War and political strife have been the reasons Southeast Asians find themselves in the United States. With the declaration of war between Spain and the United States in 1898 Americans entered into the affairs of Southeast Asians in the Philippines. Americans moved there and Filipinos later followed colonial relationships and education to the US.

The Vietnam War brought several “hill tribes,” particularly the Hmong, from Laos and Vietnam to the United States for resettlement because of their involvement with US counter-insurgency campaigns (sponsored by the CIA and US military) against the North Vietnamese. After the end of US involvement in the war, many south Vietnamese “escaped” Vietnam by boat (known as “boat people”) for refugee camps located throughout Southeast Asia, later to be resettled in the United States. Political upheavals in Cambodia and along its borders with Vietnam, Laos and Thailand have also fostered Southeast Asian immigration to the US.

Southeast Asian groups living in the US, then, are for the most part refugee populations. In the racial politics that continue to shape the US social structure, Southeast Asians (except for established Filipinos) have little political power or representation apart from “Asian American” status and politics. Compared with other Asian groups, like the Chinese and Japanese “model minorities,” they are still closer to the margins of the US social and economic system, working in low-paying or informal jobs and sometimes relying on welfare.