Vietnamese Canadian

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Vietnamese began arriving in Canada in the late 1970s and early 1980s as refugees or boat people following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Most were sponsored by churches in Ontario and settled in areas around Southern Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia. Between 1975 to 1985, 110,000 settled in Canada (23,000 in Ontario; 13,000 in Quebec; 8,000 in Alberta; 7,000 British Columbia; 5,000 in Manitoba; 3,000 in Saskatchewan; and 2,000 in the Maritime provinces). As time progressed, most eventually settled in urban centres like Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Edmonton, Hamilton and Calgary.

The next wave came in the late 1980s and 1990s as both refugees and immigrant classes of post-war Vietnam. Some of these immigrants are ethnic Chinese from southern Vietnam, namely Saigon. These groups settled in urban areas in Toronto and Montreal.

Vietnamese immigrants settled mainly in the eastern sections of Vancouver. In Toronto they have settled in the city's Chinatown area near Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street West or to the west in Mississauga. Vietnamese Canadians also brought their cuisine and pho has become a popular food in the Greater Toronto Area, a prime example of this is Pho Hung, on Spadina, which has a large group of frequenters.

[edit] Notable Vietnamese Canadians

Humanitarians

Kim Phuc - Humanitarian, UNESCO ambassador, Vietnam War Survivor

Entertainers

Chuckie Akenz (aka Khuong Hiep Le-Nguyen) is a song writer and rapper
Christy Chung, Hong Kong based actress
David Huynh, Los Angeles based actor
Nguyen Ngoc Ngan, writer, essayist, and host of Paris By Night
Thuong Vuong-Riddick, poet - Two Shores / Deux Rives (1995)
Minh Thanh Nguyen, non-fiction writer - Leaving Vietnam (1996)
Siu Ta, actress (This is Wonderland)

Politicians

Hung Pham, Alberta Progressive Conservative, Calgary

Montrose 1993-present

Wayne Cao, Alberta Progressive Conservative, Calgary

Fort, 1997-present

Others

Father Dinh Nghi, Catholic priest
Hai Trieu, a former president of the Vietnam Community Association of Vancouver and current editor of Viet Nam magazine

[edit] Business

In Canada, local Vietnamese media is dominated by:

Tho Bao - Toronto newspaper
Thoi Bao TV - Toronto

In Vancouver, hardworking Vietnamese Canadians managed to open a variety of stores and restaurants throughout Vancouver, especially on the east side of the city around Kingsway and Fraser. The area is home to several Vietnamese clothing, food stores, and shops.

In the Toronto area, there are 19 Vietnamese owned supermarkets, some serving ethnic Vietnamese-Chinese (also known as Hoa).