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War. Persecution. Natural Disaster. Identifying what causes a person to become a refugee seems straightforward. But is it, really? Who is a refugee? Who determines this status? And how does it change over time?
Using the arrival of Vietnamese refugees in Fort Chaffee (Fort Smith, Arkansas) in 1975 as an entry point, Dr. Jana K. Lipman (Professor of History at Tulane University) addressed these questions in a public lecture on 8 March 2022. The worldwide rise in refugees and the recent handling of asylum seekers to the United States demonstrate how events that happen across the globe impact us as a nation, as a region, and as human beings.
This guide will help you engage with these questions and provide insight into this complex issue.
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Show us where you or your family is from by adding a pin to our World Map.
Jana K. Lipman is a Professor at Tulane University. She has written, co-authored, and edited numerous books and scholarly publications, and she has written essays for the Washington Post Made by History, The New Orleans Advocate/Times Picayune, and The Conversation.com.
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