Buddha is Hiding in Chicago

I moved to this neighborhood four months ago.  While on my walks to and from the Argyle Redline station, I noticed more and more the qualities that make Andersonville unlike other Chicago neighborhoods that I’ve lived in.  Firstly, there’s the architectural mix of new and old; diversity in class, race, and sexual orientation; and families with children and young urbanites that call this neighborhood home.  However, what I discovered that made my residence here even more worthwhile was that Cambodians who arrived to Chicago in the early 1980's first settled in this very neighborhood.

Prior to moving to Chicago, I knew that there was a community of Cambodians that lived here and have always been curious about their experiences as refugees in this city.  Since moving here four years ago, I had yet to meet someone who was part of that original group of Cambodian immigrants.  Aside from the Cambodian Buddhist temple that stands a few buildings down from my apartment, I didn’t see any other signs of Cambodian history in this neighborhood.

Signs that marked new life for many Cambodians in Chicago.

That is, until an encounter with the owners of a local jewelry store.  My mother was visiting for a week and wanted to go to one of the Asian-owned jewelry stores nearby.  There are several jewelry stores along Argyle Street, but we decided to walk into one that had Cambodian lettering in gold on a red awning.  In talking to the owners, a gracious Cambodian couple, they asked me where I lived and I told them, “Argyle & Glenwood,” and they responded by telling us that they lived in my neighborhood twenty years ago along with other Cambodian families.  This couple eventually moved to Skokie, a suburb outside of Chicago.  Although many Cambodian families have moved to neighboring suburbs, it turns out that many of them still remained in the neighborhood.  Since that conversation with them, I started noticing names on some of the mailboxes in my apartment building that were of Cambodian origin.  I even got excited overhearing conversations in Khmer when I walked by Cambodians who were entering or leaving the nearby Buddhist temple. 

Cambodian Grrrls turn punk.

In the hopes of meeting other Cambodian-Americans, I attended a couple of “Cambodian themed” events.  The first was a book launch at the Chicago Cultural Center for Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh, written by Anne Elizabeth Moore.  Moore traveled to Cambodia to live in the first women’s university dormitory in the country’s history.  In the spirit of punk resistance, she taught these young Cambodian women self-publishing and encouraged them to think critically about their culture.  Media literacy and self-publishing in the form of zines, according to Moore, demanded space for young women to have a voice in their culture – one where theirs is usually ignored.  I saw this as a tool for young women in Cambodia to creatively tell their stories and what struck me most was when Moore stated that this tool allowed “…girls to take ownership within their space of the city and they saw themselves as having power and influence on what the world thought about Cambodia.”  Another interesting aspect of the book launch was when someone from the audience asked about the possibility of bringing media literacy and self-publishing to young Cambodian women living in America.  I thought that this was a great idea because there are countless communities across this country where young Cambodian-American youths are starving for a creative outlet.

Remembering the Killing Fields exhibit.

The second event was the opening exhibition of Remembering the Killing Fields at the Cambodian American Heritage Museum.  The exhibition was a huge success packing the house to the brim.  Opening remarks were made by notable speakers, but the most notable of them all was the keynote speaker, Elizabeth Becker (former New York Times correspondent and author of When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution, and one of few journalists at the time who interviewed Pol Pot).  In her speech, Becker made the observation that unlike other Cambodian enclaves in the U.S., Cambodians in Chicago were able to rise above their struggles as refugee immigrants by helping one another.  In no other Cambodian community is there a museum dedicated to preserving the memories of Cambodia’s Killing Fields.  I often wondered why that is the case: why has the Cambodian community in Chicago been successful at mobilizing themselves for a greater cause, where other communities with large populations of Cambodians haven't been able to do the same?

Although both events left me inspired and pondering, the highlight of attending them was meeting a young Cambodian-American woman who recently graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  In the brief conversation I had with her, I found out that she grew up in Chicago and is now back home with her parents.  She's currently an Americorps member, volunteering at a clinic that her parents visited when they first moved here from Cambodia.  In time, I plan to get to know her better and hear more about her story.

There's no denying that this is a special neighborhood, made more special with the history of Cambodian-Americans in Chicago.  The people I've met such as the jewelry store couple and the college graduate who grew up here, compels me to want to learn more about their experiences and ultimately document it.  Perhaps it's time to start planning my next documentary project...