Koh, Priscilla. “The Stories They Carried: Reflections of Vietnamese-Canadians 40 Years after That War.” Refuge (0229-5113): Canada’s Journal on Refugees / Revue Canadienne Sur Les Réfugiés, vol. 32, no. 2, July 2016, pp. 9–19. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.40277.
The Stories They Carried: Reflections of Vietnamese-Canadians 40 Years after That War, by Priscilla Koh, is an article that focuses upon the stories carried by Vietnamese-Canadians from their struggle in leaving Vietnam as a Vietnamese boat person. Some of these stories include the story of a woman’s, Phuong’s, family bike shop that was confiscated due to its importation of foreign bike parts. The other parts include the mentions of going through typhoons and encounters with Thai pirates. Particularly, these stories were useful in understanding the personal and individual part of the Vietnamese boat people by having someone who went through describe the difficulties. In the importance of this topic, this article brings forth these stories of the Vietnamese boat people into the academic sphere which allows for critical analysis and understanding.
Pocket Diary of a Vietnamese Boat Person Refugee. Calisphere, Southeast Asian Archive, University of California, Riverside CA. calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d80r9mh8z/, 9 Sept. 2023.
A pocket diary of a Vietnamese boat person refugee is a journal of a Vietnamese boat person who wrote it as they left from Vietnam. It describes their journey away from Vietnam and towards Malaysia and recounts the trials and mental tribulations that they underwent including Thai pirates, storms at sea, and the hostile Malaysian government. This account is important to the research community because it is a primary firsthand account that holds recordings of what was going on during this exodus rather than relying on the memory of interviewed refugees. I found this useful in understanding the personal trial and tribulations of the Vietnamese boat people as I personally relate to journals and diaries as I have one myself.
Vu, Anna N., and Vic Satzewich. “The Vietnamese Refugee Crisis of the 1970s and 1980s: A Retrospective View from NGO Resettlement Workers.” Refuge (0229-5113): Canada’s Journal on Refugees / Revue Canadienne Sur Les Réfugiés, vol. 32, no. 2, July 2016, pp. 30–40. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.40245.
The Vietnamese Refugee Crisis of the 1970s and 1980s: A Retrospective View from NGO Resettlement Workers is an article by Anna N. Vu and Vic Satzewich and focused upon the lives of non-governmental organization resettlement workers as they interacted with Vietnamese boat people refugees. Specifically, it was around the NGO workers’ observation or help of the Vietnamese refugees’ negotiation of the process of being accepted for resettlement. Specific traits refugees possessed made them more viable to be accepted for resettlement so refugees had to in essences “sell” themselves to the workers working with their cases. This is important for this research community as it highlights the conditions of refugee camps as well as the process and actions Vietnamese refugees needed to take to get to a new country. This article was useful as it was about an area that I didn’t know about in the journey of the Vietnamese boat people. It’s coverage of the resettlement process gave me a greater understanding of another stage of this exodus.
“First Days Story Project.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/lastdays/firstdaysstoryproject/slideshow/boat-peoples-journey/. Accessed 8 Dec. 2023.
The fourth source I am using is PBS’ “First Days Story Project.” This webpage holds a selection of images of Vietnamese boat people refugees. In many of these photographs, the refugees are on boats, getting off them, or pleading for help from them. It is noted that some of these boats seemed to be very cramped and compact with people. These photos highlight the physical and visible conditions of people escaping Vietnam and are an important primary source as they capture the moment of this exodus rather than the memory of an older survivor of it. These photos helped me visualize how some of the boats actually were like and served as a reminder to the reality of the event.
Van Ai, Vo. “Isle of Light.” World Affairs, vol. 176, no. 6, Mar. 2014, pp. 38–46. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=94763502&site=ehost-live.
“Isle of Light” is Vo Van Ai’s personal account of his time working with other left-wing French activists in order to rescue Vietnamese refugees after the pleas of the Vietnamese boat people trapped on the Hai Hong cargo vessel reached international media. He and his co-participants created a committee called “A Boat for Vietnam” that would take Vietnamese refugees trapped at sea and bring them for resettlement in France while under a French flag. They had trouble securing funding and a ship in order to complete their mission, but eventually achieved income after an interview with a Dutch socialist and a ship from a woman in Nouméa, New Caledonia. This account is important to the topic as it puts into the perspective an attempt to help Vietnamese refugees and shows how some people reacted to the refugee crisis of the Vietnamese boat people. This source helped me learn about how the Vietnamese boat people became known on an international stage as well as learn about the reactions of people in response to others wanting to help rescue these refugees.
Moretti, Sébastien. “Southeast Asia and the Disenchantment with Resettlement.” Forced Migration Review, no. 54, Feb. 2017, pp. 20–21. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=121474077&site=ehost-live.
This article focuses on the general resettlement and migration of those in the Southeast Asian region including Vietnam. It talks of the initial surge of refugees from Vietnam who were given immediate resettlement into other countries after going through temporary asylum camps in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. This immediate resettlement is believed to have been a “pull factor” for later economic migrants who left not because of oppression but for economic freedom. This was then mitigated with the adoption of the Comprehensive Plan of Action on Indochinese refugees which was used to differentiate between genuine refugees and economic migrants. This article importantly highlights how the Vietnamese refugee crisis was pushed towards ending by a policy. I found this article useful in understanding a wider scope of the Vietnamese boat people and how countries viewed the boat people coming into them for either temporary or not asylum. It made me think policy-wise of how the Vietnamese boat people refugee crisis was comprehended.
Tsamenyi, B. M. “The ‘Boat People’: Are They Refugees?” Taylor & Francis Online, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 20 Mar. 2008, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10357718308444804.
This article, THE ‘BOAT PEOPLE’: ARE THEY REFUGEES?, was written in 1983, as the first waves of Vietnamese boat people had gone out into open waters to escape Vietnam. It looked to examine whether, in accordance to international law, the boat people were refugees or economic refugees, fleeing their country for economic reasons. The article found that the Vietnamese boat people were in fact true refugees. This source is important to the topic as it covers this exodus from a time when it was actually happening. It puts into perspective the thought that people of the time were really considering whether the Vietnamese boat people should be considered true refugees. These considerations may have affected how people helped or not helped them during this time of escape and this article represents one side of the debate that if these people are refugees or not. This article was helpful to me because it put me into the consideration that not everyone considered the Vietnamese boat people as refugees and that because of this not everybody may have had the people’s best interests at heart.
Helton, Arthur C. “The Malaysian Policy to Redirect Vietnamese Boat People: Non-Refoulement as a Human Rights Remedy.” New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, vol. 24, no. 3, Spring 1992, pp. 1203-1218. HeinOnline, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/nyuilp24&i=1217.
This article covers the Malaysian policy re-directing Vietnamese boat people after landing on the country’s shores seeking asylum contrary to another policy that they signed with other nations to allow temporary asylum during the 1980s and presumably into the 1990s when this article was written. The author goes into detail how this violates a UN policy of non-refoulement which is an obligation not to return refugees to a place where they may experience persecution whether it be the country they are fleeing from or a third nation. The author calls for the consideration of human rights protection that each person has a right to life and that these actions undertaken by Malaysia be prohibited. The article here acts as a source of the situation of Vietnamese boat people in this time from the perspective of human rights as well as introduces to the academic world the hypocrisy of the Malaysian government and the misfortune they have caused the boat people refugees. I found this article useful as it brought to my attention what exactly was the Malaysian refugee policy that was implemented. I had seen references to it in other sources, especially the pocket diary, where they had been turned away by the Malaysian navy. It was also useful to learn about refugee policy that was being implemented for Vietnamese refugees which helped paint a larger scale picture of what was happening during the exodus.
Cunliffe, S. Alex. “Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong: Policies and prescriptions.” Pacific Review, vol. 4, no. 3, 01/1991, pp. 272-276, doi:10.1080/09512749108718927.
The article “Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong: Policies and prescription” by Alex Cunliffe is an observation of the practices of policies of Hong Kong on the Vietnamese boat people that have come to Hong Kong seeking resettlement and a proposal of how to fix said policies. The policies observed were that the government of Hong Kong incentivized the boat people to return to Vietnam under the preface of voluntary repatriation, which is allowing refugees to return to their country of origin. A large slew of these refugees in Hong Kong undertook this but did not do this in a “voluntary” sense, the author writes. It appears a lot of these refugees did this because they recognized that they would not be able to resettle due to the bureaucracy and difficulty of the resettlement program. These difficulties unfairly pushed them into undergoing this repatriation which is worsened by the fact that when these refugees went back, they were persecuted. Cunliffe suggests that unless refugees can be assured fair treatment upon return to Vietnam, the repatriation program must be reconsidered as it would have little merit. This article was helpful in that it helped solidify my grasp of the extent of the mistreatment of Vietnamese boat people, and furthermore, it’s emphasis on the repatriation program was a shock to me as sending people back to the country they are trying to escape from is so incredibly wrong. This article was enlightening and helped me see how hard it was to gain resettlement status as a refugee.
Litton, Henry. “The Vietnamese Boat People Story: 1975-1999.” Alternative Law Journal, vol. 26, no. 4, August 2001, pp. 179-181. HeinOnline.
This article by Henry Litton covers the basic story of the Vietnamese boat people centered around Hong Kong and the events and circumstances that occurred there. It goes into detail of specific events where ships landed and dropped off refugees in Hong Kong and how the government dealt with it. The city adopted a “first asylum” policy which gave sanctuary to refugees who called Hong Kong as their first port. This policy was put to the test when many Vietnamese refugees started to arrive as between 1982 and 1987 an average of 2000 refugees arrived per year into Hong Kong and then in 1988, 18328 refugees arrived which were believed to be “economic migrants.” Due to the influx of the refugees, the screening process for resettlement of the refugees took upwards of two years and the migrant centers became overcrowded with people and in some circumstances became violent. This source is important to the topic as it gives an in-depth quantitative summary of policies and number of refugees arriving into Hong Kong and shows a governmental response to this exodus. This helped me understand the exact circumstances of how the resettlement process worked as well as the conditions of holding the boat people while they waited for resettlement.
Lam, Lawrence. “The Attitude of the Local Population Towards Vietnamese Boat People in Hong Kong.” Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees / Refuge: Revue Canadienne Sur Les Réfugiés, vol. 9, no. 3, 1990, pp. 12–14. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/45411343. Accessed 2 Dec. 2023.
Lam Lawrence’s article describes the attitudes of the local population of Hong Kong towards the incoming Vietnamese boat people. A two-thirds majority of the Hong Kong people believed in not approving of funding that would create more space to house the boat people which ultimately would have helped and gotten more of the refugees into Hong Kong. The author ends the article off with that this perspective is most likely shared with those Hong Kong people who are working with the refugees and that there is a high chance that these refugees may become scapegoats. This article helps understand the topic by telling of how people, at least in Hong Kong, felt about being a temporary asylum spot for the Vietnamese boat people. I found it helpful in understanding the perspective of the people of Hong Kong during this time in history.
van der Kroef, Justus M. “The Vietnamese Refugee Problem.” World Affairs, vol. 142, no. 1, Summer 1979, pp. 3-16. HeinOnline, https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/wrldaf142&i=5.
This article covers the ways the Vietnamese government spoke about the boat people and plights of the Vietnamese boat people, both those ethnically Chinese and Vietnamese, in 1979. The author goes in depth of the refugee flow, how Chinese-Vietnamese were treated and their reasons for escape, the changing reception of these refugees by the world, the happenings of the refugee “export” business, and how things might develop as the world goes on. This article helps cover a lot of different factors of the Vietnamese boat people that other scholars might not write about, particularly, the coverage of the refugee export business. I found this article helpful as it went into depth about the ethnic Chinese people who were trying to escape Vietnam as I had not gotten an article covering them in-depth and the mention and analysis of how refugees were exploited for money during their time trying to leave Vietnam.