Phnom Penh (Cambodia), 18/10/2008. A Cambodian woman on the occasion of a pre-elections debate evening organised by the FCC
© John Vink / Magnum
Academic studies carried out among the Asian communities in the United States say it all: Asian-Americans will indeed play a key part in the outcome of the 4th November US elections. Their participation will be decisive and will as a matter of fact determine who of the two candidates, Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama will be appointed 44th President of the United States of America. Usually wooed by the would-be presidents during the electoral campaign, the “Asian” community proves hard to tackle as a non-homogeneous ethnic group. Among them, the community of Cambodian-Americans, still showing a poor level of fluency in English, might well have a tricky influence on the turnout this year. Here is a review of what is being said on the web about the Khmer community and the widely debated and awaited elections.
Press the key...
“If I knew how to press the [voting] computer, I would go, but I don’t know”. Here is the confession of Khoy Aun,a 62 year-old Cambodian-American, interviewed by the Voice of America (VOA) radio and justifying his planned absenteeism from the 4th November elections. The American government-funded radio tried through its polls and studies to sound out the mind of the entire Cambodian-American community before November 4th . More and more Cambodians show their interest in the electoral campaign and get involved, like Thel Sar , a member of Lowell's election commission, Kim Meas Koy, a fervent supporter of senator McCain, or Pak Channa, a democratic campaigner. Nevertheless, many Cambodians still feel somehow reluctant to get involved, either because they “do not know how to do it”, because of a poor understanding of the language, or because they simply wish to stay away from the heated political debates which once left a bitter taste in their mouth.
2004: low turnout in Long Beach and Lowell
According to “The Cambodian Experience ”, a report made by the Asian American Justice Center, the 2004 elections, which eventually led to the George W. Bush presidency and voted senator John Kerry out, only saw the votes of 47% of registered Cambodians in Long Beach, California, whereas the city's general turnout amounted to 71%. The programme's mission was to encourage Cambodians living in Long Beach to go and cast their ballot. In Los Angeles county, which includes Long Beach and its 30,000 to 50,000 Cambodian inhabitants, only 3,700 of them went to the polls, according to another report by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center . The turnout was even lower in Lowell, Massachusetts, home to one of the largest Cambodian communities in the United States: only 43% of registered voters cast their vote, with a general turnout of 60%.
The language barrier
According to defenders of the Asian communities, the low involvement of Cambodian-Americans in the political life of their country is chiefly due to a major obstacle, the language. For instance, in the county of Los Angeles, more than 49% of Cambodians admitted not being “very fluent” in English. This rate is close to the general figures (45%) and epitomises the overall situation of Cambodians on the American territory. In 2004, the county launched measures of language assistance and provided help in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Tagalog and Vietnamese but Khmer was the missing link.
In Lowell, NGOs urged the authorities on various occasions to set up such measures to help Cambodians with the voting process, either by providing them some assistance, spreading and facilitating communication among the community or by translating the ballots into Khmer, as stipulated by the “Voting Rights Act”, a federal law adopted by several states and outlawing discriminatory voting practices. In the state of Massachusetts, an investigation has been conducted in 2006 by the Justice Department following complaints on the part of advocacy groups about the barriers, mainly linguistic, encountered by Cambodian-Americans when trying to vote.
Strong reluctance towards the state
On top of the language barrier, the fact that a certain number of Cambodians in the community are generally reluctant towards politics and all things governmental, because of their past and memories of the genocide, does not help. Indeed, the authors of “The Cambodian Experience ” reported that “many in the community, especially those with the strongest memories of the Cambodian holocaust, are isolated and reluctant to do something involving unnecessary contact with government agencies”.
 Phnom Penh (Cambodia), 18/10/2008. Pre-elections debate evening organised by the FCC
© John Vink / Magnum
Four years have now passed and one may wonder whether the political behaviour of the Asian-American ethnic group and more particularly of Cambodian-Americans, has changed. The political parties running for election do hope so and try as much as they can to adapt their campaign and messages to an audience which has yet to be enticed.
Cho the plumber
The Democrats seem to have a leg up on their Republican counterparts, at least from what can be found and seen on the Web. As a treat, the website Asian Americans For Obama offers election toolkits containing campaign fliers, documents on the “policies of interest to Asian-American people” and signs and posters displaying support for the Democrat senator, translated into no less than sixteen Asian languages, among which Khmer . The fliers advertise the dates of the various meetings planned by the local community. Even the well-known icon of “Joe The Plumber”, glorified by the Republicans, has been appropriated and turned into the more Asian - and Democrat - version of “Cho The Plumber ”.
"Nobama" country
On the rival website, Asian Americans for McCain , the internet surfer will find texts mocking Obama's promises, a video displaying a white country music singer sporting a moustache and singing one of his compositions entitled “Nobama ”. Add to this a few images of McCain's past as a war veteran, which, unlike its counterpart, aim at showing a definitely more 'American America'. That same America which seems to have seduced the Vietnamese community, according to a National Asian American Survey conducted by several universities and showing that a large majority among the group - almost two thirds of the polled - is likely to vote for senator McCain.
McCain and Cambodians: a story of war and peace
Unlike the Vietnamese vote, the Cambodian vote seems to be harder to foretell. To a few Cambodians, the historical past bonding the Republican senator with Southeast Asia, added to his fine knowledge of the area, represent a strong asset. But to others, who react in the opposite direction, McCain is seen as an aggressive person and therefore rejected, easily compared with Nixon or Bush, as expressed by several of his supporters on radio VOA .
Pro or anti, what matters is the final turnout – this is the message conveyed by a certain Jaya Khmer on his “Modern Progressive Khmer” blog, in an article entitled Priceless Moments . “Here I am in America witnessing democracy in action. The mere fact that simple ideas such as checks and balances, no one is above the law, and civility in politics continues to reinforce American democracy and [...] makes it the most envious system in the world”, the blogger writes, thrilled and hopeful that “we, Cambodians, learn a thing or two from these priceless moments”. The blogger's viewpoint is furthermore shown in another post: “As a Cambodian American, I urge you to vote in this historical election.”
Just having a laugh?
Whether Jaya Khmer likes it or not, his enthusiasm is not yet shared by the whole of the Cambodian-American blogosphere. Indeed, on the much popular Oudam blog, famous for its karaoke video database, other battles are being fought, particularly that of Phymean Noun , a Cambodian woman working on a programme to save the impoverished children of the Stung Meanchey trash dump in Phnom Penh and participating in the 2008 Hero of the Year contest for the television news channel CNN. And it is not too late to take part in an exclusive poll which will help choose which of the two singers – Sin Sisamuth's “golden voice”, or the young and all so popular Preap Sovath – offers the best interpretation of the song “Theptida knong soben ”. Although the webmaster claims that the poll “is for fun only, not to establish which singer is the best of all time”, the reader feels nonetheless inclined to give it some serious thought...
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By Doris
By John Vink
By Doris