From Cambodia to the United States: The Dissasembly, Reconstruction and Redefinition of Khmer Identity

Authors

Denise Clark Lewis, University of Kentucky

Abstract

Khmers in the United States have adapted to life far from their homeland with transformed and redefined identities. They have endured and survived as Khmer individuals and communities by working bard to preserve what they valued in Khmemess. They have negotiated extreme circumstances that tore at their long-held beliefs of who they were, who they bad become, bow they interacted with those around them, and they have created a community of Khmers. This article and explains negotiations of circumstances surrounding the disassembly, recon­struction, and redefinition of Khmer identity from their homeland in Cambodia to a traditional Khmer village recreated in the United States. By placing processes of negotiation and identity transformation within the lived context of Khmers' lives, one can begin to understand bolistically the interrelatedness of multiple changes in Khmemess. Khmer identity continued to shift with their changing circumstances, from endangered Cambodian, to refugees, to reestab­lished Khmers in America.

Relational Format

journal article

Recommended Citation

Lewis, Denise Clark (2001) "From Cambodia to the United States: The Dissasembly, Reconstruction and Redefinition of Khmer Identity," Southern Anthropologist: Vol. 28: No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/southern_anthropologist/vol28/iss1/3