An Accidental Community? The Vietnamese Community in Trinidad and Tobago

• In Event: 549 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 13. Ethnic Communities

Abstract

Between 2006 and 2008, there were a few newspaper articles detailing the migration of undocumented Vietnamese workers migrating to Trinidad and Tobago by way of Taiwanese fishing ships. These articles portrayed the migration as peculiar but a minor fleeting phenomena. In 2010, the country became disconcerted with news that a group of Vietnamese escaped from the detention center and could not be recaptured. These stories documented the first known instance of international migration from Vietnam to the Caribbean, specifically Trinidad and Tobago. How did they end up in Trinidad? How did they escape and blend in so seamlessly into Trinidadian society after their escape from the detention center? How could the shipjumpers build a community in so strange a place? This paper looks to answer these questions by detailing how this migration was not purely serendipity. Although the discovery of this community was a surprise, the migration is not purely happenstance. Rather the migration was a contingent outcome of systematic processes, namely the globalization of markets and labor and the exploitative conditions under which particular aspects of globalization have occurred. The ability of the shipjumpers to build a community is connected to the ways in which community-level process led to their recruitment on the Taiwanese ships as well as the ship conditions that strengthened community among the workers. This article reconfirms our notions of migration processes and furthers our understanding of south-south migration. South-south migration offers both empirical and theoretical leverage to further our understanding of the burgeoning migration field.

Author

• Andrew N. Le, UCLA