More migrants with nowhere to go?

Abstract

In her article "More Migrants with Nowhere to Go?”, Mary Theis reframes the stories of the Tai Dam and discusses this group of people, who migrated from Vietnam and Laos to Thailand and then to Iowa in 1975 after the wars in Southeast Asia when they virtually had nowhere to go. It is based on interviews with some of the 1,200 Tai Dam who were invited by Governor Robert Ray to resettle in Des Moines, Iowa, and nearby cities. The stories are contextualized by research on U.S. policies on immigration and the current precarious fates of other migrants in the United States to reflect not only upon just how many in the United States appear to be retreating from its raison d’être but also upon potential reactions to the inevitable, not-so-distant demographic consequences of climate change.