English: Part of the photoessay Boat of No Smiles, about a group of Vietnamese boat people seeking refuge.
As captioned in the Corpus Christi Times: "These are the faces of eight Vietnamese refugees who thought they had reached freedom"
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in the United States between 1929 and 1977, inclusive, without a copyright notice. For further explanation, see Commons:Hirtle chart as well as a detailed definition of "publication" for public art. Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (50 p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 p.m.a.), Mexico (100 p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.
No instance was found of the photograph being published with a proper copyright notice in 1977. Examples of newspapers where it was published without copyright notice:
Uploaded a work by Eddie Adams from "I will die! I will die! I will die!", [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/112821423/i-will-die-i-will-die-i-will-die/ Corpus Christi Times, November 30, 1977], page 9G, via Newspapers.com with UploadWizard