History of Vietnamese Americans in Houston
The first wave of immigration arrived in Houston after the end of the Vietnam War, when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975.
Douglas Pike, a historian, said that the people were "urban, upper class, well-educated, and familiar with American lifestyles.
[4] Texas received many Vietnamese refugees in the late 1970s because it had a warm climate, an expanding economy, and a location in proximity to the ocean.
[1] Vietnamese from fishing and shrimping backgrounds saw Houston as a good settlement point due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico.
[1] With the Vietnamese immigrant waves after the Vietnam War, the U.S. government provided housing, health care, transportation, welfare assistance, initial education, and job training.
[5] The tasks the organizations and individuals did included acquainting refugees with the culture of the United States, and assistance in finding jobs and housing for them.
[6] In the 1970s thousands of Vietnamese refugees moved to Allen Parkway Village,[7] where they encountered crime and tensions with existing black residents.
[7] In areas in Greater Houston along the Gulf Coast some white residents had animosity towards Vietnamese fishermen.
Around the late 1970s in Seabrook, Texas, a Ku Klux Klan group held an anti-Vietnamese rally, and in an incident two Vietnamese fishing boats were burned.
The political prisoners had mental and physical illnesses due to imprisonment, and they had the most difficult time fitting in to the United States.
[2] By 2007 many Vietnamese Americans in Southern California were moving to Texas to take advantage of lower costs of living.
Members of the Vietnamese-American community in Houston protested against the plan, arguing that the current Vietnamese government had a bad human rights record and had no democracy, so the installation of the consulate should not be allowed.
[17] In 2020 a local man named Lê Hoàng Nguyên put up a bilingual English-Vietnamese billboard promoting the Black Lives Matter movement.
[21] Historical Vietnamese business districts include one in the western end of the old Chinatown in East Downtown and one in Midtown.
[23] The original Vietnamese area in Houston, "Vinatown", was established next to the George R. Brown Convention Center, in proximity to the Old Chinatown.
[5] Mimi Swartz of Texas Monthly stated in 1991 that in what is now Midtown, "Little Saigon is a place to begin easing into a new country.
[28] By 2003 the number of Vietnamese business declined, with many of them moving to the Southwest Houston Little Saigon,[25] despite the beautification projects occurring.
[29] Hope Roth stated circa 2017 that pressure from other new developments and increase in costs related to land and space caused a decline in Little Saigon.
Roth stated that many of the area restaurants still remain,[30] but increasingly cater more to mainstream American tastes.
[33] Some persons in Alief expressed opposition to the idea, saying it was racial segregation,[34] and that the area has more ethnic groups than just Vietnamese.
[33] After the 1970s a group of ethnic Vietnamese moved to southeast Houston in an area within Beltway 8 and along Interstate 45 (Gulf Freeway).
Carl Bankston, an associate professor of Asian studies and sociology at Tulane University, said in 2004 that ethnic Vietnamese were employed in fishing, seafood processing, and shrimping in the Gulf Coast area in high numbers.
[38] By 2013, due to concerns about discrimination against Asians and immigration policies and the lessening importance of anti-Communism, the political preferences of ethnic Vietnamese had shifted towards Democrats and independents.
[citation needed] Many Vietnamese who arrived as refugees in the 1970s were given vocational education at Houston Community College.
[46] The temple was established in 1999 by a Vietnamese couple,[47] Charles Loi Ngo and Carolyn,[48] the former originating from China.
[49] They decided to build a temple to Guan Yu (Guandi) after surviving an aggravated robbery[48] which occurred at their store in the Fifth Ward.
[53] Vietnamese Catholic churches in the area include Christ Incarnate Word Parish (Vietnamese: Giáo Xứ Đức Kito Ngôi Lời Nhập Thể), Holy Rosary Parish, Our Lady of Lavang (Giáo Xứ Đức Mẹ Lavang), Our Lady of Lourdes, and Vietnamese Martyrs (Giáo Xứ Các Thánh Tử Đạo Việt Nam).
[53] On August 8, 2008, a bus with Vietnamese Catholics from the Houston area, traveling to Missouri to a festival to honor to the Virgin Mary, crashed near Sherman in North Texas.
