They overcame the trauma of war, language barriers, and prejudice to become successful shrimpers. But the decline of the industry in America is forcing them to consider other options.
WHY WE’RE HERE
We’re exploring how America defines itself one place at a time. Palacios, Texas, is a small town with a rich history of Vietnamese American shrimpers on the Gulf Coast.
By Amy Qin
Photographs by Callaghan O’Hare
Amy Qin and Callaghan O’Hare reported from a shrimp trawler in Palacios, Texas.
The sun was still rising when Vinh Nguyen hauled in his first catch of the day.
For the next half-hour, he worked methodically, using his bare fingers to sort the slippery crustaceans from Matagorda Bay. The famed Texas brown shrimp went in one bucket. The Texas white shrimp in another. Seagulls and pelicans hovered around him in the cool, sticky air, while dolphins swam alongside the boat. All were eager for the discarded fish — free breakfast.
By noon, Mr. Nguyen caught enough shrimp to take home about $600, a decent profit these days, but still less than in years past when $1,000 marked a good day.
“Not much,” he frowned, as he stood on the slick deck assessing the ice chests that were now filled with shrimp.
Mr. Nguyen, 63, is one of thousands of Vietnamese refugees who settled along the Gulf Coast after the Vietnam War. Here, in quiet fishing communities, they worked hard to rebuild their lives. Along the way, they overcame the trauma of war and displacement, language barriers and deep-seated prejudice from local residents.
But their latest obstacle is beyond their control: the decline of the American shrimp industry.
Across the Gulf Coast, high fuel costs, a shortage of workers, and an influx of cheap imports have made shrimping a less viable proposition for anyone.
Some locals say that overfishing and environmental factors like climate change have also led to a decline in the seafood population, making it even harder to get a decent haul.
“A lot of the Vietnamese shrimpers have cried to me,” said Thuy Vu, 57, who fled war-torn Vietnam as a child. She is now the business manager of her family’s shrimping operation in Palacios, Texas, one of the small communities where Vietnamese immigrants settled.
Ms. Vu said that the first generation of fishermen who arrived decades ago had dreamed of selling their boats and businesses to younger crews. “But now that doesn’t look very likely,” she lamented.
After a visit to Palacios (pronounced puh-LASH-es) last month, it was not hard to imagine what the town looked like when the first group of about 100 Vietnamese refugees arrived in 1976.
Located about halfway between Houston and Corpus Christi, the town sits on verdant ranch land that unfurls into a sparkling bay. The population remains about the same, 4,400, and the downtown still has just one traffic light. It is a far cry from the sprawling hubs like Houston and Orange County, Calif., that often form the backdrop to Vietnamese stories in America.
Vietnamese refugees were initially drawn to Palacios by the promise of jobs at a nearby nuclear power plant and a crab processing factory. But they soon turned their attention to the local shrimping and crabbing industries.
Out on the water, no English was required. And many of them already had the right skills. Back in Vung Tau, a coastal town in southern Vietnam, some had worked as fishermen and net makers. It wasn’t long, though, before the local shrimpers and crabbers felt threatened. The newcomers didn’t abide by the rules of the water, the locals grumbled. When Vietnamese immigrants paid cash for their boats by pooling …
