America's suburbs are more diverse and more unequal than ever before. Focusing on Southern California's Little Saigon, a global suburb and the capital of "Vietnamese America," Jennifer Huynh shows how refugees and their children are enacting placemaking against forces of displacement such as financialized capital, exclusionary zoning, and the criminalization of migrants. This book raises crucial questions challenging suburban inequality and complicates our understanding of refugee resettlement—and, more broadly, the American dream.
Jennifer Huynh is a sociologist and Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She is second-generation Vietnamese from Southern California.
"Keenly juxtaposes the immigrant 'success story' of Little Saigon in California against the tenuous experience of older, lower-income, and disabled residents fighting the corporatized gentrification of their community. I was blown away by the depth of the research and how Jennifer Huynh weaves together analyses of these interrelated issues and sociological dynamics across institutional and individual levels."—C.N. Le, faculty in Sociology and Director of the Asian & Asian American Studies Program, University of Massachusetts Amherst
"A compelling and comprehensive study of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants across multiple generations who are decisively transforming what we know about the American suburb. Anyone interested in ethnic refugee communities, changing patterns of demographic and geographic inequality, and the financialization of land and wealth will find Suburban Refugees essential reading."—Jennifer Jihye Chun, Professor of Asian American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
252 pp.6 x 9Illus: 12 b/w illustrations
9780520403901$29.95|£25.00Paper
Mar 2025