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DISCUSSION PAPER FROM THE OCKENDEN VENTURE ON:
THE "STRESS" OF THE VIETNAMESE BOAT REFUGEES
There is evidence coming from individual members of support groups and refugees themselves and through the research we have initiated that some Vietnamese boat refugee families feel increasingly isolated and even under threat. This is partly through lack of communication, partly because of the nature of the locality in which they find themselves and partly because of the breakdown of the support initially established.
In urban areas these feelings can develop to the point where individuals are frightened to leave their homes. At the same time in rural areas the the policy of dispersal has produced a situation where families have no possibility of direct daily contact with their compatriots and so all the above problems become exaggerated. Therefore many refugees are suffering, or potentially suffering, severe tension and frustration.
This
Such emotions, if not dealt with by understanding realistic support and counselling, or even by a change of environment, can contribute to a total breakdown. All refugees are vulnerable in this respect, but amongst the various refugee groups which have emigrated within or to Western countries in the last 50 years, the Vietnamese boat people are outstandingly so. is by virtue of the extreme cultural shock sustained by many of them, parti- cularly the elderly and middle-aged. It is also because, unlike other immigrant refugees, they have no indigenous predecessors to whom they can relate, and who can guide them in the processes of adjustment and existential change.
1.
Legacy of War
The Indo-Chinese refugees have been further disadvantaged, socially and psychologically by other factors: in particular, thirty years of civil war and the chronic state of insecurity in which most of them have grown up has taken its toll.
2.
Expectations of Affluence
In addition, their expectations of affluence had no relation to the realities of normal refugee experience. Those who lived in South Vietnam, particularly, had an over-glamorised picture of Western life-styles as a result of the impact of American culture during the war. These expectations have been further shattered by an over-riding factor, this is that the current economic recession in Western countries has made it the worst possible time for migration to them.
3. Head of Family
Within his own culture the average Asian head-of-family has the fundamental leadership role of protector and chief provider; a situation which calls for the maximum grass-roots initiative, the organisation of the whole family group
and, above all, a sense of responsibility and self-sufficiency. To find himself unable to function at this level in relation to his own family has proved a basic stress factor for the average Vietnamese father and this in its turn affects the whole family.
4.
Individual Initiative and Survival Skills
The Asian city dweller does not necessarily have to set out to seek employ- ment. He may do so and he may have undergone specialised training to that end, but if those opportunities are not available or fail, the teaming multiplicity of pavement stores and workshops provide a viable alternative for fund-raising in which his whole family can participate and so survive. The totally deprived wartime Vietnamese were those who had migrated from the rural areas to Saigon and other towns and lived in the shanty areas' round their periphery, on the
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