Introduction- Beauty and Darkness
Cambodian is one of the newest influxes of immigrants from Southeast Asia. The beauty and the darkness of Cambodia imprinted in history. Cambodia, a country of fertile land and dotted rice fields, of famous and breath taking monuments and ancient temples, of arts and crafts, cultural attractions, and most definitely a history like no other. This is the country that exhibits one of the seven wonders of the world- that is the famous Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument that had ever built, significantly in Cambodia. This ancient ruin attracts millions of tourist from all over the world.
Unfortunately, set aside all of those captured beauty that Cambodia has, at one point in time in its history; darkness devoured this fragile nation and turned it upside down. This peaceful nation was once ruled by the French as part of French Indochina. With the struggled that Cambodian government undertaken to restore balanced and granting their nation’s independence back from the European colonization, they paid a price. The years of sad and worn out history of this nation’s corrupt government, turmoil, and followed by years of civil war thus making them in a state of dire emergence. Furthermore, with their bordering neighbor’s war, Vietnam, with the United States, Cambodia was slowly dragged into the state of darkness during the Nixon Administration. The Nixon administration conducted secret bombings in Cambodia in the early 1970’s because Vietnam forces had their bases camped in the Cambodian province. As a result of this misleading casualty, it led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot. His influence gained many fellow native supports in Cambodia. Pol Pot and his entourage brought ...
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... occupations are at 17.8%. Sales and office occupations are at 23.5%. Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations are at 0.5%. Construction, extraction, and maintenance occupations are at 5.5%. Lastly, production, transportation, and material moving occupations are at 36.8% (Cambodian America Census, 2000).
The educational level consists in the 2000 census report for Cambodian Americans. About 37.3% are attending grade school and to the 9th grade level. The next level is high school with a diploma or none is about 16.1%. On the other end, about 46.8% are of high school graduates. Moreover, about only 13.4% are in college or are attending universities. Degrees obtained are the Associate degrees are at 5.2%, bachelor’s degrees are at 6.9%, and last but not least of the Graduate or professional degrees are about 2.3% (Cambodian America Census, 2000).
Between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot-the leader of the Khmer Rouge followed Maoist communism, which they thought they could create an agrarian utopia. Agrarian means that the society was based on agriculture. They wanted all members of society to be rural agricultural workers and killed intellectuals, who had been depraved by western capitalist ideas. A utopia means a perfect society. This idea went to extremes when The Khmer Rouge resumed that only pure people were qualified to build the revolution. They killed Cambodians without reasons by uncivilized actions such as: cutting heads, burying alive… There were about 1.7 million people killed by the Khmer Rouge.
"Cambodian Genocide." World without Genocide. William Mitchell College of Law, 2012. Web. 13 Apr. 2014. .
“The bones cannot find peace until the truth they hold in themselves has been revealed” This quote, said by Deputy Military Police Chief Nhim Seila, means that the deceased persecutors of the Cambodian Genocide cannot rest well until the reason for their actions has been told to the public. On April 17, 1975, soldiers of a communist group known as the Khmer Rogue, stormed into the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, and attacked the city, forcing all the citizens into the countryside to work vigorously for the Khmer Rouge. The stories of Samnang Shawn Vann and Sisowath Doung Chanto paint a picture of what it was like to live under this cruel group.
I chose Cambodian Americans for my target culture because it was a place I knew very little about. My ignorance of that side of the world is laughable to say the least. Cambodian American was a great choice because both the people and the culture are very captivating to me. While some Cambodian Americans become very westernized, accepting most of America’s cultural norms, some hold strong to their Cambodian traditions and way of life. Through Geert Hofstede’s Taxonomy, I will explore the dynamics of the Cambodian American culture. Through Identity, Hierarchy, Gender, Truth and Virtue I will attempt to describe a culture previously virtually unknown to me. I chose Hofstede’s Taxonomy over Bond’s because Michael Bond himself told me to. “Charlotte, I did this work in the 1980's, and found that 3 of my 4 nation-level dimensions overlapped with Hofstede's and one was distinct.” said Bond to me when I asked him to elaborate on his taxonomy.
“They spoke of the Japanese Canadians,'; Escott Reid, a special assistant at External Affairs, would recall, “in the way that the Nazi’s would have spoken about Jewish Germans.'; Just like in that statement, I intend to expose you to the ways that the Japanese were wronged by Canadians throughout the Second World War. As well, I intend to prove what I have stated in my thesis statement: After the bombing of Pearl Harbour, the Japanese in Canada were wronged by being torn from their homes to be put into internment camps to serve Canadians through hard labour.
In 1975, The Khmer Rouge became the ruling political party of Cambodia after overthrowing the Lon Nol government. Following their leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society. They wanted to form an anti-modern, anti-Western ideal of a restructured “classless agrarian society'', a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. The Khmer Rouge revolutionary army enforced this mostly with extreme violence. The book “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers”, written by Luong Ung, is the author’s story of growing up during this time period. She was five years old when the Khmer Rouge came into power. As stated in the author’s note, “From 1975 to 1979, through execution, starvation, disease, and forced labor, the Khmer Rouge systematically killed an estimated two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the country’s population.”
The Communist Party of Kampuchea, also known as the Khmer Rouge, took control of Cambodia on April 17, 1975, which lasted until January 1979. For their three-year, eight-month, and twenty-one day rule of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge committed some of the most heinous crimes in current history. The main leader who orchestrated these crimes was a man named Pol Pot. In 1962, Pol Pot had become the coordinator of the Cambodian Communist Party. The Prince of Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk, did not approve of the Party and forced Pol Pot to flee to exile in the jungle. There, Pol formed a fortified resistance movement, which became known as the Khmer Rouge, and pursued a guerrilla war against Sihanouk’s government. As Pol Pot began to accumulate power, he ruthlessly imposed an extremist system to restructure Cambodia. Populations of Cambodia's inner-city districts were vacated from their homes and forced to walk into rural areas to work. All intellectuals and educated people were eradicated and together with all un-communist aspects of traditional Cambodian society. The remaining citizens were made to work as laborers in various concentration camps made up of collective farms. On these farms, people would harvest the crops to feed their camps. For every man, woman, and child it was mandatory to labor in the fields for twelve to fifteen hours each day. An estimated two million people, or twenty-one percent of Cambodia's population, lost their lives and many of these victims were brutally executed. Countless more of them died of malnourishment, fatigue, and disease. Ethnic groups such as the Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cham Muslims were attacked, along with twenty other smaller groups. Fifty percent of the estimated 425,000 Chinese living in Cambod...
In this paper I will be sharing information I had gathered involving two students that were interviewed regarding education and their racial status of being an Asian-American. I will examine these subjects’ experiences as an Asian-American through the education they had experienced throughout their entire lives. I will also be relating and analyzing their experiences through the various concepts we had learned and discussed in class so far. Both of these individuals have experiences regarding their education that have similarities and differences.
The Cambodian Genocide has the historical context of the Vietnam War and the country’s own civil war. During the Vietnam War, leading up to the conflicts that would contribute to the genocide, Cambodia was used as a U.S. battleground for the Vietnam War. Cambodia would become a battle ground for American troops fighting in Vietnam for four years; the war would kill up to 750,00 Cambodians through U.S. efforts to destroy suspected North Vietnamese supply lines. This devastation would take its toll on the Cambodian peoples’ morale and would later help to contribute that conflicts that caused the Cambodian genocide. In the 1970’s the Khmer rouge guerilla movement would form. The leader of the Khmer rouge, Pol Pot was educated in France and believed in Maoist Communism. These communist ideas would become important foundations for the ideas of the genocide, and which groups would be persecuted. The genocide it’s self, would be based on Pol Pot’s ideas to bring Cambodia back to an agrarian society, starting at the year zero. His main goal was to achieve this, romanticized idea of old Cambodia, based on the ancient Cambodian ruins, with all citizens having agrarian farming lives, and being equal to each other. Due to him wanting society to be equal, and agrarian based, the victims would be those that were educated, intellectuals, professionals, and minority ethnic g...
...have become so successful that it has become sort of a tradition to open up Cambodian owned shops, illustrated by several highly successful shops not only in Long Beach but other cities as well. Cambodians have also made impacts on other places as well, proved by successful family owned restraint cuisines. Being Cambodian and experiencing the religion, I can account for all the claims. My mother and other family members were a part of the thousands of refugees who migrated into America during the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese invasion. My families have shared their traumatic stories with me so I can relate with the research I’ve done.
The Cambodian genocide left an economic imbalance in the Cambodian society. Since Pol Pot wanted to return Cambodia to an agrarian society, free of Western influence, he killed many intellectual people (i.e. doctors, monks, students, ex-government officials, ex-military officials, professors, lawyers, etc) This created an imbalance in the society. Currently, there more uneducated farmers in Cambodia than intellectual people. The imbalance makes it very difficult for the Cambodian economy to create jobs that apply to the majority of Cambodians (i.e. the demographic
The air would always be humid and stuffy while riding the bus to school, and the slightest bump in the road would result in tossing up the kids like salad. The backseat would provide carriage for all the popular and tough kids shouting out at pedestrians on the street or flipping off a middle finger to the bus driver that would shout for them to calm down. I despised those kids in the back. They were the same people that made my life a living hell, while growing up and attending an American school.
Throughout history, there have been many dictators that received a name for their docile or cruel acts in order to better their country. Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong are among the few of history's infamous leaders. However, one that hasn't received as much attention for his attempts to improve his home country is the Cambodian leader, Saloth Sar. However, he is more famously known as Pol Pot. The few people throughout the world that still remember the dictator remember him for his more sinister actions involving the residents of Cambodia. However, despite these methods, his intentions and actions served a noble purpose. Upon believing that the country would benefit from a different form of government, Pol Pot dedicated his life
Often times, independence creates the perfect situation for radical ideas to overtake rational thoughts, and, if not well thought out, it leads to self destruction. When based on a peaceful belief system, the results of this primal rejection of traditional standards are catastrophic due to the persuasive nature of the fundamental essence of peace. Genocide is a horrific tragedy that no human being should be able to rationalize without this serious skewing of well-intentioned teachings to reflect extreme ideals or the occurrence of a great mental disturbance to push one over the edge of sanity into the depths of reasonless treachery. This shift was apparent in the rise to power and the reign of communist leader Pol Pot, a genocidal purist bound on cleansing Cambodia’s ethnic and moral system after its freedom
Settled in the end of the fifth century, two groups established themselves in what is now present day Cambodia. The Champa controlled the central and southern part of Vietnam and the Funan is the southernmost part Vietnam and present-day Cambodia. Influences from both China and India were obvious as dance and music spread throughout the area. Ruling on its own till 1864 when the French absorbed it into French Indochina Along with Laos and Vietnam. For nearly a century, the French exploited Cambodia commercially, and demanded power over politics, economics, and social life. It was not until a leader Norodom Sihanouk proclaimed Cambodia's independence in 1949 which was later granted in 1953. Cambodia fell into chaos during the 1970’s as General Lon Nol and his connections to the Khmer Rouge brought Cambodia into a genocidal age. For a decade Cambodia was surrounded by despair and carnage until the reign of the Khmer Rouge ended in 1979. Slowly rebuilding of the nation began as outside countries and organization such as the United Nation helped to get Cambodia back on its feet. Plans were made for general elections by 1993 which lead to the constitutional monarchy that the country has today. With its cyclical and oppressive history, Cambodia future is optimistic with the economy growing rapidly due to industries such as tourism, textiles, oil and the traditional farming. Slowly the nation reaches to find its place among the other powerhouses in Southeast Asia and around the world.