Tag Archives: Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association

When Vietnamese Fishermen Went to War With the Klan in Texas

A few nights before the start of the 1980 shrimping season in Texas, as a tropical storm pounded the gulf coast, a Justice Department mediator booked a room at a Holiday Inn near the fishing town of Seabrook, on the western edge of Galveston Bay. He was expecting two guests, each representing opposing sides of a turf war liable to explode into violence. His plan was to lock them inside until they brokered some kind of a treaty. Gene Fisher, the burly 35-year-old founder of the American Fishermen’s Association, arrived first. Fisher stiffened at the sound of someone rapping at the door of the Holiday Inn room: the second guest had arrived, the president of the Vietnamese Fishermen’s Association. Nam Văn Nguyễn was a highly-decorated South Vietnamese colonel.  >click to read< 11:09