Lesson Plan, Video, Activity Southeast Asian Refugees
- Grade Level 6th-12th Grade
- Time Period 1970 - 1989
Introduction
On April 30, 1975, the Fall of Saigon marked the end of the Vietnam War, with the communist North taking over the anti-communist South and unifying the country into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The end of the war resulted in a large-scale migration of nearly 130,000 refugees fleeing communist rule and retaliation in the Indochina region to the United States. Over the next twenty years, a total of three million people would flee Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Learning Objectives:
Students will:
- Learn about the migration of refugees to the United States after the Vietnam War from Southeast Asia
- Examine the dominant narratives regarding the Vietnam War and the counter narratives being produced by Asian Americans
- Learn about U.S. refugee laws and programs and why they are necessary
- Examine present day examples of world refugees
Essential Questions
What are examples of how Southeast Asian refugees faced discrimination when they moved to the United States? Why were they being treated in this way?
Why do you think the U.S. government created laws to allow so many Southeast Asian refugees into the U.S.? What does this say about the responsibility that the U.S. might have toward people abroad who have been affected by U.S. foreign policies?
According to professor and author Viet Thanh Nguyen, what issues affected Southeast Asian refugees, like his family, when they arrived in the U.S.?
How did the discrimination experienced by his parents lead Viet Thanh Nguyen to “write another story” for Southeast Asian refugees?
How do Viet Thanh Nguyen and Ham Tran rehumanize the Vietnamese people in their storytelling?