Refugee memory-making: Decolonial counterstories from Eelam Tamil and Vietnamese communities

Abstract

Between the Eelam Tamil genocides (1983–2009) and America’s military intervention in Vietnam (1955–1975), Eelam Tamil and Vietnamese refugees fled to North America, forming their largest diasporas in Toronto and Orange County. This article critically juxtaposes how these communities engage in memory-making as a part of place-making and vice versa. Grounded in critical refugee studies, we as scholar-organizers from these communities, use a comparative case study approach drawing on interviews with 12 Eelam Tamil individuals in Toronto and 20 Vietnamese individuals in Orange County. We theorize a refugee praxis of care and healing that resists displacement and state-sanctioned violence. Our analysis reveals how memory-making serves both as resistance to erasure and as a way of healing wounds of displacement, while igniting critical consciousness that bridges generations. This article highlights decolonial methods of community-engaged research, emphasizing refugee counterstorytelling as a site of knowledge production and solidarity between diasporic communities.