Trinity Vu Southeast Asia: Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Timor-Leste, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Hmong people. For many people, this is a region of exotic animals, jungles, food, and vacation hotspots. However, these countries have more than just culture and picturesque destinations in common; they are connected by similar histories of war and trauma that have followed Southeast Asian immigrants to the United States creating a shared refugee experience. Many countries in Southeast Asia have experienced foreign militant occupation by imperialist forces at some point throughout their history. For example, the American occupation of the Philippines began in 1898 and continued into the 1900s before erupting into the Philippine-American war which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Filipino civilian casualties. It wasn’t until 1946 that the United States finally granted Philippines independence. A more recent event that resulted in the large-scale resettlement of many peoples within the Indochina region is the Vietnam War that began in 1955 and lasted until 1975. Occupied by the Japanese during World War II and the French afterwards, Vietnam was eventually able to expel imperialist presence and divided into North and South Vietnam. However, after the South Vietnamese president was assassinated, a war began between the two regions and American forces eventually traveled to aid the South. During this war, President Nixon carried out secret bombings of suspected communist camps in Laos in 1964 and Cambodia in 1969 before ordering the militant invasion of Cambodia in 1970. However, as the war dragged on, American forces gradually withdrew, Saigon fell, and communist governments were established resulting in the fleeing of many Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees to neighboring countries temporarily until they could find passage to the United States. A significant portion of these refugees traveled via small boats, fitting as many people as possible aboard each vessel, and became known as the boat people. During their journeys across the ocean, they faced constant risks of separation and death due to starvation, drowning, or possible attacks. Those who were able to arrive on US soil were placed into refugee camps across the country until they could be assigned to resettlement agencies that would help find them sponsors. Even if families were placed in the same camps, there were no guarantees that they would be resettled together or near each other. While sponsors were expected to assist refugees in adjusting to the country and assimilating into American society, if these sponsors did not possess the capacity and resources to aid refugees, the refugees often had no other access to health care services, education, and little options to enter the workforce. Despite refugees having immigrated to escape the war, often with little to no money, higher education and skills, and or sufficient English proficiency, they were expected to become self-sufficient, quickly adapting to life in the US, and follow the “American Dream” bootstrap narrative that hard work would lead to success commonly held by many voluntary migrants. This disparity between accessibility and expectation created a generation of immigrants who were expected to assimilate into American society with minimal aid and a lack of linguistic and cultural understanding while battling unaddressed trauma from war, violence, loss, and separation. While the Southeast Asian American (SEAA) population has grown to constitute a sizeable portion of the US demographic and the Vietnam war remains a large memory for many Americans, there is still a lack of Southeast Asian representation in academic curricula, especially the K-12 education system, unless it contains direct ties to a part of US history. This absence of acknowledgement and focus on Southeast Asian history has fostered a sense of invisibility and scarcity of agency among Southeast Asian students regarding their history, shared experiences, and culture. Because of this, there remains a simultaneous lack of solidarity among Southeast Asian students and disconnect from South and East Asian Americans.
The deficit of SEAA representation, coupled with the resettlement of many refugees into low-income areas and lack of aid provided to them, has resulted in disparities between the Southeast Asian American and general Asian American populations. These disparities and the challenges that result from them are masked by the lack of disaggregate data highlighting differences between specific SEAA populations in comparison to Asian American and national averages. For example, while Asian Americans have a greater college attainment rate than the general US population, the SEAA populations in particular have much lower rates. SEAA populations also possess a higher rate of unemployment, poverty, and low English proficiency than both the Asian American and national averages. These disparities continue into the American healthcare system in which, while it has become more inclusive of Asian accessibility, there remains a deficit of SEAA healthcare professionals and language-related accommodations and information dissemination. While it has become common practice to provide materials in different languages in healthcare settings, there is a lack of Southeast Asian vocabulary and translations that when coupled with low English proficiency populations produces linguistic barriers to accessing healthcare services including mental health care. SEAA are further hesitant to utilize these services because many are unfamiliar with the concept of mental health care and Western medicinal techniques and culture. Because of the culturally ingrained lack of acknowledgment of mental health accompanied by the cultural and linguistic barriers preventing those who desire care services from seeking them, many refugees battle with unaddressed trauma from their experiences during wartime and resettlement which is then passed on to descendants evolving into intergenerational trauma. The generational gap is further exacerbated by the lack of English proficiency in immigrants compared to the lack of non-English language proficiency among American-born generations which has generated a culture of silence in which younger generations do not ask and older generations do not tell about their experiences and stressors. The scarcity of SEA and SEAA representation in modern American media and the education system further deafens the silence emphasizing that SEAA should just work hard and assimilate into American culture as quickly as possible. Until the US begins down a path to address and remedy the disparities and barriers that continue to plague Southeast Asian Americans, these communities, engulfed by a culture of silence and passivity, will not be heard. Sources
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