Subject areas

The data base contains references to resources that are relevant to the content of our website, which covers the history of the Vietnamese in Canada through two broad phases:

1. The original migration to Canada, focusing on the period 1975 to 1997.

2. The period when the government tried to re-cast Canada's national identity and rewrote the history of the migration to erase most of the original migrants from Canadian history. This occurred principally in the period from 2008 to 2015, but its impact continues into the present.

Canadian history

As our subject is Canadian history, most of our sources are Canadian. We have included other sources only when they provide important context that helps in understanding what Canada was responding to in the core subject areas outline above.

Certain aspects of Vietnamese history are subjects of constant and unresolved historical revisionism debates. Because our focus in on Canadian history, we are somewhat insulated from those debates. We need only follow those interpretations that had a impact on Canadian policy and decision making. Most of this will be found in Canadian sources.

After 2006, Canada retroactively rejected those interpretations, but for purely ideological reasons, not out of any reasoned historical debate. Canada created new interpretations of history that had the effect of making most of the original migrants disappear.

To distinguish historical narratives that were created in the second phase, we have marked many items in the data base with a "trust rating". The trust rating devalues narratives that were invented in the second phase (frequently referred to in our website as "myth and propaganda").

There is more information related to this in Historical Negationism: Not to be confused with historical revisionism

The first page that you see when you go to the bibliography page lets you select the type of search. There are five search types: a subject search, a text search, an image search, a quotations search, and an advanced search.

Start with the subject search until you become familiar with the data base. The subject search page allows you to select one of the main subject headings and view all the results for that subject.

By default, he results list is sorted by publication date, so that it provides a crude chronology. You can choose a different sequence by clicking or touching the column heading.

The result list contains item numbers that you can click or touch to see the full entry for the item. The full entries generally contain much more information than a standard bibliographic reference, such as analysis, photographs, and quotations.

The data base is organized around 9 subject headings. Some items in the data base may be assigned more than one subject heading.

The following is a summary of the subjects headings, laid out in three groups. For more detail, including lists of subheadings associated with each heading, select "Explain subject headings" from the list of search types at the top of the page.

Group 1: Canada, Migration and Resettlement

Information on the Migration and Resettlement in Canada of people from Vietnam as it occurred primarily between 1975 and 1997.

Includes government policies and actions, media and public reactions, and first-person stories which reflect on the Canadian experience.

For context, also includes information on Canada-Vietnam relations prior to 1975 that are relevant to the decisions that were made on migration after 1975.

Although Canadian sources are preferred for these topics, other sources may be included if they provide important context to the Canadian experience.

Subject headings in this group:

Canada-Vietnam to 1975: Canadian policies and actions before or during the Vietnam War that lead to an understanding of why Canada adopted specific policies or approaches to the migration of Vietnamese people to Canada.

Migration and Resettlement: Items specifically related to the Canadian experience with the migration of Vietnamese people to Canada.

Group 2: Canada, Government Betrayal

Information on how the Canadian government, starting in 2006, decided to marginalize most of the migrants from Vietnam.

This includes political context, development of policy, implementation of policy, on-going application of the policy, and the impacts that these have on Canadians of Vietnamese origin.

Includes government policies and actions, media and public reactions, and first-person stories which reflect on the Canadian experience.

Although Canadian sources are preferred for these topics, other sources may be included if they provide important context to the Canadian experience.

Subject headings in this group"

Canadian Politics (S-219): Information on events leading up to bill S-219 and directly related to bill S-219 including documents, events, lobbying activities and media reports.

Canadian Politics (Context): The political context that was driving the events described in the bill S-219 topic. Harper's rewrite of Canadian history and Canadian identity.

Canadian Politics (Current): Activities of Canadian government bodies and politicians at all levels of government in Canada since bull S-219 was passed in 2015.

Canadian Diaspora (Current): Political activities such as lobbying, demonstrations, as well as media reports and academic studies about Vietnamese-Canadians today. Our main interest hear is the impacts that bill S-219 has had on the community.

Group 3: Additional context

World Diaspora:Other information about the Vietnamese diaspora worldwide that identifies issues shared with Canada and issues where Canada is unique.

Vietnam: Additional information about Vietnam that provides additional context for the Canada-specific information provided under the other subject headings. These identify issues shared with Canada and issues where Canada is unique

Collections: Websites that deal with subject matter that we are interested in and span more than one of our subject areas.

Each main subject area is subdivided by subject subheadings.

You can view a complete list of subject headings and subheadings, along with longer explanations by going to the search page and selecting "Explain subject headings".

The search results are presented in a selection of short formats. When searching, you can select from different report formats depending on your interests or your screen size.

All reports can be sorted by clicking on/touching a heading. A second touch will reverse the sort order.

In the short reports you can click or touch and item number to see the full report for that item.

The full report includes comments on the item and lists all the places that it is referred to on the web site. Many reports contain quotations from the item. They may include links to additional, related information such as photographs.

Revised histories of the boat people crisis became predominant during the Harper government because the government funded and supported their creation and distribution. The revised histories are now routinely accepted by media and governments across Canada.

Revised histories have been included in our data base because one of our goals is to identify and analyze the problem of how historical negationism has affected the boat people in Canada.

To guide you through this we have included "trust ratings" in our data base.

Content is rated for its contribution to our primary goal of documenting the history of the Vietnamese migration to Canada. Ratings apply only to that content, and not to any other material that the item may contain.

The symbols are:

[***+] Comprehensive: Accurate with a bonus that a careful reader would learn things that would protect against misinterpretation of less forthcoming material.

[***] Accurate: Accurate, but it would leave a reader vulnerable to being misled by other politically motivated material.

[-] Ambiguous: Contains juxtapositions or omits information in a way that would likely leave many readers making incorrect assumptions. (see note 1)

[--] Deceptive: Contains deceptive juxtapositions or omissions that seem to be intended to cause a reader to make incorrect assumptions, or contains outright incorrect information that is significant. The context suggests that it was either intentional or the author was negligent in finding accurate sources.

[---] Political: Clearly designed to serve a political agenda and misinforms the reader.

[nr] Unrated: No opinion, not yet analyzed, or the content is not directly relevant to our primary goal. The item is probably reliable for our purposes. (See note 2)

Note 1:Material about the Vietnamese boat people is particularly susceptible to this tactic and it is frequently used by people who want to deceive the public. It is very easy to lead media reporters down this path. By its nature, it is hard to tell if the deception was intentional. Given the current political environment a careful author would ensure that people are not accidentally misled in this way.

Note 2:Original government sources published before 2006 are not given a rating, nor is context material that is not immediately relevant to the migration story.

Our ratings of media material raises the question of what we expect from media reporters. The media business publishes some excellent guidelines that should be followed by media reports when reporting on political issues in ethnic communities. See Writing about 'ethnic' issues.

You can obtain a complete list of the trust ratings, along with explanations by going to the search page and selecting "Explain trust ratings".