Little Saigon

Little Saigon is a name given to any of several overseas Vietnamese immigrant and descendant communities outside Vietnam, especially in the United States and Australia (for other similar Vietnamese communities outside Vietnam, refer to the Viet Kieu article). Saigon is the former name of the capital of the former South Vietnam, where a large number of first-generation Vietnamese immigrants originate. There has been relatively little direct immigration to the United States from the northern portions of Vietnam, although more than 2 million North Vietnamese had already immigrated to the South during the partitioning of the country in 1954 and many of these subsequently immigrated to the US from the South. This lack of immigration is partly due to the fact that the United States had refused to admit refugees from northern Vietnam. (In the mid-1990s, relations between the U.S. and Vietnam improved under President Bill Clinton, although many old-guard Vietnamese anti-Communists—many of them veterans of the ARVN in the Vietnam War—in several Little Saigon communities still strongly oppose formal U.S. diplomatic relations with Vietnam.). Today, comparatively newer Vietnamese immigrant arrivals hail from diverse regions from throughout Vietnam.

Related Topics:
Overseas Vietnamese - United States - Australia - Viet Kieu - Saigon - South Vietnam - Bill Clinton - Anti-Communists - ARVN - Vietnam War

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After the end of the Vietnam War, Vietnamese refugees began settling in refugee camps of Camp Pendleton, California, of Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. They were intentionally spread out of fear by the U.S. resettlement program that the new Vietnamese arrivals would cluster in "ghettos".

Related Topics:
Vietnam War - Camp Pendleton - California - Fort Chaffee - Arkansas - Eglin Air Force Base - Florida - Ghetto

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The well-established and largest Little Saigons are located in Orange County, California, Houston, Texas, and San Jose, California, although somewhat smaller Vietnamese American enclaves such as have cropped up, including the comparatively nascent Vietnamese commercial districts in San Francisco and Sacramento, California as well as in Orlando, Florida. Additionally, Vietnamese Americans of Chinese lineage have also established businesses and bringing distinctively Vietnamese elements to most Chinatowns, essentially blurring the line between a "Chinatown" and a "Little Saigon"; some examples would include the Chinatowns of Boston, Massachusetts or Honolulu, Hawaii.

Related Topics:
Orange County, California - Houston, Texas - San Jose, California - San Francisco - Sacramento, California - Orlando, Florida - Chinatown - Boston, Massachusetts - Honolulu, Hawaii

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