Protest, Repatriation, and Resettlement in Southeast Asia: Counter-Narratives of Vietnamese Boat People in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the Philippines

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, hundreds of thousands of people fled post-war Vietnam, crossing multiple borders and eliciting international humanitarian concern. This history is often understood as one in which helpless Vietnamese refugees fled communism in order to resettle in the West. Our panel problematizes this simplistic narrative by analyzing the politics of the refugee camp itself. Rather than conceptualizing the refugee camp as a theoretical space of “exception,” we pay careful attention to the complex domestic politics in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the Philippines, all places marked by legacies of colonialism, Cold War politics, and regional rivalries. Protest, repatriation, and resettlement in Southeast Asia were all alternative trajectories of postwar Vietnamese diaspora, complicating the more commonly known story of resettlement.

Jana Lipman’s paper juxtaposes Malaysia’s reluctant and often hostile hosting of Vietnamese Boat People with its general admittance of Filipinos fleeing the wars in Mindanao. Carina Hoang examines the politics of refugee protest, identifying Vietnamese Boat People as political agents in the rapidly changing context of late colonial Hong Kong. James Pangilinan argues for reconceptualizing “hospitality” in Palawan, a refugee camp where Catholic, anti-Communist, and anti-Marcos politics all held sway. Finally, sharing clips from her documentary film, Evyn Lê Espiritu shows how the remnants of Filipino refugee camps continue to haunt the landscape and collective memory. Together, we bring expertise in History, Geography, and Rhetoric, and our papers move across time and space, recognizing that Vietnamese Boat People interacted with and shaped national and post-colonial histories.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing

Session Organizer

• Jana Lipman, Tulane University

Chair

• Vicente Rafael, University of Washington

Individual Presentations

• Vietnamese and Filipinos: The Competing Representation of Cold War “Refugees” in Malaysia, 1977-1980 - Jana Lipman, Tulane University

• Vietnamese Boat People in Hong Kong (1975-2000): The Cause and Effects of Protests and Riots in the Refugee Detention Camps - Carina Hoang, Curtin University

• Pastoral Hospitality: Circuits of Conversion, Collaboration and Care for Remaining Vietnamese in the Philippines - James Pangilinan, University of British Columbia

• Saan ang espiritu ng mga Vietnamese? Probing the Ghostly Remains of the Vietnamese Refugee Camps in the Philippines - Evyn Lê Espiritu, University of California, Berkeley

Discussant

• Vicente Rafael, University of Washington