Cambodia town Long Beach LA
The term Cambodia Town refers to an ethnic enclave of people from the country of Cambodia, Cambodia called the kingdom of Cambodia, is a country situated in the southern tip of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It has a small population of just over 15 million people and a relatively standard population density of 92 people per Km squared. Cambodia has been troubled by war and poverty from its interdependence in 1953 to the end of the Cambodian Vietnamese War in 1991.
After the coup of Khmer Rouge in 1975 the Cambodian genocide occurred, this lasted from 1975 until 1979, most Cambodians left their country after the regime in the 1980s, but many within this genocide period fled as refugees, most of these refugees arrived in the United States. The Cambodians who had previously settled in Long Beach in the 1950s and 1960s due to there time spent there as students, provided services such as counselling to assist refugees with adjustment to American culture. Long Beach became a destination that allowed many refugees to start their own businesses, this area is now what we know as Cambodia town.
As of 2007 Cambodia town is the official name for the 1.2 mile long business corridor along in the east side of Long Beach, California. The area has numerous Cambodian restaurants, clothing stores, and jewellery stores, as well as places of worship and service centres for Cambodian-Americans. There are many other businesses in the area, such as car garages that are Cambodian owned. This is what is knows as an ethnic enclave, “an ethnic enclave is a geographic area with high ethnic concentration, characteristic cultural identity, and economic activity”.
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| 2012-2016 5-year American Census Survey |
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| House prices in California |
The ethnic enclave first began to grow in this area because of the pull factors generated by the educated Cambodians who had graduated many years ago, these Cambodians were probably very keen to offer their services to fellow Cambodians, who were going through such a terrible experience. House prices were also astronomically cheaper in the 80s than they are now, this immediately attracted the poor Cambodians who even in 2017 had a GDP per capita of only $1,390 (comparing to the USA GDP per capita of $53,128) over the last 20 years GDP per capita of Cambodia grew substantially, from $268 to £1,390, so it’s no surprise that Cambodian people generally were only able to live in cheap areas. Today however, the area has seen a huge property value increase, but not gentrification as such, the average price of a one bedroom house in long beach is $350,000 as seen in figure two the price of housing in the last 20 years has fluctuated but overall increased dramatically, the dip around 2008 was a result of the 2008 financial crisis but the market shot back up due to social media influence, demand for houses as the population increased and amazing weather.
As figure 3 explains long beach has seen a healthy increase in population, immigrant households in long beach contributed $3.4 billion in taxes in 2016 with the Cambodian community being the 3rd highest majority with Mexicans at 1st and Philippines at 2nd.
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| Figure 3 Long beach demographics |
Unfortunately, as in many ethnic enclaves gangs are still very prominent with lots of drug territory battles and tit for tat shootings being fought. This type of activity halts development and gives a bad name for areas like Cambodia town. Property developers are wary of gentrifying these areas for the same reason that big corporate companies avoid setting up here and providing jobs, I couldn’t find unemployment rate for just Cambodia town but Long Beach is at 4.7%, I would assume that Cambodia town is slightly higher. These gang activities make it a very hot topic for politics. It's obvious that police presence needs to be increased to reduce gang activities but its very difficult to draw the line at harassment, oppression and law and order.
What’s clear here is that Cambodia town is an amazing slice of Southeast Asian life with a successful economy and overall probably very nice place to live, but as with many ethnic enclaves that consist or are surrounded by other ethnic background the presence of violent gangs will continue to be a big issue until the state of California provides jobs, out of school activities to reduce the number of young men being influenced by gangs and general financial backing to the area Cambodia town will continued to be a step behind the rest of long beach and California.
Bibliography
7- Inside the Asian Crip Gangs of Long Beach - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDh5IdQH9S0
