Long Beach is home to about 20,000 Cambodian Americans, the largest Khmer population in the United States. However, while attending classes in the Long Beach Unified School District, Savannah Thy said she rarely saw her own community represented in her daily lessons.
For the record:
7:30 am December 7, 2024An earlier version of this article said nearly half a million Cambodian Americans live in Long Beach. About 20,000 Cambodian Americans live in Long Beach.
“The only time I was taught anything about Cambodia was about the Khmer Rouge,” Thy said, referring to the communist regime that ruled the country in the 1970s. According to his history teachers, Cambodians were victims of genocide and war under that regime. No mention was made of the refugees who had formed a thriving community in Long Beach, located along the city's Anaheim corridor called Cambodia Town.
“I think there's a lot more to our culture than just that piece of history,” Thy said.
But now, California students will have the opportunity to learn about Cambodian Americans and other Asian communities through the Southeast Asian Studies model curriculum, which is the first of its kind in the country.
While not required, K-12 teachers in the state can access dozens of suggested lesson plans for Hmong American, Vietnamese American, and Cambodian American stories. online incorporate into their classrooms. The curriculum is available for teachers to use now, in its entirety or in smaller segments.
“It's really important to focus on the people who experienced those stories and cultures,” said Marika Manos, history and social sciences manager for the Orange County Department of Education, who spearheaded the creation of the curriculum for the California Department of Education. . “To me, that's what's missing from our history books.”
The curriculum offers dozens of lesson plans featuring Asian Americans living in the diaspora and the stories of how they came to the United States, many of them as war refugees.
“Most Americans have little understanding of… how the refugee community formed in the United States,” said Khatharya Um, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley.
Um, who was a refugee child, said the United States has not recognized its role in the collapse of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, and that has contributed to her community's historical trauma.
“'We are here because you were there,'” Um said, quoting the late activist and writer Ambalavaner Sivanandan on postcolonial migration. Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese and Hmong refugees are “the human legacy of the wars in which the United States was involved.”
Chan Hobson, a survivor of the Cambodian genocide, speaks during “Stories of Resilience and Genocide Survival” at the Long Beach convention.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
What is significant to Um about this Southeast Asian-specific curriculum is the conscious centering of community voices. The Orange County Department of Education sought feedback from Hmong, Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans in dozens of iterative listening sessions as the basis of its research.
Last month, the Orange County Department of Education hosted a two-day academic conference at the Long Beach Hilton to introduce the Cambodian-American Model Studies curriculum. More than 500 people attended from as far away as Florida.
“The beauty of this project is that it was built by the community and for the community,” said Tori Phu, one of the curriculum program specialists for the Orange County Department of Education.
Phu grew up in Santa Ana and visited Little Saigon every weekend with his family, but his parents were often reticent to talk about their experiences during the Vietnam War. The curriculum she hopes will fill a void for children of refugees like her, who never heard the full story.
“As you go through the curriculum, you hear stories that could be related to your uncle, your aunt, your mom, your dad, your grandfather,” she said through happy tears.
Cambodian Municipal President Sithea San conducts a video interview during the Cambodian American Studies Conference last month at the Hilton Long Beach.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Teach compassion
But Phu said the curriculum also aims to engage students from all backgrounds who can relate to these stories.
“It's not just for Vietnamese students or students who are born to Vietnamese refugees, that there is also a thread that can connect to other cultures.”
Tauheedah Graham, a fifth-grade teacher in the San Diego Unified School District, said the conference in Long Beach had broadened her perspective as an educator who is not Cambodian American.
“As an African American, I know that's where my story is. then i [listened] stories from the extermination camp… the year I was born [in] 1979,” Graham said. “I think this just reveals the fact that we all have a lot of trauma.”
Graham plans to share what he learned at the conference with his young students.
Sithary Ly holds a postcard showing a man dressed in traditional Cambodian clothing playing skor thom drums.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
An opportunity to heal and show resilience
For many academics and activists, it seemed that the new curriculum was the long-awaited recognition after erasure and neglect had left Southeast Asian communities unheard and neglected. Income inequality is highest among Asian Americans, according to a 2018 study from the Pew Research Center. About 1 in 10 Asian Americans live in poverty, but that rate is 17% for Hmong Americans and doubles to nearly 1 in 5 for Cambodian Americans.
“When you don't know the different communities and what they've been through, we also don't get federal dollars to be able to fund different community initiatives,” said Laura Ouk, a Cambodian-American curriculum writer.
Chia Vang, a history professor and vice chancellor for inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, sees the triple curriculum as a testament to the resilience of Southeast Asian communities. His family resettled in St. Paul, Minnesota, home to the largest concentration of Hmong living in the US.
“People never thought we would survive in this country because we came from a more agrarian background,” Vang said. “A curriculum like this is completely contradictory to these predictions. In fact, we have not only survived, but we have truly thrived to tell our own stories in this way.”
While ethnic studies faces national backlash, other states like Wisconsin could follow California's lead. Last year, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill requiring Hmong Americans and Asian Americans to take kindergarten through 12th grade.
Thy was raised by her grandmother, listening to stories about Cambodians and performing traditional Cambodian classical dances with the Modern Apsara Company. But he said many Cambodian Americans have not had the same access to their culture and history.
“It's very sad to see that some kids my age can't talk to their grandparents because of the language barrier,” Thy said.
But she is excited to see younger generations, like her little cousin, have the opportunity to learn about their community through the curriculum.
“I've been waiting for this to happen for a long time, and I just hope that the next generations can know more about their culture,” Thy said.
Joy Okada, left, and Laura Ouk, right, pose for a portrait after speaking during the “Cambodian American Studies Course in English: and Authentic Strategies and Approaches to Teaching Cambodian American History.”
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
