'Seadrift'

The small Texas city of Seadrift found itself in the national spotlight in 1979 after simmering tensions came to a violent and deadly head.

During the long grind of the Vietnam war, the fishing community of Seadrfit became home to a growing population of Vietnamese refugees. But amid the influx of refugees, came growing tensions between the immigrants and the local fisherman. The tensions culminated in the fatal shooting of fisherman Billy Joe Aplin in 1979 and the Ku Klux Klan usurping the tragedy as a rallying call for antiimmigrantion sentiment.

“Seadrift,” a documentary directed by Tim Tsai that will be screened at the upcoming San Marcos Cinema Club’s Lost River Film Festival, tells the story of how the two communities came into conflict and how they ultimately picked up the pieces in the intervening years.

The 1979 shooting of Aplin shook the town to its core and forever changed the life of the Aplin family, according to Beth Aplin Martin, the oldest daughter of the man that was fatally shot by the Vietnamese refugee.

Martin and her family were commercial fishers that worked the Gulf coast from Texas to Florida yearlong, but Seadrift seemed most like home, according to Martin.

In 1976, about 150 Vietnamese refugees arrived in Seadrift, invited by the owner of a crab processing plant to pick meat from shells for $40 a day. Many saved up, bought their own boats and made a slightly better living fishing for crab and shrimp. But unknowingly to the immigrant fishermen, Seadrift had long followed an unwritten code: Don’t put traps close to someone else’s and stop fishing 30 minutes before sunset. No one told the immigrants these rules, and when they broke them, it often ended with heated disputes.

Beth Aplin-Martin, the daughter of Billy-Joe Aplin, recalls the circumstances that led to her father's killing in 1979.

One such fishing territory dispute is what eventually led to the confrontation that ended with Vietnamese immigrant Sau Van shooting and killing Aplin, according to Martin.

“The month before (Sau Van) killed dad there was an incident on the bay, “ Martin said. “Sau had put his pots in our line and run ours and some were missing. We picked his up, found him and dad confronted him. Sau said he didn't speak English, so dad smashed one pot and threw the rest in the water and told him he ‘bet he understood that.’”

But the confrontation didn’t end there, according to Martin.

“Sau rounded up some of the other Vietnamese men and they came out in five boats to find us. There were approximately 12 of them and they all had long knives and machetes and tried to get on the boat, presumably not to shake hands,” Martin said. “Dad had to keep the boat throttled forward and reverse to keep them from getting on the boat and finally the agitated water parted the two boats in front of us enough for dad to ram his way through.”

Martin said the boats followed them until they could see the docks and then fanned out and disappeared. Her father left crabbing after that. It was an event that scarred Martin and her siblings, that had all been on the boat during the incident.

That confrontation on the water led to another on land, and on Aug. 3, 1979, Van shot and killed Aplin.

“I was the last person in the house to see him leave and say goodbye that evening,” Martin said. “It was still daylight when he left to go see his cousin, who was staying at a motel just past and across from the boat launch, where he was killed.”

After Aplin was shot, some called for the refugees to be sent away, and soon KKK Grand Dragon Louis Beam Jr. decided to come to town to further inflame the tension. The KKK zeroed in on the dispute with rallies that escalated tensions. Several houses and boats were burned, and a number of Vietnamese residents fled Seadrift out of fear.

Women picking out crab meat at the crab processing plant in Seadrift.

But Martin and her family didn’t find comfort in the words and actions of the KKK using their father’s death.

“I didn't have to resist the KKK and their message, mom and dad did not teach us to be racists and I had observed enough personally, watched on the news and learned in school to have an informed perspective on it, even at 14,” Martin said. “I recall seeing a news report not long after dad had been killed that the KKK were coming to Seadrift to march. I stood up and pointed at the TV and stated to the others in the room that we didn't call them and we don't want them here and walked out of the room.

A year or so after the death of her father, the KKK held a memorial march for her dad, which Martin said was traumatizing, as well.

“It wasn't until I began talking with Tim (Tsai) 7 years ago, that I learned the scope of the KKK's influence in my family and community, and that the KKK had been working to sew those divisions between the locals and the refugees for at least a couple of years before dad was killed,” Martin said.

“I always felt the Vietnamese community at large did not deserve to be terrorized. There was only one man that killed my dad and about a dozen men that threatened to kill us out on the bay that day and they all just happened to be Vietnamese,” Martin said. “Even though I think their own traumatic experiences as Vietnamese refugees likely contributed to the way they handled the increasing tensions as well, I knew they did not represent the Vietnamese community.”

Now a business owner in Seguin, Aplin said she had fought grappling with the trauma of her father's death for years but when she learned about the documentary, she decided to be the one that told the story this time.

“When Tim reached out to me, I was not looking to find closure, or justice for anything ... I had only ever wanted to get as far from it as possible, but decided if it was going to be discussed again, that I wanted in on the discussion this time.”

Martin said it was painful and it was “unpacking and sorting through the previous 34 years of sads and mads at a lot of people.”

“Through it all, I came to realize I had been stuck emotionally at 14 about it all,” Martin said. “My participation in the film has caused me some real emotional growing pains, to say the least, but I couldn't be more grateful to be where I am in my heart and head with it today.”

For Martin the film is a way of making her pain a gift to the world, something she learned from a Vietnamese woman.

“Not long before the interview you see in the film, I watched a documentary about the Vietnam war photographers and it featured Phan Thi Kim Phuc, referred to as ‘Napalm Girl.’ She was the little girl in the iconic picture taken by Nic Ut,” Martin said. “I didn't know she was still alive until I saw that film, but I sure did remember that photo. She talked about how hurtful the picture had been to her for so long, until she decided to make it a gift to the world. It was entirely humbling to receive that gift from her, and I felt it obligated me to find my own higher capacity to forgive, as well.

“One of the things I remember hearing everyone say after dad was killed was that he had died in vain. That was such a hopeless thing to feel and hear,” Martin said. “I hope the ‘Seadrift’ Film becomes a gift to help heal the wounds of those who still hurt from it, and to obligate them, and those just learning about it, to find their own higher capacity to forgive and find peaceful and equitable solutions before death becomes the solution again, because that solves nothing. If the film helps people bridge these divides, then I can say dad did not die in vain.”

The “Seadrift” screening will be on Sunday, Oct. 20 at 5 p.m. in the Price Center Ballroom. It will be the film finale for the Lost River Film Festival.

The Lost River Film Fest is four days of independent-cinema worship in San Marcos. With screenings of independent cinema in unique settings like 80 feet underground in the Wonder World Cave and the legendary Devil’s Backbone Tavern.

Tickets go on sale starting Thursday, Oct. 17 at the Price Center. Four day passes are $100 each, or $50 for locals that can prove residency — State ID or Texas State University ID. One Day passes are $30 for each day and individual screening tickets are $10 each. A full schedule of Lost River screenings and events is available atthe  Lost River Film Fest's website.