After the Vietnam War ended in April 1975 with the fall of South Vietnam to North Vietnamese communist forces, many thousands of people from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos fled violence and persecution in their home countries and sought refuge in the United States and elsewhere. In Washington State, hundreds of refugees were temporarily housed at Camp Murray, a National Guard base near Fort Lewis, between May and October 1975, until they could be matched with sponsors to provide help with housing, employment, and skills needed to navigate their new home. Hundreds more Vietnamese refugees were brought into Washington by private refugee agencies such as the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Church World Service, and the Hebrew Immigration Aid Service.
By early 1976, there were more than 4,000 Vietnamese refugees in Washington State. Most had held positions of some status in Vietnam—as military officers, civil servants, businesspeople, professionals, and employees of the U.S. Government—and earned decent incomes. They were now competing with Americans for scarce jobs, and their options were complicated by the lack of a cohesive public program for Asian immigrants, with political struggle among local community groups, private refugee agencies, the state government, and the federal government over the kinds of services which should be provided, and how they would be financed and staffed. Many ended up in menial jobs, with little time or resources to take classes which would improve their prospects.
Here, Lan Van Nguyen works as a cook at the City Loan Pavilion in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood. Nguyen used to work as a private cook for French families in Saigon, and later in Laos for American ambassadors. His wife also worked at the City Loan Pavilion.
Caption information source: “Viet refugees in state confused, disappointed” and “Chasing a New Dream in a New Land” by Richard Hardesty, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 22, 1976, p. 1, 9 Caption also derived from captions written by PI staff and attached to the back of the photo.
