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Survivors: Cambodian Refugees in the United States

sucheng chan roger daniels

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In this clear, comprehensive, and unflinching study, Sucheng Chan invites us to follow the saga of Cambodian refugees striving to distance themselves from a series of cataclysmic events in their homeland. Survivors tracks not only the Cambodians' fight for life lives but also their battle for self-definition in new American surroundings.
 
Unparalleled in scope, Survivors begins with the Cambodians' experiences under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, following them through escape to refugee camps in Thailand and finally to the United States, where they try to build new lives in the wake of massive trauma. Their struggle becomes primarily economic as they continue to negotiate new cultures and deal with rapidly changing gender and intergenerational relations within their own families. Poverty, crime, and racial discrimination all have an impact on their experiences in America, and each is examined in depth.  
 
Although written as a history, this is a thoroughly multidisciplinary study, and Chan makes use of research from anthropology, sociology, psychology, medicine, social work, linguistics and education. She also captures the perspective of individual Cambodians. Drawing on interviews with more than fifty community leaders, a hundred government officials, and staff members in volunteer agencies, Survivors synthesizes the literature on Cambodian refugees, many of whom come from varying socioeconomic backgrounds.
 
A major scholarly achievement, Survivors is unique in the Asian American canon for its memorable presentation of cutting-edge research and its interpretation of both sides of the immigration process.
    Genres

376 pages, Paperback

First published May 5,2004

This edition

Format
376 pages, Paperback
Published
May 5, 2004 by University of Illinois Press
ISBN
9780252071799
ASIN
0252071794
Language
English

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About the author

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sucheng chan

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Sucheng Chan is a Chinese-American historian, scholar, and author, recognized for her contributions to Asian American Studies. She was the first to establish a full-fledged autonomous Department of Asian American Studies at a major U.S. research university and became the first Asian American woman to hold the title of provost in the University of California system.
Born in Shanghai in 1941, Chan and her family moved to Hong Kong in 1949, Malaysia in 1950, and later to the United States in 1957. She earned a BA in Economics from Swarthmore College (1963), an MA in Asian Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi (1965), and a PhD in Political Science from UC Berkeley (1973).
Chan taught at several UC campuses, including Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and San Diego. She retired due to post-polio syndrome but continued to contribute to the field, donating her extensive collection of research materials to academic institutions. She has authored and edited numerous books on Asian American history, immigration, and race relations, including This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860–1910 (1986) and Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882–1943 (1991).
Throughout her career, Chan received numerous accolades, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (1988), multiple Outstanding Book Awards from the Association for Asian American Studies, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the same organization in 1997. She is married to Mark Juergensmeyer, a scholar of religion and global studies.

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rueful
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April 17,2025
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Extremely informative, one of the best books on refugee life in the US I have read. It provided a song historical context, was very in-depth, and discussed multiple angles of refugee and Cambodian life - at both political and personal levels. Especially interesting was to learn about major differences amongst the programs various US states provide for refugees, and subsequently the author's identification of the specific elements of governmental programming and community resources that best contributed to refugees' successes. Also of note was how Cambodian community leaders have to adjust to American-style politics, which one leader views as, "You have to have somebody scream or make noise all the time....if you want to have something done," (p. 188).
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