Oriental Identities in Super-Diverse Britain

Young Vietnamese in London

T. Barber

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781137275189
• eBook ISBN: 9781137275196
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Civil Rights in Law
• Index: Social Sciences

Tamsin Barber addresses the experience of the British-born Vietnamese as an overlooked minority population in 'super-diverse' London, exploring the emergence of the pan-ethnic 'Oriental' category as a new form of collective consciousness and identity in Britain.

1

The British Vietnamese Diaspora

This chapter contextualises the experience of the Vietnamese diaspora in Britain with reference to the broader international Vietnamese diaspora. It provides the context and background to the book by focusing on the early conditions of migration and settlement of Vietnamese refugees in Britain. Their migratory trajectories and the conditions underpinning their reception and incorporation are explored in relation to other national contexts in the USA, Australia and Canada. This is taken up to the present day in relation to the subsequent generations born in these host nations. The first section of the chapter outlines the experiences and social composition of Vietnamese refugees arriving in Britain, this will include a discussion of the political and migratory context underpinning the refugee experience, and the key factors (arrival, reception, cultural and demographic issues) shaping their early resettlement. By analysing the unique characteristics and experiences of the Vietnamese in Britain, the chapter provides an explanation for the issues affecting the community today and considers the implications for the young British-born Vietnamese. This analysis will show how the Vietnamese in Britain have been located at the periphery of society as a consequence of their migratory and ethnic origins and relations under the British colonial legacy. Key tensions and divisions within the Vietnamese community are also highlighted in relation to the divided and heterogeneous nature of the Vietnamese population. The subsequent sections explore the current community configuration, labour market position and educational experience in addition to gender and generational issues.

A focus upon the experience of identity and belonging among the ‘second generation’¹ in the international Vietnamese diaspora (a term favoured over place of birth in the literature) is taken up in later sections. A central part of this will include issues and processes shaping the incorporation of the Vietnamese relating to national policies of multiculturalism, the ethnic composition of the host society as well as the specificities within Vietnamese communities and how these have encouraged different forms of inclusion and racialisation. An analysis of the more extensive literature on the US, Australian and Canadian Vietnamese will also provide a useful framework for understanding a range of issues relating to diasporic Vietnamese communities in Western societies. In providing a critical overview of this literature, I identify key themes emerging from the literature (such as: issues of gender, class and ethnic identity discourses of racialisation, racial and ethnic positioning) and consider how these could be relevant to the study of British-born Vietnamese. The chapter will also highlight how this book builds upon and contributes to these existing frameworks.

1.1 Migratory context

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, stories of the ‘boat people’ reached newspaper headlines around the world and these were based on images of South Vietnamese refugees fleeing in small boats. Their plight caught the imaginations of the media and had a deep affect on the Western world (Dalglish 1989). However, this image was not representative of all the refugees. In fact the refugees coming to Britain represented quite the opposite. In addition to those fleeing the war, the majority of refugees in Britain were ethnic-Chinese from North Vietnam who fled the ethnic cleansing that took place after the Chinese invasion of North Vietnam in 1979. In contrast with the South Vietnamese, they left in large boats and were hosted in Hong Kong and other countries in Southeast Asia before coming to the West. They represented a very specific case in the global spread of Vietnamese refugees, particularly in comparison to the USA, Canada, Australia and France in respect of their social composition and their experience post-migration.

In 1975 after 20 years of US struggle in Vietnam, the America–Vietnam War ended after the fall of Saigon and the withdrawal of US troops. This prompted the exodus of thousands of refugees from Vietnam to countries all over the world. Initially, these were ethnic Vietnamese from South Vietnam who faced persecution due to their involvement in the former capitalist regime. This group formed the first wave of refugees which captured the main attention of Western media. The majority of these refugees fled to the USA and France, countries with previous colonial links to Vietnam; the USA received 130,000 refugees in a two-week period in 1975 and France received 9500 refugees (Dalglish 1989).

Very few initially came to Britain and other Western countries such as Australia and Canada. Australia accepted 539 Vietnamese refugees between 1975 and 1976, although the number rapidly peaked at 12,915 in 1980 (Thomas 2005). In Canada, during the same period 5608 refugees were admitted, but between 1979 and 1981 a quota of 60,000 refugees was agreed and by 1985 there were 110,000 Vietnamese refugees in Canada (Besier 1999). This saw the number of immigrants from Asia rising from 5% of all immigrants in Canada during the 1960s to 50% by the 1980s (Besier 1999). In Britain, in addition to the 300 who were already in the country at the time and allowed to remain, only 32 refugees were initially accepted. In 1979 the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and the governor of Hong Kong appealed to countries to accept quotas of refugees for resettlement. Britain agreed to accept 1500 refugees from the camps in Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia. During this year an additional 1400 were also rescued at sea by British vessels. These were mainly ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam who fled due to the ethnic harassment they suffered after the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979 (Duke and Marshall 1995).

In 1979, under the terms of the Geneva Convention, Britain agreed to accept a further quota of 10,000 Vietnamese from Hong Kong to relieve pressures on countries bordering the South China Sea (Duke and Marshall 1995). The Vietnamese came across in three main waves. The first (1975–1982) was when the main bulk of refugees arrived: those from the South and then increasingly Chinese from the North. The second (1983–1988) was a steady trickle of a few hundred Vietnamese who arrived every year as boat rescue and family reunion cases or as part of the Orderly Departure Programme (ODP) (Duke and Marshall 1995). During this period there was no systematic reception arrangement for the refugees, this was partly due to the existence of newly established refugee families (from North Vietnam) with whom they could stay or who could help them (Joly 1989, Robinson and Hale 1989). The third wave (1989 onwards) saw a steadier stream of arrivals supplemented by the ‘2000 quota’ a special programme of 2000 admissions. These came mainly via camps in Hong Kong and included some admissions on ‘selfsufficiency’ and humanitarian grounds (Hitchcox 1989). The bulk of them, up to the end of 1992, were family reunion cases where arrivals were joining relatives already settled in Britain (Duke and Marshall 1995).

The flows of refugees to Britain were thus characteristically different from the broader international flows of Vietnamese ‘Boat People’ (Dalglish 1989). While Britain accepted quotas, mostly from among the rural northern poor, those arriving in the USA (and Australia initially) tended to come largely from South Vietnam and were better educated. This group was often evacuated as political dissidents of the communist state and tended to have strong political links with the US government. It has been noted that the USA and Australia were literally able to ‘hand-pick’ refugees from the professional classes of South Vietnam. This in turn is believed to have contributed to the establishment of more prosperous communities – particularly in California and Sydney (Joly 1989). Another key difference was the lack of an existing Vietnamese community in Britain compared to other countries. While Britain received the first refugees in 1975, in the USA a burgeoning Vietnamese refugee community had already been formed earlier in 1965 linked to US involvement in Vietnam. Likewise, in France a settled Vietnamese community already existed due to French colonial links with Indochina. By contrast, in Britain, the Vietnamese became known unequivocally as the ‘boat people’ and as ‘victims’ a label which was deeply disempowering (Hale 1992, Refugee Action 2003).

1.1.1 British Vietnamese experience in an international context

The initial experiences of the refugees were structured largely according to the time and context of their arrival. In the USA, a pre-existing Vietnamese community, composed of ‘silent refugees’ (students and professionals) who pre-dated political refugees from Vietnam, provided positive models and community resources (Pham 2003). In Australia the buoyant economy meant that initial reception and adaptation were less problematic than in Britain, although the subsequent economic downturn in Australia eventually rendered their position more precarious and reproduced many of the problems experienced in Britain (Viviani 1996). In Canada a political desire to prove that it could do better than ‘both its UK parents and its US big brother’ underpinned a caring response to the Vietnamese refugee crisis and this was also mixed with a need to promote immigration to ensure Canada’s economic position and correct demographic imbalances (Besier 1999; 41). Notably, in Canada Vietnamese refugees were also to become the beneficiaries of the new state policy of multiculturalism which ensured the promotion of different cultures and languages as well as providing resources to enable the active participation of minority groups (Besier 1999). By contrast, in Britain the late 1970s was characterised by high unemployment and a shifting policy terrain. For example, while the first wave of arrivals (1975–1982) was initially housed in government-funded reception centres run by voluntary agencies (including the British Council for Aid for Refugees, Save the Children Fund and the Ockenden Venture), these reception centres were phased out after the bulk of the quota of 10,000 had arrived. This decision had important implications for refugees from the later two waves, who generally came from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds and were more likely to have spent periods of time in refugee holding camps² in Hong Kong which had damaging psychological and health effects (Hitchcox 1988). A similar situation was also found among the refugees in Australia (Viviani 1996). The combination of these factors is thought to have had an impact on how well this group adjusted to their lives in Britain (Refugee Action 2003).

In a similar vein to the USA and Australia where pre-existing communities of Vietnamese were able to provide initial support for new arrivals (Pham 1993, Viviani 1996, Zhou and Bankston 1998, Thomas 1999), the later waves of arrivals to Britain who made up the largest number of refugees were encouraged to stay with relatives living in Britain, rather than moving through the reception centres. However, the outcome of these policies was quite different in Britain and retrospectively, in contrast to the US and Australian policy, it was found that those who spent time in reception centres often fared better in their adapting to British society (Duke and Marshall 1995). The reception centres offered certain advantages in relation to later resettlement such as: language courses, medical help, opportunities to learn about life in Britain, advice given about the practicalities of life in Britain, the arrangement of subsequent accommodation, the enrolment of children in local schools and childcare (Duke and Marshall 1995). A large majority of Vietnamese refugees who were already the most disadvantaged were further disadvantaged through this change in policy. Those who went to live directly with relatives were expected to make their own arrangements, and often missed out on key services and assistance in matters relating to British society.

1.1.2 Resettlement experience and the policy of dispersal

In policy circles it was argued that the Vietnamese constituted a ‘special group’ compared with other refugees to Britain as they were accepted for asylum before arriving in this country and many came as part of a quota programme specifically designed for them by the international community (Duke and Marshall 1995). Specifically, quota refugees were provided with systematic arrangements for reception while other refugees were left in the care of local authorities. For the Vietnamese quota refugees, this was accompanied by strategic and strict plans for their settlement and housing, structured under the dispersal housing policy, implemented by the new Joint Committee for Refugees from Vietnam (JCVR). The dispersal policy introduced in 1979 was ostensibly introduced to diffuse the burden of settlement requirements on particular local authorities, but also inadvertently to avoid ‘ghetto-isation’ (Robinson and Hale 1989). A similar ‘scatter policy’ was also followed in the USA where federal agencies purposefully dispersed Vietnamese refugees across 50 states (San Juan 2009). However, whether the policy was intended to facilitate assimilation or avoid the formation of ghetto-isation was also a topic of debate in the US context (Rumbaut 1995).

In Britain, the decision to further fragment an already unsettled people was widely questioned by refugee experts. In particular, there were concerns about cultural isolation and the delivery of already strained support services and resources. This issue was exacerbated by the fact that, as already noted, there was no pre-existing Vietnamese community in Britain from which refugees could gain support. Dispersal was to be a central component of the resettlement process (Robinson 1986). The policy at the time of their arrival was to integrate refugees into society by giving them access to mainstream welfare programmes and regular employment. This was driven in the field of housing by geographic dispersal which sought to avoid a concentration of Vietnamese communities by restricting household clusters to between 4 and10 households (Joly 1988). The refugees were dispersed across many rural areas in Britain. However, difficulties in the provision of social and economic support to communities soon arose, as even in the most densely populated areas in London there were less than 300 refugees in any one London borough, making specialised and tailored provision virtually impossible (as will be discussed next).

1.1.3 Adapting to British society

The social characteristics of the majority of the refugees meant that they were generally poorly prepared for life in a new country and faced a colossal social transition. Several key issues were identified by policy makers in relation to the Vietnamese refugees, including factors such as: lack of transferable or immediately marketable skills; poor levels of education even in their own languages; refugees from the old Communist North Vietnam having little previous contact with Western civilisation; Britain not being their destination of choice; no pre-existing Vietnamese community in Britain to which new arrivals could turn to for support; arrival in Britain at a time of recession and high unemployment; and significant divisions within the refugee population according to religion, language and geographical origins. This contrasted with the USA, where Vietnamese migrants were able to build upon the shared similarities, resources and networks of the newly reformed Vietnamese communities in the USA (Zhou and Bankston 1998).

Of all the refugees coming to Britain, 62% of them were from North Vietnam, the majority (77%) were ethnic-Chinese Vietnamese, a small minority (16%) were ethnic Vietnamese, and the rest (6%) were Laotian or Cambodian (but were called Vietnamese) (Dalglish 1989). Demographic data from the 1981 Home Office Survey indicated a young Vietnamese population with 56% aged 21 or under, 86% aged under 40, and 15% under 5 years old³ (Jones 1982). This meant that the majority of refugees were at the age where they should be entering training or higher education, something which would now be put on hold or disrupted given their need to access this through British institutions. This placed the group in a particularly vulnerable position as many sought employment or further and higher education without the benefit of having been through the British education system; which would in turn highlight language difficulties and problems with understanding British cultural norms (Duke and Marshall 1995). Home Office data also showed that most refugees had fled Vietnam without pre-planning and therefore had few belongings (including documents and certificates giving proof of their training and profession). Most were poorly educated even in their own language and approximately 42% of the adult population were educated to primary school level only (Lam and Martin 1996).

The Vietnamese refugee population in Britain had few transferable or immediately marketable skills. Only a very small percentage of the population were trained to the level of a professional career in Britain. Only 4% had university qualifications or were trained doctors of Western medicine, accountants, engineers, officers of the armed forces or in senior management or political positions. Of those who were skilled, a large proportion were teachers, nurses, welders, carpenters, book-keepers and hairdressers, but the relevance of these skills in the British context did not always translate to fill the needs of the local labour market. Unskilled or semi-skilled workers made up 51% of the adult population; this included rural and industrial jobs (Dalglish 1989). This presented the largest challenge for retraining for employment in Britain, particularly as their farming and fishing experience became irrelevant in the new host society. Conversely, the largely rural and unskilled composition of the refugees was believed to have been one of the factors contributing to the introduction of the dispersal policy. The policy focused more on the issue of housing rather than employment as it was believed that as many of the refugees were originally farmers and fishermen they would feel more at home in villages (Joly 1989). However, placing the refugees in rural areas made issues worse as these areas were heavily hit by the recession which led to the further deskilling and isolation of refugees. In addition, this compounded the lack of access to other Vietnamese families and to an existing ethnic framework or infrastructure of ethnic peers from earlier settlement; again contrasting with the experience of refugees in the USA. Furthermore, significant differences within the refugee population (origin, religion, geographical and first language background) also meant that forming networks was rendered more difficult (Dalglish 1989).

As a result of the problems discussed above, the dispersal policy was abandoned in 1984 when an overwhelming rate of secondary migration of Vietnamese from isolated locations in Britain to major cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds marked the failure of the policy (Robinson 1987). The Vietnamese responded to their situation by regrouping in larger cities, particularly London. Re-concentrating themselves in this way the Vietnamese were finally able to relocate into larger communities thereby forming interpersonal networks which have been vital for practical survival and cultural and social well-being (Robinson and Hale 1989, Bell and Clinton 1993, Tomlins et al. 2001). However, studies have shown that one effect of this re-concentration has been, like with other ethnic minorities, that the Vietnamese are becoming increasingly concentrated in poor urban areas where housing is more available and more affordable (Tomlins et al. 2001). As illustrated here, ‘dispersal’ conversely led to high levels of isolation driving the Vietnamese to re-cluster to improve their situation. Given these characteristics, the refugees had eventually gravitated to areas with larger numbers of Vietnamese in order to benefit from co-ethnic resources and relationships. However at the same time the issues facing the Vietnamese have not been dispelled. One study by Tomlins et al. (2001) explored the housing issues of Vietnamese in their area of greatest concentration – London. Based on focus groups and interviews, the study focused on those born in Vietnam who are concentrated along the south side of the Thames: Lambeth, Greenwich and northwards from Tower Hamlets to Newham. In Islington the increasing trend has been a slight but continual concentration of Vietnamese in the area. The study found that families had moved to the area to be near friends, relatives and other Vietnamese who were felt to have similar ‘customs’, ‘thoughts’ and ‘lifestyle’ (Tomlins et al. 2001). These moves were seen to be made not out of sense of identity or kinship, but to share facilities and communicate together (Tomlins et al. 2001). In addition to this, Tomlins et al. (2001) found no desire to make links with other refugee communities. This could indicate a wish to detach oneself from the stigmatised image of refugee (as will be indicated in my research data). Another motivation was the proximity to schools, shops, including the ‘multicultural economy’, and in particular Southeast Asian food stuffs.

While regrouping was closely entwined with other social economic factors, ethnicity was found ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. The British Vietnamese Diaspora
• 2. Orientalism, Counter-Orientalism and Identity in Multicultural Britain
• 3. ‘Is It Because I Am Yellow?’: Categorisation and Difference Among the ‘Second-Generation’ in Britain
• 4. Black British, White British, ‘Oriental British’?
• 5. Counter-Orientalisms and the Politics of Hair, Clubbing and Dating
• 6. Navigating ‘the Vietnamese Community’: Local and Transnational Belongings
• 7. British Vietnamese Identities, Orientalism and Super-Diverse Futures?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index