Some Adjustment Aspects of Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese Families in Victoria, Canada

This paper aims to remedy deficiencies in the existing literature on Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese families and suggests some general hypotheses concerning the adjustment of refugee or immigrant families to the host society. A detailed study of fifty families from Vietnam shows that the individual’s background and cultural heritage affect his or her willingness and ability to adjust. This cultural baggage, interacting with the conditions and opportunity structure of Victoria, produces a mind-set and an emotional state which in turn affect his or her interaction with other family members and kin. This has implications to the dynamics and future structure of his or her family.