Overseas Vietnamese (Vietnamese: Việt Kiều; Chữ Hán Việt), refers to communities of Vietnamese living outside Vietnam in a diaspora. The term is usually used in Vietnam to refer to Vietnamese Americans from the United States and Vietnamese Europeans, either those who were born outside Vietnam, or fled as refugees after the unification of the country under the North Vietnamese in 1975. The term is often used towards members of the Vietnamese diaspora who return for visits or business. The term has been in use long prior to 1975. Of the about 3 million overseas Vietnamese, about 300,000 left before 1975 (mainly to neighboring countries and France). Outside of the country, the group is self-indentified as Người Việt Hải Ngoại (Overseas Vietnamese) or occasionally Người Việt Tự Do (Free Vietnamese).
Việt Kiều is similar to the Chinese term Hua Qiao(Mandarin) or Wah Kiu (Cantonese) for overseas Chinese. The Qiao/Kiu element, equivalent to Kiều in Vietnamese, signifies the diaspora community, with Hua indicating Chinese ethnicity, or in this case, Việt for "Vietnamese". Notice that these are cognate words. Due to Vietnam's geographical proximity to the Guangdong province note that Kiu and Kiều are almost identical in pronunciation.
around 10,000 [Cambodia, Laos, and China. These people are not usually considered "Việt Kiều" by people residing in Vietnam. During French colonialism, some also migrated to France and some French-speaking areas, such as Québec. The vast majority of overseas Vietnamese are those who escaped Vietnam after 1975 as refugees and their descendants. They usually reside in industrialized countries in North America, Western Europe, and Australia. After the Soviet collapse, some Vietnamese people working and studying in the Soviet bloc opted to stay there as well. This group is found mainly in Central and Eastern Europe. In recent years, Vietnam had sent some laborers to work in more industrialized countries such as the Republic of China on Taiwan and Japan. Wealthy men from Taiwan and South Korea have married Vietnamese women through agencies. These brides usually follow their husbands to live in those countries.
According to the 2000 census, more than 1.2 million people with Vietnamese origins live in the United States, constituting between a third and a half of all overseas Vietnamese. They tend to live in metropolitan areas in the West, especially in California and Texas. Significant areas where they are well-represented include Orange County, California, San Jose, California, and Houston, Texas. Almost all of them have left Vietnam after 1975 to escape the communist Vietnamese government, some are antagonistic towards the current government of Vietnam.
The Vietnamese constitute about 5% of the population of Cambodia, and they have been antagonized by ethnic Khmers. Clashes between ethnic Khmers and Vietnamese have been the cause of some conflicts between the two countries. The platform of some mainstream parties include restricting rights of the Vietnamese minority.
France
See main article: Vietnamese French
France contains a mixture of those who migrated there before 1975 and those after 1975 consisting of ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese and mixed race Eurasian French-Vietnamese. Children of Vietnamese people in France usually grow up speaking French, unable to communicate in Vietnamese. The population of Vietnamese French is now high and visible in most major cities (around 500,000) and current immigration rates are still high.
Vietnamese Australians constitute the seventh-largest ethnic group in Australia, numbering about 156,581 or 0.8% of the population according to the 2001 census. Vietnamese is the sixth most widely-spoken language in the country, with 174,236 speakers. They vary widely in income and social class levels. Many Vietnamese Australians are upper class professionals, while others work primarily in blue-collar jobs. Australian raised and born Vietnamese Australians are over-represented universities in Australia, yet the community still suffers from one of the highest unemployment rates. Over three quarters of Vietnamese-Australians live in New South Wales (40.7%) and Victoria (36.8%). Being mostly refugees after the Vietnam war, some are antagonistic toward the government of Vietnam.
According to the 2001 census, Canada has 151,410 people with Vietnamese origins. They include 67,450 in Ontario, 28,310 in Québec and 21,490 in Alberta. They are similar to Vietnamese Americans in most respects. Some of those have lived in Québec before 1975.
Germany
Vietnamese comprise the largest Asian ethnic group in Germany[link]. In western Germany, most Vietnamese arrived in the 1960's or 1970's as refugees from the Vietnam war. The comparatively larger Vietnamese community in eastern Germany traces its origins to assistance agreements between the GDR and the North Vietnamese government. Under these agreements, guest workers from Vietnam were brought to East Germany, where they soon made up the largest immigrant group [link], and were provided with technical training. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, many stayed in Germany, although they often faced discrimination, especially in the early years following reunification.
Czech Republic
Many Vietnamese immigrants in the Czech Republic reside in Prague. There is an enclave called "Little Hanoi", named after the capital city Hanoi of Vietnam. Unlike Vietnamese immigrants in Western Europe and the United States, these immigrants were usually communist cadres studying or working abroad who decided to stay after the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe.
Philippines
Many Vietnamese boat refugees landed in the Philippines in post-1975 and, as a result, a community called Viet-Ville (French for "Viettown") was formed in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, making it the center of Vietnamese commerce and culture complete with Vietnamese restaurants, shops, and Catholic churches and Buddhist temples at the time. Its ethnic Vietnamese population of the community has dwindled greatly, however, as many have since been resettled in the United States, Australia, or Western Europe. Viet-Ville remains a popular destination for local Filipino residents.
Relation within the overseas Vietnamese community towards the current government of Vietnam range from friendly cooperation to hatred. Generally, those living in North America, Western Europe, and Australia, making up the vast majority of overseas Vietnamese, especially those who have been sent to reeducation camps set up by the government after the Vietnam War, oppose the government. Those residing in Central and Eastern Europe, who have been sent for training in former communist countries, have friendly relations with the government. Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai's visit to the United States in June 2005 was met with several hundred Vietnamese American protesters in Washington, D.C.. Those who left before 1975 are generally somewhere between the spectrum.
However, relations seem to be improving in recent years. The former South Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Cao Ky returned to Vietnam in 2004 and was generally positive about his experience. The government in Vietnam used less antagonistic rhetorics to describe those who left the country after 1975 to woo their talent and money. According to the Vietnamese government, while in 1987 only 8,000 overseas Vietnamese returned to Vietnam for visits, that number had jumped to 430,000 in 2004.
The Vietnamese government, for its own part, had actively tried to woo back overseas Vietnamese, who bring capital and expertise. Its view of the Việt Kiều changed from "cowardly traitors" to "essential elements of Vietnamese people". The government enacted laws to make it easier for overseas Vietnamese to do business in Vietnam, including those allowing them to own land. However, some overseas Vietnamese still complain about discrimination that they face while trying to do business there.
