I know the right is gearing up to have a massive panic attack about an influx of refugees from Afghanistan. This, of course, immediately called to mind the Vietnamese Boat People of my youth. When Saigon fell on April 30, 1975, I was finishing up my last semester of kindergarten, and that didn’t jibe with my memory of the timing of the Boat People crisis, so I looked it up.

Sure enough, the height of the exodus took place in 1978 and 1979, corresponding to my time in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, an Ivy League town with a large international population, but I don’t remember going to school with any Vietnamese kids. In fact, I can recall kids from most other Far Eastern nations, but not Vietnam. My memories of the crisis are entirely colored by the breathless news coverage and video footage of overcrowded boats filled with desperate people fleeing regional war and communism. There was a compassionate component to this coverage but also a distinct sense of invasion. Somehow, the Vietnamese language sounded especially foreign to me, which added to the sense that these people would be difficult to integrate. I know I worried about this, although probably not more than for a few minutes after exposure to the news.

My first real exposure to the consequences of the Boat People came in the early 1990’s, when I sampled a Vietnamese hoagie at a Philadelphia restaurant. As far as I know, they were never responsible for any terrorism and there hasn’t been much crime associated with their communities, at least relative to other immigrant communities.

I can’t be certain the same pattern will follow with Afghan refugees, but I don’t think we should be overly worried about how they’ll impact the country. Mostly, I look forward to the cuisine.

It is interesting to note, however, that the flow of immigrants peaked three to four years after the fall of Saigon. The Taliban are wisely on their best behavior right now, as they want to make sure the Americans leave and are hoping to get international aid. It could be a little while before they show their true colors. As a landlocked country, however, we won’t be seeing Afghan Boat People.

For those who can get out by plane, they’ll already have some paperwork. A more likely scenario is an exodus by foot, like we’ve seen with the Royinga people of Myanmar. They are persecuted for their ethnicity and Islamic faith and seek refuge in neighboring India and Bangladesh. Among Afghans, the Hazaras most neatly fit this description. They’re ethnically and culturally distinct, and practice Shia Islam, which the Taliban consider heretical.

But the Taliban consider many things heretical, including music. Here’s how that goes:

The Taliban killed a popular Afghan folk singer just days after the group said it hoped to ban music from being played in public in Afghanistan, according to a former minister.

Fawad Andarabi was “brutally killed” on Saturday, said Masoud Andarabi, who was the Interior Minister under former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in a Twitter post.

He was reportedly dragged from his village home in Andarab, near the Panjshir Valley, before being shot dead, according to LBC News.

As you can see, there’s a long list of people who have reason to flee Taliban rule. This will become more urgent with time, as the Taliban consolidate their power. The immediate concern is understandably for those who helped or “collaborated” with occupying forces, or who served in the former government. These are the folks who have the strongest claim for refugee status in America, because we directly owe them something. Next in line are women in general, as they cannot enjoy a free and normal life under the Taliban. But neither can the men, really, if they don’t conform. Fawad Andarabi’s violent death clearly demonstrates this.

So, the right can scream and panic all they want, but I don’t agree that we need to severely limit how many refugees we take from Afghanistan. I learned that type of fear is overwrought when I was still in Elementary School.