The Relationship of Vietnamese Returnees of pre-1989 Immigration to the Czechoslovak state and its society
Abstract
After post-WWII geopolitical changes in Indochina, Central and Eastern Europe, Czechoslovak's cards of international relationships had been entirely shuffled, and the exotic country of Vietnam appeared amongst its foreign partners. Sooner after the defeat of the French in 1954, the first Northern Vietnamese came to Czechoslovak's schools.
Until 1989, when governmental agreements on cultural cooperation were cancelled, many thousands of Vietnamese migrants had come to obtain education and working skills. After the Velvet Revolution, a return migration took place.
Nevertheless, the reconsolidation of democracy in the successor states of Czechoslovakia did not stop already established connection, and spontaneous individual migration started. Since then thousands more people have come, and Czechia has become one of the most desirable countries of destination for Vietnamese migrants.
This article brings results of a qualitative survey conducted amongst pre-1989 returnees that was carried out in Vietnam between July 2010 to February 2011. The main task of the study is to frame the migration in a broader historical and political context, and brings to the light how those consequences and organised feature of pre-1989 migration have shaped perception of Czechoslovakia, and returnees' relationship to this country.