Cambodia Town, Long Beach, California

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Cambodia Town (also known as Little Phnom Penh or Little Cambodia) is the official name for a roughly one mile long business corridor along Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero avenues in Long Beach, California.^[1] This area has numerous Cambodian restaurants, clothing stores, and jewelry stores. Churches, temples, and service centers for Cambodian-Americans are also found in the area. In addition, there are many more general businesses in the area, such as auto repair shops, that are also Cambodian-owned.

With approximately 50,000 Cambodians in Long Beach and surrounding communities,^{[citation needed]} Long Beach is home to the second largest population of Cambodian immigrants outside Southeast Asia (there are approximately 1.4 million Cambodians in Thailand and approximately 1,055,174 in southern Vietnam, where they are known as Khmer Krom), and the city has its own Cambodian consulate. Many of the Cambodians in Long Beach came to the United States as refugees from Democratic Kampuchea from 1975 to 1979, as well as the 1978 invasion and occupation of Cambodia by Vietnam.

The City of Long Beach also has an annual Cambodian New Year celebration.

[edit] The quest for official recognition

Since 2001, some local Cambodian community activists worked to obtain Long Beach city council approval to officially designated the Anaheim Street corridor as "Cambodia Town". Some community activists preferred the name of "Little Phnom Penh."

Some community members questioned any official designation for the area, saying that it could increase the Cambodian-Latino rivalry in the area, and that official recognization for a single ethnic community would be divisive in the ethnically diverse city of Long Beach. On October 25, 2006, the city council voted for a 90-day review period to allow more input from the community. In the end, official approval was obtained at the city council meeting on July 3rd, 2007:

"After lengthy discussion and several public comments, the City Council voted 8-1 to designate the stretch of Anaheim Street between Junipero Avenue and Atlantic Boulevard as Cambodia Town. The area houses many Cambodian businesses, and Long Beach is home to about 17,000 Cambodian-Americans, according to the city." Published on July 4, 2007, Long Beach Press-Telegram ^[2] ^[3]