Over one million Vietnamese died during and after the Vietnam War, but perhaps over 85 million Natives died in the New World due to the Euro invasion
While I do not think the U.S. should have intervened in Vietnam, there is no question that the people of South Vietnam paid a heavy price, during and after their war with North Vietnam.
“An estimated 95,000 civilians died in the communist re-education camps, another 500,000 were involved in forced labor projects, which killed 48,000 civilians. Another 100,000 were executed. Finally, 400,000 boat people died while trying to flee Vietnam. This is 643,000 killed during the consolidation of communist rule. This consolidation ended around 1984, although boat people deaths occurred through 1988. A similar high death toll occurred in North Vietnam during 1950s when the Communists consolidated power in that geographic region,” according to Wikipedia.
So apparently over a million Vietnamese may have died during the war with North Vietnam, and the bloody aftermath.
But now many Vietnamese in the U.S. are arguing that Mexican immigrants in this nation are a problem. So let’s take a look at how many Native Americans died when the Europeans came to the New World.
The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives and cultures of the Native Americans. In the 15th to 19th centuries, their populations were ravaged, by the privations of displacement, by disease, and in many cases by warfare with European groups and enslavement by them. The first Native American group encountered by Columbus, the 250,000 Arawaks of Haiti, were enslaved. Only 500 survived by the year 1550, and the group was extinct before 1650.
Europeans also brought diseases against which the Native Americans had no immunity. Chicken pox and measles, though common and rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved fatal to Native Americans, and more dangerous diseases such as smallpox were especially deadly to Native American populations. It is difficult to estimate the total percentage of the Native American population killed by these diseases.
Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration, sometimes destroying entire villages. Some historians estimate that up to 80% of some Native populations may have died due to European diseases. (Online Source)
Experts today figure that there were perhaps 100 million indigenous people in the New World. As many as 80 to 90% died of disease – and from European bullets (Wikipedia).
It is a tragedy that over a million Vietnamese were killed by their cousins from the north. What happened to Native Americans was essentially genocide – germ warfare if you will.
Today the descendants of the Native Americans from Mexico are looked down upon by many Americans – and certainly by a good number of Vietnamese residents of our country. Interestingly there are still five million natives in Mexico who speak their native tongues and many people still maintain the old ways in rural villages.
Can anyone argue that what happened to the New World natives was just? And is it just to malign their descendants today? The very soil we populate in California belonged to people who died because of the European incursion.
It is sad that so many don’t know the history of our own Western Hemisphere. It is sadder yet that too many Vietnamese have no compassion for their Latin American counterparts.
Zorro, I hear what you’re saying and I appreciate the thought.
Within the Vietnamese, White, Black and even Mexican American community, there are some that simply do not like Mexicans. It is sad but true. I suppose you can take that first sentence and shift the groups around and it would equally be true.
But I tell that there are many of us out there who care and have compassion for the Hispanic population. But we all don’t necessarily agree with you or each other 100% of the time on this very complicated immigration issue. And for that, we’re being labeled racists and bigots. Our society would be more effective in finding the solution if the name calling stops. We should not label people racists as soon there’s a disagreement or we hear something we don’t like. And worse, we should not let a few haters within our society, in every group, turn us into a “my group against yours” mentality.
And for you only Sean and Art: yes, I am a bigot.
“It is sad that so many don’t know the history of our own Western Hemisphere.”
What is sad is so called reporting or opinion pieces that quote Wikipedia and a link to crystalinks.com (identified as “Ellie Crystal’s Metaphysical and Science Website”) as reputable resources. If I were a college professor grading this as a paper it would get an F for research. And tainted research leads to tainted commentary.
You latch on to a 100,000,000 population count from a non-reputable source, which itself acknowledges that this number is pure hypothesization. Indeed, the authors of this “source” note that the “population debate has often had ideological underpinnings.” So true, and true with respect to your post.
Without putting an ideological gloss on the history of our world, human civilization is exemplified by conquest. American native peoples are no excecption to that (nor are they unique in human history). Native people have both been the conqueror and the conquered. Savage brutality was the hallmark of int-Native conflict as it was in the European-Native conflict. It just turns out that the Native’s were not as good at it as the Europeans.
Instead of mythologizing and sterotyping the notion of a benevolent and just American native culture (which never existed to begin with), what current society should really learn from history is not to repeat it. Unfortunaltey that mythologizes human nature, which WILL repeat the past.
Aren’t all Mexicans by definition the bastard children of Spanish Conquistadors and Indians? Unless you are one of those mini-me Mexicans I see on 4th street in Santa Ana who never got the gene pool upgrade with some Euro blood, shouldn’t you be looking in the mirror and angry at your European abuelito?
Not Hernando,
Many Mexicans are mestizo because our ancestors married the natives. Many other Euro invaders simply killed the natives.
Ultimately we all have blood on our hands.
You by the way are a total racist. There is no shame in being a native. Look at Benito Diaz. He became Mexico’s greatest President and he was an Indio.
That one ethnic group or nationality is conquered and wiped out or nearly wiped out by another is the history of mankind. Nothing to be proud of, but it is a cyle that has repeated and repeated in history. Today we see ethnic cleansing and tribal warfare. Of course there have also been and most likely will be religion-based efforts at conquest and extinction too. This post, then, attempts to recite but one of a litany of such chapters in the history of mankind. It is hard to figure out what the purpose of the post is, unless to make us all feel guilty for what our ancestors may have done somewhere in some part of the world in centuries gone past. Does that put blood on my hands? No, for I control my hands and was not around to try and control the hands of your ancestors or mine.
Older than,
The purpose was simple. Too many Viets are anti Latino and they point to their suffering in Vietnam as a reason why they were allowed to come here. Yet the Natives in the New World suffered more than any other people in history. And now these racist Viets are denigrating the descendants of the Native Americans. Shameful.
“There is no shame in being a native. Look at Benito Diaz.”
Is that why you see so many dark skin Mexicans in positions of leadership in Mexico? (Not)
Zorro. Thanks. I rest my case.
The reality is simple….the monied interests are going to take what they want. They influence the law makers and then take that eggis and dispose of the oppostion as required.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_(chief)
The story of Black Hawk is a sad one. His only sin was to want to keep the land he was born on. Then, his fatal error or joining the English during the War of 1812….yeilded to the then forthcoming Black Hawk War.
This story was repeated hundreds of times including the prosecution of many tribes of native Americans by Andrew Jackson, that may have stood in the way of our “U.S. Manifest Destiny”. Davey Crockett told Jackson and his ilk best: “You can all go to hell….and I will go to Texas!” Crockett was one of the only Congress people to vote not to move all the Native Americans to the great Southwest.
“Too many Viets are anti Latino and they point to their suffering in Vietnam as a reason why they were allowed to come here.”
That is simply not true. The Viets do talk about their suffering in Vietnam… but they don’t connect that and say, “therefore I should be allowed to come here”. Zorro, I’m not fighting with you for the sake of argument but your assessment is just not true. I have never met ONE Viet that ever stated or even think that way. Connecting the two dots like you suggested.
Lam,
What I meant is that this suffering is used as an excuse to imply that the Viets had a better and more sanctioned reason to come here versus our Mexican brothers.
What I am saying is that if anything Mexicans have suffered far more.
mmmm
“What I am saying is that if anything Mexicans have suffered far more.”
Time to invade our southern neighbor and free them? Is that the answer?
I am Vietnamese and have many Vietnamese friends and not one of them ever bash Latinos. I happen to have close friends of Mexican heritage and have fought for their causes. I am boycotting the state of Arizona. Not all Vietnamese are racist and Latino hating, theres just a small number of them who happen to be Republican politicians just trying to buy votes from conservative white people in their districts. My community is coming around, and since the 90s, many Vietnamese have registered Democratic and are involved in social programs that benefit all kinds of minorities. Change can happen.
Way to go Arizona. I will spend plenty of money in Arizona on vacation. Might even be a nice place to live. Check everybodies I.D and if they can’t provide legal documentation DEPORT them PRONTO…