From Refugees to ‘Non-Criminal Collaterals’: Immigration after the Vietnam War and Now with Ben Tran

This lecture explores the contrasting policies directed at refugees following the Vietnam War and the racialized criminalization of migrants today. It analyzes how the socio-political climate of the late 1970s and 1980s facilitated a relatively robust support system for Vietnamese refugees in the United States, characterized by humanitarian aid, community-building efforts, and federal programs aimed at integration. In contrast, the immigration landscape in the US today is more draconian, influenced by shifting political narratives and contexts. This paper further compares these differences by underscoring Vietnam’s post-civil war nation-state and the history of Asian migrants to the US. Contemporary capitalism, the paper argues, has reached a new register of profiteering from and exploitation of “illegal aliens.”