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Reason for Vietnamese settling in Britain

Hai Dang explains why she believes the Vietnamese came to Britain.

South Vietnam Communism led to emigration (Real Audio)

Ly Vong believes that whilst the war between China and Vietnam was the main reason for the Vietnamese coming to Britain, there are many other contributory reasons too, such as those Vietnamese moving to Hong Kong at a time when it was a British colony.

Reasons for coming to the UK (Real Audio)

There have been over 1,400,000 Vietnamese refugees between 1975 and 1990.

Before 1975 Britain had accepted 24,000 Vietnamese refugees. In the Borough of Lewisham, many Vietnamese came to settle in Deptford, New Cross and Brockley. The first Vietnamese refugees came from southern Vietnam, numbering 130,000. They had left following the fall of Saigon. Many of these refugees were officials in the South Vietnamese Government. Others had close contact with the United States during the Vietnam war. Many were ethnic Vietnamese and settled in the United States.

In 1977, 880,000 left by boat and from this time until 1990, over 155,000 Vietnamese asylum seekers died at sea from dehydration, drowning or murder by pirates. This second wave of refugees had fled from both northern and southern Vietnam, following imprisonment in camps set up to re-educate their political beliefs. People from northern Vietnam had resisted being moved to zones established by the new Government for the setting up of farms away from where they had previously lived and worked.

Since 1990 the refugee population numbers from Vietnam remained stable in Lewisham. With the hand-over of Hong Kong to the Chinese, some Vietnamese who were still in refugee camps, are seeking asylum in Britain. Vietnamese refugees found coming to Britain a way out of war and persecution in their homeland, and many who have settled in Britain see this country as there permanent residence. Over a quarter of the current Vietnamese population now speak English as their first language.

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Background

Political persecution followed the Vietnam War when the Chinese invaded the Vietnam in the late 1970’s. Many found being forced to accept the new regime too much. Many of the first refugees were ethnic Chinese and came from North Vietnam.

From 1983 ethnic Vietnamese joined the asylum seekers and were a young population, mostly in their twenties, and were from rural or urban unskilled or semiskilled jobs. Their voyage was covered by the mass media with dramatic pictures of their plight endured on the South China Seas. Life in Britain following their dramatic voyages.

The Vietnamese population upon arrival in Britain was dispersed to avoid a concentration in one particular part of the country. However, as the Vietnamese had no pre-existing community of their people in Britain, they quickly regrouped themselves in cities such as London, and by doing this, they had begun to reconstitute themselves as a community. This helped their practical survival and cultural and social well-being.

The first Vietnamese settlers in Britain were largely unable to speak English but within time, the number of people who could not speak any English dropped from 90% to 14%.

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Vietnamese refugees in London

The first small number of Vietnamese to come to London can be traced to 1975 when US troops withdrew from Saigon. In the mid 1970’s many fled Vietnam to Hong Kong and other countries bordering the South China Seas. They became known as the Boat People and continued to leave Vietnam through the late 1970’s.

Life in the refugee camps became intolerable as their resources were over-stretched with new arrivals. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Governor of Hong Kong made an appeal to the British Government and 1000 refugees from Hong Kong and another 500 from camps in Malaysia and Thailand were admitted to Britain.

At that time Britain still governed Hong Kong and had indirect responsibility for the refugees, and this led to a second quota of 10,000 Vietnamese being admitted to Britain from Hong Kong. By 1990 about 22,000 Vietnamese were given asylum in Britain, from the two quotas and the rest from ship rescues family reunion cases.

The Vietnamese had no established community to seek help from once arriving in Britain and the Government’s attempts at dispersing them around the country failed as many regrouped themselves in urban areas with large Chinese communities.

London became a focus for this regrouping and 54 per cent of Vietnamese population in the United Kingdom, about 14,000, live in London.

The most significant grouping of Vietnamese in London has been centred on six London boroughs, including Hackney and Tower Hamlets in the north, and Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark in the south. The Vietnamese who have settled are not all from the same communities in Vietnam. Some are from very different cultural, geographic and linguistic backgrounds. The majority are ethnic Chinese from North Vietnam where their families had been settled for several generations.

Many of the Vietnamese from Chinese cultural backgrounds speak both Cantonese and Vietnamese and with the majority either Buddhists or Catholics. The age tended to young among these new Vietnamese arrivals. About 60 per cent were under twenty-five according to 1983 figures.

The majority had come from non-urban areas as farmers or fishermen. A smaller number were doctors, teachers, clerks, accountants, traders and journalists. For many of these refugees life had been very bleak. The Indo-China/Vietnam war, the traumas of escape and refugee status was further added to by their experience in London of racism, unemployment and poor housing conditions.

Their main skills of fishing and farming did not transfer well to an industrialised economy and even Vietnamese professionals such as doctors and teachers found it difficult to get their qualifications recognised to get grants for re-qualification. Many had to rely on their children for translation because of language barriers.

Despite the obvious difficulties, some Vietnamese have managed to find skilled or semi-skilled employment in such areas as restaurants such as in Soho and in factories and bakeries. Others have since set up their own businesses such as Vietnamese restaurants,

The younger generation of Vietnamese been encouraged by their parents to do well at school and have gone on to qualify in higher education in accountancy, electronics, medicine, engineering, mathematics and computer science.

Another example of community enterprise is the self-help groups and community organisations offering advice, services and cultural and social activities. Over forty such groups have been set up across London and there are two Vietnamese housing associations.

Vietnamese luncheon clubs bring the elderly together and also provide social services. Saturday schools for mother tongue teaching to help maintain in the young an understanding of their Vietnamese cultural heritage.

Communities in the different boroughs including Lewisham and Greenwich celebrate Vietnamese/Chinese New Year and the Autumn Moon Festival. These vents provide an opportunity for Vietnamese families to come together to enjoy Vietnamese music and traditional activities such as dragon dancing.

Source: Martin Meredith, Principal Policy and Equalities Officer, Lewisham Education and Community Services and The Peopling of London by the Museum of London.

 

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