This Tuesday marks 49 years since the Fall of Saigon in 1975. After the North Vietnamese communist takeover of South Vietnam, my parents lived under restrictive, tough economic and political conditions.

In the late 1980s, they decided to escape Vietnam altogether. With little more than the clothes on their backs, they risked their lives, escaping on a wooden boat across the treacherous South China Sea to Indonesia. Along the way, they faced threats of being capsized or captured by pirates.

In doing so, they also didn’t know the language, culture, laws, or people in Indonesia.

Despite risking their lives, they were placed in refugee camps and prison-like conditions. Nations across Southeast Asia also politically condemned and doubted that my parents and other refugees across Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) were escaping political repression. They harbored this doubt in spite of the genocide in Cambodia and the Vietnamese-Cambodian War that followed the devasting Vietnam War.

April 30th continues forever to be seared in the memory of Vietnamese people as the Fall of Saigon. Yet, a second Fall of Saigon could happen again, this time with it being submerged.

This time is also around Earth Day. Yet, the world is still increasingly getting impacted by climate change. Many nations & coastal areas continue to be threatened by rising sea levels.

Saigon, Vietnam as well as other parts in South and North Vietnam are projected to be underwater in our current course.

While my parents and the first Vietnamese boat people were recognized internationally as refugees, the second wave of Climate Vietnamese boat people would not be.

We need to recognize people displaced by climate change as refugees to compel more nations to provide for climate refugees.

In 1951, the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees held a Refugee Convention. However, climate refugees were not recognized because they didn’t face “discriminatory persecution.”

However, we must note that climate change will have disproportionate impacts all over the world. Countries with the fewest resources are likely to face the greatest impacts on population and economy.

In my homeland of Southeast Asia, some of the most important economic and livelihood sectors include agriculture, tourism, and fishing. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports that rice production in countries such as Vietnam and Thailand could plummet by as much as 50%.

Another complicating factor reducing recognition of climate Vietnamese refugees is the conservatism among Vietnamese Americans. 

The Vietnamese boat people had run away from the communist takeover and had great fears of any signs of communism.

In 2020, I noticed such fear among my parents, uncles, and aunts. In addition to my family experiences, I have seen nationwide that Vietnamese people have held pro-Trump rallies condemning the “Chinese communists” and any ideas of opening the US-Mexico border. During the January 6th Capitol Riot, a lot of South Vietnam flags were held. Throughout it all, the Vietnamese-language media continues to have misinformation.

Attached to this conservatism comes a greater likelihood of denying climate change.

Thus, the Vietnamese boat people are less likely to believe in climate change. This means that the connection between the post-Vietnam War wave of refugees and the future threat of climate Vietnamese refugees isn’t drawn.

In order to prevent the tragedy of the Vietnamese boat people from possibly happening again, we need to reshape the narrative behind climate refugees.

There needs to be recognition of the most vulnerable places in the world to climate change. These places may be some of the least contributive to greenhouse gas emissions, but they may be the place of many displaced people. 

Whether in the media, history classes, international organizations, or even at the dinner table, taking the first steps to raise awareness of such a threat is important to shedding light on climate refugees.