In elementary classrooms, teaching immigration often begins and ends at Ellis Island--without discussions of racist migration policies or engagement with current issues. Although contemporary immigration is rarely discussed with elementary students, the number of young people from immigrant and/or refugee backgrounds in the U.S. continues to rise.…

Scholars who study Southeast Asian American (SEAA) communities are in consensus that this group's realities diverge from their Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) counterparts. In fact, nearly four decades after large-scale immigration as political refugees from Southeast Asia (SEA), this population composed of Cambodians, Hmong, Laotians,…

In response to a literature that has paid limited attention to the complex representations of Cambodian students, this article investigated the ways in which Cambodian male youth were problematized in school through Discourses that presented them as apathetic students and/or gang members at one California high school. In this study, the ways in…

This qualitative study seeks to investigate an interesting and understudied case of the persistence and retention of immigrant students in postsecondary education. Specifically, the study examines the way family dynamics of second-generation Cambodian college students influence their success in postsecondary education. Currently, much of the…

In this article we illustrate how we utilize acceptance and mindfulness techniques in our treatment (Culturally Adapted CBT, or CA-CBT) for traumatized refugees and ethnic minority populations. We present a Nodal Network Model (NNM) of Affect to explain the treatment's emphasis on body-centered mindfulness techniques and its focus on psychological…

This study investigates the ways in which emotions and emotionality are managed as topics and resources in second language (L2) research interviews. A continued challenge for researchers is how to define and operationalize emotions and other putative psychological phenomena. One popular research methodology that treats emotions as the object and…

This article uses a life story framework (Linde, 1993) to examine the educational experiences of Cambodian American women college students. The literature suggests that Cambodian American female students experience particular educational challenges related to the gendered expectations of their cultural group. Two main themes emerged from analyses…

Educational policy usually overlooks Cambodian American students as a unique ethnic group, attending instead to the positive statistics that aggregate Asian American students into a single group of successful students. Through ethnographic interviews, this article examines how successful Cambodian American students interpreted values from their…

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious global public health issue. At least one in three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused during her lifetime. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than three women in the United States die every day from physical abuse suffered at the hands of an intimate…

Intergenerational cultural dissonance (ICD)--a clash between parents and children over cultural values--is a frequent issue for Asian American youth. Using longitudinal data from the Cross Cultural Families Project, this study examines the mechanisms by which ICD contributes to problem behaviors, including whether ICD predicts parent-child…

We investigate the factors that influence adolescent self-assessed health, based upon surveys conducted between 2000 and 2004 of high-school seniors in Washington State (N = 6853). A large proportion of the sample (30%) was first and second generation immigrants from Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Findings include a robust negative…

This study investigates the settlement of Cambodian adolescents in New South Wales (Australia). It looks at their participation in education and employment, the effects the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia had on those who lived through it, and the identity problems that usually occur in young people as a result of migration. According to the 1986…

The early 1980s saw an influx of Southeast Asian refugees from various demographic groups and backgrounds to Minnesota. As teachers, the author and her colleagues regularly added children from these groups to their classrooms, receiving little explanation of a student's history or language proficiency. To counteract increasing teacher resentment…

Interviews with two Cambodian immigrant families over 2 years revealed how they relied on each other more than formal service providers to cope with difficulties. They focused on children's education and safety, insulation of the family from external influences, and interdependence with the immigrant community. (SK)

This brief article tells the story of one young man's complicated history and background that was turned around for the better through his involvement with the YMCA Youth Institute and a camp providing team-building exercises, and in-depth instruction in digital arts skills, such as how to edit photos with Adobe Photoshop and create 3D animations…