The American dream is alive for children of Cambodian refugees in California as they seek to break free from shackles of the past
Anaheim Street in Long Beach is home to the largest Cambodian population outside Cambodia. Its first-generation residents were just happy to escape the Khmer Rouge’s Killing Fields, but its second generation have other ambitions
Phnom Penh Noodle Shack, one of the better-known restaurants in Cambodia Town, Long Beach, California, opened in 1985 in a tiny dining room with four tables.
Tan’s aunts and uncles worked in sandals, with no air conditioning, on a floor slippery with grease. The menu was simple: some noodle dishes from a village outside Siem Reap and a few side items.
Cambodians came from all over, squeezing shoulder to shoulder at laminated tables to slurp bowls of noodles and pork soup for just a few dollars.
“People would come here and forget all about their grief, and just relax and remember the things that made them happy. It was a place for healing,” says Tan, whose father worked as a waiter.
His older relatives – refugees from the five-year campaign of terror and genocide in the 1970s that left nearly two million Cambodians dead – thought in terms of survival. And so for two decades, despite its popularity with locals, the restaurant never changed or expanded.
People know us as victims. But we want our people to be proud again. We’ve talked about it enough. Let’s talk about something else
Five years ago, Tan and his brothers bought the restaurant.