Carleton Preserving Emotional Refugee Stories

Forty years ago, Canadians helped more than 120,000 refugees settle in Canada after brutal communist regimes took over in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

The refugees came in waves, from 1975 to 1990, in rickety, undersized boats with little or no navigation, and over land, across rivers and through mountain passes. They took only what they could carry—clothes, bits of food, children, unborn babies and memories.

Canadian church groups, municipalities, organizations and individuals opened their arms to them, accessing sponsorship programs created specifically by the Canadian government to respond to the crisis.

Not since the settlement of displaced persons following the Second World War had Canada given safe haven to so many people at once, and never before to a group of people so culturally, ethnically and linguistically different from the Canadian bilingual mainstream.

For the complete article, please go to the Carleton University site.