Ở Texas, người nuôi tôm người Mỹ gốc Việt lại phải tìm hướng đi mới

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... Mr. Nguyen, 63, is one of thousands of Vietnamese refugees (tị nạn, lánh nạn) who settled along the Gulf Coast after the Vietnam War. Here, in quiet fishing communities, they worked hard to rebuild their lives. Along the way, they overcame the trauma (tổn thương, chấn thương) of war and displacement (di tản), language barriers and deep-seated (sâu sắc, lâu đời) prejudice (thành kiến) from local residents.

But their latest obstacle is beyond their control: the decline of the American shrimp industry.

Across the Gulf Coast, high fuel costs, a shortage of workers and an influx of cheap imports have made shrimping a less viable proposition for anyone.

Some locals say that overfishing and environmental factors like climate change have also led to a decline in the seafood population, making it even harder to get a decent haul (chuyên chở, chuyến).

... Vietnamese refugees were initially drawn to Palacios by the promise of jobs at a nearby nuclear power plant (nhà máy điện hạt nhân) and a crab processing factory (nhà máy chế biến cua). But they soon turned their attention to the local shrimping and crabbing industries.

Out on the water, no English was required. And many of them already had the right skills. Back in Vung Tau, a coastal town in southern Vietnam, some had worked as fishermen and net makers.

It wasn’t long, though, before the local shrimpers and crabbers felt threatened. The newcomers didn’t abide (tuân thủ) by the rules of the water, the locals grumbled (càu nhàu). When Vietnamese immigrants paid cash for their boats by pooling their savings, the locals accused them of getting special government loans.

Tensions peaked in 1979 in the town of Seadrift, 45 miles down the coast from Palacios, when a Vietnamese fisherman shot and killed a white crabber who had been harassing (quấy rối) him over fishing territory. A jury acquitted the fisherman after he argued that the shooting was in self-defense.

The incident, which was the subject of a recent documentary, ignited a furor (phẫn nộ, giận dữ) among the white fishermen, who bombed three boats owned by Vietnamese immigrants in response.

The small-town dispute (tranh chấp) soon escalated (leo thang) into a broader campaign in which members of the Ku Klux Klan set fire to several boats near Galveston Bay and burned crosses near the homes of Vietnamese fishermen. Tensions (căng thẳng) only abated (giảm bớt) after the Southern Poverty Law Center, together with the Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association, filed a federal lawsuit to stop the Klan’s intimidation tactics (chiến thuật đe dọa).

source: nytimes,