My Ph.D. dissertation studied the political consequences of the 1954 partition of Vietnam. As a consequence of the ceasefire, more than 800,000 persons, 80% of which were Catholics, left their homes to regroup into the non-Communist zone. The dissertation analyzed how these refugees developed a political awareness and mobilized to reunite Vietnam and resume their fight against Hanoi between 1954 and 1965.
This work received the Best Dissertation Award from the Université du Québec à Montréal’s Faculty of Social Science in 2016.