Gov. Jerry Brown 1975: Don’t ‘Dump Vietnamese’ Refugees on California

Democratic Governor Jerry Brown once fought to keep South Vietnamese refugees from being delivered to his state during his first stint as governor of California in the 1970’s. {snip}

In 1975, Jerry Brown complained that the federal government wanted to “dump Vietnamese on” California. “We can’t be looking 5,000 miles away and at the same time neglecting people who live here,” Newsweek reported at the time. According to The Washington Post, Larry Engelmann’s Tears Before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam, writes that Julia Vadala Taft, who led the interagency task force for refugee resettlement, remembered Brown’s opposition.

“The new governor of California, Jerry Brown, was very concerned about refugees settling in his state. Brown even attempted to prevent planes carrying refugees from landing at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento. . . . The secretary of health and welfare, Mario Obledo, felt that this addition of a large minority group would be unwelcome in California. And he said that they already had a large population of Hispanics, Filipinos, blacks, and other minorities.”

In fact, then Senator Joe Biden complained about the Ford administration’s move to bring Vietnamese refugees to the U.S., saying the White House “had not informed Congress adequately about the number of refugees.” Liberal presidential icon George McGovern told Newsweek, “I think the Vietnamese are better off in Vietnam.”

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