Exhibit shows how Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao Montrealers were "more than good refugees"

In the 1970s and '80s, millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians fled their home countries as refugees escaping war, genocide and violence. Around 200,000 of them resettled in Canada and built new lives. 

Fifty years later, Super Boat People, a Montreal collective of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian people, put together the exhibition "More than Good Refugees: 50 Years of Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese Presence in Montréal" at the Centre des Mémoires Montréalaises (MEM). 

The exhibit features objects and videos provided by community members that tell the stories of various families who settled in Montreal. It also has a series of panels describing the historical context behind the mass migration and the accomplishments and struggles of the community. 

"It was important to showcase the fact that our communities have been here for almost 50 years," says Rémy Chhem, a second-generation Cambodian-Canadian and a cofounder of Super Boat People. "Our communities have contributed in many ways to Montreal and Quebec society." 

Deconstructing stereotypes about Southeast Asian refugees

A major part of the exhibition is dedicated to institutions that Cambodian, Lao and Vietnamese communities built in the city. It was important for the collective to broaden the conversation on the communities beyond their refugee status. 

They interviewed many community members as part of their research to learn about which stories they wanted to showcase. Several mentioned the importance of Deuces Wild, a party collective that was very active in the '90s and early '00s that would draw thousands to their events. 

"They threw parties for the Asian communities," says Marie-Ève Samson, one of the cofounders of Super Boat people and a PhD student studying aging and eldercare in Laotian, Vietnamese and Cambodian communities in Montreal at the Université de Montréal. "We wanted to go beyond the typical refugee narrative, like the model minority who stayed in his own lane, and just show that [the] communities used to party too!"

The Laotian community also wanted to highlight Ban Santisouk, Lao for "happy village", a housing cooperative they built in Côte-des-Neiges. The initiative was a response to the poor housing conditions they were placed in when they first arrived. Today, it provides affordable housing to low-income community members and provides a space for the elderly to socialize and keep their cultural traditions alive.

"It's important to see the first generation as not only silent, only focused on work," says Samson. "They also raise their voice when they see injustice!"

Anh Amy Nguyen, a second generation Vietnamese-Canadian member of Super Boat People who worked on the exhibition as an assistant, is inspired to see that older generations were already mobilizing for social justice. 

"We have this presumption that we only started to be awake about social issues because we suffered from racism during COVID," she says. "But there's proof that before our generation, people were bright and aware of what was happening in their society."

Nguyen wants to show "there's not one stereotypical Asian person". She hopes that the exhibit will prompt people outside of the community to get to know it better beyond "this superficial way of just going to our restaurants or going to our shops, to actually see Southeast Asians as real people with different personalities and different paths."

Welcoming refugees takes a whole system

To prepare the exhibit, the collective interviewed former immigration workers and government officials in the Quebec Ministry of Immigration in the late '70s and early '80s. 

"These people have been key in building the immigration system for refugees," says Chhem. For instance, the government set up a COFI (Centres d'orientation et de formation des immigrants) in a refugee camp at the Thai-Cambodian border.

One panel in the exhibition explains that the center would offer French classes and classes on Quebec culture for the refugees who were selected to be resettled in Quebec. In December, Christmas celebrations would be held in the COFI to familiarize the would-be Quebecers with local holidays. Many of them continued to keep in touch with each other after arriving in Montreal. 

Chhem says that the exhibit shows that it takes an entire system to welcome refugees.

"[Former government officials] told us that there was a real system working at different levels to make sure that refugees were welcomed in large numbers and adequately," he says, adding that the government invested in communication teams that would do educational campaigns to promote the importance of welcoming refugees and to demystify stereotypes about them. 

"There were agents that would mobilize whole regions, education departments, health departments to the realities of these people. The religious institutions were there too, the general public were educated on the issue via mass media," he says.

A beginning of inter-generational dialogue

Nguyen says that working on this project helped her learn more about her own family history.

"It kind of also gave me the chance to ask precise questions to my family. [...] And suddenly, some precisions about my own family history just emerged," says Nguyen. She found out that her father used to work at the Vietnamese restaurant Au 14, Prince-Arthur, shown in one of the exhibit's panels.

The collective says that many families who visited the exhibition told them that it opened up inter-generational dialogue. That is no mean feat, as according to Samson, it is often difficult for younger generations to broach the topic with their elders because it can reawaken traumatic memories. 

"On opening day, people were coming with their family and were just pointing at things. You could see that they were exchanging and just connecting through the exhibition," says Nguyen.

She says that many of the original refugees felt a sense of pride to see their own history being valued and given legitimacy in an official institution. 

A part of Quebec and Montreal history

Samson believes that the exhibit made the three Southeast Asian communities feel a sense of belonging to Montreal's history. 

"Immigrants and racialized people are not often included in history, for many reasons. But being visible, I think it helps to feel whole," she says. "This history is part of Quebec and Canadian history. So the general society, the majority, we don't talk a lot about that. But it was the biggest cohort of refugees the country accepted since the end of World War II and the biggest sponsorship campaign in Canada ever."

She believes that people today can learn a lot from that history to counter current anti-immigration discourse. 

"This is a demonstration that in another era, not so long ago, we were able to do it, and we were not thinking in terms of numbers, but in terms of just being humans and welcoming people," she explains. "For me, that's just a matter of political will, because if you decide to welcome them, you'll find a solution."

More Than Good Refugees is on at the Centre des mémoires montréalaises (1210 Boul. Saint-Laurent) in Montreal until June 15.