How a Sydney ‘War Zone’ Became a Center of Vietnamese Resolve
How a Sydney ‘War Zone’ Became a Center of Vietnamese Resolve
8, 2017
SYDNEY, Australia — A generation ago, people arriving by train in Cabramatta, in western Sydney, would exit the
station only to find themselves in a bustling open-air heroin market where gangs had gunfights over turf.
Frank Carbone, the mayor of Fairfield City, the western Sydney district surrounding Cabramatta, said
that while 7,000 new refugees had been resettled in the region since January 2016, the federal government had not provided any financial support.
It was Australia’s first political assassination, and one that would further feed notions of a wave of ethnic migrant violence in Cabramatta.
Detective said that Honest to God, it was a war zone,
Among the first nonwhite migrants in Australia after the complete abolition of the White Australia Policy in 1973,
many of the newcomers risked their lives in harrowing boat trips before settling here after the Vietnam War.
During the ’70s, primarily American servicemen brought heroin to Sydney from Southeast Asia, said
Prof. Andrew Jakubowicz, a professor of sociology at the University of Technology Sydney.
For the Vietnamese, harboring the lingering trauma of war, the lack of an established Asian
community in Cabramatta made it "a fairly desperate time," Professor Jakubowicz said.
8, 2017
SYDNEY, Australia — A generation ago, people arriving by train in Cabramatta, in western Sydney, would exit the
station only to find themselves in a bustling open-air heroin market where gangs had gunfights over turf.
Frank Carbone, the mayor of Fairfield City, the western Sydney district surrounding Cabramatta, said
that while 7,000 new refugees had been resettled in the region since January 2016, the federal government had not provided any financial support.
It was Australia’s first political assassination, and one that would further feed notions of a wave of ethnic migrant violence in Cabramatta.
Detective said that Honest to God, it was a war zone,
Among the first nonwhite migrants in Australia after the complete abolition of the White Australia Policy in 1973,
many of the newcomers risked their lives in harrowing boat trips before settling here after the Vietnam War.
During the ’70s, primarily American servicemen brought heroin to Sydney from Southeast Asia, said
Prof. Andrew Jakubowicz, a professor of sociology at the University of Technology Sydney.
For the Vietnamese, harboring the lingering trauma of war, the lack of an established Asian
community in Cabramatta made it "a fairly desperate time," Professor Jakubowicz said.