25 Hawkins Road: Home to Vietnamese Refugees

The Hawkins Road camp in Sembawang was home to thousands of Vietnamese refugees until it closed in 1996. Researcher Rebecca Tan talks about how the refugees spent their days in the camp and their lives after Singapore.Rebecca Tan is Digital Preservation Archivist at the National Archives of Singapore. She was previously Children and Teens Librarian at Toa Payoh Public Library, and Digital Heritage Librarian at the National Library.What Rebecca Talked About01:17 – Overview of Hawkins Road camp02:26 – Conditions in the camp03:18 – Life in the refugee camp08:08 – Singapore’s plan for long-term refugees10:17 – What the refugees said about Singapore11:20 – Singapore's evolving refugee policy14:41 – How Rebecca knew about the refugee camp15:25 – Rebecca’s research16:49 – Interview with a Hawkins Road camp refugee who still lives in Singapore22:07 – Being a librarian at Toa Payoh Public Library24:26 – The libraries and archives are...Transcript and ResourcesRead the transcript: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/podcast-25-hawkin-road-home-to-vietnamese-refugees-rebecca-tan/Read the BiblioAsia article: https://studio.isomer.gov.sg/all-sections/hawkins-road-refugee-camp/Subscribe to BiblioAsia for more stories about Singapore.This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music “Di Tanjong Katong” was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Rebecca for coming on the show.The BiblioAsia Podcast by the National Library Singapore tells stories about Singapore history.