Embedded Files
Cuban and Vietnamese interviewees in many 1970s New Orleans news publications frequently cited the same reason for choosing to reside in New Orleans: the similar hot and humid climate it shares with their country of origin. Many members of both refugee populations were aided by Catholic Charities, and in this process many were intentionally directed to New Orleans. Despite these similarities, however, and the geographic closeness of the New Orleanian neighborhoods Cuban and Vietnamese refugees chose to settle in, the departures from the country of origin varied significantly.
Map produced by the Civil Education Service in 1969 for use in American classrooms.
Map detailing the presence of U.S. forces in Vietnam during the Vietnam War/the American War/the Resistance War Against America.
When the Cuban government finally granted my grandparents permission to leave the country in 1962, they boarded a plane that would take them to Jamaica before Miami, where they arrived at an empty airport with no one from the promised Cuban Refugee Program to offer them assistance. Nevertheless, they were en route to New Orleans to join Bertila’s older step-sister Alida, who had immigrated there with her husband a few years prior. It was because Alida had ended up in New Orleans that my grandparents had decided to reside there permanently.
PLACEvideo.mp4I asked my grandmother if she had wanted to stay in Miami instead, something she had told me many times before, and why. She said Miami was just like Cuba, with its palm trees and sweltering heat, and that she has “suffered” from missing her country all these sixty years since she left. But to be fair, Abuela, I pressed her a little, New Orleans also has palm trees and sweltering heat. That’s when Bertila began to speak about her longing for the sea, the beaches of her childhood, the beauty of the water— there was nothing that could compare to that in Louisiana.
Left: My grandmother's Cuban passport used for entrance to Miami in 1962.
BAYOU
A marshy wetland, often found in flat, low-lying areas in the southern United States (i.e. New Orleans East).
GENTILLY
A neighborhood in New Orleans, on the other side of the Industrial Canal bordering New Orleans East. Anecdotally a home base of Cuban refugees in the 1960s, although no census information is available to confirm.
NEW ORLEANS EAST
The eastern, most recently developed (ca. 1950s) area of New Orleans, home of Village de l'Est.
VILLAGE DE L'EST
Neighborhood in New Orleans East, home to approx. 4,000 Vietnamese-New Orleanians per the 2000 census.
In 1965, the Gentilly neighborhood (named for the Château de Chantilly outside Paris) was flooded by Hurricane Betsy. Courtesy of the Times-Picayune.
A 1972 billboard advertising the boundary of New Orleans east; the area marked "Current Development" contains Village de L'Est, and the lighter-colored area is a bayou, the largest urban wildlife refuge designation in the United States.
Above: A 1987 article detailing a student in The Maroon, a collegiate publication of the Loyola University branch in New Orleans (and my father's alma mater).
In 1987, the Loyola University publication The Maroon interviewed student Joe Le, a Vietnamese-New Orleanian who had been one of the thousands of Vietnamese immigrants to enter the United States in 1975. The Fall of Saigon— or alternately named, the Liberation of Saigon— on April 30th, 1975 marked the start of the reunification process between North and South Vietnam, and the emergence of a socialist Vietnamese state. After the news spread, in what is described as a chaotic and violent evacuation, many residents of South Vietnam attempted to exit the country via sea to evade a feared retaliation against them by the new government because of any past affiliations they may have had with the U.S. military presence in the state. Tens of thousands of evacuees boarded boats headed out of Vietnam, and many of those who eventually arrived in the United States were first received at tent cities constructed as temporary refugee housing at several American military bases.
In the interview, Le emphasizes the immense utility of his English-speaking ability following his arrival in New Orleans, as he was able to both help himself quickly find work and help other Vietnamese arrivals navigate their new home environment. Although the successes of Vietnamese-New Orleanians in the fishing and food industries, among others, have generated economic stability for many in this population, the article notes that these successes have also "further alienated them into their own small community."
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