region as refugee’s homeland
Second asylum countries, where refugees resettle: U.S., Canada, China, Australia,
France
Resettlement Agencies
United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees (UNCHR)
Office of Refugee Resettlement
VOLAGS – Volunteer Agencies, such as the U.S. Catholic Conference, the United
Hebrew Immigration Aid Society, the World Church Service. Receiving $500 grant for
each refugee settled
Mutual Aid Associations, created in 1975
Vietnamese American Chronology 4
1978, “Thousands of ‘boat people’ arrived from Vietnam, a second wave of refugees
risking their lives in small, leady vessels hoping to find a better life in the United States”
(Baron and Gall 116).
1980, “The Refugee Act of 1980 was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter; it
enabled greater numbers of refugees to enter the United States. An Office of Refugee
Resettlement was established within the Department of Health and Human Services to
assist in administering the program” (Baron and Gall 118)
Vietnamese American Chronology 6
1989, “Patrick Purdy fired 105 rounds from an assault rifle at children in an elementary
school yard in Stockton, California, killing five Southeast Asian children and then
himself. Purdy had blamed all minorities for his failings, and targeted Southeast Asians
for his homicidal plans” (Baron and Gall 136)
Southeast Asian Americans Today
Southeast Asian Americans have been dispersed across the country. By 1980, 45%
relocated to ethnic enclaves primarily in California, Texas, and Louisiana
Revitalizing American communities nationwide, as in Westminster, California: Orange
County’s “Little Saigon”
Assigned Author:
Isabelle Thuy Pelaud
Graduate student in Ethnic Studies, University of California at Berkeley
Bay Area writer of prose and poetry
Public readings of works since 1993
Story: “Christmas ‘95” (Tilting the Continent 8-11)
“Christmas ’95”
Narrator asked to translate stories of 2 Frenchmen, “free riders of their mother country.”
“Colonial leftovers are thus preserved, passed on, rehearsed into normality” (8).
Narrator Fr-Viet-Am
French Grandfather abandoned family
“Little Saigon” in Westminster
South Vietnamese anti-Communism
Religious master Ching Hai
“the privilege and curse of living ‘in between’” (10).
Mass culture: American Buddha and MTV
The theme of lives, masks, destinies
A Buddhist sensibility expressed during Christmastime
Between Worlds
On Vietnamese immigrant families and
The generation gap
Challenges and accomplishments of Vietnamese in America