Increase in Vietnamese Fisherman
Kenneth Roberts
Kenneth Roberts
Wyatt Winnie: What about social changes?
Kenneth Roberts: In my particular subject matter, it wasn't terribly paramount because the commercial fishing industry and the trapping industry and the wetlands owners, and anybody else you kind of deal with in my subject matter were overall heavily dominated by Caucasians. There was very little racial mix I ever had to deal with; until late in my career and that's when Cambodian and Vietnamese fishermen came over after the war. And were being sponsored by Catholic charities and many other organizations and the atmosphere here in south Louisiana was very similar to coastal Vietnam and Cambodia, evidently. And they were artisanal fisherman and boat builders and people like that. And they came in and that was a big challenge for society in Louisiana. There were several incidents of boat rammings and sabotage and conflicts at sea and conflicts at the dock. But that went away pretty quickly, probably in five to ten years. And the majority of the commercial shrimping fleet in the Gulf of Mexico now is Asian oriented.