‘Ménages irréguliers’: interracial liaisons in colonial Indochina, 1905–1938

Abstract

This article explores the history of relationships between Vietnamese women and French men in colonial Indochina as well as the multiplicity of perspectives on these unions. Relationships between Vietnamese women and French men were shaped by a lack of social integration and the skewed sex ratio among the French populations in the region. For French colonizers, these unions complicated the legal and social criteria for ‘being French’ in the colony and were perceived as both a practical necessity and a political threat. Vietnamese discourse on interracial unions demonstrated a preoccupation with changing sexual norms as well as preservation of cultural traditions. By engaging with both Vietnamese and French sources, the article moves away from mainstream colonial Eurocentric parlance that typically cast Vietnamese women as dominated and powerless, and instead highlights the women’s various degrees of agency as well as different motivations and practices in interracial unions.

Keywords:

• Indochina
• interracial relationships
• Vietnamese
• French
• colonial family

Acknowledgements

Support for archival research for this work was made possible through a combination of undergraduate research grants at Duke University: Undergraduate Summer Overseas Travel Research Award (2012), Trinity Research Enhancement Grant (2012), Anne Firor Scott Merit Award (2012), Gender and Race Research Award (2012), and Karsh Summer Research Grant (2012). The author thanks Dr. Engseng Ho and Dr. Laurent Dubois for their reviews of a preliminary version of this work.

Notes

1. The term ‘Annamite’ was used during the French colonial period to refer to Vietnamese people. Its etymology comes from ‘Annam,’ referring to the central part of Vietnam that was under French rule as a protectorate.

2. Besides Ann Stoler’s comparative work on the Dutch East Indies and French Indochina, not much literature has been written on the topic of mixed-race relationships between Vietnamese women and French men in colonial Indochina. The only two historical accounts that took up this question are: Firpo, C. E. (2016). The uprooted: Race, children, and imperialism in French Indochina, 1890–1980. Southeast Asia Politics, Meaning, Memory. University of Hawaii Press., and Saada, E. (2011). Empire's children: Race, filiation, and citizenship in the French colonies (Arthur Goldhammer, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.. Both accounts bear the influence of Stoler’s theoretical framework and focus on the status of mixed-race children who were abandoned by their French fathers. Firpo’s book surveys the development of a welfare system that institutionalized mixed-race children and neutralized the political and social threats that these children might pose. Saada’s research looks at the evolution of the laws to accommodate mixed-race children. The scope of this article does not focus specifically on mixed-race children, though scholars who are interested in this question should definitely consult the aforementioned works.

3. Reconnaissance judiciaire de la paternité naturelle, 1910–1916 (Series GGI 16621). Archives nationales de l'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence, France.

4. (1927). Le rôle et la situation de la famille française aux colonies. Paris: Editions du journal des coloniaux et de l’Armée coloniale réunis. Quoted in Cooper (2000, p. 754).

5. See, for example, an announcement in the periodical Blanc et Jaune, ‘Carnet blanc,’ 19 September 1937, 10.

6. Commission d’enquête sur les territoires d’outre-mer problème des métis, 1937–1938 (Series GGI 53506). Archives nationales de l'Outre-Mer.

7. One of the very few instances when the Superior Resident of Tonkin did take action against métissage had to do with the presence of French civil servants’ indigenous wives in the building of the administration. He complained that such visibility would affect the prestige of the colonizers in the eyes of the indigenous people. See Circulaire du Résident Supérieur au Tonkin au sujet de la cohabitation des femmes indigènes avec les fonctionnaires dans les bâtiments, 1901 (Series GGI 21744). Archives nationales de l'Outre-Mer.

8. Le rôle et la situation de la famille française aux colonies. Quoted in Cooper (2000, p. 754).

9. Billiard, A. (1899) Politique et organisation coloniales: Principes généraux. Paris: V. Giard et E. Briere (p. 116). Quoted in Saada, Empire's children, 27.

10. Due to the requirements of formal education and employment imposed for naturalization applications, the majority of applicants for French citizenship were male. During this period, the majority of Vietnamese women did not attend French school or hold a job.

11. Naturalisations des indigènes (pièces de principe), 1905–1929 (Series GGI 64977). Archives nationales de l'Outre-Mer.

12. Reconnaissance judiciaire de la paternité naturelle, 1910–1916 (Series GGI 16621). Archives nationales de l'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence, France.

13. Quoted in White, Children of the French empire, p. 124.

14. Saada, Empire’s children, p. 60.

15. Victor Augagneur, ‘Les femmes aux colonies,’ Les annals coloniales, quoted in Saada, Empire’s children, pp. 62–63.

16. The French Legionnaire army before the Second World War in Indochina included both French and non-French European soldiers.

17. Note that the phrase ‘love their country’ (yêu nước) in Tran (2012), here was identical to that used in the Phụ Nữ Tân Văn newspaper column.

18. While this article does not dwell specifically on works by Franco-Vietnamese métis on their identity and their experience growing up in Indochina, readers who are interested can consult a few examples from the following list: Brocheux, P. (2003). Une adolescence indochinoise. In N. Bancel, D. Denis, & Y. Fates (Eds.), De l’Indochine à l’Algérie: La jeunesse en mouvements des deux côtés du miroir colonial, 1940–1962 (pp. 32–35). Paris: La Découverte. Brocheux, P. (2012). Reflections on Vietnam. New Left Review 73, 73–76. Franchini, P. (2015). Continental Saigon. Des Equateurs. Gidoin, J. (2013). Écrire la mémoire retrouvée d’un aïeul ‘indochinois’ exilé. Diasporas 22, 195–209. Lefèvre, K. (1989). Métisse blanche. Paris: Bernard Barrault.

19. A lot of research on interracial relationships between Vietnamese women and Western men since 1945 has focused on ‘war brides’ and women who had relationships with American soldiers during the Vietnam War. In general, the Vietnamese women and their children were not viewed favorably by Vietnamese society and especially by the Vietnamese government after the war ended. Readers can consult a few examples from the following list: Chuong, C. H., & Van, L. (1994). The Amerasians from Vietnam: A California study. Southeast Asia Community Research Center. Hidalgo, D. A., & Bankston, C. L. (2008). Military brides and refugees: Vietnamese American wives and shifting links to the military, 1980–2000. International Migration, 46(2), 167–185. Trinh Vô, L. (2003). Vietnamese American trajectories: Dimensions of diaspora. Amerasia Journal, 29(1), ix–xviii. Zeiger, S. (2010). Entangling alliances: Foreign war brides and American soldiers in the twentieth century. New York: New York University Press. In addition, a notable recent work that examines Vietnamese sex workers and their clients (including Western businessmen and Western budget tourists) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is Hoang, K. K. (2015). Dealing in desire: Asian ascendancy, Western decline, and the hidden currencies of global sex work. Berkeley: University of California Press.