Vietnamese Fishermen Faced Down KKK Violence
By Kelli Luu | 20 Apr, 2026

The Vietnamese who fled Saigon and sought to rebuild their lives on the Gulf Coast were met with hostility and organized violence, forcing them into a historic civil rights battle.

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Vietnamese refugees escaped and immigrated to the United States. Many of them were fishermen who resettled near the Gulf Coast in places like Texas and New Orleans because they noticed familiar opportunities that could help rebuild the lives they lost. 

Unfortunately, those opportunities were quickly met with hostility, especially amongst local white fishermen. Vietnamese refugees arrived in America with a language barrier, but brought deep knowledge of fishing and shrimping. They worked much longer hours than other fishermen, they pooled family labor and operated with lower overhead. This would allow them to compete in the seafood industry, especially during the 1970s’ economic crisis, but to the local fishermen, the Vietnamese were only seen as a threat. 

Tensions escalated and Vietnamese fishermen began to be harassed at the docks, denied access to supplies, and even physically attacked. There were many cases of locals cutting up their nets and burning their boats in order to drive them out of business. In places like Seadrift, Texas, these conflicts turned deadly as the shooting of a Vietnamese fisherman in 1979 sparked fear across the entire community. 

In the 80s, the Klu Klux Klan got involved. KKK members aligned with the white fishermen and began organizing rallies along the coast in which they burned down Vietnamese homes and held military-style training sessions with the goal of intimidating the Vietnamese community out of the industry. Instead of responding back with more violence, the Vietnamese fisherman filed a landmark federal case which argued that the Klan’s actions constituted organized intimidation. 

The historic case, Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, came with a historic outcome as the judge ruled in favor of the Vietnamese community and issued a court order that prohibited the Klan from engaging in threats, harassment, and more. This also led to the court dismantling the KKK’s armed operations in the area, making it one of the first times a civil court successfully shut down a white supremacist group’s actions. 

Even though the case was won, Vietnamese fishermen still faced systemic barriers such as restrictive licensing laws and discrimination in seafood markets, but despite everything, they endured.

Today, Vietnamese Americans make up a large portion of the Gulf Coast’s shrimping industry. As of 2025, Vietnamese Americans are the largest Asian subgroup in the state of Louisiana with communities like New Orleans East serving as a cultural and economic hub, proving this fisherman’s tale is not just about conflict, but rather overcoming discrimination to build long lasting communities.