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Southeast Asian American Refugee Summary

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The Linear Struggle of the Southeast Asian American Refugee Cambodia also known as Kampucheea to the Cambodians (and my family) is a country located in Southeast Asia. The country itself borders Vietnam and Thailand, and similar to all of the countries within Southeast Asia has a rich culture and language unique from its neighbors. From April of 1975 to January of 1979 the communist party of the Khmer Rogue led by the dictator Pol Pot had killed ¼ of the Cambodian population through starvation, labor concentration camps, and even execution (Tang). After the regime of Pol Pot had ended however, what happens to the survivors? What happens to the people in the country that now have to figure out what next? Many Cambodians decided to escape Cambodia …show more content…

In the 1980’s after the passing of the Refugee Resettlement Act, many Southeast Asian refugees were moved to poor areas with many poor Black residents such as the Houston’s Allen Parkway Village and in the rough areas of Philadelphia (Tang Housed in the Hyperghetto). Many of the residents in these areas felt that this was a “deliberate attempt to undermine tenant organizing” and resettlement areas like in Philadelphia led to “violent encounters as black residents attacked Vietnamese and Cambodian newcomers” (Tang Housed in the Hyperghetto). This issue was further exemplified when journalists called the black residents of these Hyperghettos “underclass” and a “culture of poverty” which was said to be the root of their “chronic Black unemployment and criminal behavior” shifting the blame from their environment to their own personal responsibility (Tang Housed in the Hyperghetto). This tactic was used in response to the influx of Southeast Asians that had arrived to the Hyperghetto because since they were in the same conditions as their black resident counterparts they were seen as those “who would eventually make it out of the Hyperghetto” (Tang Housed in the Hyperghetto). These issues help show how Refugee Exceptionalism was used to shame black and Latino people in the Hyperghetto. Southeast Asians were grouped …show more content…

For example when Ra and her family first arrived to New York she was told to try and find an apartment or get help from the resettlement agency. Because she lacked “English proficiency” and “was confused by the rental market” she knew that there would be almost no way for her to find a place on her own (Tang Housed in the Hyperghetto). Landlords worked against Ra and other Southeast Asian immigrants because they knew that these “third world subjects… paid rent and rarely complained about the poor housing conditions that they endured” (Tang Housed in the Hyperghetto). For this reason the landlords didn’t view them as the Asian Model Minority but viewed them as “continuous captives” (Tang Housed in the Hyperghetto). These examples help show that Ra has had to constantly fight for her rights, with many different obstacles both physical and mental that affect her. The landlords help personify that there are people literally keeping her from trying to get a better life for herself, because of these bad landlords that don’t care about the people and just want to do the bare minimum so they can get rent from their tenants. That as well the fact that Ra was not given much education to help get her out of the Hyperghetto and that she was a refugee that needed to take care

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