Immigration of Vietnamese People to Australia

The Vietnam War which went from 1965 to 1975 involved America and its allies, including Australia, aiming to prevent South Vietnam from an invasion by the communist North Vietnaese. There were many key reasons for Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The Americans provided valuable support when they arrived at our aid during the WWII so Australia felt a responsibility to return a favour to the US to maintain healthy foreign relations. Australia also became implicated in the war due to the threat posed by the expansion of communism, known as the “Domino Effect”. On the political front Australia was also very anticommunist and believed to stop the war arriving at our front step we should use the forward defence approach. For these

The Vietnam War began on the 1st of November 1995 and was fought in mainly in Vietnam but also in Cambodia and Laos. The war initially began when communist forces tried to expand and include Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the communist force. The opposing political agendas also played an impacting role on the starting of the Vietnam War, due to North Vietnam becoming a communist government it was strongly supported by China in order to change South Vietnam from being an anti-communist government to adopting communism. In 1965 Australia became deeply involved and played an influential role in the Vietnam War. Australia decision to be a part of the war was mainly based on the rise of communism in the South-East Asia after the Second World War. In 1974, Congress voted not to enforce the commitments agreed to in the Paris Peace Accords. Air support for Cambodia, South Vietnam, and Laos was cut off. The promise of military aid by other was never delivered. North Vietnam was able to take over South Vietnam as force the country into communism. The War had a great impact on the Vietnamese citizen’s lives, they were forced to leave the war torn country and move to a foreign land to start a new life.

During the years from 1914 - 1918 Australia was at constant battle all over the world fighting for the british. With battles deaths always follow. So many people say, “what did we ever gain from WW1 we lost so many people as a country”. Although we lost almost 60,000 men and 150,000 wounded or taken prisoner. After the war the British Government offered ex-servicemen free transportation to some of the colonies, 17,000 migrants arrived in Australia between 1919 and 1922. Community organisations paid for migrants to come over to Australia. Small numbers also arrived independently. It was also said that up to 300,000 men came over from britain post war to live. The British government gave an incentive to migrate over because so many people

Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War started in 1962-75. Some of the reasons for Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War were mostly to do with the fear of communism and using the “forward defence” strategy to prevent the domino theory from happening. During this time Australia’s attitude towards the war changed due to the protesting of anti-war groups such as ‘save our sons’, it was believed that it was more of a civil war then a communism war,  and because it was a television war.

The Effect of the Vietnam War on the Australian Society The Vietnam War had great political impact and led to deep division within Australian society. The Australian people were forced to take the issues about the Cold War, Vietnam and the arms race seriously because of Australia’s military involvement in Vietnam from 1962 to 1972. As a result, our fear of communism and of Asia increased dramatically. Australia, occupying a large mass of land, yet having a small population had always lived in the belief that they were threatened some way by the foreign powers and this led to the formation of “The White Australia Policy”, which was set up in 1901.

Cabramatta is a suburb located in south-west Sydney, New South Wales and is part of the City of Fairfield government area. The largest Vietnamese community in Australia is found in Cabramatta (source). According to the 2011 Census of Population and Housing of Cabramatta conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (footnote), of the 22,676 total responses, 6,330 people listed their heritage as being Vietnamese, with only 29 stating that both parents were born in Australia. These numbers are also comparable with the total population in Cabramatta of those of Chinese background

as New South Wales. “On the 13th May 1787 a fleet of eleven ships left Britain with two

The Chinese people that came to Australia were typically men brining there family over with them to work for an income that would be big enough to support them. The wife however was left at home to forfill the role of looking after her in-laws in this time. The family would have to work for them aswell, and send a percentage of there profit over.

The Vietnam War beginning on November 1st 1955 and ending April 30th 1975 was a highly controversial war that originally took place as a civil war between Northern and Southern Vietnam. Northern Vietnam was backed by Russia and China while Southern Vietnam was backed by the USA. This war made a hugely divisive impact on Australian society a few months after they entered in July 1962 as allies to the USA and Southern Vietnam. Some factors of the Vietnam War contributed to cohesion among the Australian public such as the fear of communism and the subsequent “domino effect. However many factors of this war such as the media coverage, conscription being brought back under the Menzies government, anti-war protests and post-war immigration, were all important aspects of this war and made it much more divisive than cohesive, especially in the later stages.

Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War was a result of a combined fear of communism and the fall of freedom from danger in Australian democracy and society. The growing web of communism saw the fall of many countries closing in on Australia and New Zealand, and it was believed Robert Menzies’ government that they would find communism at Australia’s shores.

When Vietnam-born Victorians were first counted separately in a census in 1976, 382 were recorded. However in the coming years this number would grow drastically. However at the end of the Vietnam war, when the communist government took over Vietnam many natives decided to leave there homeland in seek of a safer place to live, ultimately this safer country was Australia. The war killed an estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians, 1.1 million North Vietnamese troops, 200,000 South Vietnamese troops, this would certainly contribute to the masses of migrants heading south to Australia to escape there past war - torn lives. Many young families had to resort to leaving there beloved homeland based on the fact that Vietnam was unsafe for there families. The aftermath of the

For many years Asian Migrants were restricted from entering Australia and found it difficult to migrate due to discriminatory political policies. The main policies were the ‘dictation test’, the policy of ‘Assimilation’ and the ‘White Australia’ policy. The main Asian Migration wave occurred in 1976 after the Vietnam War forced many people to leave there homes and come here to Australia. These Asian Migrants arrived in Australia by boat which was usually very over crowded. The cause of

Before the first wave of migration, the United States took part in the Vietnam War which started the first wave of immigration. For over centuries, Vietnam was under Chinese and French controls. After World War II, the French withdrew from Vietnam and American troops entered with a request from the South Vietnamese government; who asked for American support and interest against the North communist. At the time, the Northern region of Vietnam was a communist party. In addition, the United States agreed and declared that they had to fight against communist power. As a result, many violent Anti-Vietnam War protests went throughout the United States because many people opposed to the United

The emergence of the Vietnamese people can be traced to the fifth or sixth millennium B.C. The Vietnamese or Kinh ethnic group was formed in a region that is now northern Vietnam and southern China, which is the main ethnic group in the country, accounting for about eighty six percent of the Vietnamese population. Modern day Vietnam was established through French colonialism which led to an outburst of problems between the French and Vietnam. When the French left Vietnam in 1954, numerous Vietnamese people migrated to France. North Vietnam began a policy to forcefully reconcile the country with South Vietnam. However, conflict arose which introduced America to fight against Vietnam in the 1960s. As a result of the division between North and South Vietnam, nearly

As a great family of nations, involved in a struggle greater than us, Australia’s assistance for South Vietnam commenced in early 1960’s to enforce the policies of other prosperous nations to limit the spread of communism in Asia (RSL NSW, 2014). From the time of the arrival of the first forces in 1962 approximately 60,000 fellow Australians, including ground troops and airforce and naval force work force, served in Vietnam (NFSA, 2017). To you we are thankful.