Funding for this program is made possible by the Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Area, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, and by Mississippi State University.

[Peter Lisagor] Mr.

President, you've been reported as being damn mad about the adverse reaction of the American people to the Vietnamese refugees.

And I would like to ask you, how do you explain that reaction?

What, in your judgment, is the causes of it?

[light music] [Gerald Ford] Mr.

Lisagor, I am primarily very upset because the United States has had a long tradition of opening its doors to immigrants from all countries.

We're a country built by immigrants from all areas of the world.

And we've always been a humanitarian nation.

I understand that the executive committee of the AFL-CIO passed a resolution, urging that the United States open its doors and make opportunities available for the South Vietnamese, who have been driven or escaped from their country.

I'm convinced that the vast majority of Americans today want these people to have another opportunity to escape the probability of death.

And therefore, I applaud those who feel that way.

[reporters] Mr.

President.

[music playing] [water waves lapping] [birds cooing, music playing] [Narrator] This is Biloxi, an American Riviera, fabulous landmark on the equally fabulous skylines of America.

Legend and lore mingle with the world of today in this amazing peninsula city.

[music playing, water sloshing] The shores where Indians, Buccaneers, and explorers once trod are lined with picturesque docks and ships-- where skippers, for generations, have sailed the seas in search of marine life.

[Deanne Stephens] The commercial seafood industry made the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Prior to the coming of the railroad and the commercialization of the product, it was literally, as they say, that sleepy little town.

It had good trade.

There was some tourists.

People enjoyed their tourist activities.

But it certainly was not a commercial seafood destination for entrepreneurs.

In the beginning of the seafood industry, you did have locals who worked in the industry.

But there were not enough locals.

And the labor demands, once you began the processing plants, were so great that there had to be a different labor source.

So you started out with the Yugoslavians, the Slavic nation out of Austria-Hungary.

They were the first immigrants to come in.

But of course, if we look at Europe and what was going on in Europe with the opening of World War I, and persecution and militarism, the Italians who came over at that time were literally called birds of passage-- so looking for a safe haven.

And they found it.

It was the same fishing economy.

They knew how to build boats.

They knew how to do nets.

And they just re-established here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

By the time you got to the 1970s, the first waves of immigrants that came in the late teens and '20s, those parents and people had worked so hard to make a better life for their children that their children, the second generation, were no longer interested in working in the seafood industry.

It's hard work.

It's smelly.

It's long hours.

The shrimp are out at nighttime for the most part.

So they had made sacrifices for their children.

So by the 1970s, who's going to work in the seafood industry?

Who's going to do that hard labor?

[music playing] [engine roaring] [Jeannette Cressman-Vu] 1975.

That's when all the refugees over here.

[music playing, engine roaring] [Stephens] In 1975, when South Vietnam fell, Vietnamese refugees came in, in two different waves.

And it was a cultural shock.

[Thomas Vu] When I moved to America, most likely all the refugees, we had to stay in a refugee camp.

And we stayed there for about a month or two months to learn the new way, new American life-- learn how to eat American food, hamburger, hot dog, and go to the supermarket and go to school, and learn English.

And you have to accept the new life and learn as much as you can.

[engine whizzes] [Reporter 1] Originally, some 500 Vietnamese refugees were relocated in Mississippi.

And as best we can determine now, about 300 still remain.

The refugees that have done well have done so for two reasons.

They have a strong determination, and they've had good sponsors in the local areas.

[Reporter 2] Yesterday, this house was just a vacant building.

But today, it's a home, thanks to the efforts of a church congregation here in Gulfport.

[Stephens] You had to have a sponsor.

Many sponsors for the Vietnamese people were Catholic services who were involved in this.

And individuals and other churches got involved.

[Man] So I spent time trying to get them acquainted with what's going on.

Oh, in Biloxi?

Biloxi, yeah.

That's good.

How are you doing?

We're moving in just a minute, OK?

They were very happy that it's close to the water.

They like the Gulf of Mexico.

And favorite food, shrimp and oysters, kind of enjoy that a lot.

[Vu] The first time when I come to Biloxi, I feel like it's almost one of the city of our country called Vung Tàu because they have the gulf.

And the Vietnam have a Vung Tàu beach.

[Stephens] The climate of the area, the water of the area, the land of the area was very much like what they had left in Vietnam.

And this was very attractive to many Vietnamese immigrants.

[Vu] After they reached Biloxi, they think they found the promised land.

They know here is a place they can continue and build up the life here.

[Man] I really like it.

I have quite a lot of friends around here.

And I got a good association with the people around here.

Just now we try to build up the future for my children.

So I don't know for me, but we try to do my best.

[Reporter 2] You've changed where you're living now.

Where are you living?

[Child] I live in my house.

[Reporter 2] And are you going to have a nice Christmas?

Yeah.

[Cressman-Vu] I know that a couple of lawyers sponsor my family, Vietnamese whole family, bring to their house and let them learn English and all that, and to be better.

[chattering, toy clanking] But sometimes, we go on the street.

Some of them don't like Asian-- not all, but some.

[slow music] [recorder rolling] [Stephens] Mississippi has always had a racial tension.

From its history, you can research it.

It's always had a racial tension.

So the Vietnamese were perceived not just culturally different, but racially different.

And it occurred in an area that again, along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, there had been issues of racial tension.

But many people along the Mississippi Gulf Coast prided themselves in the fact that schools were integrated very easily.

Things seemed to be getting along.

But then when you look at the wade-ins that had occurred in the 1960s, you find out that there were beatings that occurred right there on the public beach.

There was jailings.

And there was a murder of one young man.

And that is not always common knowledge.

[music playing] [Reporter 1] We talked with Dan Cook, who sponsored nearly 30 refugees.

And he says it hasn't always been easy.

At one point, he received threatening phone calls and was cursed on the street.

And he feels the federal program was inadequate.

[Dan Cook] The first thing we did was put them in apartments or lodging somewhere.

We put them on welfare and food stamps, and the program was dropped.

From then on, what government agencies, what people went to check on them, how many people went and helped seek jobs for these people and find a new way of life for them?

[Trong Nguyen] There was no job for them to do.

They don't know what to do.

They go to do the dishwasher.

Can they speak English?

They know what we call the pan, what we call the spoon, and what they call a table and chair.

They can't talk.

And they old.

They 30-year-old like me by that time.

[Interviewer] So there was just no jobs for them.

[Nguyen] No job for them except fishermen.

Go work.

Catch oyster, and catch shrimp.

[music playing] [Stephens] The seafood industry is multi-layered.

Many factories at the time could not find a labor force to come in and peel the shrimp or perhaps shuck the oysters.

So they went in.

The women went into the factories and began processing.

The men then went out on the boats.

And oftentimes, the men built their own boats.

From Vietnam, they brought that skill set with them.

And they would build their own boats literally in backyards or side yards often.

And then they would use their own boat.

And they then would go out and catch the product and then bring it in and sell it to the processing firm.

So they filled everything.

They also then worked in some of the small retail areas along, some opened restaurants, and had local seafood served with Vietnamese wonderful flair.

So it really picked up into the industry in all aspects of the industry.

[music playing, engine roaring] [In Vietnamese] It█s very, very convenient for the community here.

They could fish in Alabama water Texas water or Louisiana water, and Mississippi water from my house to the dock, my boat dock in five minutes.

Back then, the price for headless shrimp size 21-25 would be around $5-$6 per pound.

Fuel back in ‘85 and █86 was abo $1.10-$1.20 per gallon.

Shrimping back then was more pro than the last couple of years.

[fast music, chatter] [Stephens] But there were problems.

It was not fluid movement into the Gulf Coast society.

There was an idea that the seafood industry belonged to the local people.

And the local people, of course, had forgotten about earlier immigrant waves who had come in and who had made the seafood industry.

And it was yet perceived as another immigrant wave coming in to take jobs.

[Man] It's so competitive.

You've got so many people in here.

If you get screwed on one bad load, you could lose your whole plant.

And since we used to have all the Americans doing it, with all these Vietnamese that have come in, we're really having to switch over to the Vietnamese and cater to them.

And the Vietnamese are sometimes pretty hard to deal with.

[Stephens] Vietnamese fishers collected and harvested seafood differently from Americans.

One of the outstanding differences was how long they would stay out on the boats.

[Loi Nguyen] They would go out like a month, four to six weeks without seeing land.

And they would come in and sell their catch to the factory, where they dock the boat.

[birds chirping] I remember back then when we started going out, the motor, the engine don't shut off until we hit dock.

We keep on shrimping days and night.

[Stephens] And that rubbed people the wrong way that for goodness sake, you're going to take all the shrimp.

Plus, they dragged their nets opposite from what Americans drag their nets.

In a shrimp boat, when you look at a beautiful shrimp boat going out, you see that the nets are out to the sides.

[boat engine revving] And the Vietnamese would drag from the back.

So it looked different.

It perhaps yielded more at times.

Maybe they just were lucky and hit the school one time and found the shrimp.

There was informational sessions that were held where fishermen could come together and try to understand.

There was an explanation.

Do you pull the net north-south, or do you pull the net east-west?

Everything had to be worked out.

And there were incidents.

There were threats that were made.

There were fires out on the seas.

Guns were brandished and shown.

And one Vietnamese family always carried a gun on board with them, just in case.

[Emma To] My dad would bring his boat by.

And then they would have their shotguns out on their shoulders.

And it's almost like they didn't say anything, but it was almost like, know your place.

It was almost like a silent threat, if that makes sense.

Oh, pull the gun is Vietnamese that I haven't seen it.

But American, I do.

But they're not just-- let's say they bring it out.

They say, hey, I got a gun.

[Interviewer] But you saw Americans pull guns?

Yep.

[Woman] When the shrimp are there and the bigger boats, and you slow down, and they in front of you, but they don't care about you.

They just push you, keep pushing you back.

[Official] But really, you feel they're being threatening in such a way that you feel endangered that they're going to hurt you, that you probably should call the Coast Guard on the radio and let them know.

[Woman] That's happened quite a few times when I was out there.

[In Vietnamese] In reality, we were bullied by bigger fishing vessels.

They often forced us out of our fishing spot.

We were shrimping in a good spot then bigger vessel would come in and push us out and force us to move to another spot.

It just like a bigger vehicle pushing a little vehicle out of the way.

[slow music] [Stephens] One particular incident that occurred above the threats, above the weapon brandishing that occurred, above some fights that occurred was that there was a bomb put on a Vietnamese boat at one time.

[music intensifies] And it was blamed by many on the Ku Klux Klan.

Now Ku Klux Klan, the evidence is slight, but there is some evidence.

And of course, the Ku Klux Klan had been involved in issues over in Texas, where the Vietnamese were not welcome at first in the fishing industry.

So whether the Ku Klux Klan was involved or not is almost irrelevant in the fact that you think that the idea of the violence that would have occurred if that bomb had not been discovered, that those feelings against the Vietnamese fisher people ran that deep.

And the Vietnamese fisher people, of course, the retaliatory actions that they took were minimal.

They were protecting their boats.

They were trying to maintain a lifestyle, and to seek what was the American dream.

[music playing] [Interviewer] Why do you think the Vietnamese people shy away from wanting to talk about some of this tension and stuff that clearly did exist at the time?

[To] I feel like our parents kind of want to be unseen, not making a commotion.

They just are grateful that they're in America, and they don't want to complain too much.

And they feel like this is already a blessing that we are here.

So I think, that's why they don't ever want to bring it up.

[music playing] [Stephens] I am not surprised that it is not talked about.

I would venture to say that it probably is talked about behind the doors.

But I think, to admit the fact that there were problems when they came in is to admit-- and this is just my view, but to admit in some way, they might have failed coming in.

What could they have done?

I feel like that is something that is extremely sensitive, that they came here with all good intentions.

They meant no harm.

They wanted to just have a quiet life for their families.

And that was not what greeted them at the beginning.

[music playing] Funding for this program is made possible by the Mississippi Gulf Coast National Heritage Area, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, and by Mississippi State University.