Vietnamese Australians (Vietnamese: Người Úc gốc Việt) are Australians of Vietnamese descent. Vietnamese Australians are one of the largest groups within the global Vietnamese diaspora. At the 2021 census, 334,781 people stated that they had Vietnamese ancestry (whether alone or in combination with another ancestry), representing 1.3% of the Australian population.[3] In 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that there were 268,170 Australian residents who were born in Vietnam.[4]
Up until 1975 there were fewer than 2,000 Vietnam-born people in Australia.[5] Following the takeover of South Vietnam by the North Vietnamesecommunist government in April 1975, Australia, being a signatory to the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, agreed to resettle its share of Vietnam-born refugees under a refugee resettlement plan between 1975 and 1985. After the initial intake of refugees in the late 1970s, there was a second immigration peak in 1983–84, most likely a result of the 1982 agreement between the Australian and Vietnamese governments (the Orderly Departure Program) which allowed relatives of Vietnamese Australians to leave Vietnam and migrate to Australia. A third immigration peak in the late 1980s seems to have been mainly due to Australia's family reunion scheme.[6]
Demographics
At the 2021 census, 334,781 people stated that they had Vietnamese ancestry (whether alone or in combination with another ancestry), representing 1.3% of the Australian population.[1] In 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that there were 268,170 Australian residents who were born in Vietnam.[2] In 2021, Vietnamese Australians were the fourth largest Asian Australian ancestry after Chinese Australians, Indian Australians and Filipino Australians.[7] In 2021 Vietnam was the sixth most common foreign country of birth.[2]
In the 2001 census, first generation Australians of Vietnamese ancestry outnumbered second generation Australians with Vietnamese ancestry (74% : 26%) Relatively few people of Vietnamese ancestry stated another ancestry (6%). Among the leading ancestries, the proportion of people who spoke a language other than English at home was highest for those of Vietnamese (96%).[8]
Vietnamese Australians used to vary in income and social class levels. Australian born Vietnamese Australians are highly represented in Australian universities and many professions (particularly as information technology workers, optometrists, engineers, doctors and pharmacists), whilst in the past, some members in the community were subjected to poverty and crime.[9]
Religions
According to census data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2004, Vietnamese Australians are, by religion, 30.3 per cent Catholic, 0.4 per cent Anglican, 3.1 Other Christian, 55.2 per cent Other Religions, mainly Buddhists, Taoists, and Ancestral worshippers and 11.0 per cent have no religious beliefs.
According to the 2016 census, 40.46% of Australians with Vietnamese ancestry are Buddhists, 28.77% are Christians, and 26.46% follow secular or no religious beliefs.[10]
According to 2021 census, 44.7% of Vietnamese Australians are Buddhism, 29.2% are unaffiliated 19.8% are Catholic, 3.7% are other Christian, 0.7% are other religion and 2.5% are not stated.
In 2001, the Vietnamese language was spoken at home by 174,236 people in Australia. Vietnamese was the sixth most widely spoken language in the country after English, Chinese, Italian, Greek and Arabic.
Vietnamese-Australian to Vietnam relationship
Media
During October 2003, government owned SBS TV began airing a Vietnamese news program called Thoi Su ('News'). The stated purpose was to provide a news service to cater for Australia's Vietnamese population. This was received poorly by the significant portion of the older generations of the Vietnamese community had previously fled after the fall of South Vietnam and still harboured resentment to the ruling government and its institutions, including the state-controlled media, such as Thoi Su. The program was also claimed to lack reports that include political arrests or religious oppression in Vietnam. A large protest was convened outside SBS's offices.[12] SBS decided to drop Thoi Su (which was being provided at no cost to SBS through a satellite connection). SBS subsequently began broadcasting disclaimers before each foreign news program stating it does not endorse their contents.
Culture
Besides local Vietnamese news from SBS Australia, variety shows such as Paris By Night, a mostly overseas Vietnamese production, has become well-renowned amongst Vietnamese-Australians and well as Vietnamese content from Vietnam. Figures from the show such as Nguyen Ngoc Ngan and Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen are beloved personalities by Vietnamese at large as well as many other figures such as the late Chi Tai and Hoai Linh.
Notable Australians of Vietnamese ancestry
Anh Do – Comedian, actor, author of The Happiest Refugee and brother of Khoa Do
Khoa Do – Young Australian of the Year in 2005, writer, director and brother of Anh Do
Tien Kieu – ALP politician, member of the Legislative Council of Victoria, physicist
Charles Tran Van Lam – Former Foreign Minister of South Vietnam (1969–1972), first Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia (late 1950s), President of the Senate of South Vietnam (1973), one of signatories of the Paris Peace Accord (1973)
Phuong Ngo – ALP politician (member of Fairfield Council, NSW), Catholic community leader convicted for the homicide of John Paul Newman, and suspected drug lord
Thang Ngo – Fairfield councillor (1999–2008), cast member of Once Upon a Time in Cabramatta documentary, food writer and publisher of Noodlies food blog
Tung Ngo – ALP politician, member of the Legislative Council of South Australia
^Note however, that before 1976 Vietnam was not separately recorded as a country of birth for settlers so the Australian Bureau of Statistics is unable to provide an exact picture of settler intake prior to this time.
^Gibbs, Stephen (2 December 2003). "Crunch time for SBS over Vietnamese news bulletin". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 14 March 2008. Thousands of members of Sydney's Vietnamese community will today protest against SBS's continued broadcast of a Hanoi news service that former refugees say contains offensive and distressing communist propaganda.
Vietnamese Queenslanders. Short (3-4mins) digital stories from 5 Vietnamese Queenslanders, a project from the Queensland Vietnamese community and the State Library of Queensland.
Ashley Carruthers – Australian National University (2008). "Vietnamese". Dictionary of Sydney. Dictionary of Sydney Trust. Retrieved 4 October 2015. [CC-By-SA] (History of Vietnamese in Sydney)
^According to the local classification, South Caucasian peoples (Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians) belong not to the European but to the "Central Asian" group, despite the fact that the territory of Transcaucasia has nothing to do with Central Asia and geographically belongs mostly to Western Asia.
