‘Vietnamese boat people‘ refers to almost 800,000 refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship after the Vietnam American War, especially during 1978 and 1979, but continuing until the early 1990s.
Many hundreds left Vietnam in the flimsiest of craft, trusting their lives to the waves and the humanity of others as they fled the change of regime following the ‘fall of Saigon’. Welsh communities played their part.
Barmouth: Welsh haven for Vietnamese ‘boat people’ (Guardian Archive, Sept 1978)
Cardiff: Vietnam exile recalls boat exodus (BBC News, 2005)
Penygraig, Rhondda: Vietnamese orphan given a home in Wales goes back to his roots (Wales Online, 2013). Le-Thanh was one of 99 babies rescued as part of 1975’s Operation Babylift in the dying days of the Vietnam War, and found himself in the care of Canon John Thomas and his wife Binkie at their home in Penygraig, Rhondda.