PEOPLE

The Boat People
by tht climate and the thriving economiesi of Houston and Dallaai-
Fort Worth. Washington DC has somewhere between 8000 and
20 000 (the figures are unclear, because many come to Washington
for official reasons but do not stay), Louisiana 8300, Illinois 7W
and New York 63Cll.
The more recent refugees have in some ways gained, and in some
ways been disadvantaged, by their later place in the arrival line. AS
a group, they tend to be less educated and mined than the fistcomers,
so they are easier to place in low-level jobs. They may have
friends or relatives already in the country who will help them settle.
Also, because thty have delibmtely escaped and have usually spent
months, even years, in camps, they tend to expect less from resctdement
services than the first wave. Yet they are sicker as well as pwrer
than those who came before. Many suffer from malnutrition, skin
infections, intestinal parasites and tuberculosis. California health
officials havc reported isolated caws of leprosy and diphtheria
among new refugees, Since their arrival, cases of typhoid fever have
increased 92 per cent in Los Angtles and 58 per cent statewide.
Also, Ameria's ailing economy, tight housing market and rising
unemployment rate all work against the refugees' rtsettlemtnt
attempts, Linked to this is the growing antagonism from America's
own poor and displaced: the old cry that immigrants take local jobs
and services is to be heard again, In Scadrift, a tiny fishing port in
Texas, four years of simmering distrust Ween residents and
rtsmled tefugtts wcr alleged poaching by Vietnamesc of crabtrapping
sites erupted in July 1979 into open racial warfare. A setond
serious incident ormrred a month later, when a riot broke out
in a Spanish-speaking quarter in Denver, Colorado, which had been
occupied in parts by Vietnamese refugees. Other anti-Vieu~amest
outbursts around the country had the same ingredients: economic
competition, and the belief, partly me, that the Vietnamtse were
getting special welfare treatment from the government.
Bjacks, who were among the first Americans to urge national
action on khalf of the refugees;, have begun to show resentment.
'A lot of blacks arc uptight,' said Mr John Robinson, director of the
Martin Luther King community ccntre in the Washington suburb
of Swth Arlington. 'It's the threat over jobs and housing. These
people art the new niggtrs - they arc doing the work blacks don't
'
I
want and getting their own shops, which a lot of blacks who've ken
here all their lives can't get. They could have stayed in their own
cuuntry and fought the system like we did, but thty chose to leave.'
It is something of a double-bind for the bewildered refugees. If
they fail to adjust, they are lambasted as a burden on the taxpayer,
When they succeed, they arc accused of taking jobs w businesses
away from native Americans,
One Viemmese who has been in America long enough to assess
thc resettlement experience is Colonel Nguytn Be, a former mth
Vietnam% infantry officer who fled in 1975, the day after the US
evacuation of Saigon. He had waited until the last minute, then
hoarded a sampan and floated out to sea alone, leaving behind his
wife and seven children, Now aged fifty, he was well known to
Americans in Vittmm PI the inventor of Saigon's answer to the Vietcong
- the black-pyjtrna-weping 'rural development cddn', which
was intended to counter colonialism on the one hand, and communism
on the other, by practising a 'revolutionary' form of Vianamcsc
nationalism. Shirtless, literally, when he left Viemam, Colonel
Be today wears button-down collars, thin-striped suits and carries
a iiamsonite suitcase. During his four yean in America he has worked
for various government refugee programs, first in New York and
now in Washington DC, as a consultant for the depamnent of housing,
education and welfare's Indo-China refugee task force,
'The problem of w-cailed adjusting to the new society is not
really that difficult for Vietnamese people,' Colonel Be said
recently, 'We can accept. The problem for us, almost always, is
being accepted, And many of the local communities have found
that hard.' He spoke of the dccp cultural gaps which caused confusion
on fira arrival.
Amerks is a new orientation for the Vietnamese - s country run by laws,
not by men. . . In Vietnam, you feel secure and prwd if yw havc your family
around you and money in your pocket. Here, it is a new concept of security.
There is nn family. You have to put the money in the bank. The security
of yuur survival is the welfare benefit, the unrmpioyment and all the wial
ewices. Until you realize that, it can be very frightening.
Colonel Be explained that American and Viemaproperty
were different.
notions of