Vietnamese boat people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vietnamese boat people awaiting rescue.

Vietnamese boat people (Vietnamese: Thuyền nhân Việt Nam), also known simply as boat people, were refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration was at its highest in 1978 and 1979, but continued through the early 1990s. The term is also often used generically to refer to all the Vietnamese (about 2 million) who left their country by any means between 1975 and 1995 (see Indochina refugee crisis). This article uses "boat people" to apply only to those who fled Vietnam by boat.

The number of boat people leaving Vietnam and arriving safely in another country totalled almost 800,000 between 1975 and 1995. Many of the refugees failed to survive the passage, facing danger from pirates, over-crowded boats, and storms. The boat people's first destinations were the Southeast Asian countries of British Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. External tensions stemming from Vietnam's dispute with Cambodia and China in 1978 and 1979 caused an exodus of the majority of the Hoa people, of whom more than 170,000 fled overland into the province of Guangxi, China, from the North; the remainder fled by boat from the South. This new influx brought the number of refugees in China to around 200,000.^[1] In addition, the Vietnamese military also began expelling ethnic Hoa from Vietnam-occupied Kampuchea, leading to over 43,000 refugees of mostly Hoa descent fleeing overland to Thailand.^[2] By 1980, the refugee population in China reached 260,000,^[3] In 2013, Hoa people made up 11.5 percent of the Vietnamese-American population^{[4][undue weight? – discuss]}

The combination of economic sanctions, the legacy of destruction left by the Vietnam War, Vietnamese government policies, and further conflicts with neighboring countries caused an international humanitarian crisis, with the Southeast Asian countries increasingly unwilling to accept more boat people on their shores. After negotiations and an international conference in 1979, Vietnam agreed to limit the flow of people leaving the country. The Southeast Asian countries agreed to admit the boat people temporarily, and the rest of the world, especially the developed countries, agreed to assume most of the costs of caring for the boat people and to resettle them in their countries.

From refugee camps in Southeast Asia, the great majority of boat people were resettled in developed countries, some in the United States and most of the remainder in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Several tens of thousands were repatriated to Vietnam, either voluntarily or involuntarily. Programs and facilities to carry out resettlement included the Orderly Departure Program, the Philippine Refugee Processing Center, and the Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Background

A family of boat people rescued by a US Navy ship.

 

Rescued Vietnamese boat people being given water.

 

South China Sea - crewmen of the amphibious cargo ship USS Durham (LKA-114) take Vietnamese refugees from a small craft, April 1975.

 

The Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975 with the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese Army and the subsequent evacuation of more than 130,000 Vietnamese closely associated with the United States or the former government of South Vietnam. Most of the evacuees were resettled in the United States in Operation New Life and Operation New Arrivals. Within the same year, the countries of Cambodia and Laos also fell to communist forces, thus engendering a steady flow of refugees fleeing all three countries.^[5]

After the Saigon evacuation, the numbers of Vietnamese leaving their country remained relatively small until mid-1978. A number of factors contributed to the refugee crisis, including economic hardship and wars between Vietnam, China, and Cambodia. In addition, up to 300,000 people, especially those associated with the former government of South Vietnam, were sent to re-education camps, where many endured torture, starvation, and disease while being forced to perform hard labor.^[6] In addition, 1 million people, mostly city dwellers, "volunteered" to live in "New Economic Zones" where they were to survive by reclaiming land and clearing jungle to grow crops.^[7]

Repression was especially severe on the Hoa, the ethnic Chinese population of Vietnam. Because of increasing tensions between Vietnam and China, which ultimately resulted in China's 1979 invasion of Vietnam, the Hoa were seen by the Vietnamese government as a security threat.^[10] They also controlled much of the retail trade in South Vietnam, and the communist government increasingly levied them with taxes, restrictions on trade, and confiscations of their businesses. In May 1978, the Hoa began to leave Vietnam in large numbers for China, initially by land. By the end of 1979, resulting from the Sino-Vietnamese War, 250,000 Hoa had sought refuge in China and many tens of thousands more were among the boat people scattered all over Southeast Asia and in Hong Kong.^[11]

The Vietnamese government and its officials profited from the outflow of refugees, especially the often well-to-do Hoa. The price for obtaining exits permits, documentation, and a boat or ship, often derelict, to leave Vietnam was reported to be the equivalent of $3,000 for adults and half that for children. These payments were often made in the form of gold bars. Many poorer Vietnamese left their country secretly without documentation and in flimsy boats, and these were the most vulnerable to pirates and storms while at sea.^[12]

There were many methods employed by Vietnamese citizens to leave the country. Most were secret and done at night; some involved the bribing of top government officials.^[13] Some people bought places in large boats that held up to several hundred passengers. Others boarded fishing boats (fishing being a common occupation in Vietnam) and left that way. One method used involved middle-class refugees from Saigon, armed with forged identity documents, traveling approximately 1,100 km to Danang by road. On arrival, they would take refuge for up to two days in safe houses while waiting for fishing junks and trawlers to take small groups into international waters.^{[citation needed]} Planning for such a trip took many months and even years. Although these attempts often caused a depletion of resources, people usually had several false starts before they managed to escape.^[13]

Exodus in 1978–1979

Although a few thousand people had fled Vietnam by boat between 1975 and mid-1978, the exodus of the boat people began in September 1978. The vessel Southern Cross unloaded 1,200 Vietnamese on an uninhabited island belonging to Indonesia. The government of Indonesia was furious at the people being dumped on its shores, but was pacified by the assurances of Western countries that they would resettle the refugees. In October, another ship, the Hai Hong, attempted to land 2,500 refugees in Malaysia. The Malaysians declined to allow them to enter their territory and the ship sat offshore until the refugees were processed for resettlement in third countries. Additional ships carrying thousands of refugees soon arrived in Hong Kong and the Philippines and were also denied permission to land. Their passengers were both ethnic Vietnamese and Hoa who had paid substantial fares for the passage.^[14]

As these larger ships met resistance to landing their human cargo, many thousands of Vietnamese began to depart Vietnam in small boats, attempting to land surreptitiously on the shores of neighbouring countries. The people in these small boats faced enormous dangers at sea and many thousands of them did not survive the voyage. The countries of the region often "pushed back" the boats when they arrived near their coastline and boat people cast about at sea for weeks or months looking for a place where they could land. Despite the dangers and the resistance of the receiving countries the number of boat people continued to grow, reaching a high of 54,000 arrivals in the month of June 1979 with a total of 350,000 in refugee camps in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. At this point, the countries of Southeast Asia united in declaring that they had "reached the limit of their endurance and decided that they would not accept any new arrivals".^[15]

The United Nations convened an international conference in Geneva, Switzerland in July 1979, stating that "a grave crisis exists in Southeast Asia for hundreds of thousands of refugees". Illustrating the prominence of the issue, Vice President Walter Mondale headed the U.S. delegation. The results of the conference were that the Southeast Asian countries agreed to provide temporary asylum to the refugees, Vietnam agreed to promote orderly departures rather than permit boat people to depart, and the Western countries agreed to accelerate resettlement. The Orderly Departure Program enabled Vietnamese, if approved, to depart Vietnam for resettlement in another country without having to become a boat person.^[16] As a result of the conference, boat people departures from Vietnam declined to a few thousand per month and resettlements increased from 9,000 per month in early 1979 to 25,000 per month, the majority of the Vietnamese going to the United States, France, Australia, and Canada. The worst of the humanitarian crisis was over, although boat people would continue to leave Vietnam for more than another decade and die at sea or be confined to lengthy stays in refugee camps.^[17]

Pirates and other hazards

Boat people had to face storms, diseases and starvation, and elude pirates.^[18] The boats were not intended for navigating open waters, and would typically head for busy international shipping lanes some 240 km to the east. The lucky ones would succeed in being rescued by freighters^[19] or reach shore 1–2 weeks after departure. The unlucky ones continue their perilous journey at sea, sometimes lasting a few months long, suffering from hunger, thirst, disease, and pirates before finding safety.
A typical story of the hazards faced by the boat people was told in 1982 by a man named Le Phuoc. He left Vietnam with 17 other people in a boat only 23 feet (7 m) long to attempt the 300 mile (500 km) passage across the Gulf of Thailand to southern Thailand or Malaysia. Their two outboard motors soon failed and they drifted without power and ran out of food and water. Thai pirates boarded their boat three times during their 17-day voyage, raped the four women on board and killed one, stole all the possessions of the refugees, and abducted one man who was never found. When their boat sank they were rescued by a Thai fishing boat and ended up in a refugee camp on the coast of Thailand.^[20] Another of many stories tell of a boat carrying 75 refugees which was sunk by pirates and only one person survived.^[21] The survivors of another boat in which most of 21 women aboard were abducted by pirates said that at least 50 merchant vessels passed them by and ignored their pleas for help. An Argentine freighter finally picked them up and took them to Thailand.^[22]

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began compiling statistics on piracy in 1981. In that year, 452 boats carrying Vietnamese boat people arrived in Thailand carrying 15,479 refugees. 349 of the boats had been attacked by pirates an average of three times each. "578 women had been raped; 228 women had been abducted; and 881 people were dead or missing." An international anti-piracy campaign began in June 1982 and reduced the number of pirate attacks although they continued to be frequent and often deadly until 1990.^[5]

Estimates of the number of Vietnamese boat people who died at sea can only be guessed. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea.^[18] Other wide-ranging estimates are that 10 to 70 percent of Vietnamese boat people died at sea.^[23]

Refugee camps

In response to the outpouring of boat people, the neighbouring countries with international assistance set up refugee camps along their shores and on isolated small islands. As the number of boat people grew to tens of thousands per month in early 1979, their numbers outstripped the ability of local governments, the UN, and humanitarian organizations to provide food, water, housing, and medical care to them. Two of the largest refugee camps were Bidong Island in Malaysia and Galang Refugee Camp in Indonesia.

Bidong Island was designated as the principal refugee camp in Malaysia in August 1978. The Malaysian government towed any arriving boatloads of refugees to the island. Less than one square mile (260 ha) in area, Bidong was prepared to receive 4,500 refugees, but by June 1979 Bidong had a refugee population of more than 40,000 who had arrived in 453 boats. The UNHCR and a large number of relief and aid organizations assisted the refugees. Food and drinking water had to be imported by barge. Water was rationed at one gallon per day per person. The food ration was mostly rice and canned meat and vegetables. The refugees constructed crude shelters from boat timbers, plastic sheeting, flattened tin cans, and palm fronds. Sanitation in the crowded conditions was the greatest problem. The United States and other governments had representatives on the island to interview refugees for resettlement. With the expansion of the numbers to be resettled after the July 1979 Geneva Conference, the population of Bidong slowly declined. The last refugee left in 1991.^[24]

Galang Refugee Camp was similarly on an island, but with a much larger area than Bidong. More than 170,000 Indochinese, the great majority Boat People, were temporarily resident at Galang while it served as a refugee camp from 1975 until 1996. After they became well-established, Galang and Bidong and other refugee camps provided education, language and cultural training to boat people who would be resettled abroad. Refugees usually had to live in camps for several months—and sometimes years—before being resettled.^[25]

In 1980, the Philippine Refugee Processing Center was established on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines. The center housed up to 18,000 Indochinese refugees who were approved for resettlement in the United States and elsewhere and provided them English language and other cross-cultural training.

1980s surge and response

Between 1980 and 1986 the outflow of boat people from Vietnam was less than the numbers resettled in third countries. In 1987, the numbers of boat people began to grow again. The destination this time was primarily Hong Kong and Thailand. On June 15, 1988, after more than 18,000 Vietnamese had arrived that year, Hong Kong authorities announced that all new arrivals would be placed in detention centres and confined until they could be resettled. Boat people were held in prison-like conditions and education and other programs were eliminated. Countries in Southeast Asia were equally negative about accepting newly-arriving Vietnamese boat people into their countries. Moreover, both asylum and resettlement countries were doubtful that many of the newer boat people were fleeing political repression and thus merited refugee status.^[26]

Another international refugee conference in Geneva in June 1989 produced the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) which had the aim of reducing the migration of boat people by requiring that all new arrivals be screened to determine if they were genuine refugees. Those who failed to qualify as refugees would be repatriated, voluntarily or involuntarily, to Vietnam, a process that would take more than a decade. The CPA quickly served to reduce boat people migration. In 1989, about 70,000 Indochinese boat people arrived in five Southeast Asian countries and Hong Kong. By 1992, that number declined to only 41 and the era of the Vietnamese Boat People fleeing their homeland definitively ended. However, resettlement of Vietnamese continued under the Orderly Departure Program, especially of former re-education camp inmates, Amerasian children, and to reunify families.^[27]

Resettlement and repatriation

The boat people comprised only part of the Vietnamese resettled abroad from 1975 until the end of the twentieth century. A total of more than 1.6 million Vietnamese were resettled between 1975 and 1997. Of that number more than 700,000 were boat people; the remaining 900,000 were resettled under the Orderly Departure Program or in China or Malaysia. (For complete statistics see Indochina refugee crisis).^[28]

UNHCR statistics for 1975 to 1997 indicate that 839,228 Vietnamese arrived in UNHCR camps in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. They arrived mostly by boat, although 42,918 of the total arrived by land in Thailand. 749,929 were resettled abroad. 109,322 were repatriated, either voluntarily or involuntarily. The residual caseload of Vietnamese boat people in 1997 was 2,288, of whom 2,069 were in Hong Kong. The three countries resettling most Vietnamese boat people and land arrivals were the United States with 402,382; Australia with 108,808; and Canada with 100,012.^[29]

Vietnamese refugees resettling in Western countries

Escape boat saved by the Cap Anamur in late April 1984, placed in Troisdorf

 

Memorial and tribute of the Vietnamese refugees in Hamburg

The Orderly Departure Program from 1979 until 1994 helped to resettle refugees in the United States and other Western countries. In this program, refugees were asked to go back to Vietnam and waited for assessment. If they were deemed to be eligible to be re-settled in the US (according to criteria that the US government had established), they would be allowed to immigrate.

Humanitarian Program for Former Political Detainees, popularly called Humanitarian Operation or HO due to the "H" subgroup designation within the ODP and trailing numbers 01-09 (e.g. H01-H09, H10, etc.) was set up to benefit former South Vietnamese who were involved in the former regime or worked for the US. They were to be allowed to immigrate to the US if they had suffered persecution by the communist regime after 1975. Half-American children in Vietnam, descendants of servicemen, were also allowed to immigrate along with their mothers or foster parents. This program sparked a wave of rich Vietnamese parents buying the immigration rights from the real mothers or foster parents. They paid money (in the black market) to transfer the half-American children into their custody, then applied for visas to emigrate to the US. Most of these half-American children were born of American soldiers and prostitutes. They were subject to discrimination, poverty, neglect and abuse. On November 15, 2005, the United States and Vietnam signed an agreement allowing additional Vietnamese to immigrate who were not able to do so before the humanitarian program ended in 1994. Effectively this new agreement was an extension and also final chapter of the HO program.

Hong Kong adopted the "port of first asylum policy" in July 1979 and received over 100,000 Vietnamese at the peak of migration in the late 1980s. Many refugee camps were set up in its territories. Frequent violent clashes between the boat people and security forces caused public outcry and mounting concerns in the early 1990s since many camps were very close to high-density residential areas.

By the late 1980s, Western Europe, the United States and Australia received fewer Vietnamese refugees^{[citation needed]}. It became much harder for refugees to get visas to settle in those countries.

As hundreds of thousands of people were escaping out of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia via land or boat, countries of first asylum in South-East Asia were faced with the continuing exodus and the increasing reluctance by third countries to maintain resettlement opportunities for every exile, they threatened push-backs of the asylum seekers. In this crisis, the Comprehensive Plan of Action For Indochinese Refugees was adopted in June 1989. The cut-off date for refugees was March 14, 1989. Effective from this day, the Indochinese Boat people would no longer automatically be considered as prima facie refugees, but only asylum seekers and would have to be screened to qualify for refugee status. Those who were "screened-out" would be sent back to Vietnam and Laos, under an orderly and monitored repatriation program.

The refugees faced prospects of staying years in the camps and ultimate repatriation to Vietnam. They were branded, rightly or wrongly, as economic refugees. By the mid-1990s, the number of refugees fleeing from Vietnam had significantly dwindled. Many refugee camps were shut down. Most of the well educated or those with genuine refugee status had already been accepted by receiving countries.

There appeared to be some unwritten rules in Western countries. Officials gave preference to married couples, young families and women over 18 years old, leaving single men and minors to suffer at the camps for years. Among these unwanted, those who worked and studied hard and involved themselves in constructive refugee community activities were eventually accepted by the West by recommendations from UNHCR workers. Hong Kong was open about its willingness to take the remnants at its camp, but only some refugees took up the offer. Many refugees would have been accepted by Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, but hardly any wanted to settle in these countries.

The market reforms of Vietnam, the imminent turnover of Hong Kong to China by Britain and the financial incentives for voluntary return to Vietnam caused many boat people to return to Vietnam during the 1990s. Most remaining asylum seekers were voluntarily or forcibly repatriated to Vietnam, although a small number (about 2,500) were granted the right of abode by the Hong Kong Government in 2002. In 2008, the remaining refugees in the Philippines (around 200) were granted asylum in Canada, Norway and the United States, marking an end to the history of the boat people from Vietnam.

Memorials

Bronze plaque in the Port of Hamburg dedicated by Vietnamese refugees giving thanks to Rupert Neudeck and the rescue ship Cap Anamur

 

South Vietnamese Boat People Memorial, in Brisbane, QLD, dedicated 2 December 2012, executed by Phillip Piperides.

 

Some monuments and memorials were erected to commemorate the dangers and the people, who died on the journey to escape from Vietnam. Among them are:

1. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (1995): "Refugee Mother and Child" Monument, Preston Street at Somerset^[30]
2. Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland (February, 2006).^[31]
3. City of Santa Ana, California, USA (February, 2006).^[32]
4. Liège, Belgium (July, 2006).^[33]
5. Hamburg, Germany (October 2006).^[34][35]
6. Troisdorf, Germany (May, 2007) (tháng 5, 2007)^[36][37]
7. Footscray (Jensen Park Reserve of Melbourne), Australia (June, 2008).^[38]
8. Bagneux, Hauts-de-Seine, France (May 11, 2008).^[39][40]
9. Westminster, California (April, 2009), by ViVi Vo Hung Kiet.^[41][42][43]
10. Port Landungsbruecken (Hamburg), Germany (September, 2009).^[44][45]
11. Galang Island, Indonesia (demolished)
12. Bidong Island, Malaysia
13. Washington D.C., United States.
14. Geneva, Switzerland
15. Canada: Roundabout "Rond Point Saigon"
16. Marne-la-Vallée, France: André Malraux intersection avenue and boulevard des Genets of Bussy-Saint-Georges commune (September 12, 2010).,^[46] statue by sculptor Vũ Đình Lâm.^[47]
17. Bankstown, New South Wales, Australia (November, 2011) at Saigon Place.^[48] This is the bronze statue, weighing more than three tons by sculptor Terrence Plowright.
18. Tarempa in Anambas, Indonesia.^[49]
19. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia (December 2, 2012) by Phillip Piperides.^[50]
20. Perth, Western Australia, Australia (November 1, 2013) in Wade Street Park Reserve. 5.5 meter high monument of sculptor Coral Lowry.^[51]
21. Montreal, Quebec, Canada (November 18, 2015) by UniAction. Courage & Inspiration is the commemorative and collective artwork of 14'L x4'H highlighting the 40th anniversary of Vietnamese Boat people refugees in Canada. It has been inaugurated and displayed at the Montreal City Hall, hosted by Frantz Benjamin, City Council President and Thi Be Nguyen, Founder of UniAction, from November 18 to 28, 2015.

Overseas Vietnamese

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Vietnamese diaspora
Người Việt hải ngoại

Total population
~4,000,000 (estimates) [1]
Regions with significant populations
United States	2,067,527 (2016)[2]
Cambodia	600,000[3]
France	350,000 (2014)[4]
Australia	294,798 (2016)[5]
Japan	262,405 (2017)[6]
Canada	240,514 (2016)[7]
Taiwan	200,000[8]
Germany	150,000 (2011)[9]
South Korea	143,000 (2013)[10]
Czech Republic	83,000 (2011)[11]
Malaysia	70,000 (2013)[12]
United Kingdom	55,000[13]
Poland	50,000[14]
Laos	30,000 (2012)[15]
China	28,199 (2010)[16]
Norway	21,721 (2014)[17]
Netherlands	20,603 (2014)[18]
United Arab Emirates	20,000[19]
Thailand	17,662 (2010)[20][21]
Sweden	17,085 (2015)[22]
Belgium	14,000 (2012)[23]
Russia	13,954 (2010)[24]
Denmark	14,669 (2014)[25]
Switzerland	14,496
Qatar	8,000 (2008)[26]
Macau	7,199 (2011)[27]
New Zealand	6,660 (2013)[28]
Finland	4,645[29]
Ukraine	3,850 (2001)[30]
Hungary	3,019 (2011)[31]
Italy	3,000 (2004–2005)[32]
Slovakia	3,000[33]
Bulgaria	2,600 (2015)[34]
New Caledonia	2,506 (2014)[35]
Brazil	1,000

Overseas Vietnamese (Vietnamese: Người Việt hải ngoại, which literally means "Overseas Vietnamese", or Việt Kiều, a Sino-Vietnamese word (越僑) literally translating to "Vietnamese sojourner") refers to Vietnamese people living outside Vietnam in a diaspora, by far the largest community of which live in the United States. Of the about 4 million Overseas Vietnamese, a majority left Vietnam as economic and political refugees after the 1975 capture of Saigon and the North Vietnamese takeover of the pro-U.S. South Vietnam.

The term "Việt Kiều" (literally translating to "Vietnamese sojourner") is used by people in Vietnam to refer to ethnic Vietnamese living outside the country.^[36] It is not the Overseas Vietnamese's term of self-identification; most Overseas Vietnamese prefer the term of Người Việt hải ngoại (literally translating to Overseas Vietnamese), or occasionally the politically-charged Người Việt tự do (Free Vietnamese).

History

Overseas Vietnamese can be generally divided into four distinct categories that rarely interact with each other:

• The first category consists of people who have been living in territories outside of Vietnam prior to 1975; they usually reside in neighboring countries, such as Cambodia, Laos, and China. During the French colonial era, many Vietnamese also migrated to France as students or workers. These people are not usually considered "Việt Kiều" by people residing in Vietnam.
• The second category, consisting of the vast majority of overseas Vietnamese, are Vietnamese who fled Vietnam as refugees, after the end of the Vietnam War, along with their descendants. They usually reside in industrialized countries such as those in North America, the European Union, Hong Kong, the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, and Australia.
• The third category consists of Vietnamese working and studying in the former Soviet bloc who opted to stay there after the Soviet collapse. This group is found mainly in the European Union (particularly countries formerly aligned with the Soviet Union in the Warsaw Pact and/or Comecon) and the Russian Federation.
• The last category consists of recent economic migrants who work in regional Asian countries such as Taiwan and Japan. They also include Vietnamese brides who married men from Taiwan and South Korea through marriage agencies. These brides usually follow their husbands to live in those countries. In Taiwan, Vietnamese economic migrants constitute most of the overseas Vietnamese there; according to a 2011 report, there are 40000 Vietnamese brides in Taiwan. There is much social tensions, controversy and criticism about the latter group in Vietnam, saying they were "blinded by money" by their foreign husbands, and many are beaten.^[37]

A 2014 report says that "women make up at least two-thirds of workers who leave the country," and sometimes leave fathers behind to care for children. It asserted that "The total amount of remittances sent back from all Vietnamese workers overseas now exceeds $2 billion a year."^[38]

Recently a new group of Vietnamese have been emerging. These naturally born Vietnamese who attended high school and college overseas (international student), are called by natives as "du học sinh"; they stay in those countries and work and live as permanent residents.

United States

In 2016 the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the Vietnamese American population to be 2,067,527. They tend to live in metropolitan areas in the West, especially in California and Texas. Significant areas where they are well represented include Orange County, California, San Jose, California, Houston, Texas, and Seattle, Washington. As almost all of them left Vietnam after 1975 to escape the communist Vietnamese government, they are generally antagonistic towards the current government of Vietnam.^[2] In 2015, 30% of Vietnamese Americans had attained a bachelor's degree or higher. Specifically, 21% of Vietnamese Americans had attained a bachelor's degree (37% for U.S. born Vietnamese and 18% for Foreign born Vietnamese) and 8.9% had attained a Postgraduate degree (14% for U.S. born Vietnamese and 7% for Foreign born Vietnamese) compared to 19% Bachelor's degree attainment and 11% Postgraduate degree attainment among the American population in general.^[39][40][41]

Cambodia

Vietnamese constitute about 5% of the population of Cambodia,^[3] making them the largest ethnic minority. Vietnamese people began migrating to Cambodia as early as the 17th century. In 1863, when Cambodia became a French colony, many Vietnamese were brought to Cambodia by the French to work on plantations and occupy civil servant positions. During the Lon Nol Regime (1970–1975) and Pol Pot regime (1975–1979), many of the Vietnamese living in Cambodia were killed. Others were either repatriated or escaped to Vietnam or Thailand. During the ten-year Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia from 1979 until 1989 many of the Vietnamese who had previously lived in Cambodia returned. Along with them came friends and relatives. Also, many former South Vietnamese soldiers came to Cambodia fleeing persecution from the communist government.
Many living in Cambodia usually speak Vietnamese as their first language and have introduced the Cao Dai religion with 2 temples built in Cambodia. Many Cambodians learned Vietnamese as a result. They are concentrated in the Kratie and Takeo provinces of Cambodia, where there are villages predominate of ethnic Vietnamese.

Vietnamese people are also the top tourist in Cambodia, with 130,831, up 19 percent as of 2011.^[42]

France

The Temple du Souvenir Indochinois in the Bois de Vincennes, erected in 1907, is a monument built by the earliest waves of Vietnamese migrants to France.

The number of ethnic Vietnamese living in France is estimated to be over 300,000 as of 2014.^[4] Unlike other overseas Vietnamese communities outside eastern Asia, the Vietnamese population in France had already been well-established before the end of the Vietnam War and diaspora that resulted from it. France had by far the largest overseas Vietnamese population outside Asia until the 1980s, when a high number of Vietnam War refugees resettled in the United States.^[43]

France was the first Western country to where Vietnamese migrants settled due to the colonization of Vietnam by France that began in the late 1850s.^[44] During the colonial period, there was a significant representation of Vietnamese students in France, as well as professional and blue-collar workers, with many settling permanently.^[45]

A number of Vietnamese loyal to the colonial government and Vietnamese married to French colonists emigrated to France following Vietnam's independence through the Geneva Accords in 1954. During the Vietnam War, a significant number of students and those involved in commerce from South Vietnam continued to arrive in France. However, the largest influx of Vietnamese people arrived in France as refugees after the Fall of Saigon and end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Vietnamese refugees who settled in France usually had higher levels of education and affluence than their peers who settled in North America, Australia, and the rest of Europe.^[45]

Most Vietnamese in France live in Paris and the surrounding Île-de-France area, but a sizeable number also reside in the major urban centers in the south-east of the country, primarily Marseille and Lyon, as well as Toulouse. Earlier Vietnamese migrants also settled in the cities of Lille and Bordeaux.^[45] Unlike their counterparts in North America or Australia, the Vietnamese have not formed distinct enclaves within the major cities of France and the degree of assimilation is higher, due to better cultural, historical, and linguistic knowledge of the host country.

The community is still strongly attached to its homeland while being well integrated in the French society. As the generation of Vietnamese refugees continues to hold on to traditional values, the later generations of French-born Vietnamese strongly identify with the French culture rather than the Vietnamese one and most of them are unable to speak and/or understand the Vietnamese language.^[46] French media and politicians generally view the Vietnamese community as a model minority, in part because they are represented as having a high degree of integration within the French society as well as having high economic and academic success. Furthermore, Vietnamese in France on average have a higher level of education attainment and success than other overseas Vietnamese populations, a legacy dating back to the colonial era when privileged families and those with connections to the colonial government sent their children to France for studies.^[47]

Unlike overseas Vietnamese communities in other Western countries, the Vietnamese in France are divided between those who are anti-communist and those who support the communist Hanoi government.^[48] This division in the community has been present since the 1950s, when Vietnamese students and workers in France supported and praised the Vietminh's policies back home, while Vietnamese loyal to the colonial government and fled to France were largely anti-communist.^[47] This political rift remained minor until the Fall of Saigon in 1975, when staunchly anti-communist refugees from South Vietnam arrived and established community networks and institutions. The two camps have contradictory political goals and members of one group rarely interact with members of the other group. Such political divisions, especially the presence of a pro-Hanoi faction, have prevented the Vietnamese in France from forming a strong, unified community in their host nation as their counterparts have in North America and Australia.^[49]

Australia

Vietnamese Australians constitute one of the largest ethnic groups in Australia, with 294,798 people claiming Vietnamese ancestry at the 2016 census.^[50] The Vietnamese Australian population varies widely in income and social class levels. Many Vietnamese Australians are white collar professionals, while others work primarily in blue-collar jobs. Australian-born Vietnamese have a higher than average rate of participation in tertiary education. In 2001, the labor participation rate for Vietnamese-born residents was 61%, only slightly lower than the level for Australian born residents (63%).^[51] Over three quarters of Vietnamese-Australians live in New South Wales (40.7%) and Victoria (36.8%). Being mostly refugees after the Vietnam War, they are generally antagonistic toward the government of Vietnam.
The popular surname Nguyễn is the seventh most common family name in Australia^[52] (second only to Smith in the Melbourne phone book).^[53]

Canada

According to the 2016 census, Canada has 240,516 people who identify as ethnically Vietnamese.^[54] The majority of Vietnamese Canadians reside in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, with some having lived in Quebec before 1975. Vancouver is also another major destination for newly arrived Vietnamese immigrants since 1980, including Vietnamese of Chinese descent, with the city having a large Chinese population.

Rest of Europe

Germany

Vietnamese comprise the largest Asian ethnic group in Germany.^[55] As of 2011, there are about 137,000 people of Vietnamese descent in Germany.^[56][57] In western Germany, most Vietnamese arrived in the 1970s or 1980s as refugees from the Vietnam War. The comparatively larger Vietnamese community in eastern Germany traces its origins to assistance agreements between the East German and the North Vietnamese government. Under these agreements, guest workers from Vietnam were brought to East Germany, where they soon made up the largest immigrant group,^[58] and were provided with technical training. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, many stayed in Germany, although they often faced discrimination, especially in the early years following reunification.
As in France, the Vietnamese community is divided between anticommunists in the former West (including the former West Berlin) and pro-communists in the former East, although the difference runs along former border lines rather than being diffused as in France.

Czech Republic

The number of Vietnamese people in the Czech Republic was estimated at 61,012 at the 2009 census,^[59] although more recent figures have placed the number to as high as 80,000.^[60]
Most Vietnamese immigrants in the Czech Republic reside in Prague, where there is an enclave called "Sapa". Unlike Vietnamese immigrants in Western Europe and North America, these immigrants were usually communist cadres studying or working abroad who decided to stay after the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The Vietnamese surname Nguyen is even listed as the most common of foreign surnames in the Czech Republic and is the 9th most common surname in the country overall. (It is worth noting that female and male forms of the same Czech surnames were counted separately, while the total number of Nguyens refers to both male and female bearers of the surname.) ^[61]

United Kingdom

Vietnamese residing in the United Kingdom number around 55,000 people, which is in contrast to the trend of the UK tending to have the largest East and South East Asian diasporas in Europe. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher agreed to take quotas of refugees and 12,000 boat people came to Britain^[62] The most established Vietnamese communities in Britain are in Hackney and other parts of London. There are also communities in Birmingham, Manchester and other major UK cities.

Poland

Around 50,000 Vietnamese live in Poland, mostly in big cities.^[63] They publish a number of newspapers, both pro- and anti-Communist. The first immigrants were Vietnamese students at Polish universities in the post-World War II era. These numbers increased slightly during the Vietnam War, when agreements between the communist Vietnamese and Polish governments allowed Vietnamese guest workers to receive industrial training in Poland. A large number of Vietnamese immigrants also arrived after 1989.^[64]

Belgium

An estimated 14,000 ethnic Vietnamese reside in Belgium as of 2012. Similarly to the Vietnamese community in France, the Vietnamese Belgian community traces its roots to before the end of the Vietnam War. Beginning in the mid-1960s, Belgium became a popular alternative destination to France for South Vietnamese seeking higher education and career opportunities abroad. A much larger influx of Vietnamese arrived as refugees following the Fall of Saigon. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a small number of Vietnamese workers in former Soviet Bloc countries who were sponsored by the communist Vietnamese government also sought asylum in Belgium.^[23]
The Vietnamese Belgian population largely resides in and around the capital of Brussels or in the southern French-speaking Wallonia region, especially around the city of Liège. As in France, South Vietnamese refugees to Belgium were largely of higher social standing and integrated much easier into their host country's society than their peers who settled in North America, Australia and the rest of Europe due to better linguistic and cultural knowledge. The Vietnamese Belgian community is strongly attached to its counterpart community in France, with both communities largely achieving higher socioeconomic success in their host countries than other overseas Vietnamese populations.^[23]

Russia

Vietnamese people in Russia form the 72nd-largest ethnic minority community in Russia according to the 2002 census. The Census estimated their population at only 26,205 individuals, making them one of the smaller groups of Việt Kiều.^[65] However, unofficial estimates put their population as high as 100,000 to 150,000.^[14][66]

Norway

An estimated 21,700 ethnic Vietnamese live in Norway as of 2014, and the country has hosted a Vietnamese community since refugee arrivals after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The Vietnamese are considered one of the best integrated non-western immigrant groups in Norway, with high rates of Norwegian citizenship among immigrants and success rates in education on par with those of ethnic Norwegians.^[67]

Netherlands

About 19,000 ethnic Vietnamese reside in the Netherlands according to a 2010 estimate. The community largely consists of South Vietnamese refugees who first arrived in 1978. A much smaller number of North Vietnamese workers also arrived from eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall.^[68]

Bulgaria

An estimated 2,600 ethnic Vietnamese live in Bulgaria according to a 2015 estimate.^[34]
Under international agreements in 1980, Bulgaria, along with other Warsaw Pact members, accepted Vietnamese guest workers who were sponsored by the communist government into the country as a relatively cheaper manual labour workforce. At one point, over 35,000 Vietnamese people worked in Bulgaria between 1980 and 1991, and many Vietnamese students completed their higher education at various Bulgarian universities.^[69]

Taiwan

Vietnamese form one of the largest foreign ethnic groups in Taiwan, with a resident population of around 200,000. Including students and migrant workers, the Vietnamese population in Taiwan is about 200,000.^[8] Vietnamese in Taiwan largely arrived as workers in the manufacturing industry or domestic helpers. There are also a large number of Vietnamese women married to Taiwanese men through international matchmaking services in Vietnam, despite the illegality of such services in the country.^[70]

South Korea

As of 2011, there were over 110,000 ethnic Vietnamese people in South Korea, making them the second largest minority group in the country. Vietnamese in South Korea consist mainly of migrant workers and women introduced to South Korean husbands through marriage agencies.^[71][72] In the 13th century, several thousand Vietnamese fled to Korea following the overthrow of the Vietnamese Lý Dynasty, where they were received by King Gojong of Goryeo.^[73]

Malaysia

The Fall of Saigon in 1975 at the end of the Vietnam War saw many Vietnamese refugees escaping by boats to Malaysia. The first refugee boat arrived in Malaysia were in May 1975, carrying 47 people.^[74] A refugee camp was established later at Pulau Bidong in August 1978 with the assistance of the United Nations, and became a major refugee processing center for Vietnamese seeking residency in other countries. While a very small number of Vietnamese refugees settled in Malaysia, the majority of Vietnamese in Malaysia consist of skilled and semi-skilled workers who arrived during the 1990s as economic cooperation between Vietnam and Malaysia increased.^[75]

Japan

Over 135,000 Vietnamese people resided in Japan as of the end of 2014.^[76] Vietnamese first came to Japan as students beginning in the 20th century.^[77] However, the majority of the community is composed of refugees admitted in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as a smaller proportion of migrant laborers who began arriving in 1994.^[78][79]

Laos

As Vietnam and Laos are neighbors, there has been a long history of population migrations between the territories which make up the two respective countries. When Laos was a French protectorate during the first half of the 20th century, the French colonial administration brought many Vietnamese people to Laos to work as civil servants. This matter was the object of strenuous opposition by Laotian nationals, who in the 1930s made an unsuccessful attempt to replace the local government with Laotian civil servants.^[15]

China

The Vietnamese in China are known as the Gin ethnic group, and arrived in southeastern China beginning in the sixteenth century. They largely reside in the province of Guangxi and speak Vietnamese and a local variety of Cantonese.^[16]

Hong Kong

Vietnamese migration to Hong Kong began after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, when boat people took to the sea and began fleeing Vietnam in all directions. Those who landed in Hong Kong were placed in refugee camps until they could be resettled in a third country. Under the Hong Kong government's Comprehensive Plan of Action, newly arriving Vietnamese were classified as either political refugees or economic migrants. Those deemed to be economic migrants would be denied the opportunity for resettlement overseas.^{[citation needed]}

Philippines

Many Vietnamese boat refugees who crossed the South China Sea landed in the Philippines after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. These refugees established a community called Viet-Ville (French for "Viet-Town") in Puerto Princesa, Palawan. At the time, it became the centre of Vietnamese commerce and culture, complete with Vietnamese restaurants, shops, and Catholic churches and Buddhist temples. In the decades that followed however, the Vietnamese population dwindled greatly, with many having emigrated to the United States, Canada, Australia, or Western Europe. Viet-Ville today remains a popular destination for local tourists.

Israel

Vietnamese refugees arriving at Ben-Gurion International Airport, In Israel

The number of Vietnamese people in Israel is estimated at 150-200. Most of them arrived between 1976 and 1979, when about 360 Vietnamese refugees arrived when Prime Minister Menachem Begin authorized their admission to Israel and granted them political asylum. Most of them later left Israel, mainly for Europe or North America to reunite with their extended families. The second generation descendants of those who stayed have largely assimilated into Israeli culture. They largely marry non-Vietnamese Israelis, use Hebrew more than Vietnamese, and serve in the Israel Defense Forces. A minority choose to keep their culture alive by shunning intermarriage with non-Vietnamese and using Vietnamese over Hebrew at home.^[80][81] Today, the majority of the community lives in the Gush Dan area in the center of Israel but also a few dozen Vietnamese-Israelis or Israelis of Vietnamese origin live in Haifa, Jerusalem and Ofakim.

Relations with Vietnam

Relations between overseas Vietnamese populations and the current government of Vietnam traditionally range between polarities of geniality and overt contempt. Generally, overseas Vietnamese residing in North America, Western Europe, and Australia (which represent the vast majority of overseas Vietnamese populations) are virulently opposed to the existing government of Vietnam.^[82][83] However, there is a smaller population of overseas Vietnamese residing in Europe (mainly in Central and East Europe) and Asia, most of whom have been sent for training in formerly communist countries. These populations generally maintain positive or more neutral, if not very friendly relations with the government.^[83] Many of these East European Vietnamese are from northern Vietnam, and usually have personal or familial affiliations with the communist regime ^[84] Those who left prior to the political exodus of 1975, largely residing in France, generally identify their sentiments as somewhere in between the two polarities.^[82]

The former South Vietnamese prime minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ returned to Vietnam in 2004 and was generally positive about his experience. However, Ky's reconciliation was met with anger by most Overseas Vietnamese, who called him a traitor and a communist collaborator for reconciling and working with the current communist regime.^[85] Notable expatriate artists have returned to Vietnam to perform (many are met with scorn and boycott by the expatriate community itself after they have done so). Notably, the composer Pham Duy had returned to Ho Chi Minh City (referred to as Saigon by overseas Vietnamese and those living in Vietnam) to live the rest of his life there after living in Midway City, California since 1975. The government in Vietnam used less antagonistic rhetoric to describe those who left the country after 1975. According to the Vietnamese government, while in 1987 only 8,000 overseas Vietnamese returned to Vietnam for the purpose of visiting, that number jumped to 430,000 in 2004.

The government enacted laws to make it easier for overseas Vietnamese to do business in Vietnam, including those allowing them to own land. However, overseas Vietnamese still face discrimination while trying to do business there. The first company in Vietnam to be registered to an Overseas Vietnamese was Highlands Coffee, a successful chain of specialty coffee shops, in 1998.^[86]

In June 2007, Vietnamese president Nguyen Minh Triet visited the United States, one of his scheduled stops was within the vicinity Orange County, home of Little Saigon, the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam. Details of his plans were not announced beforehand due to concerns of massive protests. Despite these efforts, a large crowd of anti-communist protest still occurred.^[87] Several thousand people protested in Washington, D.C. and Orange County during his visit.