And if you have been following the news in recent years, i imagine that you, like me, have found it difficult to ignore the topic of refugees. This is an image of a refugees experience, fleeing communist vietnam in 1975. In many ways it reminds us of images that we might see on the news today. Its hard to ignore the human stories of families perishing at sea. Refugees are suffocating in meat trucks. Theyre crowding onto leaky boats. Theyre drowning. The bodies of those who are unable to cross to safety are washing up on mediterranean beaches. And refugees have been in the news for the past few years, particularly related to the crisis in syria, but refugees are being uprooted by conflict all around the world. So were not just talking about refugees coming from syria but from other wartorn regions. Especially in the past a couple of years, it has also been very difficult to ignore the public response to refugees. And Refugee Resettlement, like so many other topics today, has become a polarizing topic. On one hand, opposition to refugees has been fierce and even hostile. Politicians at the local, state, and federal level have linked refugees to terrorism and have pursued antirefugee policies in the name of National Security. The most famous of these measures is president Donald Trumps executive orders which ground the federal Refugee Program virtually to a halt in january 2017. His imposition of what is widely known as the refugee ban shortly after taking office initiated one of the sharpest legal and political debates of his presidency, and is part of a broader effort to limit the number of foreigners who are able to enter the United States. To be sure, politicians are not the only ones who have taken action on the issue of refugees. There have also been instances of vigilante antirefugee activism, some of it potentially violent and much of it centered on muslim refugees. In murfreesboro, tennessee, there were rallies led by white nationalists and neonazis. But its also hard to ignore the fact that there has been a tremendous amount of public support for refugees. The january 2017 executive orders prompted thousands of americans to protest and facilitate legal aid at airports across the country. Community groups organized rallies and Service Projects to raise awareness of the issue of refugees. People put signs declaring their support for refugees on their front lawns or above their church entryways or even on stickers on their laptop. Now, i am an historian. And my job is to remind you that we need to have some historical perspective. The truth is that in many ways we have been here before. Ive already pointed to this image of a boat. This is an image from 1975, but it could very well be an image of people fleeing by boat today. Weve seen these images before. Weve seen a vicious eruption of antirefugee sentiment before. Weve seen a generous prorefugee response before. Weve seen anxiety about religious and cultural difference before. Weve worried about refugees and National Security before. Now, i am frustrated a little bit by our contemporary conversation because so much of our contemporary conversation is not paying attention to our history, and lessons we can learn from the past. We especially dont hear a lot about asian refugees. We might hear a little bit more about jewish refugees, but not that much about asian refugees. Now ive made the case this entire semester that asianAmerican History is American History. And this is true for refugee history as well. So today, im going to talk about asian refugee migrations that took place four decades ago. And this refugee migration, i argue, changed the course of refugee history in the United States for the decades to come. Im going to talk about refugees known as ugandan asian refugees and Southeast Asian refugees. They arrived in the 1970s and 1980s, some of them as late as the beginning of the 21st century. This migration was a turning point in several different ways. Number one, in the 1970s, refugees were accepted for new reasons. For the first time, the United States wasnt just accepting refugees because they opposed communism. The United States was accepting refugees on the basis of emerging humanitarian commitments to human rights. Number two, during this period refugees were accepted and resettled in a new way. Were talking about a huge refugee migration here, over a million Southeast Asians refugees came to the United States in the last couple of decades of the 20th century. And that refugee migration and the amount of work that it took to coordinate relief and resettlement efforts, both overseas and domestically, made government officials realize they needed to have a more systematic and organized and permanent way to respond to refugee crises. So its in part because of Southeast Asian refugees in particular that we see the emergence of a push for new legislation which culminated in the 1980 refugee act. This act is still enforced today. Ill talk about the details of that act later. Number three, another reason why Southeast Asian refugee migrations and also ugandan asian refugee migrations matter, these asian refugees were at the beginning of a new wave of refugees, a new refugee population. They were the first group of nonwhite, noneuropean, nonchristian refugees to be resettled in the United States. There had been cuban refugees and jewish refugees, ill talk about that later, but this was the first huge group of nonwhite, noneuropean, nonchristian refugees. And these refugees were so different that it was a source of great anxiety for americans. In truth, these refugees ended up being the forerunner for refugee populations who would arrive in the United States in subsequent decades. So these refugees in many ways set the groundwork for how the United States would resettle refugees, but also were a harbinger for what would come. And some asian refugees, ugandan refugees and Southeast Asian refugees in the future, profoundly changed the u. S. And its approach to refugees in the decades to come. If any of you like literature, youll know that we have been talking about asian refugees, in fact the history of vietnamese refugees has received a lot of attention in the past couple of years because of this book, the sympathizer which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. You are reading an excerpt from this novel this week and well discuss it next week. The author himself was a refugee. And hes reflected a lot about what it means to be a refugee and a writer and to tell his story. In an essay he published in the New York Times he observed the following. Many people have characterized my novel the sympathizer as an immigrant story and me as an immigrant. No. My novel is a war story. And i am not an immigrant. I am a refugee who, like many others, has never ceased being a refugee in some corners of my mind. He continues, immigrants are more reassuring than refugees because there is an endpoint to their story. However they arrive, whether they are documented or not, their desires for a new life can be absorbed into the American Dream or into the european narrative of civilization. By contrast, refugees are zombies of the world, the undead who rise from dying states to march or switch for our borders in endless waves. So lets stop and think about this line for a little bit. What do you think he means by saying immigrants are different from refugees . Theres a choice that immigrants take to build their own, like, new future, whereas with the refugee crises we see now, theres often a push that forces them to leave their own countries and migrate somewhere else just because of, like, a failure of government or reasons that they dont have control over themselves. Absolutely. So there is a forced migration that characterizes refugee migrations rather than immigrants who, as you point out, have more of a choice. With refugees there is somewhat of a an immigrant who came to this country by their own choice to build a new life, the refugee, the reason we would welcome them in is because were housing them until they go back, but with an immigrant that connotation isnt there. So the ability to return to your home country. Weve talked about how a lot of immigrants migrate to the United States or elsewhere and return home. Refugees dont have that option, thats a really important point. Because they have been forced out due to war, persecution, Natural Disaster, any number of reasons that make their life in their previous country impossible. They would not survive. So i think youre exactly right, refugee migrations is characterized by a need for survival. What do you think he means when he says that refugees are zombies of the world . I thought that was evocative, zombies of the world, the undead who arise from dying states. In a way, they are the only vessels of culture left of these dying states, and its really hard to get someone to, you know, completely forfeit their culture because it is part of their identity. So as long as they live, the culture lives. Yes, okay. So i think this is really powerful. They are often vessels of their culture. Theyre leaving desperate situations where they would have otherwise died, physically and perhaps also their community would have died, their culture would have died. And so this idea of people leaving dying states in circumstances of profound dislocation and trauma is really powerful. I think that language of zombies is really powerful because it reminds us of the desperation, the violence, the fear that people leave that pushes people to migrate. And i think that its important for us to remember that this violence, that this suffering, that this persecution, that this upheaval that forced them to migrate doesnt just end there, but continues to shape their lives in years to come. So the author calls attention to, i think, the two most important aspects of refugees and what distinguishes them from immigrants. Number one, they are involuntary migrants, as you pointed out already, forcibly removed from their homes due to political conflict, Natural Disaster or other extraordinary circumstances. And theyre often very traumatized people, zombies as he would say. The interesting thing about refugees is they are powerful in our mythology of american exceptionalist immigration history. Think about the poem thats on the statue of liberty, the new colossus by emma lazarus, who describes the statue of liberty as the mother of exiles, who says, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless tempesttossed to me, i lift my lamp beside the golden door. How many of you have heard those lines before . So famous. And the fact that those lines are on the statue of liberty, which is a symbol of immigration in the United States, is really powerful, it really centers the United States or the idea of the United States as being a welcoming haven for people who are exiles. Unfortunately the history of the United States tells a somewhat different, more complicated story. The truth is we havent always had a humanitarian impulse to welcome refugees. Usually weve only done so when its in our humanitarian National Interest. Usually weve been more inclined to actually reject refugees than to accept them. And to borrow the words of historian eric tang, often refugees who have been accepted for resettlement here are not only resettled but are also deeply unsettled by the experience of forced migration and resettlement in the United States. To give you an overview of what ill talk about today, ill give you a little bit of background about american Refugee Resettlement policy after the second war. And then im going to use that background to set up why the 1970s were such an important period of change. Thats when a small group of ugandan refugees arrived in the United States and they were followed by an even larger group of refugees, Southeast Asian refugees who are alternatively described as indochinese refugees, these included refugees from vietnam, laos, and cambodia. Ill talk about the crisis that developed overseas, but ill focus mostly on developments that took place here in the United States, how the general public viewed Southeast Asian refugees, how Southeast Asian refugees were admitted and resettled, and how Southeast Asian refugees themselves tell stories about their experience. Ill tease out why the history of Southeast AsianRefugee Resettlement matters. And ill conclude with some discussion about how Southeast Asianamericans today are drawing on their refugee history to intervene in contemporary Public Policy debates. Any questions so far . So lets begin with some background about Refugee Resettlement in the United States during the 20th century. During the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, the most refugees came from europe with the exception of cuban refugees. Most were white and either jewish or christian. And during this period, right after the second world war, and during the cold war, commitment to opposing communism really shaped how the United States determined which refugees to accept. During and after world war ii, the United States changed its immigration policies to accept people displaced by war. These refugees were known as displaced persons and they benefitted from the landmark legislation of the time, which was the 1948 displaced persons act. That act actually expired, and in 1953 it was replaced by the Refugee Relief act which helped other european refugees including italians, greeks, and dutch refugees. In 1956, we see cold war developments in europe also shape a new refugee population and give rise to new groups of people seeking refuge, in particular the hungarian revolution occurred and Freedom Fighters, as they were popularly known, were welcome to the United States. They were accepted under what is called parole power which allowed the United States to accept refugees and circumvent its own immigration laws which at this time, if you recall, were pretty restrictive. Throughout much of the cold war, the executive branch used a loophole in immigration law, the parole power, to admit refugees when it deemed that it was in the National Interest to do so. Most of those refugees admitted were fleeing left wing or communist regimes. Finally, in 1959, cuban exiles began to arrive. The first to arrive were bautista sympathizers who feared reprisal from the castro government. For the first time the United States was the country of first refuge, meaning refugees didnt go to another country and apply for resettlement in the United States, they went straight to the United States, especially to places like miami. The policy for cuban refugees at this time was such that these refugees would be given asylum as part of a bigger anticastro, anticommunist policy. A number of requirements were imposed on these early refugee populations, and these requirements illustrated how the United States pursued its own cold war selfinterest. First, as ive already mentioned, the u. S. Offered a special welcome for people fleeing communism. Second, preference was given for refugees who were professionals or highly educated or skilled. This was in keeping with other immigration laws of the period. Alternately, while welcoming displaced people has been seen as a humanitarian act, these humanitarian efforts were often centered on the needs of the United States, the helper. These images feature refugees who arrived in the United States during this period. The photo on the left features displaced persons who are registering at ft. Ontario emergency Refugee Center which housed a thousand people displaced by world war ii. And the photo on the right is the cover of Time Magazine, 1957, featuring their chosen person of the year in 1956. The person of the year in 1956 was the hungarian freedom fighter. So lets think about this. What do you think this image on the right tells us about how americans viewed hungarian Freedom Fighters during this time . Think about what it means for Time Magazine to choose hungarian Freedom Fighters as their person of the year and to present them in this way. What does this magazine cover tell us about how americans viewed hungarian refugees . Definitely in a positive way. Different than how we view Syrian Refugees today. Yes, really positive. So you can see his face, so bold, so serious, noble. There was enormous enthusiasm for welcoming people who were seen as fighting for freedom, who were seen as being allies in the United States war against communism. So i think its a really important image to have in mind, how refugees can be celebrated and how the celebration of refugees converges powerfully with american interests, in particular at this moment the cold war. Later in the 20th century, the cold war continued to shape the United States stance towards refugee populations. But the last quarter of the 20th industry saw a major shift in the worlds refugee populations. In 1964, a Refugee Affairs expert at the World Council of churches declared, we are now faced with a problem of refugees who are by and large nonwhite and by and large nonchristian and it remains to be seen how we will react. Americans were worried about how the United States would handle these new refugees. One pastor in st. Paul, minnesota, explained, many problems will arise because of the new influx of people to america as a result of new people coming from different cultures and backgrounds. How will these new immigrants be accepted, he asked . Government leaders also worried about this new immigrant population, new refugee population in particular. During a congressional hearing shortly after the fall of saigon, julia taft, who was of the Interagency Task force on indochina refugees, declared, never before in the history of this country, mr. Chairman, have so many people from such different cultures, ethnic and religious backgrounds, been introduced into American Society in such a short time. What set these refugees apart from previous refugee populations is not simply that they were racially, ethnically, and religiously different, but also that these refugee communities didnt necessarily have a community of people in the United States already to welcome them. So who were these new refugees . Amid the contemporary debate about muslim refugees from syria and somalia, theres been little attention paid to the fact that the United States has been resettling refugees who are muslim for a long time and in fact has been since the 1970s. The first muslim refugees accepted for resettlement were ugandanasian refugees, these were asian origin people who had been expelled from uganda by idi amin. They were resettled in the United States and also the United Kingdom and elsewhere beginning in 1972. These ugandanasian refugees marked a turning point in that they were different from their refugee predecessors. They were religiously diverse, identifying as muslim and also hindu, sikh, and christian. So one big question worth asking, how did it go . A ugandanasian refugee who later a history professor at Bowdoin College wrote a report called the brown diaspora and he noted that cultural and religious differences were a source of anxiety for the refugees and their predominantly christian sponsors. He noted that some problems did arise. For example, a strictly vegetarian brahmin was given work in a poultry Processing Plant which did not go so well, he pointed out it produced significant psychological and emotional strain. And though he praised the good intentions of the sponsors and the voluntary agencies, he said that there needed to be better understanding. Of the needs of refugees. The needs of refugees. Overall, he said that ugandan asian refugees had a pretty positive experience. I mention ugandan asian refugees because they really set the stage for a larger refugee population that arrived in the 1970s. A lot of the Lessons Learned from them informed how these groups handled Southeast Asian refugees. Shortly after their arrival, another larger refugee population arrived as a result of war in southeast asia. To give you some context, in 1975, communist governments took control in vietnam, cambodia and laos. This initiated the outmigration of thousands of people fleeing for their lives. The American Public tended to see these refugees as a single group, frequently referred to as the indochinese. That category has a lot of differences within the chinese population. These were several ethnic groups, different countries, different class backgrounds, political orientations and more. What united them was the experience of war. The trauma of war. The forced migration produced by war. And the experience of having to create a new life in the United States after experiencing the war. These refugees arrived in several ways. The first occurred during the United States military involvement in the war, which began in 1965, lasted a decade. By 1971, the war had caused considerable violence and economic and cultural damage. It had displaced 6 million refugees in South Vietnam and 700, 000 refugees in laos. Later, in the fall of saigon in the spring of 1975, the withdrawal of American Military forces cause another outpouring of refugees. In this response, gerald ford gave the green light to admit 200, 000 refugees. Some of them are evacuated through the help of American Military forces, others fled on their own and were later taken into custody by the United States. These refugees in 1975 were placed in military run refugee camps on military bases here in the United States. They stay there until sponsors could assist their resettlement elsewhere. In 1976, americans thought they were done with refugees. They had handled those couple of hundred thousand refugees that went to this camps. The crisis was only beginning to heat up. Violence and political conflict continued to escalate and continued to spur new refugee migrations. For example, in cambodia, the vietnamese invasion brought the downfall of the khmer rouge and the removal of pol pot in 1979. During pol pots 3. 5 years in power, the khmer rouge had killed 1. 7 million people, which was about 21 of the cambodian population. With pol pot no longer in power,. 5 million cambodian people who had managed to survive his regime sought refuge in thailand. In additional 122, 000 fijis joint them in thailand between 1980 and 1986. In vietnam, there was another outpouring of refugees known famously as the boat people, they escaped by sea. They had been political, military or cultural leaders, some were ethnic minorities who were fleeing persecution. 150, 000 went to china, while tens of thousands took to the oceans and made their way to other places in southeast asia, including thailand, malaysia indonesia and the philippines. They sailed in boats that were hardly seaworthy sometimes and an estimated 25 50 died at sea. If they were lucky to make it to land, sometimes they were forced back to sea by governments like thailand and malaysia that refused to accept them. Those refugees who were fortunate enough to live on and make it to a refugee camp lived in squalid conditions, very difficult conditions. By the middle of 1979, nearly 100, 000 vietnamese boat people were in malaysia and hong kong. So far, i have only talked about refugees from vietnam and cambodia, but i should mention what are known as lao refugees. This is an image of a traditional monastery quilt. And lots of stories about the war had been told through this traditional art form. Just looking at this image, what do you see . What do you notice . What story of war does it tell . Do you see any depictions of war here . I think it is really interesting that the span of technology is depicted, because i see sword fighting but also planes, which is to me a funny thing to see embroidered on a quilt and i am interested in the deer to the left slurping at the river. I guess it is a nice juxtaposition about how war comes into a landscape but the landscape still functions as is and it would be cool to see an aftermath quilt of what would happen. Absolutely. You call attention to some really key details. You see a river, this river represents a river that bordered laos and thailand and you see the airplanes, the helicopters, you see the fascinating juxtaposition of rural life and war. You see the boxy buildings, which could represent either the refugee camps or the military sites where troops organized. You see people in a line, walking in the same direction and perhaps fleeing for safety. This represents experiences during the secret board and the subsequent migration out of laos to thailand. The United States worked with them as well as lao people in their fight against communists during the secret war in laos in the 1960s. With the assistance of the cia and the green berets, the mung leader and 10 thousands soldiers were responsible for warding off the communist advance. The staggering cost of sacrifice during this period is very important to know. Throughout 13 years of fierce guerrilla warfare, estimates claim that one in four mong soldiers died. Some who died were teenagers. Quite young. The secret war entered a new phase in 1973 when the United States signed a peace accord with north vietnam. They evacuated all of the American Military leaders from laos. But 18, 000 mung hmong soldiers were left behind. In 1975, some soldiers were airlifted out of laos. Most hmong people were less fortunate. Of the 10, 000 hmong who fled headquarters, only eight small portion were evacuated by the United States. Thousands of hmong people were forced on a forced exodus to thailand. They journeyed at night to avoid capture by the communists. By 1979, nearly 30, 000 hmong refugees attempted to make the dangers crossing each month. That crossing of the river is such a powerful part of the hmong stories of their refugee migration. You can see it powerfully depicted here. Americans today have paid attention to news of refugee crises overseas. Have been following news reports, watching footage on nightly news, they have been following on social media, and americans in the 1970s were just like us today. They were following developments overseas with great interest. Americans who were moved by news accounts of this humanitarian crisis, this was a National Development in caused americans to say we should do something. The plight of Southeast Asian refugees began to build and americans began to push to provide relief and resettlement opportunities. First i want to talk about support for Southeast Asian refugees. Americans gave a lot of reasons to support the Southeast Asian refugees. Many americans rooted support in the idea that the United States is an exceptional country, an immigrant country that has special status and history as a refuge for the scorned, hated, and hunted. One 1975 Public Opinion survey found the leading reason why americans supported the admission of Southeast Asian refugees was a tradition of the United States as a sanctuary. The same poll found that most agreed with the statement that the United States began as people of all races, creeds and nationalities. So we ought to let the refugees from vietnam in. Throughout the cold war, americans continue to feel an obligation to people who were fighting against communism, people who were less fortunate and faced retribution and persecution. This was also another reason why a lot of americans were open to accepting Southeast Asian refugees. A 1986 poll found that a majority of respondents agreed the United States should accept political refugees fleeing communist countries. The result of the context of the vietnam war, the fact that refugees were fleeing a region where the United States have been directly involved in years of brutal warfare, heightened americans sense of obligation. Americans were particularly committed to admitting refugees who had worked closely with the u. S. Military, the cia, as translators or at diplomatic corps. Americans who had worked in vietnam felt terrible about abandoning their Southeast Asian colleagues. Other refugee advocates argued that americans must aid and admit refugees whose suffering was a direct consequence of u. S. Military action. For some religious people, accepting refugees for resettlement was an act of penance for americas sins in vietnam. Just as powerful as american guilt was the idea of american goodness. Pride in american compassion and generosity spurred americans to take action. The idea that the United States was the benevolent leader of the free world converged with religious ideas. The idea that the United States needed to be the good samaritan. Finally, refugee advocates argued that americans should not admit refugees because americans are good, but because refugees are good for america. One sentence resolution from 1975 declared, this period of refugees in exile serves to keep us humble savinng us from the sins of selfrighteousness. This support for refugees was really small, compared to the opposition to refugees. Despite the lofty ideals and impassioned advocacy of refugee supporters, in reality the majority consistently opposed resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees. This sentiment was by no means a new development in american culture. Public opinion polls indicate that consistently throughout the 20th century, americans have not supported the admission of refugees. In january, 1939, as the u. S. Was grappling with the question of whether to accept jewish refugees fleeing nazi germany, only 30 of americans surveyed said the u. S. Should resettle jewish refugees. 61 said it should not. Compare that to Public Opinion polls after the vietnam war. One National Gallup poll in 1975 found that only 36 of americans favored the resettlement. 54 surveyed opposed it. Attitudes toward Southeast Asian refugees did warm somewhat over time but american reluctance to admit Southeast Asian refugees remained consistent threat the 1970s and 80s. Even a full decade after the end of the vietnam war, a plurality of americans believed the United States had accepted too many refugees. As this slide indicates, i added statistics from october 2016. 41 of registered American Voters said the u. S. Should accept Syrian Refugees. 54 said it should not. This is interesting because more americans are supportive of Refugee Resettlement today than compared to after the vietnam war, which i think is surprising statistic for a lot of people. So why do people oppose Southeast Asian refugees . The New York Times visited a town called niceville, florida. The town was not particularly nice to the refugees who were arriving from vietnam. Niceville is located near in air force base, the site of one of the military run refugee camps. Despite the proximity to vietnamese refugees, or the perhaps because of it, the people there felt the limits of american welcome. A local Radio Station pollrf residents about the 1500 beta refugees being airlifted from saigon and 80 of people surveyed did not want the military to bring refugees to their town. At one point, residents circulated a petition demanding that refugees be sent to a different place and School Children made jokes about shooting refugees. As far as im concerned, they can ship them back, one woman told the New York Times. This womans support for sending refugees back to vietnam reflected broader national sentiment. In one National Poll in june, 1975, 80 of americans believed the United States should arrange to send refugees back to saigon. In a town close to niceville, anxiety about refugees reflected anxiety about a weakening safety net. We have enough of our own problems take care of, said a local barber. One of his customers agreed they dont have enough money to take care of Social Security and they want to bring in more people. These economic concerns Many Americans believe that Southeast Asians in june 1975, from its 28 believed that refugees did not take jobs away from americans. A realtor in nearby valparaiso fear that vietnamese refugees would bring communist. How do you know we will not get the bad guys, he said. Nobody can say for sure and lord knows, we have enough communist infiltration right now. This topic also came up in discussions in congress in 1975, in ambassador led the administrations response to refugees responded to several questions from congress about the adequacy of the immigration and Naturalization Services security screening, which many thought maximized expediency over thoroughness. There were also cultural concerns. Americans concerned to Refugee Resettlement architect Southeast Asian refugees were culturally unassimilable. You see language that echos the yellow peril language we saw earlier. Opponents of resettlement portrayed Southeast Asian people as germ ridden people who threatened public health. There is no telling what kind of diseases they will bring in with them, said Vincent Davis of niceville. When asked to identify what diseases they might bring, he could not quite name them. He said, i dont know, but there is bound to be some kind of tropical germs floating around. Hostility to refugees sometimes boiled down to racism. At a high school near niceville, students discussed plans to create a racist group. A variety of reasons why people are concerned about admitting refugees. The funny thing about Southeast Asian refugees is that given all of this hostility, it happened. Southeast asian refugees were admitted and resettled. As a historian put it, given the intensity of this public opposition, it is a miracle that Southeast Asian refugees were resettled in United States at all. They were resettled in substantial numbers. Between 1975 and 2000, over one million refugees came to the United States and the most extensive, expensive, and institutionally complex resettlement effort in American History. It was haphazard, chaotic, controversial. Planners expected to take a year but it ended up taking decades. Southeast asian refugee migration developed in phases. Theres the indochina migration and refugee assistance act in 1975. This outlined plans to help refugees from vietnam and cambodia. In these efforts, the federal government underestimated how extensive it would be, how much money was needed, how much time and manpower and in the years that followed, Congress Approved the arrival of more refugees, including lau and hmong refugees in a series of stopgap measures. By 1978, the stream of residues became a tide as more vietnamese, cambodian, lau land lau and hmong refugees began to come to the u. S. President jimmy carter raised the quota to 14, 000 per month in 1979 and there remained a challenge of bringing refugees to a level of selfsufficiency. To meet these needs, Congress Passed a landmark legislation, the refugee act of 1980. This is the act under which we operate today. It aimed to fix the inefficiencies in the program and maintained much of the preexisting program but aimed to make it more permanent and stable. It capped refugee annual entry at 50, 000. It facilitated the efficient resettlement of refugees, provided funding for fiji programs, it was the first general refugee act. Until 1980, the United States had been under criticism from the helping people who were anticommunist, rather than people who needed to be helped. Refugee policy critics argued, we should not be driven by cold war geopolitics, but by International Laws and norms. The 1980 refugee act is also important, because it redefined refugee in american law. It defines refugees as any person whos outside his or her own country who is unable or unwilling to return to that country and is unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country because of fear of persecution. Southeast asian Refugee Resettlement, given its complexity, helped eliminate the need for the refugee act. That is what is important. It also marked an important shift. The shift toward centering refugee admissions on human rights, rather than cold war into communism. This period saw a shift toward humanitarian thinking. Not everyone was on board. Gerald ford continued to argue that we should admit refugees as they had been the United States allied, but liberal prorefugee advocates like ted kennedy emphasized that Southeast Asian refugees deserved american help due to a moral responsibility to alleviate suffering. What happened to these refugees once they arrived in the United States, how are they resettled . So lets unpack this a little bit. Why should they be frustrated with life in america . What are her frustrations . Very important both advocating for increase refugee admissions and also doing the work of helping refugees make a new life in the United States. These agencies received a government grant between 300 and 500 dollars per refugee to help refugees in their first few weeks upon arrival these voluntary agencies also partnered with local organizations. Sometimes an individual, usually a Community Group especially a congregation, a synagogue, or church. These churches, or civic organizations would sponsor refugees and take them under their wing. Sometimes refugees would actually live and Church Buildings for the first few days in the United States. I interviewed one family, one church sponsored that it house a family in their church, and they did not have showers. So the refugees lived in sunday School Classrooms and walked across the street to the seminary and took showers there and live like that for a few weeks. This actually came up in the movie grand to reno which i know some of you have seen. And that film, Clint Eastwood is talking to a young woman and asks how did you get here to the midwest . And she jokingly sense, lutherans. It says one important thing. Religious organizations, groups have been powerful and advocating for refugee admissions and they have been really important to making Refugee Resettlements happen. They did so for a variety of reasons, but this flyer from Church World Service points out, churches in their view, are avenues about love to refugees. That one is pretty important here, articulating how protestant christians help refugees. Jesus who himself was a refugee said that by helping refugees we are really helping him. These religious groups had a lot of commitment to helping refugees, and they also had the financial backing of the government to do that work. The United States refugees would not have happened without these private organizations. They have their own goals for resettling refugees, but religious groups and governments had a shared objective, which was bringing refugees to self sufficiency as soon as possible. From the migration and Refugee Service eliminates that. Why does someone who wants to make a difference and wants to get involved in that effort would also advise, their world is to help them be as self sufficient as soon as possible. Do not create a dependency. It is the worst thing for an individual, to create a dependency. This reflected the governments goal of resettling refugees and a way that would not put a lot of people on welfare. This was an obsession of both government and private agencies involved in the resettlement. The goal was to ensure that refugees would not be a public charge. That they would get a job, go to school. But also commitments to cultural stimulation to that and, refugees would actually spread out across the country. As one person would put, it spread thin like butter so they might disappear. There was a desire on the part of refugee policy makers to prevent the formation of immigrant enclaves the carrot dies refugee that reflect immigrant migration in the u. S. History. My final question today, i want to talk about how excess refute shes experienced this migration. A lot of our conversation about refugee migrations today take some consideration the needs of government, the needs of sponsors of community members. It does not always involve listening to Southeast Asian refugee voices. In general, i will say that refugees were grateful to be resettled in the United States, but they were also deeply unsettled by the experience. Here are the numbers of challenges. Economic economic challenges, coal cultural adjustment, trauma from the war, physical Mental Health problems due to war also. Intense anti refugee hostility and racism. The separation from family and friends. The uncertainty of what lay ahead. I think one of the most powerful ways to understand what it was like to experience this refugee migration is to listen to world history. Im going to call attention to your more story. She was a woman who currently lives in st. Paul, minnesota. She shared her story from the minnis sort of historical society. I will share a few lines that i think itll illuminate the challenges she experienced. At the welfare office, he told me that, how can he did not go to work . Why are you just coming to ask for more money . That is what he told her. But he did not know how much struggling we had been through. He did not know how lucky we are to stay alive so we could come to this country. Maybe he would still say all those things about us. The reason why we are having this problem is because of the americans who came to our country and caused all these problems. That is the reason why we came to this country and he does not know about that. All he sees is that we are here to use his money and take his country and his home. They really hate the people who are on welfare like us. For those who went to work to support their own families, and the american said that now they are taking away our jobs. So let us unpack this a little bit. Why does yer mouah feel frustrated . Shes frustrated because the welfare offices assuming that her story, without really knowing her. It kind of reminds us of the last discussion and how the perception of americans i think its just that like, there are not really taking into account her experiences. There is a frustration, absolutely. Of americans not really understanding why those people are coming to the United States in the first. Place this is a big issue for refugees. Why are you hating us . It was a lot of frustration for the lack of understanding. And by sharing stories through history projects and memoirs, i think among people, vietnamese people have been able to tell their story to wider audiences. But in those first years they did not have a platform to tell their stories as easily as they do now. Technically yang is also an american woman. She lives and st. Paul. You read her memoir, an excerpt from her memoir. You may want to call attention to the few lines that i said were really powerful kao kalia came to the United States as a child so she has the unique position of experiencing a refugee migration from the perspective of a young person. Cowl kayla said, my father told us not to look at the americans. If we saw them they would see us for the first year and a half we wanted to be invisible. Everywhere we went we were looked at and we felt exposed. We were dealing with a widespread realization that we had to do one of two things to survive in america. Grow up, or grow. Old. She felt profound pressure to go up really fast. Helping her parents navigate bureaucracy. Later she writes mommy was like a person i had never known or id never reached before. It kept me away from my grandma i saw no way to climb this wall. I thought so much about money that i could not sleep. Money was not bills and coins or check from welfare. In my imagination it was much more. It was the nightmare that kept love apart in america. So here you have another aspect of frustration yangs family is not just financially struggling. But that financial struggle in that they could not be with loved ones. This was a really powerful aspect of refugee migration. People were separated four years from family members. They might not even know what their status. Is one last line from the memoir. At night the families gathered for a long conversations which were always about surviving in america. The same topic of the adults and my family started the first night we arrived in the country. It was a conversation that we continue for the next 20 years. How do we survive in america . And still love each other as we have in the past. What are some things that miss yang did to survive . Do you remember from the text . What did she do to survive . What was her strategy for survival . How to connect to her commitment for education. For missing, the way to survive was to do well in school. There was a tremendous amount of pressure on her in the story to do well academically, maybe go to college someday. One thing that i think is really powerful about learning about South East Asia and American History is, it reminds us that Asian Americans are not a monolithic minority. There are a variety of different backgrounds, experiences that shaped their migration to the u. S. In the ways that they are able to thrive in the United States. What is amazing to see is how much upward mobility has been accomplished by a lot of these refugees within the span of a generation. I once interviewed a meng woman of how she gave birth by the side of a river. She could not swim across that river because she had just given birth and the baby whistle small. But as soon as she was able, she did, and her husband carried one child on his shoulder, and she carried the newborn baby. They swam across the river as troops were shooting at them. I asked after she told the story, what happened to that maybe that you carry . She said oh, she is a law student at uc berkeley now. I think it is really powerful to remember how much struggle some of these asian refugees have experienced due to war, due to upheaval, dislocation, culturally, politically, economically it is powerful. It also has something to do withs service and focusing on success tories. Miss yang is a successful story. Awardwinning Southeast Asian authors and professors. But just like how the model minority mythology is so problematic. There is a narrative of southeast refugee migration that only focuses on success. Increasingly, you see Southeast Asian refugees telling about their struggles, putting out the unsettleness of resettlement. Not simply to correct the narrative, but also to convene and contemporary debates in the presence about refugees today. So im going to visit miss when now. Here she writes about the hidden stars that all refugees carry. And it connects the past in the present in the same way that japanese americans who had been incarcerated during world war ii had been intervening and debates of a treatment of muslims during the war on terror. We see Southeast Asian american strong on their own refugee paths to stand up for refugees in the present. Today when mary americans think of the enemies americans as a success story, we forget that the majority of americans in 1975 did not want to accept asian refugees. For a country that prides itself on the American Dream, refugees or simply unamerican. Despite the fact that some of the original english settlers of this country, the puritans were religious refugees. Today Syrian Refugees sinks a similar reaction. Some europeans, these refugees seem on european, for reasons of culture, religion and language, and in europe and the United States the attacks and paris also sent burn a dean or california and orlando florida, how people fearing Syrian Refugees could be as law mick radicals. Forgetting that those refugees are some of the first victims of islamic statement. Here is a really powerful connection to the perception of vietnamese refugees as potential come analyst infiltrators when they were the ones fleeing prosecution at the hands of communists in aisha. I continue. Because nose judgments have been rendered on many cast out, its important for those of us who were refugees to remind the world of what our experiences mean. Whether i told her that i, too, was a refugee he stopped joking and said you dont look like one. He was right. We can be invisible, even to one another but it is precisely because i do not look like a refugee that i have to proclaim being one, even when those of us who were refugees would rather forget that there was a time when the world thought us to be less than human. I will close there. Any questions . About any of the material ive lectured about today . Ok. Thank you. I will see you all next week. Discussing the sympathizer and the bon tempo chapter. I wish you a wonderful weekend. Now i can actually say that. I will see you next. Thank you. Next, on lectures of history, university of nebraska lincoln Professor William thomas, teaches a class brought by slaves who sued for their freedom during the antibell lum period. Okay, good morning, everybody. Lets get started. So today, our subject is freedom suits. Suits brought by enslaved families, and how they posed a challenge to the constitution, and under the constitution, how they posed a challenge to american slavery. Now, most of us are