There is a large community of Vietnamese people in Laos. As

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

and Laos are neighbours, there is a long history of population migrations between the territories which today make up the two respective countries.

Migration history

When Laos was a French protectorate, the French colonial administration brought many Vietnamese people to Laos to work as civil servants. This matter was the object of strenuous opposition by Phetsarath Ratanavongsa, who in the 1930s made an unsuccessful attempt to replace Vietnamese in the government with

Lao people The Lao people are a Tai ethnic group native to Southeast Asia, who speak the eponymous language of the Kra–Dai languages. They are the majority ethnic group of Laos, making up 53.2% of the total population. The majority of Lao people adhere ...

. After Vietnamese emperor

Bảo Đại Bảo Đại (, vi-hantu, , lit. "keeper of greatness", 22 October 191331 July 1997), born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy (), was the 13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of Vietnam. From 1926 to 1945, he was em ...

's declaration of Vietnamese independence in 1945, Vietnamese people all over Laos held demonstrations; in particular, members of Savannakhet's Vietnamese youth association staged a march through the town waving a Japanese imperial Rising Sun Flag and a Vietnamese flag. Despite their common interest with the Lao people in preserving their independence from France, some had

irredentist Irredentism is usually understood as a desire that one state annexes a territory of a neighboring state. This desire is motivated by ethnic reasons (because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent st ...

aspirations to detach parts of southern Laos and integrate them into the Vietnamese state, which led Phetsarath to develop further suspicion of them. Recent estimates for the size of the Vietnamese community in Laos vary. A 2008 report by ''Việt Báo'' newspaper stated that there were 20,000. A 2012 report by ''

Voice of Vietnam The Voice of Vietnam or VOV (also Radio the Voice of Vietnam, Vietnamese: ''Đài Tiếng nói Việt Nam'') is the Vietnamese national radio broadcaster. Directly controlled by the government of Vietnam, it is tasked with propagating the pol ...

'' stated 30,000. '' Ethnologue states that there are 79,000 Vietnamese speakers in Laos.

Community organisations

In the Laotian capital of Vientiane, the Nguyen Du Kindergarten and Elementary School enrolls 2,000 students of both Vietnamese and Lao origin, providing them with an education using Vietnamese as the medium of instruction. Another organisation is the Association of Vietnamese People in Laos ''(Tổng hội người Việt Nam tại Lào)'', which has organised various activities such as football games between Vietnamese and Lao people, as well as collecting donations for charitable activities.

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References

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Migration history

Community organisations

Notes

References

Further reading