For refugees, community is an immediate concern. Vietnamese, the newest wave of refugees to American shores, have been plucked from their families and communities so suddenly that their children sometimes thought they were just taking a vacation in the Philippines or Guam.

Approximately 130,000 Vietnamese arrived in the U.S. in late 1975 and were sent to four holding camps--Camp Pendleton, Calif., Fort Chaffee, Ark., Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., and Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa. Most left the camps through the help of American sponsors in the form of various religious or secular groups who accepted financial responsibility for them. After four ...