UC Irvine

As sites for community gathering and connection, Cambodian businesses form the heart of Long Beach’s Cambodia Town. They have been disappearing over time as the space is undergoing gentrification. It is imperative to examine the effects of gentrification in Cambodia Town as Long Beach is the epicenter for the Cambodian American diaspora. In this thesis, I engage in walking methodology to detail the ways in which the Anaheim Corridor in Cambodia Town has changed over the years. I created a photo-ethnography to capture Cambodia Town as it stands in the early half of 2025 to serve as a record of spatial history as well as to contrast its current state to the Cambodia Town I grew up in. I consider various visual aspects of Cambodia Town such as jewelry shops, Khmer signage, and restaurants which operate as both sites of Cambodian American diasporic connection as well as sites of displacement with the closure and erasure of Cambodian businesses under gentrification. I interrogate the disappearances and closures of Cambodian-owned businesses as a reflection of gentrification that displaces local communities from ethnic spaces.

The dispossession of Cambodian urban spaces today is connected to the historical destruction of Cambodian spaces of cultural practices and community connections during the Cold War and the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Cambodians fled the violence inflicted upon their homeland and they continue to experience spatial violence in the US through the gentrification of Cambodia Town. Additionally, Long Beach’s militaristic background links the diaspora’s experience with gentrification to the shadows of war and violence. Ultimately, I posit that the erasure of the longstanding businesses serving the Cambodian community today is connected to US imperialism and war that displaced Cambodians in the past.