ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I introduce two Vietnamese refugee families, the Phan family and the Ton family, who live in the West Side of Bualo. Vietnamese refugees are the largest group of refugees/immigrants from Southeast Asian countries. Following the collapse of the South Vietnamese government, there have been three waves of Vietnamese immigration to the US. e rst wave occurred between 1975 and 1979 shortly aer the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, which ended the Vietnam War. e second happened between 1979 and 1983 as a result of the new government’s implementation of Communist ideology. e third wave began in the mid-1980s and continued until recently as a result of the US Congress passing the Refugee Act of 1980, which reduced restrictions on entry, and the Vietnamese government establishing the Orderly Departure Program (ODP), which allows people to leave Vietnam legally for humanitarian reasons such as family reunions (Gold, 1999; Povell, 2005). According to the US Census Bureau (2000), Vietnamese refugees make up 8.25 percent of the total Asian population, and 79.9 percent of them are foreign born. Close to 80 percent of the school-age children are 1.5-generation or second-generation immigrant children who are reported to face language, cultural, and social adjustments (AAPIP, 1997; Lam, 2003). e two families described in this chapter came to the US during the third wave of Vietnamese refugees and were among the 2000 Vietnamese residing in the West Side of the city.
