Transpacific Civic Activism in Vietnam and the Diaspora

The Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) Annual Conference, April 2021.

Panel Title: Transpacific Civic Activism in Vietnam and the Diaspora 

Abstract: This panel will explore how civic participation in Vietnam and the diaspora have helped facilitate transpacific interconnectedness between states, nonstate actors, and international institutions. Elwing Suong Gonzalez’s paper “Building a Place in Los Angeles: Mutual Assistance Associations, Government Funding, and Vietnamese Refugee Community Development,” examines the efforts, goals, challenges and conflicts surrounding early Vietnamese refugee community development in Los Angeles. The city was the site of civic organization, community, and identity as well as a site of great conflict, revealing the tensions between Vietnamese refugees and the government entities that oversaw their resettlement. This presentation will explore how civic leaders balanced and addressed the demands and expectations of both government policy and various factions within the Vietnamese refugee community. In “Vietnamese Americans and Their Homeland: Transnational Advocacy Efforts and Diasporic Ties,” Ivan Small expands our scope to include the contacts and relationships between Vietnamese Americans and other diasporic Vietnamese political, humanitarian and religious organizations across the globe, namely those in Canada, Europe, and Australia. Of the estimated 4.5 million Vietnamese living outside of Vietnam, the largest group of Vietnamese is concentrated in the US. This presentation will explore the influence of these humanitarian efforts, both in and beyond Vietnam, and based either in secular, religious, or pan-Asian organizations, that reconnect the diaspora to the homeland and bring to the fore issues of inequality, democracy, globalization, and human rights. In the final presentation, “Organizing and Mobilizing Beyond Borders: Transnational Activism in the Vietnamese Diaspora,” Duyen Bui will examine how actors within the Vietnamese diaspora make transnational claims to overcome authoritarianism and build a democracy in the homeland since the Việt Nam War ended. The presentation will analyze how these claims are manifested in strategic campaigns and tactics of a transnational movement organization known as Việt Tân, which attempts to mobilize a network of support for political change. The findings reveal an active involvement of individuals and groups abroad working together with activists in Việt Nam in order for diasporic communities attempt to influence politics in their place of origin. In sum, this panel bridges civic life and organizing efforts of historic South Vietnam with contemporary political activism and humanitarian efforts across the diaspora. 

Chair
Linda Ho Peche, The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation 

Presenter 1
Paper Title: “Organizing and Mobilizing Beyond Borders: Transnational Activism in the Vietnamese Diaspora”
Duyen Bui, US-Vietnam Center, University of Oregon

Abstract: Globalization has helped facilitate the interconnectedness between states, non state actors, and international institutions. It is this internationalism that has yielded opportunities for contentious politics to increasingly occur across and beyond national boundaries. This study examines how actors within the Vietnamese diaspora make transnational claims to overcome authoritarianism and build a democracy in the homeland since the Việt Nam War ended. In particular, I analyze how these claims are manifested in strategic campaigns and tactics of a transnational movement organization known as Việt Tân, which attempts to mobilize a network of support for political change. The findings reveal an active involvement of individuals and groups abroad working together with activists in Việt Nam. I argue that diasporic communities attempt to influence politics in their place of origin through three strategic action fields: homeland politics, long-distance politics, and international politics. The political environment in each of these strategic action fields shapes the campaign strategies and tactics the activists employ to gain more allies for the movement. Furthermore, the accomplishments and setbacks that occur in each of these arenas of contestation have a reverberating effect, producing opportunities and constraints for mobilizing activities in the other fields as well. From the analysis of contestation in these distinct terrains of transnational activism, the state is not always the dominant source of political power in relation to non-state actors. 

Presenter 2
Paper Title: “Building a Place in Los Angeles: Mutual Assistance Associations, Government Funding, and Vietnamese Refugee Community Development” 

Elwing Suong Gonzalez, Rio Hondo College

Abstract: Elwing Suong Gonzalez’s chapter “Building a Place in Los Angeles: Mutual Assistance Association, Government Funding, and Vietnamese Refugee Community Development” examines the efforts and goals of, and the challenges and conflicts surrounding the early Vietnamese refugee community development in Los Angeles. In the first decade of resettlement, Los Angeles housed the largest concentration of Vietnamese refugees in the United States. Los Angeles was the site of a variety of manifestations of the Vietnamese refugee community and identity through the development of grassroots community institutions, organizations, and networks. It also was a site of great conflicts which reveal the tensions inherent in the relationships between Vietnamese refugees and the government entities that oversaw their resettlement. This chapter explores the efforts of leaders within the Vietnamese refugee community in L.A. to actively organize themselves to meet their own community’s needs and create a place in the crowded and rapidly changing space of Los Angeles, while also balancing and addressing the demands and expectations of both government policy and various factions within the Vietnamese refugee community. 

Presenter 3
Paper Title: “Vietnamese Americans and Their “Homeland”: Transnational Advocacy Efforts and Diasporic Ties”
Ivan V. Small, Central Connecticut State University

Abstract: There are an estimated 4.5 million individuals of Vietnamese ethnic origin living outside of Vietnam, with the largest group of Vietnamese concentrated in the US. This paper explores the contacts and relations between Vietnamese Americans and other diasporic Vietnamese political, humanitarian, and religious organizations across the globe. It explores the influence of humanitarian efforts, both in and beyond Vietnam, and based either in secular, religious, or pan-Asian organizations, that seek to reconnect diaspora and homeland and bring to the fore issues of inequality, democracy, globalization, and human rights. Two major questions this paper seeks to address include: 1) How are organizational relationships maintained and nurtured between Vietnamese Americans and other diasporic communities? Do these communities share a common purpose beyond identification with the so-called homeland? 2) How do they view their relations with Vietnam? To what extent do the politics and the environment they currently live in influence their view and relationships?