Vietnamese Cambodian
Encyclopedia
Vietnamese Cambodian constitute a significant portion of Cambodia's
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

 population, and is the largest ethnic minority in Cambodia. It refers to a Vietnamese person born in Cambodia or a person born of Vietnamese and Cambodian ancestry. Enmity has existed between the Khmer and the Vietnamese for centuries, but this antagonism did not hinder the growth of a sizable Vietnamese community scattered throughout southeastern and central Cambodia. According to an American scholar on Southeast Asia, Donald J. Steinberg, an estimated 291,596 Vietnamese, constituting more than 7 percent at the total population, resided in Cambodia in 1950. They were concentrated in Phnom Penh, end in Kandal, Prey Veng, and Kampong Cham provinces.

The Khmer have shown more antipathy toward the Vietnamese than toward the Chinese or toward their other neighbors, the Thai. Several factors explain this attitude. The expansion of Vietnamese power has resulted historically in the loss of Khmer territory. The Khmer, in contrast, have lost no territory to the Chinese and little to the Thai. No close cultural or religious ties exist between Cambodia and Vietnam. The Vietnamese fall within the Chinese culture sphere, rather than within the Indian, where the Thai and the Khmer belong. The Vietnamese differ from the Khmer in mode of dress, in kinship organization, and in many other ways--for example the Vietnamese are Mahayana Buddhists. Although Vietnamese lived in urban centers such as Phnom Penh, a substantial number lived along the lower Mekong and Basak rivers as well as on the shores of the Tonle Sap, where they engaged in fishing. Much of the manpower on French-owned rubber plantations was provided by the Vietnamese, who also were employed by the French as lower level civil servants and as white collar workers in private businesses.

History

Cambodian and Vietnamese history dates as far back as the 13th century. Việt settlers arrived in the sparsely populated area known as "Water Chenla", which was the lower Mekong Delta portion of Chenla (present-day Cambodia). Between the mid-17th century to mid-18th century, as Chenla was weakened by internal strife and Siamese invasions, the Nguyễn Lords used various means, political marriage, diplomatic pressure, political and military favors, to gain the area around present day Saigon and the Mekong Delta. The Nguyễn army at times also clashed with the Siamese army to establish influence over Chenla. Historically, Vietnamese emperors had a policy of settling Vietnamese in sparsely populated areas that the Khmer regarded as part of Cambodian territory. Vietnamese rice farmers and fishermen continued to migrate into Cambodia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During the French colonial period, France staffed much of its colonial administration in Cambodia with French-speaking Catholic Vietnamese. The French also imported Vietnamese plantation workers. In the nineteenth century Vietnam permanently took over part of Cambodia, and, during one occupation of Phnom Penh, attempted to impose the Vietnamese language and political structures and Sinicized or Confucianized Vietnamese cultural norms and practices on the Hinduized Theravada Buddhist Khmers. Thus many Cambodian nationalists came to perceive Vietnamese as a threat not only to their political independence but also to the survival of the Khmer people and culture.

Under Prince Sihanouk's rule during the post-independence period, ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia were, like ethnic Chinese, regarded as foreign residents. However, extreme Cambodian nationalists regarded ethnic Vietnamese as agents or instruments of a Vietnamese intention to take over Cambodia. Ethnic Vietnamese were severely persecuted under the successive regimes of Lon Nol (1970-5) and Pol Pot (1975-9). Almost immediately after Lon Nol's coup against Prince Sihanouk, pogroms were initiated against ethnic Vietnamese in Phnom Penh that left several thousand dead and caused more than 100,000 to flee back to Vietnam.

When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 perhaps as many as 150,000 Vietnamese who had not fled or been expelled during the Lon Nol years were expelled to Vietnam. Those Vietnamese who remained, often because they were married to Khmer, were massacred, along with, in many instances, the children of mixed Khmer-Vietnamese families. While Cambodia was under Vietnamese occupation, ethnic Vietnamese who had been expelled during the Lon Nol and Pot Pot regimes returned to Cambodia. Additional Vietnamese artisans entered the country in response to an economic boom that followed the signing of the Cambodian peace treaty in 1991.

In the early 1990s the Khmer Rouge and some right-wing Cambodian politicians started several campaigns of ethnic cleansing against the ethnic Vietnamese living in isolated fishing villages, which led to an exodus of perhaps 25,000 Vietnamese to the Cambodia-Vietnamese border. Vietnam admitted the majority of them.

Anti-Vietnamese sentiments remained so strong in the 1990s that a new immigration law - primarily aimed at the Vietnamese - which allows for the mass expulsion of non-citizens, was passed with a large majority in the elected Assembly, though the government pledged that there would be no mass expulsions.

The Vietnamese come to Cambodia for many reasons. Some have lived here for generations. Vietnamese began migrating to Cambodia as early as the seventeenth century. In 1863, when Cambodia became a French colony, many Vietnamese were brought to Cambodia by the French to work on plantations and occupy civil servant positions. During the Lon Nol Regime (1970-1975) and Pol Pot regime (1975-1979), many of the Vietnamese living in Cambodia were killed. Others were either repatriated or escaped to Vietnam or Thailand. During the ten year Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia from 1979 until 1989 many of the Vietnamese who had previously lived in Cambodia returned. Along with them came friends and relatives. Also, many former South Vietnamese soldiers came to Cambodia fleeing persecution from the communist government. In recent times, the number of Vietnameses immigration to Cambodia is still relatively high, and they are also the highest number of foreign visters in cambodia as of 2011.

Culture

Both Vietnamese and Khmer speak a Mon-Khmer language which linguistically links the 2 groups. Vietnameses in Cambodia often don't integrate well with Khmers unlike the Chineses
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

 or Chams, this could be due to the cultural difference that both groups have. Today, due to the high unemployment rate in Vietnam, many Vietnamese come to Cambodia looking for work. While many Vietnamese come to Cambodia looking for a better life, few find it. Due to Vietnam's ten year occupation of Cambodia, most Cambodians harbor a deep distrust and dislike of the Vietnamese. Intermarriage is not as often with the Khmer as the Chinese settlers. While dispersed throughout the country, many Vietnamese are concentrated in the urban areas; others are involved in traditional fishing and agricultural activities where they live in floating villages on water. Vietnamese celebrate Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...

 during the month of February and is one of the biggest celebrations in Cambodia. They have also introduced their religion of Cao Dai
Cao Dai
Cao Đài is a syncretistic, monotheistic religion, officially established in the city of Tay Ninh, southern Vietnam, in 1926. Đạo Cao Đài is the religion's shortened name, the full name is Đại Đạo Tam Kỳ Phổ Độ...

 which combines Mahayana, Confucian, and Catholic beliefs. There are 2 built temples in Cambodia. Religion in Vietnam has historically been largely defined by the East Asian mix of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. They are the so-called Tam Giáo, or "triple religion." Beyond Tam Giáo, Catholicism is also practiced in modern Vietnam. Vietnamese Buddhism has typically been the most popular. This fits perfectly with the "triple religion" concept, making it difficult for many Vietnamese to identify exactly which religion they practice. Besides the "triple religion", Vietnamese life was also profoundly influenced by the practice of ancestor worship, as well as native animism. Most Vietnamese, regardless of religious denomination, practice ancestor worship and have an ancestor altar at their home or business, a testament to the emphasis Vietnamese culture places on filial duty. Most Vietnamese are followers of Mahayana Buddhism unlike the Khmer who follow Thervada Buddhism. Most Vietnamese speak Vietnamese
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...

as their mother tongue and the younger kids must learn to speak Khmer to prepare themselves to enter a School.

Current Issue

The Vietnamese are the most vulnerable of Cambodia's minorities, and the most prone to discrimination and violations of their rights. Their status has much to do with the difficult history and relationship between Cambodia and Vietnam, which has helped create animosity and intolerance towards them. There are a few private schools teaching in Vietnamese; these are not officially sanctioned but neither have they encountered a great deal of resistance from state authorities. No state school provides any form of schooling in Vietnamese.

The current citizenship law of Cambodia makes it difficult for many of them to prove that they are citizens of Cambodia. This in turn severely limits their enjoyment of a variety of rights, and excludes them from fully participating as equal members in the political and economic life of the country. The discriminatory impact of this legislation, the loss or destruction of identity papers which occurred during the upheavals from the 1970s, and the fact that the Constitution of Cambodia only assigns the protection of human rights to citizens, leaves them particularly vulnerable.

Some Vietnamese are probably illegal immigrants, in the sense that they settled in Cambodia after the Vietnamese army overthrew the Khmer Rouge. However, it is likely that many of them were in fact Cambodian citizens who had fled the country during the period of Khmer Rouge rule. Because they are not ethnically ‘Khmer', the presumption of authorities continues to be that they are probably illegal immigrants. Unless they have identity papers demonstrating their Cambodian nationality, they risk losing their land or homes that they may have occupied for decades.

There continued to be some reports in 2006 of state officials evicting ethnic Vietnamese from their floating villages around Tonle Sap Lake, and even of seizing and destroying identity papers which might establish some of them as being Cambodian citizens.

Though not due to any official Cambodian government policy, any expression of distinct Vietnamese identity is still occasionally met with violence; people are occasionally set upon if they are heard to speak in Vietnamese. Even politicians considered ‘democratic' by outsiders periodically revert to slogans against the Vietnamese minority, describing them as a ‘yuon' threat, a word which can have a derogatory meaning. There have been reports of some Vietnamese who have been recognized as citizens being prevented from voting in 2003 and in later local elections.
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