An estimated 100,000 people of Vietnamese origin live in the Czech Republic and have become a part of everyday life.
Hailed by a white majority that likes to describe the community as “well integrated” and a “model minority”, Vietnamese Czechs have come to symbolise all the contradictions of Czech identity narratives.
Especially when it comes to immigration. Central Europe, unlike Western Europe, has no history of colonialism.
The Vietnamese presence in the Czech Republic dates back to the 1960s.
Like other former Warsaw Pact states, Czechoslovakia provided study and training opportunities until the collapse of Communism in 1989.
While Vietnamese students and workers were expected to return to Vietnam to help build a stronger Communist society – and many did so – some chose to stay.
Lacking the previous financial and institutional support from both governments, most got involved in small businesses, ranging from retailing clothes and electronics to operating affordable “bistro”-style or quick, cafeteria-type eateries.
Today, the second generation of Vietnamese born in the Czech Republic and Slovakia is emerging across various sectors, while new arrivals continue to come for study, work, or family reunification.
Consequently, the community continues to grow, though the gap between those with Czech citizenship, education, and language skills and the newly arrived widens.
Meanwhile, the rapidly expanding Vietnamese upper middle class is selecting Prague as a travel destination and a place to invest in property, a trend shown by the rise of Vietnamese Czech real estate agents skilled in handling language, cultural, and legal issues.
From Invisible to Model Minority
In the eyes of the Czech majority, perceptions of Vietnamese immigrants have changed considerably over the past 60 years.
Originally, Vietnamese were seen as poor workers, living in separate dorms, with limited communication skills, and estranged from Czechoslovak society.
In the 1990s, some Vietnamese-run retailers were ruled illegal under tax laws. Several deadly incidents were linked to both neofascist groups and Vietnamese gangs, which contributed to the perception that the community was involved in criminal activities.
Letní škola 2001 (Summer School, 2001), a recent movie directed by a member of the Vietnamese Czech community, documents the often tense atmosphere at the time, marked by rival gangs, police raids, and the uncertainty brought by a brutal transition to a market economy.
Today, as many members of the second generation work as doctors, police officers, managers of večerka (night shops), and even rappers, the image of Vietnamese Czechs has become overwhelmingly positive.
According to a recent poll, 75% of Czechs would oppose having a Roma neighbour, while 71% would welcome a Vietnamese one.
However, this success story mainly reflects the perception of the white majority. While the experiences of different generations of Vietnamese were historically confined within their community, recent films, books, and social media accounts are telling a much more nuanced story.
This year, Kvet Nguyen, a Vietnamese Slovak photographer, narrated in her autobiographical fiction book Všetko, čo nás spája (All That Binds Us) how, growing up as the daughter of a bistro owner in Slovakia, she was also deprived of a typical childhood and parenthood.
Nguyen describes facing daily challenges in constantly explaining—sometimes even to herself—her dual identity, struggling for her independence as a woman and an artist in a community that is often more conservative than in Vietnam, where gender roles are strictly defined.
Successful influencer Ta Thuy Dung, best known by her social media handle Chilli, humorously mocks parental pressure on Vietnamese children to succeed in Czech society, daily racism, and stereotypes of the white majority.
Summer School, 2001, highlights the ongoing challenges faced by LGBTQI+ individuals within the community.
When it was showcased at the Czech Republic’s prestigious Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the summer of 2025, the film attracted considerable media attention and sparked debate, especially within the Vietnamese community.
Some saw it as a step towards greater visibility and recognition of Vietnamese-Czech history, while others criticised it as “tarnishing” the community’s image.
Demonising Migration: A Favourite Pre-Election Topic
Migration from outside Europe is described by right-wing Central Europeans as a Western European phenomenon, given its colonial past. It should not be “imposed”, populists argue, on other historical and cultural contexts.
This argument was especially prominent and widely exploited starting in 2015 during the so-called “migrant crisis” when the Czech Republic, along with other Central European countries, refused to accept refugees and migrants, mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa and West Asia.
The ghost of a “migrant invasion”—which only refers to out-of-Europe migrants, given that the estimated 300,000 EU citizens living and working in the Czech Republic are never mentioned as a problem—now features regularly in all pre-election campaigns.
The most recent campaign, which concluded just before the October parliamentary elections, intensified the demonisation of non-European migrants, especially among the right-wing parties that are now part of the new coalition in the next Czech government.
The SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy) party, considered to be far-right and led by Tomio Okamura, displayed large billboards depicting a Black man holding a bloodied knife with the text “Nedostatky ve zdravotnictví nevyřeší ‚chirurgové‘ z dovozu,“ meaning “Shortcomings in healthcare will not be solved by imported ‘surgeons’.”
Okamura has been charged by the police with possible incitement to hatred, but his recent nomination as speaker of parliament guarantees him immunity from prosecution.
But blaming hostility to non-white migrants on a lack of colonial history and experience of multiracial societies in Central Europe is a weak argument that can be easily debunked.
There are many counterexamples. Germany, despite having a limited colonial history in Africa, accepted Gastarbeiter (guest workers) for decades, particularly from Turkey, because it needed them to rebuild its industrial capacity after WWII.
Clearly, the case of the Vietnamese Czech community demonstrates that an inclusive multiracial society is possible. However, so far, it is the exception that confirms the rule, at least in the words of anti-migrant forces on both the left and the right.
The growing needs of the labour market may be the best catalyst for change: the Czech Republic is experiencing an estimated shortage of 300,000 workers, and this deficit is growing.
Industries and sectors, including construction, IT, services, and hospitals, already show the emergence of communities of workers from Central Asia, South Asia, Latin America, and Nigeria. Change is already here.
The challenge is how Czechs choose to rationalise their presence and learn to appreciate the contributions made by non-white migrants to their economy and culture.
If the successful integration of Vietnamese immigrants is anything to go by, they have nothing to fear.
Photograph courtesy of Viv Lynch. Published under a Creative Commons license.
