Documentary screening: 'Strangers and Their Babies'

The Centre of Taiwan Studies is delighted to screen the documentary Strangers and Their Babies, chaired by Dr Lara Momesso, which uncovers the little-known Penghu refugee camps and follows four camp-born children as they trace their families’ journeys of escape, survival, and identity.

Fifty years ago, during the Cold War, the US military withdrew from Cambodia and Vietnam in April 1975, marking the end of the 20-year civil war between North and South Vietnam. In the following decades, many refugees fled Vietnam by land or sea.

Those who escaped by sea became known as the 'boat people'. Most tragically, they perished during the journey. The few who survived were temporarily placed in refugee camps across Southeast and Northeast Asia.

Two camps located in the Penghu Archipelago in the Taiwan Strait were unlisted in United Nations records. To local Taiwanese, the refugees were strangers from afar. Still unknown to much of the world, 106 babies were born in these unlisted camps.

Four decades later, the babies of those 'strangers' have grown up. This documentary follows four of them – two in the United States, one in Penghu, and one in Taiwan – as they revisit a personal history that feels both distant and deeply familiar: their families’ escape, survival, and evolving identity.