1975 to today: Demographic change.
All of this changed the following year.
After the fall of Saigon in April 1975, the number of Vietnamese-Australians increased dramatically. Starting in 1975 and up to the late 1980s, Australia resettled over 90,000 Vietnamese refugees under the international Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
From 1990 to the present, Vietnamese people have continued to resettle in Australia, but now – happily – they come here as migrants, not refugees.
As of the 2006 census there were over 170,000 Australians with Vietnamese ancestry; and Vietnamese is now the sixth most widely spoken language in the country.2
But a better sign of the positive effect that migration from Vietnam has had on Australia are the countless Vietnamese-Australians who have made an impact across a range of fields: from Luke Nyugen (chef and owner of red lantern) to Khoa Do (Young Australian of the year, 2005) to Nam Le (Author and former lawyer).
The cultural exchange has not just been one way. More Australians than ever are travelling to Vietnam to holiday and volunteer, and many Australians now live and work in Vietnam.3 Melbourne’s RMIT University has a campus in Ho Chi Minh City, which caters to Vietnamese students.
As a result, the ties between our two countries are growing stronger, making events like this conference both possible and desirable.