Christina Elizabeth Firpo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824847579
- eISBN:
- 9780824869007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824847579.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Japanese occupation of Indochina in World War II and subsequent rise of Vietnamese anticolonial movements triggered a veritable panic among French administrators and colonists about maintaining a ...
More
Japanese occupation of Indochina in World War II and subsequent rise of Vietnamese anticolonial movements triggered a veritable panic among French administrators and colonists about maintaining a French presence in the colony. To colonial administrators in Indochina, naturalized indigenous citizens would not suffice; instead, they had a racialized image of French identity. Fatherless métis children who could pass for white would play an important role in this endeavor. Colonial officials cited racial markers like blond hair or blue eyes to justify the removal of fatherless métis children from their indigenous mothers. The perception of these children as white marked yet another shift in the colonial attitude towards the population of fatherless métis. Initially regarded with suspicion and dismissed as irredeemably Vietnamese, these children had come to be accepted as part of the French community since the 1920s; now, given the demographic crisis of whiteness that surfaced during World War II, they were increasingly relied upon to make up a large portion of the future French community in the colony. The Brévié Foundation planned to raise fatherless métis wards to form a stable class of French men and women who would eventually form a permanent French elite in Indochina, settling in strategic areas of the central highlands, and providing thewhite faces considered essential for the proposed new colonial capital of Dalat.Less
Japanese occupation of Indochina in World War II and subsequent rise of Vietnamese anticolonial movements triggered a veritable panic among French administrators and colonists about maintaining a French presence in the colony. To colonial administrators in Indochina, naturalized indigenous citizens would not suffice; instead, they had a racialized image of French identity. Fatherless métis children who could pass for white would play an important role in this endeavor. Colonial officials cited racial markers like blond hair or blue eyes to justify the removal of fatherless métis children from their indigenous mothers. The perception of these children as white marked yet another shift in the colonial attitude towards the population of fatherless métis. Initially regarded with suspicion and dismissed as irredeemably Vietnamese, these children had come to be accepted as part of the French community since the 1920s; now, given the demographic crisis of whiteness that surfaced during World War II, they were increasingly relied upon to make up a large portion of the future French community in the colony. The Brévié Foundation planned to raise fatherless métis wards to form a stable class of French men and women who would eventually form a permanent French elite in Indochina, settling in strategic areas of the central highlands, and providing thewhite faces considered essential for the proposed new colonial capital of Dalat.
Christina Elizabeth Firpo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824847579
- eISBN:
- 9780824869007
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824847579.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This book explores the untold history of the removal of métis [mixed-race] children from their Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao mothers as part of a colonial plan to reproduce the French race in ...
More
This book explores the untold history of the removal of métis [mixed-race] children from their Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao mothers as part of a colonial plan to reproduce the French race in Vietnam. Throughout the colonial period and, on a lesser scale, the postcolonial period, French child welfare organizations conducted extensive searches of the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao countryside for métis children who had been abandoned by their French fathers. Because these children had been raised without French cultural influence, authorities deemed them legally “abandoned” and separated them from their mothers—sometimes by force. The children were then placed in state-run institutions called “protection” societies, whose curriculum of re-acculturation would transform them, in the words of one French administrator, into “little Frenchmen.” The colonial state, in short, usurped the role of the family.Less
This book explores the untold history of the removal of métis [mixed-race] children from their Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao mothers as part of a colonial plan to reproduce the French race in Vietnam. Throughout the colonial period and, on a lesser scale, the postcolonial period, French child welfare organizations conducted extensive searches of the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao countryside for métis children who had been abandoned by their French fathers. Because these children had been raised without French cultural influence, authorities deemed them legally “abandoned” and separated them from their mothers—sometimes by force. The children were then placed in state-run institutions called “protection” societies, whose curriculum of re-acculturation would transform them, in the words of one French administrator, into “little Frenchmen.” The colonial state, in short, usurped the role of the family.
Christina Elizabeth Firpo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824847579
- eISBN:
- 9780824869007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824847579.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
The introduction explores the role of race and indigenous motherhood in the decision to systematically remove fatherless métis from their Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao mothers. It situates this ...
More
The introduction explores the role of race and indigenous motherhood in the decision to systematically remove fatherless métis from their Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao mothers. It situates this history in the literature of métis in Indochina and child removals in postcolonial studies.Less
The introduction explores the role of race and indigenous motherhood in the decision to systematically remove fatherless métis from their Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao mothers. It situates this history in the literature of métis in Indochina and child removals in postcolonial studies.
