A survey of assimilation processes of Vietnamese immigrants suggests that biculturalism enables a person to gain the benefits of economic and political enfranchisement while still receiving social and psychological nourishment from his/her native culture-cluster. The sample consisted of three groups of Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in San Francisco beginning in 1972. Group I Vietnamese were educated in Vietnam and France. The French speaking community in San Francisco quickly provided economic assistance, aided in schooling and housing, and merged the Vietnamese into their own social patterns. The heads of households gained jobs which capitalized upon their professional knowledge and closely paralleled the national standards of professionals in the United States. Group II Vietnamese were of Chinese origin. Although they did not find the linguistic enclave that Group I did, they did find a socio-political and racial enclave with which to merge. The Chinese Americans, as an economic entity, provided jobs for most of Group II Vietnamese. Group III Vietnamese, although possessing the same middle class characteristics of Groups I and II, had no second culture cluster with which to align. Forty percent receive some form of federal assistance and 20 percent have minimum wage jobs. This group, left at the margin of society, is denied an opportunity to contribute. Only a change in relocation, public education, and social service policies and the traditional philosophy of group assimilation will provide a Vietnamese culture cluster which will work similarly to the clusters Groups I and II encountered. (Author/KC)