35 Vietnamese refugees wait to be taken aboard the amphibious command ship USS Blue Ridge. They are being rescued from a 35 foot fishing boat 350 miles northeast of Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, after spending eight days at sea. Boat people is a term that usually refers to refugees or asylum seekers who emigrate in numbers in boats that are sometimes old and crudely made. The term came into common use during the late 1970s with the mass departure of Vietnamese refugees from Communist-controlled Vietnam, following the Vietnam War. Many Vietnamese boat people - though not all - came from the south, the former Republic of Vietnam; also, many were Hoa or ethnic Chinese.