Cambodian Americans

Cambodian Americans are people in the United States whose own or family origins lie in Cambodia, both immigrants and the US born.[1] Most arrived as refugees in the years after the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975.[2] The largest communities are in Long Beach, California, and Lowell, Massachusetts.[2][3]

Arrival

Only a handful of Cambodians lived in the United States before 1975.[4] Beginning in April 1975, about 4,500 Cambodians were evacuated to the United States, processed at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas and Camp Pendleton in California.[4] Cambodian Americans often call this group the "75 people": they arrived before the Khmer Rouge took the country and did not live through its rule.[4] The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) History Museum describes this first wave as mainly air force and navy personnel of the Khmer Republic, diplomats and other Cambodians who were outside the country at the time.[5]

In December 1978 Vietnam went to war with Cambodia, and by January 1979 its army held Phnom Penh. The fighting let thousands of Cambodians escape to Thailand.[2] A study guide from the University of California, Davis, gives an estimate of 500,000 to 600,000 people who left Cambodia between 1975 and the early 1980s.[6] The camps along the Thai border were of two kinds. Refugees in those the United Nations refugee agency set up inside Thailand, such as Khao I Dang, could be interviewed for resettlement; those in the border camps just inside Cambodia could not.[5]

Refugees from Cambodia began arriving in 1978, and very few were admitted before 1980.[4] As their plight drew international sympathy, the US government responded with the Refugee Act of 1980, under which thousands of refugees from Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos were resettled across the country.[2] More than half of those who came after 1980 were from villages, where life revolved around farming and fishing.[4] The AAPI History Museum gives a total of 157,518 Cambodians admitted from 1975 to 1994, about 148,000 of them as refugees. The refugee program ended in 1994, and since then Cambodians have come as immigrants, in small numbers.[5]

Communities

A street corner with an Anaheim Street sign, shops with Khmer and English signs, and a passing bus.
Anaheim Street in Cambodia Town, Long Beach, California, 2018. Photo: Cp2018, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Office of Refugee Resettlement first spread new arrivals across small and medium-sized cities with good prospects for work, to avoid straining any one place.[4] Most then moved to cities where other Cambodians lived, to find family and friends.[4] Cambodian Americans mostly live in urban areas, though Cambodia is a largely rural country.[2]

Long Beach has been called the "Cambodian capital of America". In the late 1950s and 1960s, two California State University campuses enrolled students from Cambodia in engineering and technical courses. Their student association became the Cambodian Association of America, which the museum describes as the earliest incorporated Cambodian mutual aid group in the United States.[5] In the AAPI History Museum's account, no place outside Cambodia has more people of Cambodian descent than Long Beach.[5] Cultural centers there, such as the Homeland Cultural Center, teach the Khmer language and Khmer martial arts.[2]

Lowell, a former textile mill town, was the second city where Cambodian refugees gathered in large numbers.[5] A Lowell historian told Voice of America that the first refugees arrived in the 1980s for jobs at computer plants. In his account, a store opened first and then a Wat, after which families urged cousins elsewhere in the country to come to Lowell.[3] Voice of America reported an estimate by local politicians of 25,000 Cambodians in Lowell, and community leaders' figure of as many as 35,000.[3]

Other communities grew up around San Diego, in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys and in the San Francisco Bay Area.[5] Cambodians also settled in Texas, Pennsylvania, Washington, New York, Minnesota and Illinois.[2]

Population

The 2020 census counted 259,307 Cambodian Americans, more than 65,000 of them in California.[2] The Pew Research Center, working from Census Bureau estimates, counts about 360,000 people of Cambodian origin in 2023, including those of mixed origin, and about 270,000 who named Cambodian as their only origin. Of those 270,000, about 95,000 lived in California, 30,000 in Massachusetts and 20,000 in Washington. The largest metropolitan areas were Los Angeles, Boston and Seattle.[1]

In 2023, immigrants made up 56 percent of the Cambodian-alone population, down from 66 percent in 2000. Among Cambodian immigrants, 78 percent were naturalized citizens. Pew lists Khmer, counted as Mon-Khmer or Cambodian, as a language spoken at home by 66 percent of Cambodian Americans aged five and older.[1]

Religion and culture

Refugees brought their traditions and customs with them. By the early 1990s, Cambodian communities across the country had founded more than fifty Buddhist Wats.[2] About 1,400 of the more than 4,000 students at Lowell High School were Cambodian, and the school offered classes in Khmer language and culture.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Pew Research Center, Facts about Cambodians in the U.S. (May 1, 2025)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Carl L. Bankston, Cambodian Americans, EBSCO Research Starters (2022)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Voice of America, Suzanne Presto, Cambodian community in Lowell, Massachusetts (page dated October 31, 2009)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Historical Society of Long Beach, Cambodian Diaspora (undated)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 AAPI History Museum, Seeking Refuge (undated)
  6. ↑ University of California, Davis, Cambodian American Studies Model Curriculum, Cambodian Diaspora (updated October 21, 2025)
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This page was last edited on 9 October 2026, at 08:51.