4.6.5 - Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan
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Seadrift: a Documentary on Refugees, Racism, and Reconciliation (Festival Trailer).”
Title 8 Productions.
Grade: 9-12Subject: English Language Arts, Social Studies, U.S. History
Number of Activities: 4
Overview:
After the Vietnam War (1955-1975), many Vietnamese refugees who worked as shrimpers and fishermen in rural Vietnam settled in the Gulf Coast in Texas. Tensions erupted between white fishermen and Vietnamese fishermen. In this lesson, students will learn about the causes and effects of the Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1981), a court case that struck down the Ku Klux Klan’s intimidation campaign against recently resettled Vietnamese refugees on the Gulf Coast in Texas.
 
Lesson Objectives:
Students will:
 
Vietnamese Fishermen's Association v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Essay
The First Indochina War between France and North Vietnam ended with the 1954 Geneva Accords, a treaty that ended French colonialism and established Vietnam as an independent nation. Vietnam was divided into two states: a Northern communist state and a Southern non-communist state. These Accords also promised an election in 1956 that would reunite Vietnam. Instead, the North Vietnamese started warring with the South, resulting in civil war.
The U.S. government believed that communism was a threat to democracy and subsequently supported South Vietnamese forces; this included sending U.S. troops to fight against the North Vietnamese. On April 30, 1975, the communist government took over South Vietnam and united the country into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. This was known as the Fall of Saigon and marked the end of the Vietnam War.
South Vietnamese supporters and allies scrambled to evacuate themselves and their families out of the country. In 1975, nearly 130,000 Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong people resettled as refugees in the United States. The first wave of refugees often had ties to the U.S. military and were more educated and affluent compared to subsequent waves. The second and third wave refugees, known as “boat people,” were typically less educated than the first wave. This included shrimpers and fishermen from rural Vietnam, who were attracted to the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana because they could transfer the fishing skills they had learned from Vietnam. Fishing was a desirable job because it didn’t require the refugees to speak English.
Seadrift is a small town on the Texas Gulf Coast. It was a popular site for some of the resettled Vietnamese refugees. After arriving in Seadrift, the Vietnamese community banded together and lived in crowded trailers. They worked together, hauling large catches back to shore and even crabbing during inclement weather. To purchase the necessary materials to successfully fish, the Vietnamese developed a private loan system known as “hui.” They pooled their money, which was then distributed to a different family every month. This collective system helped each family survive.
Unbeknownst to the Vietnamese who moved into Seadrift, the mostly White fishermen who resided there were already struggling. The water was poisoned from pollution caused by dumping from nearby petrochemical plants and oil spills. Despite seeing deformed fish and shrimp before the refugees came, the White community blamed the resettled Vietnamese population. They accused the newly arrived Vietnamese of overfishing, of breaking unwritten rules that they had often broken themselves, and of generally destroying Seadrift’s way of life. Tensions escalated as White fishermen started confronting the Vietnamese fishermen, disrupting their fishing and threatening violence.
Despite the interventions of local and federal officials, the strains between the two communities culminated in an explosion of violence. On August 3, 1979, a White fisherman named Billy Joe Aplin, who had previously threatened and harassed the Vietnamese, yelled at Sáu Văn Nguyễn, a young Vietnamese crabber, and his brothers. Aplin struck Sáu and cut his chest with a knife. Sáu left one of his brothers in a boat and drove off with his other brother to retrieve his gun. Sáu then rushed back to the docks and engaged Aplin. Eventually, Sáu fatally shot Aplin and fled Seadrift.
That night, White townspeople firebombed three Vietnamese boats and an apartment rented by a multi-generational Vietnamese family. Other Vietnamese families received threatening phone calls. In the next two days, 120 of the 150 Vietnamese refugees fled Seadrift. Those who stayed rearranged their trailers into a compound so that they could guard each other more easily.
To further scare Vietnamese fishermen, some White fishermen in the area called in the Ku Klux Klan, a White supremacist hate group. This escalated a campaign of racial intimidation against the resettled Vietnamese.
In 1979, Sáu was tried for the murder of Aplin and then was acquitted by an all-White jury who ruled he was defending himself. The Ku Klux Klan inflamed the situation. Louis Beam, the Grand Dragon or leader of the Texas Klan, proclaimed, “Where ballots fail, bullets will prevail.” Over the next year, the Ku Klux Klan held rallies, burned crosses, burned a boat, and even hung an effigy of a Vietnamese fisherman. They patrolled the harbor with firearms and faces unmasked, knowing that the general public supported the intimidation of the Vietnamese fishermen. Beam also activated the Texas Emergency Reserve, an armed and trained militia in Texas, openly declaring his intentions to inflict violence on the Vietnamese community. Despite the Vietnamese community’s attempts to make peace with the White community, including concessions on fishing and trying to stop additional resettlement by Vietnamese to the area, the Ku Klux Klan pressed on.
In 1981, the Vietnamese Fishermen's Association, supported by the Southern Poverty Law Center, successfully ended Klan intimidation through a lawsuit in Vietnamese Fishermen's Association v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1981). The Ku Klux Klan and their allies were forbidden from intimidating the Vietnamese community. The Vietnamese prevailed; they could now fish without harassment or intimidation. A year later, that same judge dismantled the KKK’s paramilitary militia across the whole state.
Today, the Vietnamese fishermen are still fighting – but this time alongside White fishermen. Together, they are confronting corporations that have dumped harmful chemicals into the Gulf Coast. In 1993, hundreds of Vietnamese organized against pollution in the water. In 2019, one of their allies, Diane Wilson, the first woman shrimper in the area, won a $50 million settlement with Formosa Plastics. In collaboration with the Vietnamese and White fisherman, she is deciding how to redistribute the money to help the community. By working together instead of competing against each other, the fishermen are getting higher prices for their catches. Today, a coalition of Vietnamese Americans work internationally with communities in Vietnam and Taiwan and locally with other Gulf Coast communities to seek justice from Formosa Plastics.
 

Bibliography:
Department of Education Louisiana Believes. “Social Studies Whole-Class Instructional Strategy: Causation.” https://www.louisianabelieves.com/docs/default-source/academic-curriculum/causation_social-studies-instructional-strategy-one-pager-docx.pdf?sfvrsn=93c26018_4
DocsTeach. “U.S. Involvement in Vietnam War.” DocsTeach, National Archives. https://www.docsteach.org/activities/student/us-involvement-in-the-vietnam-war
Immigrant History Initiative. (2021). “A Look Back: An Intersectional Civil Rights Challenge on the Texas Gulf Coast. Immigrant History Initiative.” https://www.immigranthistory.org/news/a-look-back-an-intersectional-civil-rights-challenge-on-the-texas-gulf-coast
Johnson, Kirk Wallace. (2022). The Fisherman and the Dragon: Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast. Viking.
Robinson, Eddie. (2021). “I SEE U, Episode 9: Vietnamese Fishermen v. the KKK.” Houston Public Media. https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/shows/i-see-u/2021/07/16/403304/i-see-u-episode-9-vietnamese-fishermen-v-the-kkk/?amp=1
Seadrift. (2020). Directed by Tim Tsai. Title 8 Productions.
Sneath, Sara. (2023). “Frontline Communities Launch Hunger Strike to Protest Plastics Giant Formosa.” DeSmog. https://www.desmog.com/2023/10/30/hunger-strike-formosa-plastics-texas-louisiana-vietnam-diane-wilson/
Southern Exposure. (2023). “From the Archives: The history of Vietnamese American shrimpers in Texas. Facing South.” https://www.facingsouth.org/2023/05/archives-history-vietnamese-american-shrimpers-texas
Southern Poverty Law Center. (2011). “A Look Back: SPLC Case Brought Justice to Vietnamese Fishermen Terrorized by the Klan.” https://www.splcenter.org/news/2011/07/15/look-back-splc-case-brought-justice-vietnamese-fishermen-terrorized-klan
Southern Poverty Law Center. “Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.” https://www.splcenter.org/seeking-justice/case-docket/vietnamese-fishermens-association-v-knights-ku-klux-klan
The Asian American Education Project. “Southeast Asian Refugees.” https://asianamericanedu.org/southeast-asian-refugees.html
 
Vocabulary1
 

1 Definition is adopted from Merriam-Webster Dictionary
 
Discussion Questions:
  1. What parties/groups were involved in the Vietnam War? What were their goals?
  2. Why did Vietnamese refugees resettle in Seadrift, Texas?
  3. How and why did the population of Seadrift, Texas change?
  4. Why were there tensions between the Vietnamese and White shrimpers? How did these tensions manifest?
  5. What role did the Ku Klux Klan play?
  6. How did the Vietnamese community resist some of the racial tensions?
  7. What is the legacy of Vietnamese fishermen in the Texas community?
  8. How and why did the Vietnamese refugees in Seadrift collaborate with each other?
  9. How and why did the Vietnamese refugees in Seadrift collaborate with other White fisherman?
 
Left - Map of Vietnam.
Credit: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Public Domain
Source
Right - Map of Seadrift, Texas.
Credit: Vicinity Map Seadrift, TX. Map data ©2021 INEGI, Google. CC BY 4.0
Source
Activity 1: Learning about Vietnamese Fishermen's Association v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1981)
  1. Ask students what they know about the Vietnam War. If needed, teach The Asian American Education Project’s lesson entitled, “Southeast Asian Refugees.”
  2. Show students a map of Vietnam and a map of Seadrift, Texas. Have students compare and contrast the two areas.
  3. Have students watch the video entitled, “Vietnamese Fishermen vs. the KKK | AAPI Moments.” Have students discuss what they learned from the video.
  4. Have students read the essay. Consider the following options:
    1. OPTION 1: Have students read the essay independently either for homework or during class time.
    2. OPTION 2: Read aloud the essay and model annotating.
    3. OPTION 3: Have students read aloud in pairs or small groups.
  5. Facilitate a discussion by asking the Discussion Questions.
 
The case of Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association v. The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Credit: “Vietnamese Fishermans Association V Knight of Ku Klux Klan” by US District Court for the Southern District of Texas - 518 F. Supp. 993 (S.D. Tex. 1981), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Source
Activity 2: Evaluate the Causes of Tensions
  1. Jigsaw students into small groups and assign each group to read the following texts:
    1. Group 1: "Killing Sharpens Texas Feud on Vietnamese Fishing" (1979 New York Times article) and the Seadrift: A Documentary on Refugees, Racism, and Reconciliation trailer
    2. Group 2: "Fishing Town in Texas Tells the Klan to Stay Away" (1979 New York Times article) and Klan rally against Vietnamese fishermen in Texas (1981)
    3. Group 3: 1979 - 1981 Special Report: Vietnamese vs. Ku Klux Klan (video) and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s case overview of Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association vs. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1981)
  2. Have students critically review their group’s assigned text by completing the “Critical Reading worksheet.” Have students consider the different biases present in the text in order to critically analyze the causes and effects of the tensions between the Vietnamese and White shrimpers.
  3. Facilitate a discussion by reviewing student responses to the worksheet. Remind students to be aware of the biases present in each of the articles.
  4. Have students identify the main tensions between the White shrimpers and the Vietnamese refugees. Write them on the board.
  5. Have students analyze the causes of the tensions between the Vietnamese and White communities on the Gulf Coast by completing the following activities:
    1. List all of the causes of the tension by writing each cause on a sticky note and posting next to the tension. For each stated cause, ask students: What specific evidence from the sources made you think this caused tension between Vietnamese and White shrimpers?
    2. Group each cause into the following categories: economic, political, cultural, ideas and beliefs, and environmental. (If needed, explain each of these concepts.) Have students justify their categorizations. (Allow students the opportunity to create and justify additional categories.)
    3. Have students identify the top 2-3 causes of the tensions by using the new groupings to rank which cause most led to interracial tensions.
  6. Facilitate a whole class discussion by asking the following question: What factors most contributed to the tensions between the White and Vietnamese communities? Encourage students to cite textual evidence in their reasoning.
 
A Vietnamese Fisherman's Family in Seadrift, Texas, 1978.
Credit: Vietnamese Fisherman's Family” by Jay Phagan, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr
Source
Activity 3: Examining the Legacy of the Vietnamese on the Texas community
  1. Facilitate a discussion by asking students the following questions: What discrimination did the Vietnamese community in Seadrift face? How did they resist?
  2. Have students read the following texts either as homework or via jigsaw strategy:
    1. A Look Back: SPLC Case Brought Justice to Vietnamese Fishermen Terrorized by the Klan
    2. When an environmental activist needed allies to fight a polluting petrochemical plant, she turned to Vietnamese shrimpers
    3. About the International Monitor Formosa Alliance
    4. Decades After Clashing With The Klan, A Thriving Vietnamese Community In Texas
  3. Have students complete the “Vietnamese Shrimpers Legacy Worksheet” to document the various impacts the Vietnamese community has had on the Texas community.
    1. Have students refer to their sources and list impacts.
    2. Have students annotate each impact using the provided key.
  4. Facilitate a discussion by asking students the following question: What is the legacy of Vietnamese fishermen in the Texas community?
 
“The Gulf Fisheries, Galveston, Texas” ca. 1913
Credit: DeGolyer Library, Methodist University, Part of Eric Steinfeldt collection of maritime views (No known copyright restrictions.)
Source
Activity 4: Correcting the Historical Record
  1. Ask students to listen to and read the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen’s song “Galveston Bay.”
  2. Have students do a close reading of the lyrics by making connections to the texts they had critically read in Activity 2. They can annotate using the following code:
    1. * = accurate information
    2. X = inaccurate information
    3. ? = I’m unsure if this is accurate or not
  3. Have students review the lines they annotated with question marks. Have them make a list of information that they are missing and/or that they need to know more about. Have them conduct internet research to fill in missing gaps in their knowledge.
  4. Facilitate a discussion with the whole class by asking the following questions:
    1. Whose perspective does the song focus on?
    2. To what extent does this resource accurately capture what happened?
    3. To what extent does it not accurately capture what happened?
  5. Have students edit their annotations as they listen to other students’ perspectives.
  6. Have students work in small groups and rewrite the song more accurately.
  7. Have each group share their revisions and their reasoning.
 
Further Information:
The Asian American Education Project lesson entitled, “Southeast Asian Refugees”: https://asianamericanedu.org/southeast-asian-refugees.html
The Asian American Education Project lesson entitled, “Resettlement of Vietnamese Refugees in Southern California”: https://asianamericanedu.org/vietnamese-refugees-in-socal.html
Loh-Hagan, Virginia, Giannela Gonzales, and Kathy Ho. (2022). “Southeast Asian Refugees: Make Them Count.” Social Education, vol. 86, no. 2, pp. 87-91.