En Búsqueda de Posada: Militarism and the Laotian Refugee Resettlement Program in Misiones, Argentina, 1980-Present

Jael Vizcarra
Ethnic Studies
UC San Diego

This dissertation offers an examination of “Latin Asian America” based on extensive and original Laotian refugee oral histories. This research challenges conventional histories of the global Cold War by centering Laotians and their refugee narratives as a post-Vietnam counter-archive from the perspective of the South that captures the durability of war. The little known history of Laotian resettlement in the capital city of Posadas during the Argentine military dictatorship (1976-1983) illuminates critical repercussions of U.S. aggression in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia (1965-1975); repercussions that include population flows between Southeast Asia and Latin America and the transformation of Argentina’s racial and ethnic communities.