Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Post-Vietnam War Refugees 20240713

Washing up on mediterranean beaches. And refugees have been in the news for the past few years, particularly related to the crisis in syria, but refugees are being uprooted by conflict all around the world. So were not just talking about refugees coming from syria but from other wartorn regions. Especially in the past a couple of years, it has also been very difficult to ignore the public response to refugees. And Refugee Resettlement, like so many other topics today, has become a polarizing topic. On one hand, opposition to refugees has been fierce and even hostile. Politicians at the local, state, and federal level have linked refugees to terrorism and have pursued antirefugee policies in the name of National Security. The most famous of these measures is president Donald Trumps executive orders which ground the federal Refugee Program virtually to a halt in january 2017. His imposition of what is widely known as the refugee ban shortly after taking office initiated one of the sharpest legal and political debates of his presidency, and is part of a broader effort to limit the number of foreigners who are able to enter the United States. To be sure, politicians are not the only ones who have taken action on the issue of refugees. There have also been instances of vigilante antirefugee activism, some of it potentially viola violent and much of it centered on muslim refugees. In murfreesboro, tennessee, there were rallies led by white nationalists and neonazis. But its also hard to ignore the fact that there has been a tremendous amount of public support for refugees. The january 2017 executive orders prompted thousands of americans to protest and facilitate legal aid at airports across the country. Community groups organized rallies and Service Projects to raise awareness of the issue of refugees. People put signs declaring their support for refugees on their front lawns or above their church entryways or even on stickers on their laptop. Now, i am an historian. And my job is to remind you that we need to have some historical perspective. The truth is that in many ways we have been here before. Ive already pointed to this image of a boat. This is an image from 1975, but it could very well be an image of people fleeing by boat today. Weve seen these images before. Weve seen a vicious eruption of antirefugee sentiment before. Weve seen a generous prorefugee response before. Weve seen anxiety about religious and cultural difference before. Weve worried about refugees and National Security before. Now, i am frustrated a little bit by our contemporary conversation because so much of our contemporary conversation is not paying attention to our history, and lessons we can learn from the past. We especially dont hear a lot about asian refugees. We might hear a little bit more about jewish refugees, but not that much about asian refugees. Now ive made the case this entire semester that asianAmerican History is American History. And this is true for refugee history as well. So today, im going to talk about asian refugee migrations that took place four decades ago. And this refugee migration, i argue, changed the course of refugee history in the United States for the decades to come. Im going to talk about refugees known as ugandan asian refugees and Southeast Asian refugees. They arrived in the 1970s and 1980s, some of them as late as the beginning of the 21st century. This migration was a turning point in several different ways. Number one, in the 1970s, refugees were accepted for new reasons. For the first time, the United States wasnt just accepting refugees because they opposed communism. The United States was accepting refugees on the basis of emerging humanitarian commitments to human rights. Number two, during this period refugees were accepted and resettled in a new way. Were talking about a huge refugee migration here, over a million Southeast Asians refugees came to the United States in the last couple of decades of the 20th century. And that refugee migration and the amount of work that it took to coordinate relief and resettlement efforts, both overseas and domestically, made government officials realize they needed to have a more systematic and organized and permanent way to respond to refugee crises. So its in part because of Southeast Asian refugees in particular that we see the emergence of a push for new legislation which culminated in the 1980 refugee act. This act is still enforced today. Ill talk about the details of that act later. Number three, another reason why Southeast Asian refugee migrations and also ugandan asian refugee migrations matter, these asian refugees were at the beginning of a new wave of refugees, a new refugee population. They were the first group of nonwhite, noneuropean, nonchristian refugees to be resettled in the United States. There had been cuban refugees and jewish refugees, ill talk about that later, but this was the first huge group of nonwhite, noneuropean, nonchristian refugees. And these refugees were so different that it was a source of great anxiety for americans. In truth, these refugees ended up being the forerunner for refugee populations who would arrive in the United States in subsequent decades. So these refugees in many ways set the groundwork for how the United States would resettle refugees, but also were a harbinger for what would come. And some asian refugees, ugandan refugees and Southeast Asian refugees in the future, profoundly changed the u. S. And its approach to refugees in the decades to come. If any of you like literature, youll know that we have been talking about asian refugees, in fact the history of vietnamese refugees has received a lot of attention in the past couple of years because of this book, the sympathizer which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. You are reading an excerpt from this novel this week and well discuss it next week. The author himself was a refugee. And hes reflected a lot about what it means to be a refugee and a writer and to tell his story. In an essay he published in the New York Times he observed the following. Many people have characterized my novel the sympathizer as an immigrant story and me as an immigrant. No. My novel is a war story. And i am not an immigrant. I am a refugee who, like many others, has never ceased being a refugee in some corners of my mind. He continues, immigrants are more reassuring than refugees because there is an endpoint to their story. However they arrive, whether they are documented or not, their desires for a new life can be absorbed into the American Dream or into the european narrative of civilization. By contrast, refugees are zombies of the world, the undead who rise from dying states to march or switch for our borders in endless waves. So lets stop and think about this line for a little bit. What do you think he means by saying immigrants are different from refugees . Theres a choice that immigrants take to build their own, like, new future, whereas with the refugee crises we see now, theres often a push that forces them to leave their own countries and migrate somewhere else just because of, like, a failure of government or reasons that they dont have control over themselves. Absolutely. So there is a forced migration that characterizes refugee migrations rather than immigrants who, as you point out, have more of a choice. With refugees there is somewhat of a an immigrant who came to this country by their own choice to build a new life, the refugee, the reason we would welcome them in is because were housing them until they go back, but with an immigrant that connotation isnt there. So the ability to return to your home country. Weve talked about how a lot of immigrants migrate to the United States or elsewhere and return home. Refugees dont have that option, thats a really important point. Because they have been forced out due to war, persecution, Natural Disaster, any number of reasons that make their life in their previous country impossible. They would not survive. So i think youre exactly right, refugee migrations is characterized by a need for survival. What do you think he means when he says that refugees are zombies of the world . I thought that was evocative, zombies of the world, the undead who arise from dying states. In a way, they are the only vessels of culture left of these dying states, and its really hard to get someone to, you know, completely forfeit their culture because it is part of their identity. So as long as they live, the culture lives. Yes, okay. So i think this is really powerful. They are often vessels of their culture. Theyre leaving desperate situations where they would have otherwise died, physically and perhaps also their community would have died, their culture would have died. And so this idea of people leaving dying states in circumstances of profound dislocation and trauma is really powerful. I think that language of zombies is really powerful because it reminds us of the desperation, the violence, the fear that people leave that pushes people to migrate. And i think that its important for us to remember that this violence, that this suffering, that this persecution, that this upheaval that forced them to migrate doesnt just end there, but continues to shape their lives in years to come. So the author calls attention to, i think, the two most important aspects of refugees and what distinguishes them from immigrants. Number one, they are involuntary migrants, as you pointed out already, forcibly removed from their homes due to political conflict, Natural Disaster or other extraordinary circumstances. And theyre often very traumatized people, zombies as he would say. The interesting thing about refugees is they are powerful in our mythology of american exceptionalist immigration history. Think about the poem thats on the statue of liberty, the new colossus by emma lazarus, who describes the statue of liberty as the mother of exiles, who says, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses learning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless tempesttossed to me, i lift my lamp beside the golden door. How many of you have heard those lines before . So famous. And the fact that those lines are on the statue of liberty, which is a symbol of immigration in the United States, is really powerful, it really centers the United States or the idea of the United States as being a welcoming haven for people who are exiles. Unfortunately the history of the United States tells a somewhat different, more complicated story. The truth is we havent always had a humanitarian impulse to welcome refugees. Usually weve only done so when its in our humanitarian National Interest. Usually weve been more inclined to actually reject refugees than to accept them. And to borrow the words of historian eric tang, often refugees who have been accepted for resettlement here are not only resettled but are also deeply unsettled by the experience of forced migration and resettlement in the United States. To give you an overview of what ill talk about today, ill give you a little bit of background about american Refugee Resettlement policy after the second war. And then im going to use that background to set up why the 1970s were such an important period of change. Thats when a small group of ewiugandan refugees arrived in United States and they were followed by an even larger group of refugees, Southeast Asian refugees who are alternatively described as indochinese refugees, these included refugees from vietnam, laos, and cambodia. Ill talk about the crisis that developed overseas, but ill focus mostly on developments that took place here in the United States, how the general public viewed Southeast Asian refugees, how Southeast Asian refugees were admitted and resettled, and how Southeast Asian refugees themselves tell stories about their experience. Ill tease out why the history of Southeast Asian Refugee Resettlement matters. And ill conclude with some discussion about how Southeast Asianamericans today are drawing on their refugee history to intervene in contemporary Public Policy debates. Any questions so far . So lets begin with some background about Refugee Resettlement in the United States during the 20th century. During the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, the most refugees came from europe with the exception of cuban refugees. Most were white and either jewish or christian. And during this period, right after the second world war, and during the cold war, commitment to opposing communism really shaped how the United States determined which refugees to accept. During and after world war ii, the United States changed its immigration policies to accept people displaced by war. These refugees were known as displaced persons and they benefitted from the landmark legislation of the time, which was the 1948 displaced persons act. That act actually expired, and in 1953 it was replaced by the Refugee Relief act which helped other european refugees including italians, greeks, and dutch refugees. In 1956, we see cold war developments in europe also shape a new refugee population and give rise to new groups of people seeking refuge, in particular the hungarian revolution occurred and Freedom Fighters, as they were popularly known, were welcome to the United States. They were accepted under what is called parole power which allowed the United States to accept refugees and circumvent its own immigration laws which at this time, if you recall, were pretty restrictive. Throughout much of the cold war, the executive branch used a loophole in immigration law, the parole power, to admit refugees when it deemed that it was in the National Interest to do so. Most of those refugees admitted were fleeing left wing or communist regimes. Finally, in 1959, cuban exiles began to arrive, at first bautista sympathizersprisal fro government. For the first time the United States was the country of first refuge, meaning refugees didnt go to another country and apply for resettlement in the United States, they went straight to the United States, especially to places like miami. The policy for cuban refugees at this time was such that these refugees would be given asylum as part of a bigger anticastro, anticommunist policy. A number of requirements were imposed on these early refugee populations, and these requirements illustrated how the United States pursued its own cold war selfinterest. First, as ive already mentioned, the u. S. Offered a special welcome for people fleeing communism. Second, preference was given for refugees who were professionals or highly educated or skilled. This was in keeping with other immigration laws of the period. Alternately, while welcoming displaced people has been seen as a humanitarian act, these humanitarian efforts were often centered on the needs of the United States, the helper. These images feature refugees who arrived in the United States during this period. The photo on the left features displaced persons who are registering at ft. Ontario emergency Refugee Center which housed a thousand people displaced by world war ii. And the photo on the right is the cover of Time Magazine, 1957, featuring their chosen person of the year in 1956. The person of the year in 1956 was the hungarian freedom fighter. So lets think about this. What do you think this image on the right tells us about how americans viewed hungarian Freedom Fighters during this time . Think about what it means for Time Magazine to choose hungarian Freedom Fighters as their person of the year and to present them in this way. What does this magazine cover tell us about how americans viewed hungarian refugees . Definitely in a positive way. N different than how we view Syrian Refugees today. Yes, really positive. So you can see his face, so bold, so serious, noble. There was enormous enthusiasm for welcoming people who were seen as fighting for freedom, who were seen as being allies in the United States war against communism. So i think its a really important image to have in mind, how refugees can be celebrated and how the celebration of refugees converges powerfully with american interests, in particular at this moment the cold war. Later in the 20th century, the cold war continued to shape the United States stance towards refugee populations. But the last quarter of the 20th industry saw a major shift in the worlds refugee populations. In 1964, a Refugee Affairs expert at the World Council of churches declared, we are now faced with a problem of refugees who are by and large nonwhite and by and large nonchristian and it remains to be seen how we will react. Americans were worried about how the United States would handle these new refugees. One pastor in st. Paul, minnesota, explained, many problems will arise because of the new influx of people to america as a result of new people coming from different cultures and backgrounds. How will these new immigrants be accepted, he asked . Government leaders also worried about this new immigrant population, new refugee population in particular. During a congressional hearing shortly after the fall of saigon, julia taft, who was of the Interagency Task force on indochina refugees, declared, never before in the history of this country, mr. Chairman, have so many people from such different cultures, ethnic and religious backgrounds, been introduced into American Society in such a short time. What set these refugees apart from previous refugee populations is not simply that they were racially, ethnically, and religiously different, but also that these refugee communities didnt necessarily have a community of people in the United States already to welcome them. So who were these new refugees . Amid the contemporary debate about muslim refugees from syria and somalia, theres been little attention paid to the fact that the United States has been resettling refugees who are muslim for a long time and in fact has been since the 1970s. The first muslim refugees accepted for resettlement were ugandanasian refugees, these were asian origin people who had been expelled from uganda by idi amin. They were resettled in the United States and also the United Kingdom and elsewhere beginning in 1972. These ugandanasian refugees marked a turning point in that they were different from their refugee predecessors. They were religiously diverse, identifying as muslim and also hindu, sikh, and christian. So one big question worth asking, how did it go . A ugandanasian refugee who later was a history procedure at Bowdoin College wrote a report called the brown diaspora and he noted that cultural and religious dirnsz wefferences we source of anxiety for the refugees and their predominantly christian sponsors. He noted that some problems did arise. For example, a strictly vegetarian brahmin was given work in a poultry Processing Plant which did not go so well, he pointed out it produced significant psychological and emotional strain. And though he praised the good intentions of the sponsors and y agencies he said that there needed to be better understanding of the needs of refugees. Overall, though, he said that ug andan asian refugees had a positive experience. I mention the refugees because they really set the stage for a larger refugee population that arrived in the 1970s. So a lot of the Lessons Learned from the ug andandan refugee. Other population arrived as a result of war in Southeast Asia. To give you context about what is happening in Southeast Asia at the time. In 1975 communist governments took control in vietnam, cambodia a cambodia and laos and thousands of people were fleeing for their lives. The American Public tended to see the refugees as a single group. Frequently referred to as the indo chinese. And that category alies a lot of important differences within the population. These were several different ethnic groups coming from different countries, speaking different languages, having different religions and class backgrounds and political orientations and more. What united them was the experience of war. The trauma of war. The forced migration produced by war. And the experience of having to create a new life in the United States after experiencing the war. These refugees arrived in several waves. The first occurred during the United States military involvement in the vietnam war which began in 1965, lasted a decade. By 1971 the war had already caused considerable violent and economic political and cultural damage. It had displaced by 1971 approximately 6 million refugees in South Vietnam and 700,000 refugees in laos. Later in the fall of saigon in the spring of 1975, the withdrawal of American Military forces caused another outpouring of refugees. In response to this immediate crisis president gerald ford gave the green light to parole in or admit 200,000 vietnamese refugees. Some were evacuated through the help of American Military forces, others fled on their own and were later taken into protective custody by the United States. These vietnamese refugees in 1975 were placed in several militaryrun refugee camps on military bases here in the United States. And they stayed there until sponsors could assist resettlement elsewhere. Now as 1976 began, americans thought they were done with the refugee crisis. They had handled the couple hundred thousand refugees who went to the militaryrun refugee camps. But the crisis was only beginning to heat up at this point. Violence and political conflict in Southeast Asia continued to escalate and spur new refugee migrations. For example in cambodia, the invasion brought the downfall and removal of hol pot in 1975. During poll pots 3 and a half years in power, they have killed 1. 7 million people. Which was about 21 of the cambodian population. With poll pot no longer in power, approximately half a million cambodian people who managed to survive his regime sought refuge in nearby thailand, additional 122,000 cambodian refugees joined them in thailand between 1980 and 1986. In vietnam, there was another outpouring of refugees known famously as the boat people. This escaped by sea and people who have been political military or cultural leaders in South Vietnam. Some of them were ethnic minorities fleeing persecution. About 160,000 went to china and tens of thousands took to the oceans and made their way to other places in Southeast Asia including thailand, indonesia in the philippines. They sailed in boats that were hardly sea worthy sometimes. And an estimated 25 to 50 died at sea. If they were lucky to make it to land, sometimes they were forced back to see by governments like thailand and malaysia that refused to accept them and take responsibility. Those refugees who were fortunate enough to live on and make it to a refugee camp lived in difficult conditions in thailand and elsewhere. And by the middle of 1979 nearly 100,000 vietnamese boat people were in malash saw and hong kong. No sow nar ive only talked about refugees from vietnam and cambodia. But i should also mention what are known as mong and lao refugees. This is an aimage of a traditional monk storied cloth quilt. It is embroidery, but stories about the war have been told through this traditional artform. And so just looking at this image, what do you see . What do you notice . What story of war does it tell . Do you see any depictions of war here . Anyone notice. Yeah, i think it is interesting that the spanning of technology is really depicted in this depiction of war because i see sword fighting but then i see planes which is to me a very funny thing to see embroidered on a quilt. And im also just interested in the dear to the left, slurping at the river and i guess it is a nice juxtaposition of how war comes into a landscape but the landscape still functions as is and it would be cool to see an aftermath quilt of what would happen. Yeah. Absolutely. You call attention to some really key details. You see a river. This river represents the macon river which bordered laos and. And you see the airplanes, the helicopters. You see this fascinating juxtaposition of rural life and war. We see little boxy buildings which could represent either the refugee camps or the military sites where mong troops organized. You see people in a line all walking in the same direction, fleeing, perhaps, for safety. So this represents mong experiences during the secret war. And their subsequent migration out of laos to thailand. Now the United States worked with the mong as well as lao people in their fight against communists during the secret war in laos in the 1960s. With the assistance of the cia and green berets general advantage powell and tens of thousands of mong soldiers were the frontline defense responsible for warding off the communist advance until the american evacuation in 1973. The staggering cost of mong sacrifice during this period is really important to know. Throughout 13 years of fierce guerilla warfare estimates claim that one in four mong soldiers approximately 17,000 people died. And some of the mong soldiers were teenagers, were quite young. The secret war entered a new phase in 1973 when the United States signed a peace accord with North Vietnam and evacuated all of the American Military leaders from laos. But 18,000 mong soldiers were left behind. Some disbursed in the countryside, some joined the general army. In 1975 veng pao were airlifted out of laos by the cia but most were less fortunate. Of the 10,000 mong who flooded the headquarters at long chang, only a small fraction were evacuated by the United States. Thousands of mong people therefore embarked on the exodus to thailand carrying possessions on their back, families traveled by foot through the jungle and journeyed at night to avoid capture but the communists. By 1979 nearly 30,000 mong refugees attempted to make the dangerous crossing each month. So that crossing of the river is such a powerful part of mong stories of their refugee migration. And you could see it powfully depicted here. Now americans today have paid attention to news of refugee crises overseas. Theyve been following news reports, theyve been watching footage on nightly news, theyve been following it on social media. And americans in the 1970s were just like us today. They were following developments overseas with great interest. And americans who were moved by news accounts of this humanitarian crisis, this was a really Important Development in causing americans to say we should actually do something. The plight of Southeast Asias began to build and americans bash to push to provide relief and resettlement opportunities. So today, first, i want to talk about support for Southeast Asian refugees. Americans gave a lot of reasons to support the Southeast Asian refugees. For one, Many Americans rooted their support in the idea that the United States is an exceptional country and immigrant country that has special status in history as a refuge for the scorned, hated and hunted. One 1975 Public Opinion survey found that the leading reason why americans supported the admission of Southeast Asian refugees was the, quote, tradition of the United States as a sanctuary for them fleeing oppression of their homeland and agreed with the state that the United States began with people of all races, creeds and nationalities coming here to escape religious or political persecution. So we ought to let the refugees from vietnam in. Throughout the cold war americans continued to field a special obligation to people who were fighted against communism. People who were the less fortunate hume wan beings who faced retribution and persecution. And that was also another reason why a lot of americans were open to accepting Southeast Asian refugees. A majority of the respondents agreed that the United States should accept political refugees specifically fleeing communist countries. There was also the specific context of the vietnam war. The fact that refugees were fleeing a region where the United States was directly involved in years of brutal warfa warfare heightened the american sense of obligation. They were committed to committing southeast refugees to work closely as translators or in the diplomatic corp. Americans who had worked in vietnam felt terrible about potentially abandoning their Southeast Asian colleagues. Another advocate argues that americans must aid and admit Southeast Asian whose suffer was the direction consequence of United States action. There was an act of penance for americans sins in vietnam. Just as powerful as american guilt was the idea of american goodness. Pride in american compassion and generosity spurred americans to take action. The idea that the United States was the benevolent leader of the free world converged with religious ideas. The idea that the United States needed to be the good samaritan. Finally refugee advocates argued that americans should not admit refugees because americans are good, but because refugees are good for america. One Senate Resolution from 1975 declared this period of influx of refugees and exiles conservative to keep us humble, saving us from the sins of arrogance, pride and selfrighteousness. Now i need to tell you the support for refugees really was small compared to the opposition to refugees. Despite the lofty ideals and passioned advocacy of refugee supporters, in reality the majority of americans consistently opposed the resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees. And this sentiment was by no means a new development in american culture. Public opinion polls indicate that consistently throughout the 20th century americans have not supported the admission and resettlement of refugees. For example in january 1939 as the u. S. Is grappling with the question of whether to jewish refugees fleeing nazi germany, only 30 of americans surveyed said that the u. S. Should resettle jewish refugeys. 61 said it should not. Now compare that to Public Opinion polls after the vietnam war. One National Gallup poll in may of 1975, right after the fall of saigon found only 36 of americans surveyed favored the resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees. 45 of americans surveyed opposed it. Attitudes toward Southeast Asian refugees did warm somewhat over time but american reluctance to admit refugees remained consistent through the 1970s and 80s. Even after the end of the vietnam war, a plurality of americans believed that the United States had accepted too many refugees. And this slide indicates i added some statistics from october 2016. 41 of registered American Voters said that the u. S. Should accept Syrian Refugees and 54 said it should not. So this is interesting because more americans are supportive of Refugee Resettlement today than compared to after the vietnam war which i think is a surprising statistic for a lot of people. So why do people oppose Southeast Asian refugees . The New York Times shortly after the fall of saigon visited a town called niceville, florida. That is actually the name. Niceville. The truth is the town was not particularly nice to the refugees who were arriving from vietnam. Niceville was located near eggland air force base which was the site of one of the military run refugee camps and despite the proximity to vietnamese refugees or perhaps because of it, the people of niceville reveal the limits of american welcome. A local Radio Station polled area residents about the 1,500 vietnamese refugees be airlifted from saigon and 80 of the people said they did not want the military to bring refugees to their town. At one point residents actually circulated a petition demanding that refugees be sent to a different place and School Children made jokes about shooting refugees. As far as im concerned they could ship them all right back one woman told the New York Times. The support for sending refugees back to vietnam reflected broader national sentiment. In one National Poll in june 1975, 85 of americans believed that the United States was too panicked when saigon fell and the government should arrange to send the refugees back to saigon. And a town close to niceville, anxiety reflected anxiety about economic issues. The stagnating economy and weakening social safety net. We have enough of our own problems to take care of, said grady tom berlin, a local barber. They dont even have enough money to take care of Social Security now and they want to bring in more people. And these were keeping with national sentiment. Many americans believed that Southeast Asian refugees posed an economic burden on the u. S. A vsurvey in june, 1975, they believe they take jobs away from americans, only 28 believed otherwise. And there were issues other than economic issues. For one there is concern about security, about communists slipping in with the refugees and this sounds a little bit familiar, didnt it . Robert carr a realtor in nearby valparaiso feared that how do we know we wont get the bad guys. You cant say for sure. And lord knows we have enough communist infiltration right now. He wasnt alone in his concerns. The topic came up in discussions in congress. In 1975 ambassador el dean brown who led the response to Southeast Asian refugees responded to several questions from congress about the adequacy of the immigration and Nationalization Services security screening which felt it was pressured to have ex peadiency over thoroughness. There were cultural concerns. They argued that Southeast Asian refugees were culturally unasimable and a danger to the human well being and the language that echoes the language that we saw earlier in American History. Opponents of Refugee Resettlement portrayed Southeast Asian people as vice and germanridden people who threatened public health. There is no telling what kind of diseases theyll be bringing with them, said Vincent Davis of niceville. And when asked to identify what diseases exactly they might be bringing, he couldnt quite name them. He said, i dont know. But there is bound to be some kind of those tropical germs floating around. Hostility to Southeast Asian refugees sometimes boiled down to simple racism. At fortt walton beach high school, near niceville, students established a gook clux clan. And that was resident of what were hearing today of a variety of reasons why people are concerned about admitting refugees. The funny thing about refugees, the funny thing about Southeast Asian refugees is that given all of the hostility, it actually happened. Southeast asian refugees were actually admitted and resettled. As the temple put it, given the intensity of the public opposition, it is appear a miracle that they resettled in the United States as well. And they were resettled in substantial numbers. Between 1975 and 2000 over a million Southeast Asian refugees came to the United States and what was the most extensive and expensive and institutionally complex resettlement effort in American History. It was also haphazard, chaotic, controversial, and planners expected it would take a year but it ended up taking decades. Southeast asian refugee migration developed in several phases. First the indo china refugee assistance act in 1975. This outlined the first plans to help refugees from vietnam and cambodia. The federal government grate will you underestimated expensive it would be and how much money was need and time and man power so in the years that followed they approval the arrival of refugees in a series of stopgap measures. By 1978 the stream of refugees became a tide. As more vietnamese cambodia and low land lao and others came to the u. S. So president jimmy carter raised the quota of incoming refugees to 14,000 people per month in 1979. And there remained the challenge of bringing refugees to a level of selfsufficiency. To meet these needs, Congress Passed a landmark piece of legislation. The refugee act of 1980. And this is really important. Because it is the act under which we operate still today. It aimed to fix the inefficiency and the Resettlement Program and maintained some of the preexisting program but aimed to make it more permanent and stable. A capped refugee annual entries at 50,000. It created new admissions procedures that facilitated the resettlement of refugees and provided longterm funding tor Refugee Programs. So it was the first general refugee act. Up until 1980 the United States had been under criticism for only helping people who were anticommunist. Rather than people who really needed to be helped. Refugee policy critics argued should not be driven by cold war geopolitics but by International Laws and norms. So the 1980 refugee act is important because it redefined refugee in american law. It defined refugees as any person who is outside his or her own country who is unable or unwilling to return to the country as your point raised earlier and unable or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country out of fear of persecution because of race, religion, nationality and political opinion and more. So Southeast Asian Refugee Resettlement, given the complexity, illuminated the need for the 1980 refugee act and that is why it is important. But it also marked an important shift. The shift towards centering refugee admissions on human rights rather than cold war anticommunism. And this period generally saw a shift toward human rights humanitarian thinking. But everyone was not on board. Gerald ford continued to make the argument that we should admit refugees because they have been the United States ally in the fight against communism globally. But liberal prorefugee advocates like senator ted kennedy emphasized they deserved american help due to a more responsibility to alleviate suffering. So what happened to these refugees once they arrived in the United States . How were they resettled . A lot of conversation focuses on admission but we also need to think about how refugees were resettled. Because successful Refugee Resettlement made policymakers more likely to want to admit for refugees. And refugee admissions and Refugee Resettlement in this way are very intertwined. In the United States, Refugee Resettlement is a Public Private effort. The government delegates work to private agencies called voluntarily agencies. Interestingly a lot of the agencies are also religious. 75 of Southeast Asian refugees who arrived in 1981, which is roughly the mid point of Southeast Asian refugee arrivals were resettled by religious organizations. Some of the organizations are ones that are very active and prominent today. Lujan immigration and Refugee Service, and the United States confession of catholic bishops. So religious organizations were very important in both advocating for increased refugee admissions, and also doing the work of helping refugees make a new life in the United States. These voluntarily agencies received a government grant between 300 and 500 per refugee to help them in the first few weeks upon arrival. And these voluntarily agencies also partnered with local organizations. Sometimes an individual, usually a community group, especially a congregation, a synagogue or a church, and these churches were civic organizations, would sponsor refugees and sort of take them under their wing. Sometimes refugees would actually live in Church Buildings for the first few days in the United States. I interviewed one family, or one church sponsor that had housed a family in their church and they didnt have showers so the refugees lived in the sunday School Classrooms and then walked across the street to the seminary and took showers there and they lived like that for a few weeks. This actually came up in the movie grand torino which some of you have seen. In that film clint east wod is talking to a young mong woman and asked how did you get here to the rural midwest and she jokingly says blame the lutherans and that seen said very succinctly one important theme, religious organizations, religious groups have been powerful in advocating for refugee admissions and they have been really important to making Refugee Resettlement happen. They did so for a variety of reasons as this flyer from Church World Service points out. Churches in their view are avenue of gods love to refugees and the last line is pretty important here articulated how protestant refugees, who said that jesus who was a refugee that by helping refugees we are really helping him. So these refugee groups had a lot of commitment to helping refugees and they also had the financial backing of the government to do that work. So the United States Refugee Program would not have happened without these private organizations. Now, they had their own goals for resetting refugees, but religious groups and government had a shared objective which is bringing refugees to selfsufficiency as soon as possible. This quote from mark frank of the mooigs and Refugee Service of the catholic of bishops said that im advised someone that wants to make a difference and get involved in the effort but advise their role is not to be everything for the comer. Theyre role is to be as selfsufficient as soon as possible. Dont create dependencies. That is the worst thing for an individual, is to create a dependency. This reflected the governments goal of resettling refugees in a way that would not put a lot of people on welfare. This was an obsession of both government and private agencies involved in resettlement. So the number one goal was to ensure that refugees would not be a public charge, would be economically selfsufficient and have a job and if children go to school. But there were commitments to cultural assimilation and to that end refugees were actually spread out across the country. As one person put it, spread thin like butter so they might disappear. And there was a desire on the part of refugee policymakers to prevent the formation of immigrant enclaves earlier in the u. S. In u. S. History. So my final portion today i want that talk about how refugees experienced this migration. In my view a lot of the conversation about refugee migration takes into the need the considerations of the government, takes into consideration the need of sponsors, of community members. It doesnt always involve listening to Southeast Asian refugee voices. So in general, i will say that refugees were grateful to be resettled in the United States but they were deeply unsettled by the experience. They faced a number of challenges. Economic challenges, cultural adjustment, language acquisition, trauma due to war. Physical and Mental Health problems due to war also. Intense antirefugee hostility and racism. The separation from family and friends. The uncertainty of what future lay ahead. I think one of the most powerful ways to understand what it was like to experience this refugee migration is to listen to oral histories and so im going to call attention to yur moas story who is a mong woman who lived in st. Paul, minnesota and she shared through the history project which is at the Minnesota Historical society. Ill share a few lines that i think illuminate the challenges she experienced. At the Welfare Office he told me that how come you did not go to work . And why are you just coming to ask for more money . That is what he told me. But he did not know how much struggling we had been through. He did not know how lucky we are to stay alive so we could come to this country. Maybe he would still say all of those things about us. The reason why we are having this problem is because of the americans who came to our country and caused all of these problems. That is the reason why we came to this country. But he does not know about that. And all he sees is that we are here to use his money and take his country and his home. They really hate the people who are on welfare like us. For those who went to work to support their own families, then the americans said that now they are taking away our jobs. So lets unpack this a little bit. What is yer moa feel frustrated with life in america. What are her frustrations . Shes frustrated because the Welfare Office is assuming that her story without really knowing her and it kind of reminds us of the last discussion and the perception of americans toward muslim america. So i think it is just theyre not really taking into account her experiences. There is a frustration, absolutely, of americans not fully understanding why mong people are coming to the United States in the first place. This is a big issue for a lot of mong refugees. We had been on your side and why are you hating us now. There was a lot of frustration with the lack of understanding and lack of history. And by sharing stories through oral history projects and memoirs and fiction, i think mong people, vietnamese people have been able to tell their story in a to a wider audience and improve understanding. But in the first years they didnt have a platform to tell their story and to improve understanding. As easily as they do now for sure. Cal klee yang is an american woman. She lived in st. Paul. You read her mem area. Want to call attention to a few lines that i think are powerful from the text you read. She came to the United States as a child and so she has the unique position of experiencing a refugee migration from the advantage point of a young person which is quite different from yermoa and writes my mother and father told us not to look at the americans. If we saw them, they would see us. For the first year and a half we wanted to be invisible. Everyone where we went beyond mcdonough Housing Project we were looked and we felt exposed. We were dealing with the widespread realation that all mung people must do one of two things to survive in america, grow up or grow old. So she felt profound pressure to grow up real fast, translating for her parents and going through the ability to eat. Money was like a person i had never known or a wall i had never breached before. It kept me away from my grandma. I saw no way to climb this wall. Sometimes i thought so much about money that i couldnt sleep. Money was not bills and coins or a check from welfare, in my imagination it was much more. It was the nightmare that kept love apart in america. So here you have another aspect of frustration. Her family is not just financially struggling, but that financial struggle meant that they could not be with loved ones. This is a really powerful aspect of refugee migrations. Is the fact that people might be separated for years from family members. Might not even know what their status is. One last line the memoir. At night the families gathered for long conversations which were always about surviving in america. The same topic that the adult in my family started the first night we arrived in the country. It was a conversation that would continue for the next 20 years. How do we survive in america and still love each other as we had in laos . So what some things that yang did to survive . Anyone remember from the text . What did she do to survive, what was her strategy for survival . How to connect to her commitment to education. For enclose klee yang, the way to survive was to do well in school. Tremendous amount of pressure on her in this story to do well academically, to maybe go to college some day. And one thing that i think is powerful about learning about Southeast Asian American History is it reminds us that asianamericans are a variety of different backgrounds, experiences that shape their migration to the United States and the ways that theyre able to thrive in the United States. Whats amazing to see is how much upward mobility has been accomplished by the refugees within the span of a generation. I once interviewed a mung woman who described how she gave birth on the side of the macong river to a baby and she couldnt immediately swim across the river because she had just given birth and the baby was so small but as soon as she was able, she did. And her husband carried one child on his shoulders and she carried the newborn baby and they swam across the river as troops were shooting at them. And i asked after she told the story, well what happened to this baby that you carried and she said shes a law student at uc berkeley now. So i think it is powerful to remember how much struggle Southeast Asian refugees have experienced due to war, due to upheaval, due to dislocation. Culturally, politically, economically, its powerful. But i also think we do it a disservice by just focusing on Success Stories and i want to conclude here. Yang is a success story. Nguyen is a success story. Award winning Southeast Asian authors and professors. But just like how the model minority mythology is so problematic, so too is a narrative of Southeast Asian refugee migration that only focuses on success. And increasingly you see a lot of Southeast Asian refugees telling stories about struggle pointing out the unsettleness of resettlement. Not simply to correct the narrative, but also to convene in contemporary debates in the present about refugees today. So i want to revisit via ten nguyen and read lines from the same essay i quoted at the beginning of the lecture. And here nguyen writes about the hidden scars all refugee carry and he connects the past and the present in the same way that japanese americans who have been incarcerated during world war ii had been intervened in debates about the treating of muslims on the war on terror, we see americans drawing on their own refugee past to stand up for refugees in the present. Nguyen writes today when Many Americans think of the vietnamese americans as a success story, we forget that the majority of americans in 1975 did not want to accept vietnamese refugees. For a country that prides itself on the American Dreams, refugees are simply unamerican. Despite the fact that some of the original english settlers of this country, the puritans, were religious refugees. Today Syrian Refugees face a similar reaction. To some europeans the refugees seem uneuropean for reasons of culture and religion and language and in europe and in paris and San Bernardino and orlando, florida, had people fearing that refugees could be islamic radicals. For getting that those refugees are some of the first victims of the islamic state. And here is as powerful connection to the perception of vietnamese refugees as potential communist infiltrators when they were ones who were fleeing persecution at the hands of communists in asia. I continue here. Because those judgments have been rendered on many who have been cast out or fled, it is important for those of us who were refugees to remind the world of what our experiences mean. A vietnamese colleague of mine once jokingly referred his journey from refugee to boij wau z and when i told him i too was a refugee and he stopped joking and said you dont look like one. He is right. We could be invisible even to one another. But it is precisely because i do not look like a refugee that i have to proclaim being one. Even when those of us who were refugees would rather forget that there was a time when the world thought us to be less than human. I will close there. Any questions . About any of the material ive lectured about today . Okay. Thank you. I will see you all next week. Discussing the sympathizer and the bon tempo chapter. I wish you a wonderful weekend. Now i could actually say that. I will see you next week. Thank you. Were featuring American History tv programs this week as a preview of what is available every weekend on cspan 3. Tonight from our lectures in history series, travel virtually to our nations capitol for a night of history classes from universities in the washington, d. C. Region. We begin with a lecture on white house myths. With White House Historical association historian matthew costello. American history tv tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan 3. American history tv products are now available at the new cspan online store. Go to cspanstore. Org and check out all of the cspan products. Television has changed since cspan began 41 year ago. But our mission continues. To provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year weve brought you primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. You could watch all of cspan Public Affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation through cspan daily washington journal program. Or through our social media feeds. Cspan, created by private industry, americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Follow the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak at cspan. Org coronavirus. Watch congress and white house briefings and updates from governors, track the spread throughout the u. S. And the world with interactive maps. Watch ondemand any time unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus. Next, n lectures in history. University of mascara professor Williams Thomas teaches a class about slaves who sued for freedom before the civil war and outlines the different legal arguments they used and discusses the impact on the families of enslaved people. Okay, good morning, everybody. Lets get started. So today, our subject is freedom suits. Suits brought by enslaved families, and how they posed a challenge to the constitution, and under the constitution, how they posed a challenge to american slavery. Now, most of us are familia