After the Vietnam War, large numbers of refugees from countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos moved to the Tenderloin. Some of these refugees and their families were the authors of a book I read for my Streetwise Sociology class called, Stories of Survival: Three Generations of Southeast Asians Share Their Lives. Originally published in 2002, Stories of Survival is a compilation of oral histories by Southeast Asian residents living in two Eddy Street apartment buildings owned by the Indochinese Housing Development Corporation (IDHC). The stories span three generations: immigrant parents, their American-born children and the "1.5 generation," young people who were born in an Asian country, but grew up in the United States. The 10th Anniversary Edition includes an update on the original participants as well as a bonus story. I liked reading about the mass immigration of Chinese to parts of Southeast Asia in Chapter 15 because it helped me realize why many of the contributors to Stories of Survival were ethnically Chinese, but were also nationals of other Southeast Asian countries.
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