Indochinese refugees in the Cowichan Valley of British Columbia, Canada : patterns in resettlement and ethnicity

This study was undertaken to document the 1979-1980 arrival of 196 Indochinese refugees in the rural community of the Cowichan Valley, British Columbia, Canada and to analyze the various patterns of resettlement which have developed within the refugee community. It was found that traditional ethnic identification as Vietnamese or Sino-Vietnamese was primary in distinguishing very discrete patterns of social organization, economic strategies of survival during the severe 1980s recession, ideological orientation within the ethnic community and the selection of political and cultural symbols defining their emerging identity as ethnic Indochinese in a multi-cultural Canadian society. After ten years, the ethnic community has already experienced considerable change. For the most part, the economic crises of the recession have been resolved successfully; some refugees solved them by migrating elsewhere for work; others found success locally in employment, or as local entrepreneurs or self-employed trademen; and yet others engaged in clientelistic alliances with Canadian sponsor-patrons. Despite the achievement of considerable cultural assimilation and adjustment to the strategic requirements of resettlement, due in part to the efforts by sponsors to "Canadianize" their refugee charges, very little structural assimilation has taken place. The ethnic Vietnamese community has maintained its own integrity of spirit, promoted by the erection of social, psychological and cultural barriers between itself and the host society and sustained by an emotionally-charged, politically-oriented ideological charter connecting members of the community to a "Golden Age" vision of themselves as expatriates to a noble cause