Source: Jessica Elkind, “The Virgin Mary is Going South”: Refugee Resettlement in South Vietnam, 1954–1956″, Diplomatic History, Vol. 38, No. 5 (2014), pp.987-1016.
In the months following the 1954 partition of Vietnam, nearly one million people fled their homes north of the seventeenth parallel, hoping for better and more secure lives in the south. Many of those fleeing had served in the French colonial administration and were Catholics, and they feared political or religious persecution under Ho Chi Minh’s government. South Vietnamese and American officials actively encouraged and supported the migration, despite the fact that the influx of northerners presented immediate challenges both to the southern government and to the partnership between Washington and Saigon. Continue reading ““The Virgin Mary is Going South”: Refugee Resettlement in South Vietnam, 1954–1956”
