"Everything has Changed": Narratives of the Vietnamese American community in Post-Katrina Mississippi

Authors

Yoosun Park, Smith College
Joshua Miller, Smith College
Bao Chau Van, Smith College

Keywords

Vietnamese Americans, community, collective loss and recovery, social ecology, phenomenology, resilience, psychosocial capacity building, place

Abstract

In this qualitative study of the Vietnamese American community of Biloxi, Mississippi, conducted three years after Katrina, we attended not only to individual experiences but to the relationship of individuals to their collective and social worlds. The interlocked relationship of individual and collective loss and recovery are clearly demonstrated in respondents' narratives. The neighborhood and community of Little Saigon was significant not only as a symbolic source of identity but as a protected and familiar space of residence, livelihood, and social connections. The post-Katrina changes in the neighborhood are, in multiple ways, changing participants' experience of and relationship to their community.

Recommended Citation

Park, Yoosun; Miller, Joshua; and Van, Bao Chau (2010) ""Everything has Changed": Narratives of the Vietnamese American community in Post-Katrina Mississippi," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 37: Iss. 3, Article 6.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15453/0191-5096.3540
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol37/iss3/6