Twenty-Third International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

In my paper, I look at different refugee experiences and local responses to different refugee populations as they settled and built their communities in the context of Los Angeles as it developed during a period of great restructuring and demographic change. In my comparative study of major refugee groups that settled in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s, I specifically examine the resettlement of Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian refugees - mostly official, documented refugees – and that of Central Americans, specifically refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua – many of whom were undocumented – in the same time period. I examine the different ways these populations were or were not incorporated into Los Angeles via local policy and government institutions, social services, law enforcement, education systems, media, and pre-existing and simultaneously-developing communities in Los Angeles. I also look at the ways refugee groups and their community development were assisted (or not) by a refugee service provider agency network, mutual assistance associations (MAAs), and religious/ethnic organizations that are still largely active in Los Angeles today, and local government institutions. I am interested in how differing receptions of various groups (based on a variety of factors) impacted and shaped each community’s development in Los Angeles that was actively remaking itself and its image within a rapidly changing national and international context.