Refugee memory-making: Decolonial counterstories from Eelam Tamil and Vietnamese communities.

This article examines how Eelam Tamil and Vietnamese refugee communities in North America engage in memory-making as a form of decolonial counterstorytelling that resists state-sanctioned erasure and fosters healing, solidarity, and critical consciousness across generations. Drawing on qualitative interviews with members of the Eelam Tamil diaspora in Toronto and the Vietnamese diaspora in Orange County, California, the study highlights how these communities use memory practices to challenge dominant colonial and state narratives, preserve cultural identity, and address intergenerational trauma. Memory-making emerges as a political and relational process that supports community care, disrupts simplified historical accounts, and cultivates transformative futures grounded in collective resilience. The research also models decolonial, community-engaged methodologies that center refugee voices and experiences in knowledge production.