Disasters, Settlements and the Homeland: Vietnamese American Experiences of White Supremacy in New Orleans

Vietnamese Americans in New Orleans became well-known as â a community with miraclesâ after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Arriving in the United States after the Vietnam War (1975), these Vietnamese refugees learned to adapt to life in Louisiana. After more than 35 years living in the country of settlement, Vietnamese Americans have developed experiences of living with African Americans, the majority population in New Orleans. By engaging in the discussion of the white supremacy ideology, the dissertation points out that Vietnamese Americans in New Orleans are not only victims of both overt and covert racial discriminatory acts, but they are also complicit in it. While they suffer from the minority status in American society, they buy into the racial hierarchy of white supremacy that denigrates low-income African Americans. From the analysis of not only their everyday life experiences but also the aftermath of disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and BP Oil spill in 2010, the dissertation shows the politics of race in New Orleans as well as in the United States. Vietnamese Americansâ conformity to white supremacy also confirms that the United States has not been color-blind. The last chapter displays the linkages of the Vietnamese Americans in New Orleans with their home villages in Vietnam as well as the government of Vietnam. Engaging in a global perspective in which the nation-state has tried to embrace its overseas population as an essential part of the country, the chapter examines the effectiveness of the deterritorialization policy of the Vietnamese government on Vietnamese Americans. It also shows that while the deterritorialization policy failed to achieve its missions, it unexpectedly became a key factor that renewed the diasporic dimension of Vietnamese Americans. In addition, when fighting against the intrusion of the communist agenda into their diasporic community, Vietnamese American community leaders strategically employed the freedom in American politics to legalize and implement their local anticommunist agenda. In this process, while the diasporic moments were reinforced, the white supremacy remained intact.Ph.D