On the Other Side of the Hyphen: Vietnamese-Irish Identity

In August 1979 the first of a small number of refugees from Vietnam arrived in Dublin. They came to Ireland via camps in Hong Kong and Malaysia with harrowing tales of escape and of long periods of travel across the South China Sea. These were the so-called ‘Boat People’, whose plight was captured in newspaper headlines from the late 1970s onwards. Those who came to Ireland—some 212 persons in the first instance—were invited to do so by the Irish Government. Religious and non-governmental organisations carried out much of the resettlement work, however. The majority of the refugees were dispersed to a variety of locations throughout Ireland, from Tralee and Portlaoise to Cork City. In the early 1980s most re-migrated to Dublin. This is the story of the Vietnamese-Irish, of takeaway businesses, achievement in education, family, diaspora and identity. Much of this story is told in the words and through the eyes of the people themselves. What emerges is an ethnographic portrait of a minority confronting its own identity in a fastchanging Irish society. This thesis is an exploration of Vietnamese-Irish identity. In order to explore identity for this small, yet heterogeneous and widely dispersed minority, my emphasis has been on a number of ‘sites’, such as education, work and homes. Theoretically, I explore spatial dimensions of identity in detail, as well as arguing against current approaches to migration and minority life in Ireland.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

National University of Ireland Maynooth

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Maguire, Mark

• Anthropology

Language dc:language

en