State Gov't Messages
• Governor Linda Lingle
• Mayor Mufi Hannemann
• Senator Daniel Akaka
• Senator Daniel Inouye
• Congr. Abercrombie
• Congressman Ed Case
• State Senate

• Media Coverages
• Honolulu Advertiser
• Honolulu Star-Bulletin
• Hawaii Public Radio
• Hope & Lights
Event Highlights
• Khmer New Year
• Pchum Ben
• Lantern Festival

Despite the aforementioned challenges, Cambodian Americans have made significant contributions to their political empowerment. Soon after their peak arrivals in the 1980s, they began to form mutual assistance associations (MAAs), which provided social and cultural services, and also have helped to structure and support indigenous leadership. MAAs have helped Cambodian Americans to move from "meeting the needs of individuals and families to the larger goal of sustaining an ethnic community," to collectively seek reforms (Hein 95). Among the more significant achievements are the buildings of temples (wat) within Cambodian American communities. Cambodian monks at the temples are both moral leaders and the most influential people in a community. The wat serves as the center of Cambodian life, as the nucleus of education, religion and spirituality, and local politics, and its construction signals Cambodian Americans' commitment to establishing themselves as constituents of American society.

The first Cambodian American demonstration took place in Chicago in 1986. More than 200 Cambodian and Lao Americans protested when a landlord attempted to evict tenants so that he could sell the building, which had greatly appreciated following its designation as a historic structure. While the tenants were eventually displaced, the protest caused the landlord to extend their eviction deadlines, return security deposits, and contribute monetarily to their moving expenses.

Cambodian Americans have rallied to oppose racially-motivated violence and discrimination. In 1987, for example, 300 Cambodian Americans in Revere, Massachusetts, which had a history of anti-Cambodian incidents, demonstrated in the streets against a case of arson that left two dozen community members homeless, declaring "Enough is Enough." In the same year, Cambodian Americans mobilized against segregated school facilities and lack of bilingual education resources in Lowell, Massachusetts, which boasts a large Cambodian American population. Parents of Latino and Southeast Asian school children, including Cambodians, developed a 33-point program of demands for educational reform. Together they filed a Title VI lawsuit against Lowell for unconstitutional segregation of and denial of equal educational opportunity to their children (Kiang 133).

Increasingly, Cambodian Americans are becoming more knowledgeable about their rights as legal residents of the United States. They have begun to use the American legal and justice systems to assert and protect their civil and social rights. In 1993, for example, the Washington State Supreme Court found that the People's National Bank, based in Seattle, discriminated against Phanna Xieng, a Cambodian American (who had become a U.S. citizen in 1986), by denying him promotions over a number of years because of his accented English.

Finally, Cambodian Americans now recognize the importance of indigenous leadership. Perhaps the best-known Cambodian American in the political arena is Chanrithy Uong, a member of the City Council of Lowell. First elected in 1998, he was also the first Cambodian American official elected in the United States. Uong, a refugee who arrived in the U.S. in 1981, has been instrumental in designing mechanisms to encourage Cambodian American political involvement, including trainings in leadership and civic participation, often using Khmer-language materials. Under Uong's leadership, Cambodian American voter registration in Lowell has more than doubled.

In October 2004, the Cambodian Assocation of Illinois (CAI) succeeded in creating the Cambodian American Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial, the first public memorial to honor the victims and commemorate the survivors of the Khmer Rouge (H. Con. Res. 83). Compared to other Cambodian communities in the United States, such as Long Beach (CA) or Lowell, the community in Chicago is small, comprised of approximately 5,000 individuals. However, with the vision of Kompha Seth, a community leader and also a Buddhist monk, the CAI exercised considerable influence and succeeded in constructing the memorial in a highly-populated and admired city.

Shirley Tang, an activist who has worked with Cambodian American women, including former members of Cambodian American street gangs, writes that "community organizing is action-oriented, a process of generating change that requires extensive time and commitment to visible outcomes. This is especially true for young people who need to experience 'victories,' no matter how small, as a way to conceptualize larger changes that may be possible only in the distant future." Registering to vote, actually voting, and seeing leaders such as Uong and Seth make tangible changes in their communities are such victories, which have helped to encourage Cambodian Americans to take responsibility for their surroundings and for others, to seek reforms to enhance the quality of their lives.

Espiritu, Yen Le. Asian American Panethnicity: Bridging Institutions and Identities. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.

Fletcher, Michael A. "Asian Americans Using Politics as a Megaphone: Growing Population Confronts Bias." Washington Post. October 2, 2000: Page A03.

Hein, Jeremy. From Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia: A Refugee Experience in the United States. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995.

Kiang, Peter Nien-Chu. "When Know-Nothings Speak English Only: Analyzing Irish and Cambodian Struggles for Community Development and Educational Equity." In The State of Asian America: Activism and Resistance in the 1990s, edited by Karin Aguilar-San Juan, 125-146. Boston: South End Press, 1994.

Niedzwiecki, Max, and Duong, T.C. Southeast Asian American Statistical Profile. Washington, D.C.: Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), 2004.

Tang, Shirley S. "Learning to Build a Healthy Community: Youth Development for Street-Involved Cambodian American Young Women." In Asian Americans: Vulnerable Populations, Model Interventions, and Clarifying Agendas, edited by Lin Zhan, 171-196. Boston: Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2003.

Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. 1994. U.S. Code Vol. 28, Section 994.

Xieng v. PEOPLE'S NATIONAL BANK OF WASHINGTON, 120 Wn.2d 512, 844 (P.2d 389 1993).

If you use material from this article, please cite it as you would any published source.
Suggested citation:
Su, Christine. (February 2006). Cambodian-Americans and Political Empowerment. Cambodian Community of Hawaii website. Retrieved [date accessed] from <http://hawaii.cambodiaworldwide.com/polempower3.html>.

About Us | Site Map | Privacy Policy | Contact Us
©2006 Cambodian Community of Hawaii. All rights reserved.