Cambodian Refugees in Ontario: Resettlement, Religion, and Identity by Janet McLellan (review)

There has been little written about the Indochinese refugees that came to Canada at the end of the 1970s and the early 1980s. Of these, the Cambodians have received the least attention of all and the Vietnamese the most. This imbalance reflects the much greater numbers of Vietnamese who arrived following the end of the Vietnam War, and the greater media attention and public awareness of the Vietnamese situation. The experiences of these two groups have also been completely different. The Vietnamese have, by and large, been very successful immigrants. Their numbers, business acumen and higher educational levels upon arrival gave them the social capital to thrive in Canada. Consequentially, Vietnamese Buddhist institutions, for example, represent one of the strongest Buddhist groups in Canada. By contrast, the Cambodian experience has been difficult.

Cambodian Refugees in Ontario: Resettlement, Religion, and Identity makes an important contribution to understanding some of the reasons why the Khmer (Cambodian) community has had a comparatively difficult time integrating into Canadian life. In a short introduction McLellan provides some information on Canada’s immigration policies that allowed for the Cambodians to immigrate to Canada, pertinent theoretical topics such as diaspora and transnationalism, social capital and generational differences, and then describes her methodological approach as participant observation and interviews over a twelve-year period. The first two chapters provides the historical context of the devastating Khmer Rouge period so that the reader has a thorough understanding of the demographic profiles of those who arrived (rural and uneducated), and the psychological condition upon their arrival (traumatized). The rest of the book follows with chapters that deal with a variety of topics.

While Chapter One describes the events in Cambodia that have made it difficult for the Cambodians to form a cohesive community, Chapter Two and Three look at the issues that have contributed to the Cambodian community’s relative lack of success in Canada. Chapter Two looks at their arrival in Canada, resettlement experience and support (or lack thereof) that they received after arrival. Chapter Three deals with the internal divisions in the Cambodian community. These include class, education, employment, and political differences, but also a substantial disjuncture between the Khmer from Cambodia and the Kampuchea Krom, who are ethnic Cambodians who have lived for generations in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The latter, McLellan argues, have been much more adept at establishing themselves in Canada and navigating this new culture because they were not as traumatized as their cousins in Cambodia, and because living in Vietnam gave them important skills for surviving as an ethnic minority (73-4).

Chapters Four and Five deal specifically with religion and, given the background of McLellan, are on the whole richer. Chapter Four looks at Buddhism, including the challenges of re-establishing in Canada, the involvement of women, tensions, and the importance of Buddhism as a marker of ethnic identity. Chapter Five looks at Cambodian Christians, paying particular attention to the sometimes conflicted relationship with this new religion due to ethnic identity and the coercion by Christian sponsors felt by some.

McLellan’s book is rich with interview material and its strong point is the voices of the community which come through clearly. They are well connected in the text and are used to substantiate the author’s main points. While I appreciate the voice that they provide, they do not form any cohesive picture of any one individual, and no names (even pseudonymns) are used. The result is that there is a distance created with no personal narratives ever being fully developed. In this way, while the author claims participant observation as a methodological approach, the text comes across as based almost entirely on interviews, which creates a clinical distance, despite the numerous quotes.

Another weakness of the book is that it is very descriptive and there does not appear to be any overarching argument to bind the various topics together. If there was...