During the 14 years since the communist takeover of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the diaspora of some two million Indochinese refugees has been an international phenomenon. Untold millions have perished at sea, on the Khmer killing fields, and in war-ravaged mountains along the Mekong River. Half a million still languish in refugee camps throughout Asia. For those who have relocated to strange new lands in the West, their struggle to adapt and survive has produced innumerable profiles in courage, triumphs, and tragedies.
In the late 1970s, when Indochinese began arriving in Chicago, they moved to neighborhoods dominated by muggers, drug dealers, and prostitutes who operated among abandoned and deterorating buildings. Today, their neighborhood is affectionately known as "Little Saigon"; it has been resurrected through the hard work and determination of its Southeast Asian population. A colorful array of restaurants and family-owned shops attracts Chicagoans from all parts of the city.
Trong Nguyen, a community organizer and father of six, divides his often 80-hour workweek between days spent in his social-work office and evenings at a small restaurant. "When the refugees first began arriving," he recalls, "they were constantly robbed and beaten. We felt like we were thrust from one war zone into another.
"For my wife and me, our main concern was to feed our small children. We had Vietnamese pride and did not want to take public aid. We wanted the American community and authorities to respect us."
Little Saigon's Indochinese population includes some 10,000 Vietnamese as well as 2,000 Cambodians and Laotians, a small percentage of the nearly 900,000 Indochinese now in United States. Their success rate is diverse, and their story is a study in dramatic contrasts. Those who arrived before 1980 were largely more educated and urbanized. They had previously been involved in political, military, or business relationships with Americans. In the United States, they and their children have adapted and excelled. Many refugees who arrived in recent years come from rural areas and small villages. They also bear emotional and physical scars from years of communist repression. Although there are both economic success stories and valedictorians among recent arrivals, in general, their adaptation has been an uphill struggle.
Among America's most loyal allies during the Vietnam War were the Hmong hill tribe people of Laos. Thousands of their young men sacrificed their lives to block the flow of North Vietnamese troops on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the South. Unknown to the American public, this "secret war" prevented thousands of additional American casualties in Vietnam. Since 1975, the Vietnamese communists and their Pathet Lao surrogates have waged brutal campaigns of revenge against the Hmong. International relief officials estimate that some 100,000 Hmong--25 percent of their population in Laos--have perished.
For most of the 80,000 Hmong resettled in the United States, the transition has been a nightmare. Displaced from a primordial preliterate culture, the Hmong were initially scattered into urban ghettos. Confronted with cars, telephones, rent, and other monthly bills, many became paralyzed with confusion. About 40,000 made a second migration to the Central Valley of California, hoping to reunite their clans and reestablish their
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