Bắc Di Cư: Catholic Refugees from the North of Vietnam, and Their Role in the Southern Republic, 1954––1959

Northern Catholic refugees who resettled in the Republic of Vietnam during 1954 and 1955 in the aftermath of the Geneva Conference formed an identifiable, largely unassimilated cohort that was eventually (but not immediately) utilized by the government of Ngôô Đinh Diệm for nation-building purposes. In both their departure from the North and their resettlement in the South, the Bẳc di cư were largely responsive to their clerical leadership. These Catholic communities often replicated the patterns of organization, modes of leadership, and suspicion of the external world that had characterized their rural village communities in the North.