TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager to work with community stakeholders to create a vision and feasibility plan that includes identifying potential sites in Long Beach for a Cambodian American Cultural Center that can serve as a hub to promote art, culture, and history.
DISCUSSION
Long Beach is a diverse and dynamic city, and it is widely recognized for celebrating the diversity of our population, and for embracing and advancing the arts. The City is home to the Museum of Latin American Art, the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum, the Homeland Cultural Center and the Long Beach Japanese Cultural Center, among many local cultural institutions.
Long Beach is home to the largest Cambodian population in the United States. The Cambodian or the Khmer people have a long and rich cultural heritage symbolized by the temple city Angkor Wat, considered one of the Wonders of the Ancient World, built between the 9th and 12th centuries, stands as a living icon of the endurance and genius of all Cambodians throughout the world.
Early connections between the United States and Cambodia began in the 1950s, when Cambodia sent bright and talented college students to universities, including California State Universities in Long Beach and Los Angeles, to study technical trades, engineering, and agriculture with the assistance of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
On April 17, 1975, the lives of Cambodians were forever changed when the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and evacuated the entire city as they forced people into labor camps and executed former government officials, doctors, artists, scholars among others. It became known as Year Zero as it was marked by the Khmer Rouge regime. Under that regime, it has been estimated that over 2 million lives were lost due to execution and starvation. Tens of thousands were made widows and orphans, and those who lived through the regime were severely traumatized by their ...
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