Vietnamese Women Immigrants in the United States

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It is apparent that Vietnamese women ranging from the age of 20 to 45 began to migrate into the United States in the mid 1970s (Seller, 1994). Research has shown that the current population of Vietnamese women stands at approximately 1.1 million. Moreover, this has been perceived to be one of the largest immigrant groups in the US.

From a comprehensive analysis, it is evident that in a period of two decades, the population has grown significantly with majority residing in Texas and California (Seller, 1994). Notably, despite the increased number of immigrants into the US, majority of the women have faced numerous challenges.

Nevertheless, there are those who have been able to cope with the emerging situations regardless of the numerous barriers related to language and cultural shocks (Fadiman, 1997). It is against this backdrop that this paper explores how these women adjust in the US and their specific avenues for success and failure.

Vietnamese women who ventured into the US had high hopes to live up to their dreams while there. Nevertheless, it is notable that majority of them have been disillusioned since they find life in the US totally different from what they imagined or expected (Seller, 1994). Probably, I expect that since these women had attained working age, they wanted to venture out and search for greener pastures in this foreign land.

I also tend to think that initially, it was not easy for them since most of them were native speakers of Vietnam languages and hence they could not communicate effectively in English. In this case, I anticipate that they became vulnerable to alienation and loneliness. Alternatively, there were those women who were quick to adapt to life in the US. For instance, they learnt how to communicate in English and this liberated them from language barrier (Kingston, 1989).

In addition, I suppose there emerged a generational gap between the native immigrants and children who were born by the women while in the US. This would be due to the fact that these children grew up in a different cultural and social setting from that of their parents (Seller, 1994).

Furthermore, I intended to study how the Vietnamese women coped with the strange situations in the US. Therefore, this study is relevant in explaining why the number of immigrants has kept on increasing yearly.

Moreover, this study intends to prove the hypothesis or the assumption that Vietnamese women aged between 20 and 40 years were prone to cultural shocks, discrimination and economic difficulties in the US (Seller, 1994).

This hypothesis is integral in understanding the possible factors influencing success and failure of immigrants in the US. Additionally, poverty in Vietnam is one of the independent variables that triggered immigration to the US. However, poor skills and language barrier were some of dependent variables that hindered migration of majority of the women to the US.

The study has revealed that most of the Vietnamese women at the age of 20-45 years migrated into the US as domestic workers. Nevertheless, they faced challenges in conforming to the social roles and norms in the new society. This is due to the fact that their roles both in the society and in families were configured by the new social setting in the US (Kingston, 1989).

It is evident that they operated under tough conditions while trying to balance the conflicting social roles. Moreover, empirical research has shown that cultural shocks were inevitable and they had to transit from their native culture in order to cope and adopt the US culture (Fadiman, 1997).

For instance, in Vietnam, these women thrived in a patriarchal society whereby they remained submissive to their husbands unlike the case in the US. For example, while in the US, they had to abandon certain feminine roles and pick up those that were masculine. Notably, they compromised patriarchal values from their culture, a factor that was not easy to cope with at the beginning.

Other cultural shocks emerged from the fact that women and children had a lot of freedom as opposed to the case in Vietnam. Interestingly, this was perceived as a violation of the traditional family structure in Vietnam (Kingston, 1989).

Issues to do with gender disparity were no longer a common issue in the US. Contrastingly, the issue of gender discrimination is very significant in Vietnam and probably that was the reason why most of the women preferred to migrate to the US in search for freedom (Seller, 1994).

Moreover, it is evident that most of the Vietnamese women faced economic difficulties since they were not prepared for the US life. Research indicates that majority of the immigrants were being trafficked into the US as domestic workers. Consequently, circumstances took a different turn once they found that there were unique sets of issues that they had to adhere to in order to cope with life.

For instance, majority were used to speak native languages as opposed to the case in the US where English was the medium of communication (Seller, 1994).

Therefore, they had problems while seeking Jobs and this made them to strain for some time before they could cope with the normal lifestyle. From the study, I found out that there emerged a huge gap between the children and parents due to difference in cultural standards (Kingston, 1989).

Nevertheless, regardless of the numerous challenges faced by Vietnamese women, majority of them have succeeded and are doing remarkably well. Most of them have learnt to speak in fluent English. This has helped them to venture into businesses such as running restaurants, beauty shops and salons (Fadiman, 1997).

References

Fadiman, A. (1997). The Spirit catches you and you fall down. New York: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.

Kingston, M. (1989). Woman Warrior. New York: Vintage Books Press.

Seller, M. (1994). Immigrant women. New York: SUNY Press.

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Vietnamese Women Immigrants in the United States

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