In partnership with Boston University students, Where Mainstream Media Fails is a four-part series highlighting critical issues in underserved communities across Boston that have gone underreported. This series comments on how mainstream media continues to ignore or misrepresent Boston’s racially and ethnically diverse communities.
Each piece is merely a starting point for MA Latino News’ reporters, and hopefully other Boston-centered newsrooms, that inspires a deeper dive into complex issues that uniquely impact diverse and historically underrepresented communities across the city.
PART 3: CAMBODIANS IN LOWELL
LOWELL—The ornate monument towering over Branch Street in the center of Lowell is impossible to miss. In front of the intricate statues, a plaque is perched on a lotus flower hewn into the stone and is reinforced by two Naga—or divine serpents—that guard each side.
Surrounded by stone statues that evoke a scene reminiscent of Cambodia, the plaque welcomes visitors to Cambodia Town.
For Cambodian Americans in Lowell, the monument is a symbol of their culture. Moreover, it signifies that Lowell is their home.
The culture of Cambodia is embedded into the everyday life of Lowell: many street signs and advertisements are written in Khmer and the language can be heard in restaurants and shops. But much of mainstream media covers the community through a political lens, focusing on Cambodian politicians such as Sokhary Chau, who served as mayor from 2022 to 2024. Chau was the first mayor of color elected in Lowell and the first Cambodian mayor in the United States.
Ryan Kim, whose family owns Peephuptmei, a restaurant on Branch Street, said immigrants from Cambodia have built themselves from the ground up and have established their own businesses, such as grocery stores, liquor stores, and restaurants.
“[As] immigrants, we started from nothing. Now, a lot of Cambodian people have stores… We carry our culture in Lowell,” said Kim.
Cambodians have deep roots in the city. Their history in Lowell began when the first wave of immigrants arrived four decades ago.
Cambodians started to relocate to Lowell in the mid-1980s. Thousands were fleeing the Khmer Rouge, the repressive Communist government in Cambodia that held power from 1975 to 1979. Faced with a language barrier, a lack of resources, and an unfamiliar culture, Cambodian immigrants found comfort in being with others who shared their background.
“There’s always a running joke that when you go to the grocery store with your yeay, which is your grandma, you can’t shop because she stops and talks to everybody ’cause she knows everyone,” said Kody Pailin, who works part-time at Nibbana Cafe and is a member of the new generation of American-born Cambodian residents in Lowell.
Today, the community resides in Cambodia Town—a dynamic neighborhood of immigrants, entrepreneurs, and college students. The close-knit community, built during the first wave of immigration, continues today: Cambodian residents have formed a network of support for one another.
Kim said members in his Lowell community look out for one another, especially because of the difficulties presented by the language barrier: an obstacle for Cambodian immigrants searching for jobs.
“People don’t understand you, they might look at you differently, they might look down at you,” Kim said.
In recent years, the Cambodian people of Lowell have become more involved in political spaces. The community received increased media coverage in the last few years because of political pioneers in the Cambodian community such as Chau. In 2021, a historic number of elected city councilors were Cambodian. The next year, the election of Chau as mayor attracted even more media attention.
Romany Meas, who immigrated from Cambodia and owns Nibbana Cafe, said she usually does not keep up with the news. She said her social circle of immigrants, refugees, and elderly people connect at a temple and exclusively speak Khmer. Those residents tend to pick up news from each other. These are usually internal events that do not not circulate to a more general audience.
Meas said people in her community use the term Khmer—and not Cambodian—to refer to people from her homeland, their culture, and language. The term Cambodian has been misused, she said, and is seen as a descriptor of how the West labels people from Cambodia. It’s not how people from Cambodia identify themselves, she added.
While news stories often feature big or obvious events, smaller community happenings and information may go unnoticed, Meas said. This knowledge lies with the elderly. One way in which the media could improve is by focusing on the senior citizens in the community.
But the Cambodian population in Lowell today also includes younger people, many of whom were born in the United States and are searching for their Khmer identity.
As of July 2022, Lowell’s population exceeded 113,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Cambodians were the second-largest demographic group, followed by those who are Puerto Rican, Irish, and Dominican, according to 2020 data from the UMass Donahue Institute.
The reported Cambodian population count was 15,899 people—13.8% of the city’s total population.
As a 21-year-old who grew up in Lowell, Pailin was raised at the intersection of Cambodian and American culture.
“Growing up, we kind of feel a little bit lost in our identity,” said Pailin. “We don’t feel Khmer enough.”
Pailin said that while his older family members spoke Khmer among themselves, they did not pass down the language to his generation.
The resulting language barrier is one of the main reasons for the missing sense of cultural belonging experienced by younger Cambodian people.
“Immigrants or elders, they can teach a young-generation Khmer-American about our culture, about our language, about why we do certain things,” Meas said. “But they can’t learn…because of the language barrier and therefore lost connection.”
As a result, Meas said, younger generations of Cambodian people have formed their own cultural group.
Even so, Pailin said younger people like himself are reclaiming their Khmer identity, often by immersing themselves in the culture through arts and other activities. Many of them are learning the language of their homeland, engaging with others in the Cambodian community on social media, and joining cultural organizations.
As they push to highlight their stories, younger Cambodians also face intergenerational trauma, as their family members lived through the systematic persecution and killings of Cambodian citizens by the Khmer Rouge, shared Professor Allyssa McCabe, who worked closely with Cambodian high schoolers in Lowell.
McCabe said trauma from the genocide, and its effects, have been passed on to the children of Cambodian immigrants.
McCabe has co-authored “A Long Long Time Ago in Southeast Asia,” a book that preserves stories of the Cambodian people killed in the genocide. It includes a collection of folktales from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
Those stories were destroyed when the Communist party burned Khmer texts and books in an attempt to restrict the population’s access to knowledge, McCabe said.
Pailin said the Cambodian genocide is always a topic of conversation, especially with outsiders who are unfamiliar with, and are curious about, the country’s history. Community members may find themselves constantly having to explain why their families left Cambodia.
“That’s going to be something that always comes up and it’s, unfortunately, something we can’t detach ourselves from,” Pailin said.
However, there are many ways to connect with the culture, including through traditional celebrations and dances.
Pailin said he found this connection through the UMass Lowell Cambodian American Student Association’s Coconut Dance team.
Robam Kous Traloak, or coconut shell dance, is a traditional Cambodian folk dance that is performed mainly during special occasions. Each dancer holds two coconut shells, clicking them to the beat of the music or tapping them against other dancers’ shells.
Pailin said Coconut Dance allows for self expression and “gives a different light into Khmer history.” The experience is comforting and helps him feel more connected to his culture, he added.
Pailin is currently taking a gap year from his studies at Berklee College of Music, a school where he said he felt “out of place” because of the lack of Cambodian culture on campus.
Through dance, Pailin found that community closer to home at UMass Lowell, where many of his friends attend.
Pailin is also immersed in Cambodian culture through his job as a cafe attendant at Nibbana Cafe, where workers and visitors alike learn about Cambodian culture and can even pick up bits of the Khmer language.
“Other than just exchanging coffee, we’re always exchanging wisdom,” Pailin said. “Especially with the community here. It feels like home for them.”
In addition to Pailin’s and McCabe’s efforts, organizations like Lowell’s Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association (CMAA) are also preserving the Cambodian legacy and providing support for deeper connections in Lowell.
The association first began as a support system for the first group of Cambodian immigrants. Now, it offers a range of services, including resources for local youth. It has also shifted its focus to empower residents to become more involved with public service, like registering to vote, according to CMAA Special Projects Manager Sreang Heng.
On a bright day in April, residents gathered in Lowell to celebrate Khmer Lunar New Year.
The Lowell Senior Center hosted the city’s annual festival, which featured traditional Cambodian performances, live music, crafts, and food.
Residents crowded into the Senior Center auditorium, waving Cambodian flags and preparing to parade up School Street and into Clemente Park. Police officers stopped traffic as a brightly-colored band banged their drums and led the crowd into the center of Cambodia Town.
Outside Clemente Park stood two flagpoles: the American stars and stripes billowed alongside the red and blue of the Cambodian flag, both fabrics rippling and intertwining in the wind high above Lowell.
“Lowell is an amazing city with multiple races here and that I love,” said Bin Yan, who moved to Lowell from Cambodia this year and attended the parade for the first time. “This is what America needs as a country of immigration, Lowell is an example of that.”
This story is part of a student reporting series on how underrepresented communities are covered in the media. Student reporters were part of Professor Meghan Irons’ Reporting in Depth class at Boston University.
Alicia Hamm is a journalism major with a minor in music performance. She discovered a love for storytelling after joining her high school’s newspaper, The Lance.
