The boat people, in order

01The camps did the sorting

Where a family ended up had less to do with choice than with which camp they reached and which country was taking people from it that year. Pulau Bidong in Malaysia held around a quarter of a million people between 1978 and 1991. Hong Kong’s camps fed the British intake. Norway took people rescued at sea by its own merchant ships.

This is why the communities look so different from each other. They were assembled by different queues.

02What followed the boats

The Orderly Departure Program moved people by air rather than sea from 1980. The Humanitarian Operation brought former re-education camp prisoners and their families from 1989. Most of the growth after that was family reunification, which is slower, less photographed and larger than either.