Vietnamese Americans, Donald Trump, and Intergenerational Trauma: Understanding the Generational Divide Through Volkan's Group Psychology

The generational divide over Donald Trump has been well-documented in Vietnamese American communities, with the first generation highly supportive of Trump, while the younger generation tends to lean more liberal. To outside observers, that a generation of refugees would support a white nationalist, anti-immigration administration might seem both inconceivable and counterintuitive. But to those familiar with Vietnamese American politics, support for Donald Trump fits within a larger conservative culture among Vietnamese American communities. Scholars and activists attribute this to a number of reasons, but primary among them is anti-communist sentiment and conservative religious values. In this paper, however, I argue that all of these factors must be understood within the larger context of intergenerational trauma and the collective impact this has on group identity. Furthermore, I suggest that the generational divide of Vietnamese American communities might be read as a transmission of both intergenerational trauma and evidence of this trauma being repaired.