From January 19-25, 2019, impacted communities, social justice and advocacy organizations, and other allies across the country will launch a national week of action to stand with Southeast Asian American communities as they continue to be terrorized by policies of mass incarceration and deportation. This week of action, which spans 15 cities across the country, is on the heels of one of the largest Southeast Asian deportation flights in United States history and coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In honor of Dr. King’s memory, we call on our country to remember the three evils—racism, militarism and poverty—that continue to devastate and divide Southeast Asian, Black and Brown communities: bit.ly/SEAAWeekofAction
The timeline below was developed to help the public learn about the connection between US imperialism and war in Southeast Asian and the current struggle of Southeast Asian immigrant and refugee communities against deportations. A downloadable PDF version is available which can be folded into a mini-zine.
1953
The U.S. provides military aid to France to suppress Vietnam freedom fighters, helping France maintain Vietnam as its colony.
1961
U.S. involvement in the “Secret War” in Laos deepens. U.S. presence in Laos aids its military presence in Vietnam. The CIA recruits Hmong and other ethnic minority groups living in Laos to guerilla units fighting for the Royal Lao Government. Details of this war were not disclosed to the public, and were often completely denied.
1963
A U.S.-approved military coup overthrows President Ngô Đình Diệmin of Vietnam.
1965
President Lyndon B. Johnson deploys American combat troops to Vietnam. Domestic demonstrations against the U.S. war in Vietnam begin.
1964-73
The U.S. drops more than 2.5 million tons of ordnance on Laos over the course of 580,000 bombing missions. This is equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years.
1965-1973
The U.S. drops 2,756,941 tons of ordnance on Cambodia. This is more than the Allies dropped in the entirety of World War II. Information about the first four years of bombing was not made public until 2000.
1968
My Lai Massacre – US soldiers kill as many as 504 Vietnamese civilians including 119 children & 27 elderly.
1973
The U.S. & North Vietnam sign a ceasefire agreement.
The U.S. withdraws troops from Laos.
1975
The U.S. War in Vietnam comes to an end.
U.S. war and military presence in Southeast Asia leads to the rise of oppressive governments in both Cambodia & Laos. After a 5-year civil war in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge captures the capital city of Phnom Penh and a genocide of 1-3 million people begins in Cambodia.
The U.S. authorizes the entry of 130,000 evacuees from Vietnam, Cambodia, & Laos.
1978
A second wave of refugees begin to leave Vietnam, many by sea. Journeys by boat are dangerous and many refugees don’t survive the trip. Many countries become unwilling to accept refugees.
1979
The UN establishes the Orderly Departure Program to deal with various waves of refugees leaving Southeast Asia. The U.S. becomes the largest country of second asylum. People continued to leave their homelands as a result of the U.S. War in Vietnam through the early 1990s.
1980
U.S. Congress passes the Refugee Act.
1987
In California the Creation of the Gang Reporting Evaluation & Tracking database heightens the profiling and flagging youth of color as gang members.
1980s-1990s
Many Southeast Asian refugees resettle in already underserved neighborhoods and must compete for low-wage jobs or face unemployment. Many lack access to health care, mental health services, and support for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The rise of the school to prison pipeline: over-stretched public schools with inadequate resources lead to disengagement and dropouts with youth then being pushed into violence and juvenile detention facilities with few pathways to return to school.
1994
A national report finds that more than 30 percent of all Southeast Asian households in the US depend on welfare for survival. Among Cambodian and Laotian communities in California, the percentage of those on welfare reaches 77 percent.
The state of California passes Proposition 187, denying undocumented immigrants public services like education & healthcare.
The state of California passes Proposition 184, Three Strikes Sentencing Initiative, the nation’s toughest mandatory sentencing law.
U.S. Congress passes the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the largest crime bill in the history of the U.S. It provided for 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons, $1.2 billion for border control, deportations, asylum reform and a tracking center for immigrants with convictions., $1.8 billion to reimburse states for incarceration of immigrants who also had convictions. . It also expedited deportation for immigrants who are not lawful permanent residents and who are convicted of aggravated felonies.
1996
U.S. Congress passes the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, a welfare reform bill. Immigrants who were on welfare were immediately removed if they were in the US for less than 5 years. Only immigrants who have been in the US for over 5 years can receive welfare.
U.S. Congress passes the Illegal Immigration Reform & Immigrant Responsibility Act, setting mandatory detention and deportation laws that apply retroactively, making refugees and lawful permanent residents vulnerable to deportation. Forms of immigration relief previously available to people with convictions are eliminated. It also eliminates judicial review for cases.
2001
U.S. Congress passes the USA Patriot Act after September 11th, ushering in a new era of racial profiling, immigrant detentions, and deportations.
2002
First repatriation agreement between U.S. and Cambodia for Cambodia to accept deportees.
2008
The U.S. signs an agreement with Vietnam not to deport Vietnamese immigrants who entered the U.S. before July 12, 1995.
2017
The U.S. sanctions visas for Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar to pressure them to accept deportees.
2018
The U.S. goes back on its 2008 agreement with Vietnam in an attempt to deport more Vietnamese people.
More than 110 Cambodian people are deported in the calendar year, the highest number in U.S. history. 750+ Cambodian, 200+ Laotian, and 550+Vietnamese community members have been deported since 2002.
Ok gen z cult revival is a thing that sucks but who’s gonna talk about how the biggest cult out there is the US military
Like, TIL that if you go to a military academy you’ll be literally unable to leave the military for five years without fucking up your life and just,,, that plus opposition to critical thinking, focus on loyalty to leaders, strict discipline, and frequent moving (read: isolation from family), all implemented to make soldiers more willing to die or kill… basically checks off all the boxes for a death cult
But no, gotta put more money than the next nine countries combined into brainwashing people into dying overseas to keep Murica safe I guess
Inflation. Housing crisis. Banned books. Revisionist history (like with slavery). Abortion bans. The rise of white nationalist groups. $813.3 billion for national defense. $773 billion for department of defense. No money for schools. No money for covid relief. No money for anything. $6 gas when the minimum wage is $7.25. A large portion of ex-current military and police officers being part of far right movements. Neo nazis at local farmers markets
I could go on. Are you getting the picture I’m painting??
I’m at the point now where I’m less worried about like moving somewhere in the United States and more worried about how I’m going to get out of this country
“The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.
The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $6 trillion more than the US GDP of $24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.
We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism. Washington watches passively as the U.S. rots, morally, politically, economically, and physically, while China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries extract themselves from the tyranny of the U.S. dollar and the international Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a messaging network banks and other financial institutions use to send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana.
Democrat or Republican. It does not matter. War is the raison d'état of the state. Extravagant military expenditures are justified in the name of ‘national security.’ The nearly $40 billion allocated for Ukraine, most of it going into the hands of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, is only the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and protracted, are talking about infusions of $4 or $5 billion in military aid a month to Ukraine. We face existential threats. But these do not count. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Ukraine alone gets more than double that amount. Pandemics and the climate emergency are afterthoughts. War is all that matters. This is a recipe for collective suicide.”
- Chris Hedges, from “No Way Out but War.”The Chris Hedges Report, 22 May 2022.
I don’t even want to write a review of “Top Gun: Maverick” honestly, I’ve seen 1,500+ movies and I’ve never finished one that left me more depressed about the future of this country. I just want to stop thinking about it
I don’t even want to write a review of “Top Gun: Maverick” honestly, I’ve seen 1,500+ movies and I’ve never finished one that left me more depressed about the future of this country. I just want to stop thinking about it
