UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Globalized Humanitarianism: U.S. Imperial Formation in Asia and the Pacific through the Indochinese Refugee Problem A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies by Ayako Sahara Committee in charge: Professor Yen Le Espiritu, Chair Professor Joseph Hankins Professor Adria Imada Professor Jin-Kyung Lee Professor Denise Ferreira da Silva 2012 Copyright Ayako Sahara, 2012 All rights reserved. The dissertation of Ayako Sahara is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2012 iii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my mother. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS SIGNATURE PAGE …………………………………..…………………………….…. iii DEDICATION …...…....................................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ……………………………………………………....................v LIST OF FIGURES …………………………………………………….……………......vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………...………… ………….……………….…..vii VITA…………………………..…………………….……………………………….….. ix ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION………………….…….......................................x INTRODUCTION…...……………….………………… …..…………...............................1 CHAPTER ONE: Theater of Rescue: Cultural Representations of US Evacuation from Vietnam…………………….………………………………....….....................................36 CHAPTER TWO: “Saigon Cowboys”: Fighting for Indochinese Refugees and Establishment of Refugee Act of 1980…………………..…..….……………………… .…....92 CHAPTER THREE: Surrogate Refuge: Internationalization and Institutionalization of the Indochinese Refugee Resettlement…...……………………………………...............…154 CHAPTER FOUR: Trans-Pacific Racisms: Development of Japan’s “Honorary White” Racial Identity….……………………………………………………………………….201 EPOLOGUE…………….………...……………………………………………………262 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………….…………………………………...266 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Fall of Saigon (1)…………….………………………………………............37 Figure 2: Fall of Saigon (2)……………………….…………………………….……...37 Figure 3: Robert Hedrix….………………… …....……………………………………….51 Figure 4: Operation Babylift……………………………………………………..…….61 Figure 5: Refugee Child………………………………………………………………..77 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I would like to thank the Department of Ethnic Studies at UCSD for giving me the opportunity to study, learn and teach. It was physically and emotionally challenging for me to go through the program and I am so thankful for the faculty, staff, graduate students and undergrads who supported me. But most of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my committee for supporting my efforts to complete my dissertation. As a chairperson, Professor Yen Le Espiritu has always been there for me and encouraged me to write as an Ethnic Studies scholar. Her critical analysis of the U.S. as well as Vietnam transformed my project into the way it is now. Professor Denise Ferreira da Silva’s works helped me to engage with the concept of race. Professor Adria Imada was instrumental in guiding me from the earlier stages of my dissertation. Her seminar on U.S. empire allowed me to develop the idea of this dissertation. Professor Joseph Hankins gave me a tremendous amount of brilliant feedback on my project. His critical reading of my dissertation greatly helped me to explore my project. I appreciate Professor Jin-Kyung Lee’s comments on concepts of my project. Her work on Korea furthered my argument of U.S. imperial formation in Asia. Several other scholars have helped me in many ways and I would like to mention them here: Ross Frank, Lisa Yoneyama, Takashi Fujitani, Mimi T. Nguyen and Mariam B. Lam. Special thanks to Kimloan Hill, a wonderful Vietnamese scholar, for being patient with my Vietnamese and sharing her knowledge with me. Her experience provided me a lot of inspiration to write. I would love to show my gratitude to the members of my dissertation writing group—Long Bui, Cathy Kozen, Ma Vang, Angela Kong and Kit Myers—for their vii thoughtful comments and feedback. Ma and Kit have been my writing partners and I greatly appreciate working together with them. Tomoko Tsuchiya and Kyung-Hee Ha have been like sisters to me. I have learned a lot from their diligence. Their encouragement kept me writing. I am so lucky to have Rashne Limki in my cohort. Her critical understanding of my project helped me to build the foundation of my dissertation. Maile Arvin, Angela Morrill, Maria Cesena, Rebecca Kinney, and Steve Ruiz are amazing people for encouraging me to go through the writing process. I also thank Chien-tien Lin for sharing his difficulties of being a foreign student in the U.S. Talking on a shuttle with him was like a counseling session for me. Much appreciation to Andreas Theofilopoulos, for always being by my side and being patient to understand me. His wonderful family cheered me up so many times during my life at UCSD. I also owe many thanks to scholars, friends and family in Japan. Especially, Professor Endo Yasuo has been my mentor since I entered graduate school at the University of Tokyo. His brilliance has inspired me in so many ways and has allowed me to keep exploring intellectual endeavors. Special thanks to Matsuda Haruka and Mimaki Seiko for being amazing friends and scholars. And most of all, my mother, Akiko Sahara, has sacrificed herself to enable me to continue studying. My project is indebted to her experiences of being a first generation female college student in 1970s Japan. Scholarships provided by the Fulbright and the Rotary Foundation enabled me to study at UCSD. Through both scholarships, I have met so many wonderful people. I also thank the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation and the Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation for enabling me to conduct archival research. Lastly, I appreciate everyone who engages in Ethnic Studies. Thank you so very much to everyone. viii VITA 2001 B.A., History, Ritsumeikan University 2004 M.A., Area Studies, The University of Tokyo 2007-2010 Teaching Assistant, Department of History, University of California, San Diego 2009 M.A., Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego 2011 Teaching Assistant, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego 2012 Lecturer, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego 2012 Ph.D., Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego FIELDS OF STUDY History, Area Studies, Vietnamese American Studies, Asian American Studies, Ethnic Studies ix ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Globalized Humanitarianism: U.S. Imperial Formation in Asia and the Pacific through the Indochinese Refugee Problem by Ayako Sahara Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies University of California, San Diego, 2012 Professor Yen Le Espiritu, Chair Deploying globalized humanitarianism as a frame of analysis, my dissertation (re)conceptualizes the U.S. Indochinese refugee resettlement as an involvement which exemplified the U.S.’s policy objective of trying to sustain its global power in the region during the Cold War. Engaging in a transnational discourse analysis by citing published materials from both the U.S. and Japan, this dissertation elucidates the ways in which the U.S. employed humanitarianism to carry on its resettlement plan and pressure other countries to participate. The evacuation and resettlement of Indochinese refugees was not necessary an act of forgetting the war, but rather an act of rescuing the “wounded,” enabling the U.S. to be a savior in Asia and the Pacific. This rescuer image of the U.S. is historically rooted in the U.S.’s presence there. Even though the war in Vietnam could not display the mightiness of the U.S., the rescue of the refugees and orphans at the end of the war x allowed the U.S. public to differentiate the U.S.’s evacuation from the act of war. The theater of rescue had enormous effects on changing the image of the failure of the war. The act of rescue did not stop with the U.S.’s evacuation from the region. A small group of officers from the State Department propelled Indochinese refugee admissions on a large scale by collaborating with the media and mobilizing various organizations. This dissertation points out that the people involved in the resettlement effort had a humanitarian impulse to help the refugees, but they also upheld the larger context of an anticommunistic understanding of the righteousness of U.S. power in Asia. At the same time, the Indochinese refugee problem became an international burden sharing project. Internationalization of the resettlement efforts allowed the U.S. to act as a leader in Asia, while Asia, especially the first asylum countries, played the role of surrogate refuges to the U.S. This process was also an externalization of the refugee processing to Asia to secure the U.S. border. The U.S. government honed the concept of extraterritoriality, blurring the concept of territory by furthering their association with Asian countries. This internationalization was made possible through the cooperation of other countries. This dissertation examines the relationship between the U.S. and Japan in particular, because I want to show that U.S. hegemony in Asia is not a simple form of domination in which the U.S. coerces other countries to collaborate, but rather an intricate complex of power that enables the U.S. to act as a leader. Japan for the first time opened its doors to the refugees and funded the UNHCR with enormous amounts of money to assist the U.S. in the Indochinese refugee resettlement. By