So We Stayed Together': the Tai Dam Immigrate to Iowa

Masthead Logo The Palimpsest Volume 69 | Number 4 Article 3 10-1-1988 So We Stayed Together': The aiT Dam Immigrate to Iowa Siang Bacthi Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Bacthi, Siang. "So We Stayed Together': The aiT Dam Immigrate to Iowa." The Palimpsest 69 (1988), 163-172. Available at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest/vol69/iss4/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the State Historical Society of Iowa at Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The alP impsest by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. I we stayed together WO YEARS AGO I Iowa Governor’s Task Force for AGREED TO HELP spon The Indo-Chinese Resettlement, and Tsor two Southeast Asian ref the Tai Dam began to arrive. In ugee families in Des Moines. As 1979 Ray, Colleen Shearer (then my friends and I helped these fam Tai Dam director of Job Service), and Ray’s ilies adapt and grow accustomed aide Ken Quinn (then on leave to American ways of living — Immigrate from the State Department) cre bureaucracy, winter weather, new ated the Iowa Refugee Service kinds of food, different social to Iowa Center in Des Moines (now called customs — it occurred to me that the Bureau of Refugee Programs, video-recording their experiences headed by Marvin Weidner) and in their own words might create a Iowa SHARES (Iowa Sends Help valuable historical document. by to Aid Refugees and End Imagine if someone had systemat Siang Bacthi, Starvation). These organizations ically recorded the early impres InNgeun Baccam coordinated churches and other sions of the first Norwegians in Soulinthavong, sponsors interested in refugee Decorah or the first Dutch settlers and resettlement statewide, which in Pella! Here was Iowa’s newest Jack Lufkin continues today with the support ethnic group, a group consider of Governor Terry E. Branstad. ably different from the Europeans Unlike most nineteenth- and who settled in Iowa. And here was communist troops overtook South early twentieth-century immi an opportunity to record through Vietnam, Laos, and later Cam grants who relied solely on the oral historyy methods first-hand bodia. Repercussions of the war beneficence of relatives or friends accounts of new settlers, for future reverberate today as “boat peo who had already immigrated, historians and for later genera ple’ and other people from Viet today’s refugee groups (often fam tions of young Americans of Viet nam and neighboring countries ily units) usually have a volunteer namese, Laotian, and Cambodian continue to flee persecution and sponsor who helps the refugees descent. Like most groups, South oppression and find refuge in the get settled into new living quar east Asians will want to know their Philippines, Hong Kong, Indo ters, find employment, and learn roots, how their parents and nesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. English and other skills needed to grandparents reached America, The United Nations defines refu function effectively in American and by what means thev survived gees as individuals unable to five society. Refugees receive various those often difficult first years of in their native country0 due to a forms of governmental assistance. the immigration and assimilation “well-founded fear of persecution’ In all some 10,000 Southeast process. because of “race, religion, social Asians have come to Iowa since The Tai Dam are an ethnic group, nationality, or political the mid 1970s, including some group who lived in the north opinion. The Tai Dam’s sor 2,600 Tai Dam. This represents western provinces of Vietnam rowful background qualified them about 90 percent of the Tai Dam until the communist Vietminh under this definition; hence thevy now living in America. (Shearer defeat of the French at Dien Bien were able to move to a new home and Ray had decided to originally Phu in 1954. Opponents of Ho Chi if another country0 would have accept one ethnic refugee group, Minh and allies of the French, the them. to insure compatibility.) Reflect Tai Dam were forced to flee to As the plight of the “boat peo ing on his governorship in a recent either South Vietnam or Laos after ple’ and other refugees from the biography, Ray felt this “gratify the 1954 treatv in Geneva estab- Vietnam War became known in ing” experience “made me think I fished North and South Vietnam. 1975, Iowa governor Robert Ray had done at least something (Most of the Tai Dam who even acted on behalf of a plea from an worthwhile during all those tually came to Iowa were those American friend of the Tai Dam jvears.” who had first fled to Laos.) There who worked with them in Laos. Like most other immigrants they settled until 1975, when That same vear Ray formed the before them, the Tai Dam and WINTER 1988 163 y other Southeast Asians faced, and terization of America as an script, I did not want to alter the continue to face, interrelated asylum for "oppressed human spirit or lyrical feel of certain sec problems caused by acute emo ity.”) Apparent in the following tions, or remove the metaphors tional stress and fatigue from war interviews are the Tai Dam’s and rich imagery. In the following and oppression, the need to find efforts to adapt to a new culture excerpts, only syntax and gram refuge, the loss of loved ones, sep while preserving their ethnic mar have been corrected; some aration from family and friends, heritage — a balance all immi repetition has been cut. language barriers, and the difficul grant groups have struggled to This project represents only a ties adjusting to a new culture. achieve. beginning. It is hoped that under Also like many earlier immigrants, These excerpts were taken from the continuing leadership of the Tai Studies Center in Des Moines recent refugees have come to two extensive oral historyw inter- America with visions of boundless views regarding Tai Dam immi more interviews will be con opportunity, freedom of expres gration and resettlement. The ducted with Iowa’s newest immi sion and religion, and social equal interviews were conducted in the grants. —Jack Lufkin ity. (They would probably agree native Tai Dam language. As edi with Thomas Jefferson’s charac tor of the complete translated INTERVIEW 1 tries, every country. But I heard that the gov ernor of Iowa, Governor Robert Ray, was interested in our people. So with this quota, we were allowed to come to Iowa. InNgeun: When you first arrived in Iowa, who met you?✓ Khao: I came in a second group [in November 1975]. Those relatives and friends who had come first went to meet us. Those friends who used to live together at the refugee camp came to Camp Dodge. InNgeun: Did you get the job that was in your profession? Khao: Not reallv, because what I bad studied was harnessing hydro electricity. But this is similar [current job at IBM repairing comput khao Baccam (right) first became a refugee when he was ers]. At first I spoke French. I was not seven, fieeing from northwestern Vietnam to Hanoi. good in English. Even though I have the “My parents moved me frequently, fleeing from war and persecution,” he stated. “I did not know where we were knowledge in the field, communication is very going. I just held onto my mother’s hand and she kept on important. I took the job to provide for my dragging me along.” In 1954 they fled to Laos, where he family. Then things got easier. I got used to the grew up and studied electronics. In 1975 he and his language. Friends got used to me, to my voice family crossed the Mekong River to a refugee camp in and accent. Thailand. That November they immigrated to Des Moines. In June 1987 he was interviewed by InNgeun InNgeun: How do you furnish your house, in Baeeam Soulinthavong (left), his cousin. Lao style or the style of people here? Khao: . In Laos, we decorated it in one way InNgeun Baccam: Why did you choose to and here we decorate it in another style. For come to America instead of other countries? example, the sofa: in Laos, it s made of bam Khao Baccam: Oh, we did not know which boo; here it s made of foam. country we were going to at first. Everybody InNgeun: Do you like it, the style? was very confused about where to go at the Khao: As a man, I don’t know much about it. time, because during the fall of Laos no one had It’s my wife who has decorated. accepted us as refugees from Laos. So we InNgeun: Did you buy all of the decoration stayed together. Tai Dam people had leaders here? who had asked permission to go to many coun Khao: Yes, everything we bought here. 164 THE PALIMPSEST InNgeun: Do you have anything brought over not used to meeting a foreigner, especially an from there? Asian. It’s even more difficult for them and me Khao: No. Nothing at all. I remember all I had to communicate. 1 have tried to solve the prob left with me at the time of coming over was one lem, reading newspapers out loud, listening to hundred dollars. We spent it at Fort Chaffee the news and repeating after them. Sometimes [Arkansas, where refugees first arrived]. It was at home, I read out loud and record it on a tape, gone by the time I got to Iowa.

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