A note from the Author, Sor Potter:

Being an Asian American teenager living in America has always been a significant aspect of my identity that I find to be influential on my outlook on life. More specifically, being of Southeast Asian(Khmer) descent and living as a biracial child raised by an interracial couple makes my experiences unique because it prompts me to think about ethnic identity a lot more often than most.

Being raised in the outer boroughs of New York City meant that cultural and ethnic diversity had always surrounded me as a younger child. I grew up in Queens, an area home to people from many different backgrounds. Being around many people of differing heritages meant that I grew accustomed to being in an environment where there were distinct differences among my peers. However, even with my familiarity and sense of safety being in these spaces, I have never found myself fully fitting in or sharing relatable experiences with others. Being Cambodian already doesn’t come off as a very common experience in America. I have never met another Cambodian person in my age group in person before out of pure coincidence, and I have always been, according to my knowledge, the only Khmer kid in every school I’ve ever attended. Being part of a “less common” group has made it a challenge to find a community that I can relate to, causing my ethnic makeup to become a significant factor in my sense of place.

While East and South Asian Americans may often share certain experiences with Southeast Asians, their cultures and customs are still vastly different. With most Asians around me being in monoracial friend groups and having high-striving immigrant parents who set high goals for their children in academics and careers, I have questioned what it means to experience being Asian and why I don’t seem to relate to them. Taking the experiences of other Southeast Asians into account, it can already be seen that there is a noticeable difference between their levels of education versus other groups of people, for example. According to SEARAC, while nearly half of the general Asian American population tends to obtain bachelor’s degrees and higher, only 17% or less of Khmer, Laotian, and Hmong Americans achieve these higher levels of education. Around 30-35% of them do not even have high school diplomas. Because of the socioeconomic differences, I have concluded that there are multiple ways to experience being Asian in America that aren’t highlighted often. Some people happen to experience it in a different way than the majority. I believe that this is because as a society, we tend to generalize racial groups. When the word Asian is brought up, most people including myself immediately think of East Asia, because of many factors. The U.S. and Europe have had connections to East Asian countries throughout history, and the Western world also holds certain stigmas, fears, and stereotypes associated with these countries that are prevalent today, leading to this heavy focus on only portions of this large region of the world.

On top of being Cambodian and aware of these differences between Asian communities, my perspective on ethnicity and race in general, and my desire to learn about it stems especially from being mixed. I have never felt very connected to whiteness. This isn’t just because of my dad’s family being culturally distanced from their European ancestry, but the whole concept of whiteness to me has always revolved around the white experience in America, and being so far removed from customs and traditions that European ancestors once followed. I have spent more time and met more people from my Asian family. This whole struggle of separation has led me to, like many biracial kids, have somewhat of an identity crisis. The struggle to fully fit in with either side has led me to identify based on what I feel I am most connected to so I can have a strict term or identity to define myself by, which in my case has been to label myself solely as an Asian American/Cambodian American out of personal choice. This desire to feel one race and less out of place has only further driven my interest in gaining knowledge about my culture, family origins, and language to connect to my roots.

Having a mother who is a former refugee adds to this motive. My mother was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, the Khao-I-Dang camp. Her parents were rice farmers living through the Khmer Rouge. When questioned by soldiers, my grandparents lied about their occupation and soon made their escape to Thailand, spending days traveling through rainforest terrain and the harsh monsoons of Southeast Asia to reach safety. After traveling from Thailand to the Philippines and across Asia, my grandparents got an interview which led to them traveling to New York City, where they began living and working. With this experience came generational trauma and a lack of communication between my mom, her siblings, and her parents. My mother does know her way around the Khmer language, but she grew up feeling insecure about it and because of that I was never taught and don’t speak fluently. Because of the distance that my mom had from her culture from being a young refugee in America, I want to be able to connect in a way that she wasn’t able to while growing up.

However, modern-day school curriculums and history classes often don’t cater to my needs in terms of supplying me with the knowledge I need. When it comes to learning about Khmer people and their history, I’ve noticed that the main resources available for education are often outside of school, in organizations, or literary settings created by Khmer people themselves, where they can connect and find a sense of belonging among other people in the ASEAN community. Even regarding what I have learned about Asia in school, wars and European involvement are often the main focus when talking about any Asian country. While I have learned a decent amount about China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, I know more about the wars or political history they have faced rather than their people or culture. Moreover, these lessons rarely ever make any present-day connections to the students learning, either. I believe that if there is a goal to represent other countries and their communities in history textbooks, we need to also talk about how heavily courses emphasize topics of white and European people and how they ‘built the world’.