“We Are the Real, Original Refugees”: The Dynamic Nature of Processes of Vietnamese Refugees’ Self-Conceptualization

Abstract

This paper unpacks 20 Vietnamese-Canadians’ sentiments of indifference toward or opposition to Canada’s resettlement of Syrian refugees. I argue that participants center their understanding of ‘refugee’ around their diasporic journeys on boats to memorialize their visceral suffering and to position themselves as deserving of entry into Canada atop a hierarchy of legitimacy. In doing so, participants police ‘refugee’ as an identity category to reassert themselves as refugees and Syrians as migrants, thus constructing Vietnamese refugees’ pathways to citizenship as more legitimate. This article highlights how refugees’ self-understandings may be relational and evolve as new arrivals hold the same identity.

Keywords:

• Refugees
• migrants
• Vietnam
• Canada
• identity
• symbolic boundary work

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 To protect their anonymity, all participants have been assigned pseudonyms.