Collection

The CamCHAP Archive

The CamCHAP Archive is the collection of the Cambodian Community History and Archive Project, held at the Historical Society of Long Beach in California.[1] It documents the history of the Cambodian community in Long Beach and is kept at the Historical Society, 4260 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach.[1] The project is a partnership of California State University, Dominguez Hills, California State University, Long Beach, and the Historical Society.[2] CamCHAP calls it the only archive of its kind in the United States.[1]

History

The anthropologists Susan Needham of CSU Dominguez Hills and Karen Quintiliani of CSU Long Beach have carried out ethnographic and linguistic research in the Long Beach Cambodian community since 1988.[1][3] In 2002 they began working together on a history of the community.[4] The idea of an archive and community research center grew from their long ties in the community and from research and service-learning projects with students, local Cambodian-run organizations, the school district and city officials.[5]

In 2008 Needham and Quintiliani formed CamCHAP with Julie Bartolotto, then executive director of the Historical Society of Long Beach.[1][3] A Memorandum of Understanding among the three institutions formally established the project that year.[5] Its purpose was to preserve Cambodian history in Long Beach and open it to community members, students and scholars.[1][5] The founders planned a cultural history that would include the years of Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979) without being limited to them.[5] CamCHAP was also set up as a community-based research center, built on partnerships among community members, organizations and the California State University campuses that bring students into civic and cultural life.[3]

CSU Long Beach gave Quintiliani assigned time for the project and a graduate assistant who worked on site at the Historical Society. CSU Dominguez Hills provided an undergraduate assistant and equipment funds at the start. The Historical Society provides space, training and expertise in cultural and historical preservation.[5] A $20,000 grant from the California Council for the Humanities paid for the website and its video stories, and a further $40,000 strategic grant from the Long Beach Community Foundation funded the physical archive and the preparation of documents and photographs for the website.[5] The Council's support came through the California Documentary Project, run with the Skirball Foundation as part of the California Stories Initiative. Stone & Compass, an educational and cultural retreat in Bulgaria, also supported the project.[1]

The archive and website launched in 2011.[5] They were scheduled to be unveiled at the Historical Society's annual meeting on May 16, 2011.[6] By 2013 more than 300 students from the two universities had taken part in community-based research and service-learning projects connected with CamCHAP.[5] The project is supported by sales of the book Cambodians In Long Beach, by competitive grants and by gifts from community members. The Historical Society accepts financial gifts designated for CamCHAP, and donations of documents, books, video and photographs.[3]

Overview

The Cambodian community in Long Beach began with a small number of college students in the 1950s and grew with the arrival of refugees after the Khmer Rouge genocide in the late 1970s.[6] CamCHAP states that Long Beach has the largest population of Cambodians outside Southeast Asia.[1]

The project is a historical ethnography, a record of the community's life and culture over time. It traces the community's growth at the international, national and local levels, how Cambodian cultural practice was recreated in Long Beach, and how Cambodian residents contributed to the economy, politics and redevelopment of the Anaheim Street corridor.[7] Its material came from researchers, community members, and Cambodian-led and Cambodian-serving organizations.[1]

Material coverage

The archive holds more than 2,000 photographs, many of them rare.[1][5] Its English and Khmer newspapers number nearly 1,700 in the project's count and nearly 1,400 in the Historical Society's program listing. They sit alongside documents, unpublished manuscripts and reports.[1][2]

The documents include records of Operation New Arrivals at Camp Pendleton in 1975, community documents from 1975 onward, Khmer-language newspapers from 1980 onward and English-language newspaper articles from 1957 onward.[3] The photographs show the Cambodian community from 1960 to the present, Cambodian evacuees at Camp Pendleton in 1975, the Aranyaprathet refugee camp in Thailand in 1975, and Cambodia before 1970.[3] The library covers Cambodian culture and history, Cambodian-American culture and history, and immigration history in the United States.[3]

The Historical Society's online pages for the project add photographs, documents and video on Cambodia's 2,000-year history and culture, the civil war and the Khmer Rouge period, the Cambodian diaspora and United States refugee resettlement policy, and how Cambodian refugees built communities across the country. They also carry profiles of Cambodian individuals and 15 oral histories from the Cambodian American 1.5 Generation Oral History Project.[8]

The CamCHAP website

The CamCHAP website, camchap.org, is a bilingual English and Khmer digital ethnography, which the project calls a living cultural history.[5][4] It tells the community's story through narratives, photographs, historical documents, audio recordings and short video documentaries, and it describes the materials held in the physical archive.[7][4] In 2011 its historical timeline ran from early in the first millennium to the present day.[6]

One short video, A Garden Without Roots, follows five Cambodian senior gardeners who keep two community gardens in different parts of Long Beach. One garden is a publicly funded plot subject to citywide budget cuts. The other is a temporary backyard space rented from a Cambodian family. The gardeners need more land to grow enough food for the public Seniors Nutrition Program, which provides culturally appropriate food to Cambodian seniors. For the seniors the garden is like a second home, where they meet other Cambodians and their neighbors. Katarina Spralja, Adam Neilson and Brian Delas Armas co-produced the video.[7]

Catalog and access

The archive is open to the public by appointment, and community members, scholars and students use its materials on that basis.[1][3] As of 2026, information and appointments are handled by the Historical Society of Long Beach at 562-424-2220 and through its website, hslb.org.[1]

Project team (2026)

  • Project directors: Susan Needham, professor of anthropology, CSU Dominguez Hills; Karen Quintiliani, chair and professor of anthropology, CSU Long Beach
  • Project staff: Julie Bartolotto, executive director, Historical Society of Long Beach; Amy Ovando, project assistant; Kassandra Chhay, student assistant, anthropology, CSU Long Beach; Violet Paley, graduate assistant, anthropology, CSU Long Beach
  • Website design: Phylypo Tum, web designer; Virak Seng, web design and programming
  • Former student assistants: Joseph Bolinger, videographer and graduate assistant, anthropology, CSU Long Beach; Sarah Cote, graduate assistant, anthropology, CSU Long Beach; Brian Delas Armas, graduate assistant, anthropology, CSU Long Beach; Elsie Heredia, student assistant, anthropology, CSU Dominguez Hills; Letticia Montoya, project assistant; Adam Neilson, graduate assistant, anthropology, CSU Long Beach; Diana Ochoa, student assistant, anthropology, CSU Dominguez Hills; Prumsodun Ok, videographer; David Rapport, student assistant, liberal studies, CSU Dominguez Hills; Alexxandra Salazar, student assistant, anthropology, CSU Dominguez Hills; Katie Stahl-Kovell, student assistant, anthropology and dance, CSU Dominguez Hills; Adriana Vigil, graduate assistant, anthropology, CSU Long Beach; Julia Wignall, graduate assistant, anthropology, CSU Long Beach[4]

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 CSU Dominguez Hills, The Cambodian Community History & Archive Project
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Historical Society of Long Beach, Programs
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Historical Society of Long Beach, Cambodian Community History & Archive Project
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 CamCHAP, About CamCHAP
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 CSU Long Beach, Applied Anthropology at California State University Long Beach (PDF, 2013)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Greg Mellen, "Cambodians' place in the fabric of Long Beach," Press-Telegram, May 6, 2011 (reprinted by Khmerization)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 CamCHAP
  8. ↑ Historical Society of Long Beach, Education
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This page was last edited on 26 September 2026, at 23:26.