<p> In 2002, under pressure from the United States, the government of Cambodia reluctantly agreed to take in a limited number of individuals facing deportation from the only home they had ever really known back to their "homeland" about which they knew little to nothing. After escaping the horrors of the Khmer Rouge and beginning new lives as refugees in America, they would in time come to live their lives as Americans. Of those being deported, many have little if any connection to their "homeland," possess limited knowledge and understanding of Khmer cultural patterns and are not accepted as "true" Khmer by the society. This thesis examines how deportation has affected their lives and shaped their cultural identities. The research contributes to anthropological discourses on displacement, homelands, transnationalism and disaporic communities by suggesting that a new notion of "dual displacement" be used to conceptualize the events experienced by these Khmer Americans and their rejection by two countries. Dual displacement allows analysis of a situation where nostalgia is not for the "homeland" in the sense of birthplace or point of origin, but for the site of refuge from which they were then exiled.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:1552431 |
| Date | 12 March 2014 |
| Creators | York, Jordan |
| Publisher | Northern Illinois University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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