Khmer as a Heritage Language in the United States: Historical Sketch, Current Realities, and Future Prospects
Authors: Wright Wayne E. 
Published: February 2021

Cambodian Americans are a fairly recent language minority group in the United States;
most families arrived in the United States as refugees during the 1980s. Over the past 30
years, there has been great concern in the community regarding the maintenance loss of their native Khmer language. This article provides an historical and contemporary sketch of the Khmer language in the United States, and discusses implications for its future survival. Data are drawn and analyzed from the U.S. Census, the 2007 American
Community Survey, and other statistical sources, in addition to research conducted in
Cambodian American communities, and the author’s experiences and observations as a
(non-native) Khmer speaker. The findings indicate that the Khmer language is alive and
well in the United States, and most school-age youth continue to speak Khmer, although
few speak it with high levels of proficiency and few have literacy skills in the language
given the lack of opportunities for Khmer HL education. Nonetheless, there are some
positive factors that Khmer communities and educational institutions can draw on to
ensure the future of Khmer as a HL in the United States.

In the early 1990s, I attended a forum held at California State University, Long Beach
sponsored by the United Cambodian Students of America. The distinguished guest
speaker was Mr. Neou Kassie, a well-known Cambodian American and an outspoken
human rights advocate. Mr. Neou began speaking elegantly and powerfully in Khmer,
describing his advocacy work in Cambodia. A few minutes into his animated speech, one of the young college student leaders, with an embarrassed look on her face, interrupted him: “Excuse me Mr. Neou, can you please switch to English? Most of us are having a very hard time understanding you in Khmer.”

Cambodian Americans are a fairly recent language minority group in the United States;
most families have been in this country for less than 30 years. However, as the vignette
above illustrates, issues have already emerged related to the maintenance or loss of
Khmer as a heritage language in the United States. Even within the first ten years of
refugee resettlement, Cambodian parents and community leaders expressed concern at
what they perceived as rapid Khmer language loss among their youth (Smith-Hefner,
1990). Nonetheless, Khmer continues to be widely used in Cambodian American families
and communities across the United States, and there are some efforts to provide
opportunities for the next generations of Cambodian Americans to develop and maintain their native Khmer language.

The purpose of this article is to provide a historical and contemporary sketch of the
Khmer language in the United States, and to discuss implications for its future survival.
Data for this article are drawn from the United States Census, the American Community
Survey, and other statistical sources, in addition to research conducted in Cambodian
American communities, and my own experiences and observations as a (non-native)
Khmer speaker. It is my hope that these analyses will be useful to policy makers,
educators, and researchers, and also to Cambodian American community leaders,
educators, and others who are actively working to preserve the Khmer language in the
United States.

In this article, we first will look briefly at the history of Cambodian American
immigration to the United States, including the tragic events in Cambodia leading to the
large exodus of political refugees. Next, we will explore demographic information related
to Cambodian Americans and the Khmer language in the United States, followed by a
discussion of Cambodian Americans’ relationship with Cambodia. We then consider
issues related to Khmer language maintenance and loss in the United States, including
community and institutional efforts that provide opportunities for the learning and use of Khmer. The article concludes with a discussion of the future of Khmer as a Heritage
Language in the United States.