When were the major waves of immigrants from Vietnam to the United States?
Before 1975, there were almost no Vietnamese living in the United States. In 1975, a group of 125,000 refugees came to the United States from Vietnam. These were people who had close ties with the toppling South Vietnamese government and were largely skilled profesionals. In the two year after the first wave, numbers of refugees remained low, in the few thousands in the years soon after. However, in 1978 they began to grow, and in 1979 yet another wave of Vietnamese immigrants came to the United States. This wave continued and grew in 1980 and 1981 when when almost 200,000 Vietnamese immigrated Immigration from Vietnam declined greatly following 1981 but remained constant, with about 24,000 immigrants a year until 1986 The United States created a program in the 1980s called the Orderly Departure Program which allowed people who were interviewed and approved by the U.S. to immigrate to the United States. Push Factors Instability that was created by the Vietnam war was the primary reason
