Long Beach is home to nearly 500,000 Cambodian Americans, the largest Khmer population in the United States. However, Savannah Dee said that while attending classes in the Long Beach Unified School District, she rarely saw her community represented in daily classes.
“The only time I learned anything about Cambodia was during the Khmer Rouge,” Thiy said, referring to the communist regime that ruled the country in the 1970s. According to her history teacher, Cambodians were victims of genocide and war under the regime. There’s no mention that refugees have formed a thriving community in Long Beach, nestled along the city’s Anaheim Corridor called Cambodian Town.
“I believe our culture is more than just that history,” Ty said.
But now, students across California will have the opportunity to learn about Cambodian Americans and other Asian communities through the Southeast Asian Studies Model Course, the first of its kind in the country.
While not mandated, dozens of suggested lesson plans on Hmong, Vietnamese-American and Cambodian-American history in the United States are available to K-12 teachers in the state online Integrate into their classroom. The course is now available to teachers as a whole or in smaller sections.
“It’s important to center the people who have experienced these histories and cultures,” said Mariko Manos, manager of history and social sciences at the Orange County Department of Education and a curriculum leader at the California Department of Education. . “To me, that’s what’s missing from our history books.”
The course offers dozens of lesson plans focusing on the history of Asian Americans living in the diaspora and how they arrived in the United States—many of whom were war refugees.
“Most Americans know very little about…how refugee communities formed in the United States,” said Katharya Um, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Um, a former child refugee, said the U.S. has yet to acknowledge its role in Cambodia’s collapse during the Vietnam War, exacerbating her community’s historical trauma.
“‘We are here because you were there,'” Um said, citing the late activist and writer Ambalavaner Sivanandan’s views on postcolonial migration. Cambodian, Lao, Vietnamese and Hmong refugees are “the human legacy of the wars in which the United States was involved.”
Cambodian genocide survivor Chan Hobson speaks on “Stories of Resilience and Genocide Survival” at a conference in Long Beach.
(Michael Blackshear/Los Angeles Times)
For UM, the significance of this particular Southeast Asian course was the intentional centering of community voices. The Orange County Department of Education sought feedback from Hmong, Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans in dozens of back-and-forth listening sessions as the basis for their research.
Last month, the Orange County Department of Education launched a Cambodian American Model Studies course at a two-day academic conference at the Long Beach Hilton. More than 500 people attended from as far away as Florida.
“The beauty of this program is that it is built by the community and for the community,” said Tori Phu, one of the Orange County Department of Education’s curriculum planning specialists.
Phu grew up in Santa Ana, visiting Little Saigon every weekend with her family, but her parents were often reluctant to talk about their experiences during the Vietnam War. She hopes the curriculum will fill a gap for refugee children like her who have never heard the full story.
“As you take the course, you hear stories that maybe relate to your uncle, your aunt, your mom, your dad, your grandpa,” she said through tears of happiness.
Cambodian Town President Sithea San gave a video interview last month at the Cambodian American Studies Conference at the Long Beach Hilton.
(Michael Blackshear/Los Angeles Times)
teach compassion
But Phu said the course is also designed to appeal to students from a variety of backgrounds who may relate to the stories.
“It’s not just for Vietnamese students or students born as Vietnamese refugees, there’s a thread that can be connected to other cultures.”
Tauheedah Graham, a fifth-grade teacher in the San Diego Unified School District, said the Long Beach conference broadened her perspective as a non-Cambodian American educator.
“As an African American, I knew this was my story. And then I [listened] Stories from the Killing Fields…The Year I Was Born [in] 1979,” Graham said. “I think it just brings to light the fact that we’ve all been through so much trauma.”
Graham plans to share what she learned from the conference with her younger students.
Sithary Ly holds a postcard showing a man in traditional Cambodian clothing playing the skor thom drum.
(Michael Blackshear/Los Angeles Times)
Opportunities to heal and demonstrate resilience
For many academics and activists, the new curriculum appears to be a long-awaited recognition, as its removal and neglect has left Southeast Asian communities whose voices have been ignored and underserved. A 2018 Pew Research Center study showed that Asian Americans have the highest levels of income inequality. About one in 10 Asian Americans live in poverty, compared with 17% of Hmong Americans and double that to nearly one in five Cambodian Americans.
“When you don’t understand different communities and what they’re going through, we also can’t get federal dollars to fund different community initiatives,” said Laura Ouk, a Cambodian-American curriculum writer.
Chia Vang, professor of history and vice chancellor for inclusion at UW-Milwaukee, believes the three-pronged curriculum is a testament to the resilience of Southeast Asian communities. Her family settled in St. Paul, Minnesota, home to the largest concentration of Hmong people in the United States
“People never thought we would survive in this country because we come from an agricultural background,” Vang said. “Such a course completely contradicts these predictions. In fact, we not only survived, but actually told our own story in this way.
While ethnic studies faces backlash nationwide, other states like Wisconsin may follow California’s lead. Last year, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill mandating Hmong American and Asian American studies at K through 12th grade.
Thy was raised by her grandmother listening to Cambodian stories and performing traditional Cambodian classical dance with a troupe of modern fairies. But she said many Cambodian Americans don’t have the same opportunity to learn about their culture and history.
“It’s very sad to see some kids my age who can’t talk to their grandparents because of the language barrier,” Dee said.
But she’s happy to see younger generations like her little cousin getting a chance to learn about their community through the curriculum.
“I’ve been waiting for this to happen for a long time and I just want the next generation to learn more about their culture,” Ty said.
Joy Okada (left) and Laura Ok (right) pose for a photo after speaking at the “Cambodian American English Studies Course: and Authentic Strategies and Methods for Teaching Cambodian American History.”
(Michael Blackshear/Los Angeles Times)
