Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: What is the population of Cambodian-Americans?
At the 2010 US Census, there were 276,667 people of Cambodian descent living in the United States, concentrated in California and Massachusetts.
Survivors: Cambodian Refugees in the United States, written by Sucheng Chan, is a multidisciplinary study of Cambodian Americans drawing on interviews with community leaders, government officials, and staff members in community agencies as well as average Cambodian Americans to capture perspectives from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds.[14]
In 2000, Cambodian American families reported a median household income of $36,152.[16] A 2008 NYU study reported that 29.3% of the Cambodian American community lived under the poverty line.[17] That was higher than the American average of people living below the poverty line, which, in 2011, was recorded as 16% of all Americans.[18]
Lowell, Massachusetts, has the second highest population of Cambodian Americans of in the U.S., and is a center of Cambodian population on the east coast. 13% of its population is of Cambodian descent. Cambodian immigrants settled in Lowell during the mid-1980s, where they opened dozens of small businesses.[9][10] Lynn, Massachusetts, which is nearby Lowell, has the third largest Cambodian American population. Within New England, Providence, Rhode Island, and Portland, Maine (647 residents; 1%), also contain sizable Cambodian American populations. Outside of New England, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area have many residents of Cambodian descent. 480 people of Cambodian descent reside in Utica, New York.[3]
In the Bronx, Little Cambodia is known for its "... spicy Cambodian noodle soup made with beef, shrimp and fish balls." The Cambodian population was mainly concentrated in the neighbourhoods of Fordham, University Heights and Bronx Park East areas. The Cambodian population in the Bronx and New York City has declined since the 1980s, as many of the Cambodian immigrants moved to California, Massachusetts and Texas.Cambodia Town, Long Beach, California "... is a neighborhood in Long Beach's East Side centered on Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero." The community has been around since 1959 which was made up of students from the nearby universities such as the University of Southern California, UCLA, and California State University at Los Angeles, to name a few.
With Asians comprising over 40% of the city's population, the Parisian suburb of Lognes has the highest proportion of Asians in France than any other city in the country. Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian business districts and community services are found throughout the commune. Cambodian community organisations, Buddhist temples and businesses are scattered around Lognes and Cambodians form the largest Asian group in the city.
To be included in this list, the person must have a Wikipedia article showing they are Cambodian American or must have references showing they are Cambodian American and are notable.
The Twenty-first United States Census, conducted in 1990, recorded 6.9 million people who were called American Asians. The largest ethnic groups were Chinese (23.8 percent), Filipino (20.4 percent), Japanese (12.3 percent), Indian (11.8 percent), Korean (11.6 percent), Vietnamese (8.9 percent), and Laotian (2.2 percent). Smaller populations, of less than two percent, were documented of the following ethnicities: Cambodian, Thai, Hmong, Pakistani, Indonesian, Malay, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, and Burmese. Two thirds of "American Asians" lived in the five states of California, New York, Hawaii, Texas, and Illinois; additionally their highest population concentrations were in California, New York, and Hawaii. In 1990, 66 percent of American Asians were foreign born, with Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians having this highest foreign born populations.
Since 1994, Cambodians admitted into the United States have entered the country as immigrants and not as refugees, but the number per year is small. Most of the increase in the ethnic Cambodian population in the can be attributed to American-born children of Cambodian immigrants or of people of Cambodian descent.
Between 1981 and 1985 about 150,000 Cambodians resettled in the United States. Before 1975 very few Cambodians came to the United States. Those who did were children of upper-class families sent abroad to attend school. After the fall of Phnom Penh to the communist Khmer Rouge in 1975, some Cambodians managed to escape. In 2007 the American Community Survey reported that there were approximately 200,000 Cambodians living in the United States, making up about 2% percent of the Asian population. This population is, however, heavily concentrated in two areas: the Los Angeles metropolitan area in California, especially the city of Long Beach; and Greater Boston in New England, especially Lowell, Massachusetts. These two areas hold a majority of the Cambodians living in the US.
Cambodian-American Population: In 2010, Lowell had the highest proportion of residents of Cambodian origin of any place in the United States, at 12.5% of the population. The Government of Cambodia had opened up its third U.S. Consular Office in Lowell, on April 27, 2009, with Sovann Ou as current advisor to the Cambodian Embassy. The other consular offices are in Long Beach, California, and Seattle, Washington, which also have large Cambodian communities.
In the South, there is a sizable community of Cambodian Americans in Jacksonville, Florida. 1,700 people of Cambodian descent live in Jacksonville. In Spartanburg County, South Carolina, there are 1,123 Cambodian Americans (0.4% of the county). There are very sizable Cambodian American communities in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Atlanta metropolitan area. There is a Cambodian community in the New Orleans metropolitan area, especially in the town of Buras, Louisiana, which is 9% Cambodian. Many Cambodian immigrants in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, are employed as shrimpers and fishermen.[3][11] There are some Cambodian Americans in Marietta, Georgia, Stone Mountain, Georgia and in Riverdale, Georgia. In Riverdale, Georgia they have a Cambodia Town. There is a nonprofit organization in Georgia called the Cambodian American Association of Georgia.
In Southern California, there is a large Cambodian population in Long Beach, and smaller yet significant communities of Cambodians are present in Los Angeles and San Diego metropolitan areas. Four percent of Long Beach's population is of Cambodian descent, mainly concentrated on the city's east section, where there is a Cambodia Town neighborhood.[4] Long Beach, California, has the highest population of people of Cambodian ancestry outside of Cambodia itself.[2] The Pueblo Del Rio housing projects in South Los Angeles were home to around 200 Cambodian families in the 1980s, and as of 2010, remains a smaller but sizable Cambodian American community.[5] The Los Angeles Chinatown has more than 600 Cambodian residents. Santa Ana, California, is 0.5% Cambodian American. The City Heights neighborhood in eastern San Diego has a large concentration of Cambodians.[6][7]
Cambodians in France consist of ethnic Khmer people who were born in or immigrated to France. The population as of 2011 was estimated to be about 10,000, making the community one of the largest in the Cambodian diaspora. The Cambodian population in France is the most established outside Southeast Asia, with a presence dating to well before the Vietnam War and subsequent Indochina refugee crisis.
In Northern California, Stockton, Modesto, and Oakland have significant Cambodian populations, while San Jose, Santa Rosa and Sacramento have sizable communities as well. Outside of California, the Pacific Northwest is home to another large Cambodian settlement, specifically in cities such as Tacoma, where Cambodians enumerate at thousands, or 1.6% of the population.[3][8] There are also growing Cambodian American communities in Las Vegas, Nevada; Phoenix, Arizona; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Denver, Colorado, as the Asian American population continues to rapidly increase in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado.
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, resulted in many legal immigrants losing the federal aid that they had been receiving from the Social Security Administration. That especially affected Cambodian immigrants and other Southeast Asians, who were the largest per capita race or ethnic group receiving public assistance in the United States. Under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975, many Southeast Asian refugees were placed on federal welfare rolls. That was intended as a temporary measure until they integrated, but by 1996, they had been stripped of their refugee status. However, nearly 80 percent of California's Southeast Asian population was living in poverty and/or welfare-dependent. That made the law have a large impact on Cambodian Americans and other citizens of Southeast Asian descent. That is a contributing factor to the high poverty rates of Cambodian Americans since the first major wave of Cambodian refugees emigrated to the United States in 1975.[21]
Thousands of Cambodians living abroad especially in the U.S. have watched the film. The film was shown in Long Beach, the largest urban Cambodian population outside of Phnom Penh, in September 2010. Due to the film's sensitive nature, the United Cambodian Community organised a pre-screening meeting to prepare elderly survivors of the Killing Fields for what they would see. The US's second largest Cambodian population, in Lowell, Massachusetts saw the film in November 2010. Another large diaspora community in Minneapolis also saw the film in November. The film is reported to have galvanised "the diaspora to reexamine their country's history and to rethink how to bring reconciliation to the war-torn nation."
Asian Americans Diaspora studies Demographics of Cambodia Deportation of Cambodian-Americans Hyphenated American List of Cambodian Americans List of U.S. cities with large Cambodian-American populations
Between the years of 2003 and 2016 (per ICE), approximately 750 Cambodian-Americans were physically removed from the United States. Of these, at least 12 have reportedly died (some from suicide or drug overdose) and another 17 are in Cambodian prison. ICE data shows that deportation of Cambodian-Americans averaged 41 per year from 2001 through 2010, increasing to 96 in 2011 and 90 in 2012. As of 2017, nearly 1,900 Cambodian-Americans have final orders of removal, meaning they can be deported from the United States at any time.
The list of large cities (population greater than 250,000) with a Cambodian-American population in excess of one percent of the total population.
List of medium-sized cities (population between 100,000 and 250,000) with a Cambodian-American population in excess of one percent of the total population.
Cities with large Cambodian American populations, with a critical mass of at least 1% of the total urban population. Information is based on the 2010 U.S. Census.
Two museums in the US are devoted to the story of Cambodians in America: the Cambodian Cultural Museum and Killing Fields Memorial in Seattle and the Cambodian American Heritage Museum and Killing Fields Memorial in Chicago, both founded in 2004. The Seattle museum was founded by Dara Duong, a survivor of the Cambodian Genocide.[31]
Between March and June 1970, the North Vietnamese moved many of its military installations further inside Cambodia in response to the coup and the establishment of a pro-American government, capturing most of the northeastern third of the country in engagements with the Cambodian army. The North Vietnamese turned over some of their conquests and provided other assistance to the Khmer Rouge, thus empowering what was at the time a small guerilla movement. The Cambodian government hastened to expand its army to combat the North Vietnamese and the growing power of the Khmer Rouge.
Cambodian Americans (Khmer: ជនជាតិខ្មែរអាមេរិកាំង) are Americans of Khmer descent. Members of other ethnicities, such as Cham people, are sometimes counted among Cambodian Americans as well.
Aside from personal memoirs of coming to America, such as those by Loung Ung, a few books have been dedicated to studying the Cambodian American population, such as Khmer American: Identity and Moral Education in a Diasporic Community by Nancy J. Smith-Hefner.[12] The book is an anthropological study of Khmer refugee families, largely from the perspective of the parental generation, residing in metropolitan Boston and eastern Massachusetts. This book was one of the early books among the few circulating that talks about this diasporic community. It exhibits some understanding of both traditional Khmer culture and contemporary American society, but it is not a historical study of Khmer Americans.
One study conducted among Cambodian Americans residing in Long Beach, California, found that 13.0% of the adult respondents were current cigarette smokers. When the study was broken down by gender, 24.4% of smokers included in the study were male, and 5.4% were women. The prevalence of smoking was found to be higher in Cambodian American males than in other males residing in California. Additionally, smoking rates are estimated to be higher among Cambodian Americans than among other Asian American groups, with the prevalence of cigarette smoking among the aggregate Asian population in the US around 9.6%, with men and women combined.[26]