Amerasian Immigration Act of 1982
by Vivi Duong
The Amerasian Immigration Act of 1982 (AIA): Refers to a law passed by Congress and signed into law By President Ronald Regan, following the Vietnam War restrictively allowing for offspring born to American soldiers and a South Pacific citizen to be granted the right to immigrate but not citizenship in the United States.
The United States began withdrawing its troops from Vietnam and surrounding countries in March of 1973, after signing the Vietnam Peace Deal. When the American-backed South Vietnamese fell to the North in April 1975 The US saw an influx of Vietnamese immigrants. Many immigrants had American parentage through soldiers who were stationed there during the war. Due to this, congress passed the AIA in 1982 to prioritize those born of American Soldiers and South Pacific citizens. While the majority stemmed from Vietnam, Loas, Cambodia, Korea, and Thailand were also included. Those who qualify had to be born after December 31, 1950, and before October 22, 1982. They also needed a typed letter with information on the American father, including their full name, address, and phone number. Along with that, copies of birth certificates and ID cards were needed to prove heridity. Lastly, a visa photo taken within the last six months from the application date was needed. This type of information was very difficult to obtain as there was a lot of shame associated with having an American father abandoning a woman with a child in Vietnam’s homogenous and patriarchal society. Due to this many mothers would destroy evidence of them having any type of union with an American to avoid prejudice. Some of these children were also a result of sexual assaults causing more difficulties and shame. Many of the soldiers were also married and did not want their affairs to be known. Furthermore, the AIA wasn’t signed into law until a decade after the troops began to withdraw and seven years after the fall of the South Vietnamese government. Those who may have had contact information at some point may not have had any updated information. Even after Amerasian children overcame these extreme obstacles to find their fathers and immigrate to the United States they had to immigrate without their families. Only the Amerasian children could immigrate and were not granted citizenship. Often leaving them with no one to support them and being ineligible for many support services at the time. Racism also played a large role in the difficulty Amerasian children to immigrate or even attain citizenship, as well as if they stayed in Vietnam. The United States did not want to acknowledge their impact on Vietnam and did not want to recognize Amerasians as possible citizens. The Amerasian Immigration Act of 1982 left many Amerasian children and families vulnerable without protection after the United States withdrew from the Vietnam War marginalized both in the US and in their mother’s country. The AIA was an amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act.
LINK to Robert Mulder’s photo-journalist project: Vietnam-Amerasians, 1989
References
A&E Television Networks. (n.d.). U.S. troops withdraw from Vietnam | March 29, 1973. History.com. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-withdraws-from-vietnam
BBC. (n.d.). AmerAsians – Children from the Vietnam War. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnwfCqeqFJ8
Tiao, N. (n.d.). The Passage of the US Amerasian Homecoming Act. History 10.03 (Winter 2020): The Dartmouth Vietnam Project: Learning Oral History in a Digital Age. https://course-exhibits.library.dartmouth.edu/s/HIST10/page/tiao6
Thomas, S. (2019). “Blood Politics: Reproducing the Children of ‘Others’ in the 1982 Amerasian Immigration Act”. Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 26(1), 51-84. https://doi.org/10.1163/18765610-02601001
WarBabies.org. (n.d.). Amerasian Immigration & Homecoming Acts of 1982 & 1987. WarBabies.org. https://warbabies.org/amerasian-acts-of-1982-1987/
West, P., Levine, S. I., & Hiltz, J. (1998). America’s wars in Asia: A cultural approach to history and memory. M.E. Sharpe.
