Local History Lecture Series @ The Miller Room: Cambodians in Long Beach

200 West Broadway,Long Beach CA 90802

07 May, 2022

Description

If you've ever wondered why Long Beach has the largest community of Cambodians outside Southeast Asia, you won’t want to miss this talk! The Miller Special Collections Room is pleased to announce our next Local History Lecture Series event in honor of Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Please join us on Saturday, May 7 from 3 - 4:30PM as we explore the history of the Cambodian community in Long Beach and the Cambodian Community History and Archive Project (CamCHAP). This program will be presented by Dr. Susan Needham, a linguistic anthropologist at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and Dr. Karen Quintiliani, an applied anthropologist at California State University, Long Beach. As co-authors of the 2008 "Images of America" publication, Cambodians in Long Beach, Dr. Needham and Dr. Quintiliani have been working with and conducting research in our city's Cambodian community since 1988. After the U.S. military withdrawal from Southeast Asia in 1975, "...the region's resulting volatility included Cambodia's overthrow by the brutal [Communist regime of the] Khmer Rouge....[and] the deaths of an estimated two million Cambodians, in what has become known as the 'killing fields.' Many early Cambodian evacuees [and later-arriving survivors] settled in Long Beach, which today contains the largest concentration of Cambodians in the United States.... and has since become the political, economic, and cultural center of activities influencing Cambodian culture in the diaspora as well as Cambodia itself." (Arcadia Publishing) If you've ever wondered why Long Beach has the largest community of Cambodians outside Southeast Asia, you won’t want to miss this talk! Copies of Dr. Needham's and Dr. Quintiliani's book will also be available for sale and signing after the lecture. This program will take place in the Miller Room and registration via Eventbrite is required to attend. Can't make the event? Please still sign up if you'd like to be added to the Miller Room's email list for advance notice of future programs. Dr. Susan Needham, CSU Dominguez Hills (above) and Dr. Karen Quintiliani, CSU Long Beach (below).