Cambodian Diaspora

INDICE
Introduction
The reason and scope of the thesis p.4
Chapter 1 : The Reflection on social historical and political of Cambodia
1.1. The main historical events of the twentieth century of Cambodia 
1.2 The historical fact have directly led to the diaspora
1.3 The role of Cambodia's education system to the memory of the diaspora
p.7
p.8
p.12
Chapter 2 : The Cambodian diaspora and the sociological phenomenon 
2.1 The concept of Diaspora 
2.2 The characteristics of the Cambodian Diaspora
2.3 The peculiarities of the Cambodian diaspora in the US 
p.13
p.15
p.21
Chapter 3 : The role of media 
3.1 The Italian case: Tiziano Terzani 
3.2 The Cambodian diaspora by Western media
p.23
p.27
Chapter 4 : Experiences and stories from the diaspora 
4.1 The refugee experience of Ang 
4.2 The story of Molyda Szymusiak 
4.3 Analysis of  online video
p.30
p.33
p.36
Chapter 5 : A look at the future 
5.2 Cambodian Economy: behind the Fashion Industry 
5.3 Reflection on the Mediterranean's boat people 
p.40
p.44
p.46
Acknowledgment p.49
Reference p.50
Thesis Communication Science - Unige- Lita Cheng, 2015 3
Introduction
The motivation and scope of the thesis
I have chosen to prepare this thesis on the topic Cambodian diaspora for my graduating for 
two main reasons. First of all, in dedicating to my study and personal reason. In fact, my family 
were experienced and effected directly from the tragedy, which is characterized the recent history 
of Cambodia. 
My parents escaped with boat from Cambodia at the mid 80s. They had been fortunately 
arrived at an island of Malaysia, where they had found themselves in a refugee camp, most 
occupied by the Vietnamese boat people. For many years, I was born in 1991, the year the camp 
was completely destroyed for preventing the new coming refuge to the island. 
Secondly, has come to my interests in the field of communication and sociology. In short, in 
this work I have examined in sociological aspects and of the Cambodian diaspora. In this thesis, 
I have been studied through the directly storytelling of the refuge, analyst on the reporting from 
journalists and base on the several documentary films by the time which are presents online. I 
have created within this method on how media was reporting at the time of the diaspora. 
There were two different versions of the Cambodian diaspora; the end of the Khmer Rouge 
regime; from the powerful of the media, for the political reason in which was presenting in the 
cold war through the reporting on the war and diaspora.  
In the context of the diaspora and the future possibility in developing the country  connecting 
to the country of origin, will be mentioning the special distribution of single country and as well 
the number of the Cambodian diaspora had been resettled in the world.  
In difficulty meeting the first generation of the diaspora, I try to write about the integration of 
the Cambodian communities in the world, particularly the United States of America, where many 
huge Cambodian communities have been found. 
From the direct experience of the refuge and the storytelling of two women and her life, and 
through a few online videos analyst will conclude with a few considerations. 
Finally, I will try to understand the possibility future of the second and third generation of the 
diaspora, in the between the sense toward the country origin of their parents, in some case many 
have not visited and through many who have been returned in the decision to contribute with 
their proper knowledge to better the future development of the country. However, in a time, one 
country of their first generation of refuge who are living abroad, not really fond on their next 
generation's return from where they were taking their lives to arrive at their point now.
Thesis Communication Science - Unige- Lita Cheng, 2015 4
First of all, the first chapter aims to explain in a concise but at the same time very precise and 
complete, what were the major historical events that have characterized the history of Cambodia 
from the 1950, events closely related to the reasons that sparked the Diaspora. Without 
understanding the seriousness of the political and social upheavals that occurred, it is impossible 
to understand why the population has fled en bloc to an uncertain future, often encountering a 
heavy trip could possibly cost their lives. In addition to the synthesis of historical events, I 
focused on the analysis of major wars and the subsequent regime of the Khmer Rouge, without 
which the Diaspora probably would not even occurred. Finally, the first chapter ends with my 
account of how all these hot topics of the past cambodian, (wars, Khmer Rouge genocide, 
diaspora, etc,) are not treated in the right way focus and well studied in the education system 
cambodian, sometimes for simple ignorance but very often to the attempt to bring down a 
forgotten past with which Cambodia has not yet come to terminate at all, and which many people 
in the current government do not want to keep talking about their past position in the Khmer 
Rouge regime. This chapter will encourage the education system in country to look into the 
importance of their role in passing the story of the diaspora to the young people by not repeating 
the history, obviously before to enable Cambodia falls into the errors of the past. 
In the second chapter, I will begin with an analysis of the concept of Diaspora into the details 
of the numerical aspects, but especially the space of sociological character that characterized the 
migrations of Cambodian refugees. The concluding of the second chapter focuses precisely on 
the sociological characteristics, analyzing in detail what happened in the USA for an example, 
one of the countries that hosted the largest number of Cambodian refugees, where today resides 
the largest Cambodian communities present in a western country. 
The third chapter aims to examine in general, which may have been the fact of how the 
journalists of foreign media have decided to create a particular vision of the phenomenon of 
Diaspora, in relation to personal ideological vision of the journalist but even more in relation to 
the interests of foreign policy and their national to which the media was referring. 
Today, studying these different opinions and interpretations of the diaspora can detect many 
errors or better horrors by the media, often voluntarily, in order to achieve specific objectives. 
The younger generation of today does not ideological, within the globalization context allows us 
to look at everything with a free mind from the constraints present in the past, resulting mainly 
from the political world from the final period of the Cold War, which has seen Southeast Asia as 
one the last main theater of the war at the time, mixing with ideological battle. 
Thesis Communication Science - Unige- Lita Cheng, 2015 5
The third chapter deals mainly with the work of one of the most famous Italian journalists 
reporting from Cambodia. To study the work of Tiziano Terzani, one can understand several facts 
on the thought of one of the last exponents of that journalism committed and of well quality, 
which has characterized the past. However, in the study of what was done by Terzani, there must 
be always the intellectual honesty to admit what were the mistakes of his story and his personal 
vision toward the reality, the same way in which pick quickly to criticize the vision provided by 
the United States of America's media.
The fourth chapter focuses on the aspects of personal and sociological issues related to the 
Diaspora, through two stories very significant and personal experiences. Through listening and 
the study of these refugees stories, it is much easier to understand the inequalities and differences 
between how the media have created toward how much happened in the reality. The personal 
stories are the focal point from which the starting point of new investigations and studies related 
to each other, which impartial avoiding a political perspective. The chapter does not only intend 
to examine but the views of the first generation of refugees and the displaced persons, through 
the analysis of some interesting videos on the internet, will also provide the vision of this second 
or third generation, which for today I think is even more important in relation to future 
developments. From the perspective of anthropological and sociological vision of young people, 
their hopes and expectations perhaps allows to close a circle of story and history, of which not 
yet fully accepted or concluded. 
Finally the fifth chapter is dedicated to the exposition of my conclusions and expectation. In 
addition, I try to explain the potential and the positive aspect impact of the Diaspora, which plays 
a key role not only in terms of the assessment of the historical truth but then to provide some sort 
of post-justice for refugees, also to pacify a nation and to promote a future of reconciliation and 
development.
Thesis Communication Science - Unige- Lita Cheng, 2015 6
Chapter 1
The Reflection on social historical and political of Cambodia
1.1. The main historical events of the twentieth century of Cambodia
Cambodia's today reaching a total population of 15 millions.
1
 In celebrating the country's 
peace of more than 40 years after the civil war and unstable continuing atmosphere of the past, 
today the country sees much into the future and the development of it. 
In 1960s Phnom Penh, once the ciptal city of Cambodia, once one of most beautiful city in the 
region, once known as the “Pearl of Asia” it was considered one of the loveliest French-built 
cities in Indochina.
2
Until 1969 Cambodia had remained immune from the wars that upset in the Indochina. 
Immune and apparently immersed in the bucolic placidity that hid explosives instead disparities 
and imbalances, but that Prince Norodom Sihanouk
3
 tried to defend all those who were willing to 
listen to him, since he had obtained the protective shield Geneva state of neutrality. The 
American bombing of 1969 destroyed suddenly the embankment, and rushed into the void 
centuries of restraint suffocated between battlefield and rice fields inhabited by slaves and the 
city of sweet tangerines. The Americans said they thought they could locate and strike, in 
cambodian territory at Cambodian Vietnamese border, considered to be the headquarters of the 
Viet Cong
4
, who were forcing them to withdraw from Vietnam. In reality it was a pretext to 
Nixon
5
 served only to save face of so called western empire, to achieve peace with honor in the 
moment of invasion. An another bloc, the communist, who not expecting such a move to launch 
the guerrillas of the Khmer Rouge and liberate Phnom Penh. But since the communist bloc was 
divided between Moscow and Beijing (and their allies), Prince Sihanouk chose to side with 
China; and Beijing signed the alliance with Pol Pot, who once Prince Sihanouk's internal enemy, 
the head of the Khmer Rouge at the same time hoping that together they could withstand the 
pressure of Vietnam, an ally of the Soviet Union. 
As of 1969, the recent history of Cambodia is definitely full of wars, violence and cruelty. It 
can synthesize all explaining that since the mid 60s and the conflict between the US and Viet 
Cong in Hanoi until in 1993 with the first democratic elections under military and United 
1
Total Populatione estimated in 2013. Cambodia. CIA World FactBook 
2
Peace of Angkor Phnom Penh. Retrieved July 27, 2007.
3
(31 October 1922 – 15 October 2012) was the King of Cambodia from 1941 to 1955 and again from 1993 to 2005. 
Though 1953 to 1970 he was the effective ruler of the politic Cambodia. After his second abdication in 2004, he was 
known as "The King-Father of Cambodia".
4
Viet Cong was a political organization and army of Hanoi in South Vietnam and Cambodia that fought the United 
States and South Vietnamese governments during the Vietnam War (1959–1975). 
5
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving 
from 1969 to 1974.
Thesis Communication Science - Unige- Lita Cheng, 2015 7
Nations auspices have succeed without solutions continuity of numerous civil wars, American's 
bombing, wars of invasion, sandwiched by the terror regime of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot 
lasted four years in which Cambodia was renamed the “Democratic Kampuchea”
6
, during what 
happened perhaps the quickest and in terms of population wide genocide in history (about 2 
million Cambodians murdered on about 7 million population, nearly 1/3 of the population wiped 
out in four years).
7
 
Trying to understand the connections of events that happened, for a person who you have 
never studied the history of this nation, would result into a complicated and confused point. By 
given the fact that the phenomenon of the Cambodian diaspora is closely interconnected and 
depended on these events, I think it is necessary to provide a concise but at the same time as 
detailed and precise as possible on the main events. 
As a result, to provide a detail table in which is available in chronological order some key 
events of the country. Obviously, as far as the Cambodian Diaspora are of particular relevance 
the historical episodes happened between the Vietnam War and 1980 of which will be in display 
in a great detail. 
6
Democratic Kampuchea was the name of the state as controlled by the government of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 
to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, and Khieu Samphan.
7
Rummel, R. J. “Statistics of Cambodian Democide” 1997
Thesis Communication Science - Unige- Lita Cheng, 2015 8