boat people

American  

plural noun

1. refugees who have fled a country by boat, usually without sufficient provisions, navigational aids, or a set destination, especially those who left Indochina by sea as a result of the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.

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boat people British  

plural noun

1. refugees, esp from Vietnam in the late 1970s, who leave by boat hoping to be picked up by ships of another country

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Etymology

Origin of boat people

First recorded in 1975–80

Example Sentences

Democrats in Congress reduced aid for South Vietnam in 1975, and the result not long afterward was a North Vietnamese invasion that conquered the South and sent tens of thousands of “boat people” adrift in the ocean.

From The Wall Street Journal

Let’s give British Jews the same chance America once gave Irish famine victims, Russian dissidents, Vietnamese boat people, and Afghan translators.

From The Wall Street Journal

They became known as "the boat people".

From BBC

This was also a time when 800,000 mainly ethnic Chinese boat people fled the communist party's repressive actions, making perilous sea journeys across the South China Sea, eventually resettling in the USA, Australia or Europe.

From BBC

She has first-hand experience, leaving Vietnam to the US in 1980 as part of the exodus of Vietnamese boat people.

From BBC