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How Vietnamese Refugees Gardened to Become Vietnamese-Americans
Meet an immigrant from Vietnam in the US—especially one who arrived as a refugee after the Vietnam War—and the odds are good they have a home garden. It may be a simple planter box in an apartment balcony or an elaborate several-acre microfarm. Not all of them, but enough that if you bet even money on it, you would come out ahead long-term.
Farm to Freedom: Vietnamese-Americans and Their Food Gardens, by Roy Vu explains why. Vu is well-placed to explain. The son of Vietnamese refugees, he arrived in the US as an infant.
Vietnam was (and remains) a largely green-thumbed culture. Even in its cities, inhabitants garden and raise chickens and rabbits. They are also hardworking. Visit Vietnam today and it seems every other person has a side hustle on top of the day job.
When the Vietnam War’s end caused two million in the south to flee Communism, they brought those traits with them. Many brought native seeds. As Vu explains, in refugee camps in both Asia and the US, the first thing many did was plant gardens.
Gardens were a source of food, a demonstration of autonomy and empowerment and a way for homesick refugees to remind themselves of their forcibly abandoned homes. Bringing familiar Vietnamese cuisine with them grounded them in their new homes.
Once settled in the US they continued gardening. Food was plentiful but when they arrived, starting in the 1970s, traditional Vietnamese fruits, vegetables, and herbs were hard to find. Growing them in their own gardens gave them access to these uncommon goods, and reduced grocery costs. It also made having a traditional family meal, with all members of the family present for dinner easier. (Once also an American tradition, it is increasingly abandoned today.) It helps them keep memories of Vietnam alive today, even as they become Americans.
Vu illustrates this in many ways. He peppers the book with original oral histories, community-based recipes and poetry, along with photographs of home gardens in suburban and urban settings. He is a professor, so he also goes into discussions of culinary citizenship, food democracy, culinary justice, and food sovereignty. These excursions read more like genuflection to academic pieties than realistic concepts.
He also insists this behavior is unique to Vietnamese refugees. It is not. The Vietnamese who immigrated to the US in this century are also dedicated gardeners. Virtually every set of rural immigrants share these traits. My grandparents, who came to the US in the 1920s from rural Greece, we members of a generation that filled their backyard gardens with cultural foods of the motherland. One grandfather even had an eleven-acre truck farm as a hobby. Vu concedes this in his epilogue, where he discusses the farming practices of Congolese and Syrian refugees in the US.
While it has flaws Farm to Freedom is a worthwhile book. Vu sheds valuable light on the lives of the Vietnamese-Americans. It is a thought-provoking read.
“Farm to Freedom: Vietnamese-Americans and Their Food Gardens,” by Roy Vu, Texas A&M University Press, 2024, 280 pages. $30.00 (Paperback), $14.95 (E-book)
This review was written by Mark Lardas, who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com.
Published in Culture
I spent part of my time from 1977 to 1980 assisting the relocation of Vietnamese refugees.
People in Ricochet seem to fans of Vietnamese refugees.
Any mention of Hoy Fong Foods and their iconic Sriracha sauce?
Or Lee’s Sandwiches and their franchise of 60-something Banh Mi sandwich shops?
And the San Francisco Bay area has a crazy number of Pho restaurants.
Only in passing. The focus is on gardens.
One of the old Vietnamese dudes in OKC would salute me when I walked past his house.
They definitely didn’t come to milk the benefits system forever.
That was also my experience. Often I would pick up a group at the Portland Airport and in three months they would be self-sufficient.
They are the most entrepreneurial people I have ever met. Hard-working and independent. To most of them, living in the United States, with the opportunities it offers is like arriving in heaven while still alive.
There’s a lot to admire.
My dad and I spent a lot of time with the family my church sponsored. The kids came here from a war-torn nation that had just been overrun by Communists. The first thing they did was to skip a grade in school. They hit the ground running and never slowed down.
Their dad was the same way. His crime against the state was that he had driven a truck for the South Vietnamese Army. For that he was due for either a reeducation camp or maybe he’d get to be shot while trying to escape. He put his wife and four kids into an open boat and made it most of the way to the Philippines before they got picked up. We lined him up with a job as a church janitor. Within a month he’d found a better job. Then he found another better job and did both.
I have no problem with people coming here. But I insist that everybody comes in by the gate, and everybody signs the book. If you tippytoe your way in, we’ll bounce you right back out.
There are immigrants that I admire and whose stories add to my sense of pride in the USA.
And learn English, at least up to our level.
My favorite immigrant story involves Indians (from India). In the nineties I was a traveling e-commerce consultant and teacher. Our beat included rural Oklahoma. There was one small town we went to with one motel (really one of almost everything – it was that small). It was family-owned by some folks from India (Bangalore). I would often chat with the owners, and we got to be friends. They gave excellent service. I loved the place.
After one period away, I returned to find a big notification on the marquee: NOW AMERICAN-OWNED. I go inside thinking they have sold the place and wondering what the new management was like. Prepared for the worst. I go to the check-in desk and Mr. Patel is still there. Greets me smiling. I asked if he had sold the place, and he said, no, nothing had changed. “What’s with the American-Owned sign, I ask. He smiled and pointed to a framed certificate on the the wall behind him. They held his naturalization papers. “I’m American now.”
Fantastic story!
Oh, that made me cry.
The best Mexican food I’ve ever had is at a restaurant in Medina, about ten miles from my home. The owner and his wife and son came here to pick apples and cucumbers. The farmer sponsored all three of them for citizenship, and helped them get the loan to start the restaurant. Casa del Oro has doubled its sit-down space and added a terrace in the six years it’s been open. Damn good margaritas too.