Vietnamese Community

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Collection SummaryThis project commenced in 2005 and has enabled the Library to build a working relationship with multicultural and school communities by celebrating their settlement through collecting and preserving photographs, oral histories and publications. Library staff and the community now have on-line access to information on many of its communities. This project has built networks for future collaboration.
Description
Once a year, one of our many migrant communities and one school community is invited to share their culture and history. Some of the communities that we engaged with were: The African Community, The Assyrian Community, The Croatian Community, The Italian Community, The Vietnamese Community.

Collecting, preserving and showcasing these community histories is aimed at celebrating diversity and improving social understanding and inclusion.DescriptionVietnamese comunity settlement history:

Australians of Vietnamese origin form one of the largest and most visible migrant communities in Sydney. Vietnamese is the fifth most commonly spoken community language in Sydney other than English. Arriving as refugees and family reunion migrants in the wake of the fall of Saigon to advancing communist forces in 1975, the Vietnamese were the first large group of Asian immigrants to settle in Australia after the end of the White Australia policy and the first significant group to arrive after the advent of official multiculturalism.
Vietnamese refugees began to arrive in Australia in their thousands in 1978, when 5,400 were settled. Arrivals continued strongly through the early 1980s.
Vietnamese refugees and family reunion migrants continued to arrive in Australia until 1995. The year 1990 saw another peak as a result of the liberalisation of travel restrictions and other reforms in Vietnam. In 1996 arrivals dropped a result of a reduction in the family reunion intake by the newly elected conservative Howard government. Numbers then fell again in 2000. Today, Vietnamese migration to Australia has entered a post-refugee phase in which the new immigrants are students, brides and migrant workers.
Fairfield local government area has the highest numbers of Vietnamese speakers. One of the reasons for the presence of Vietnamese Australians in the Fairfield local government area is the fact that most arrivals were initially housed in hostels in the area, the biggest of which was the Cabramatta Migrant Hostel. Cabramatta has a history as a migrant 'transition zone', and has hosted a succession of post-World War II arrivals, including British, German, Greek, Italian and Yugoslav migrants. The Vietnamese, like their predecessors, were channelled into Cabramatta in the resettlement process. Many of those who had initially settled elsewhere in Australia, including some who had been placed with sponsors in regional areas, undertook a secondary migration to the Fairfield area to join the nascent community. In addition to the attraction of having Vietnamese neighbours, groceries and restaurants, the area was appealing in that land and houses were relatively cheap and it was close to work in western Sydney's manufacturing sector, where most Vietnamese refugee and migrant arrivals found their first jobs.
For many new arrivals, Cabramatta still serves as a handy low-rent (and low-wage) point of first settlement. While many Vietnamese Australians who have gained professional qualifications have left the suburb, a significant number have returned to Cabramatta to open businesses in the community, and the suburb boasts a great many Vietnamese-speaking dentists, doctors, lawyers, accountants, real estate agents and physiotherapists.

Connections

Oral HistoryOral HistoriesCollectionCommunities on the Move - Fairfield's Multicultural Communities

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