During its May 11 meeting, the Signal Hill City Council recognized Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Day on May 20. The council also adopted a resolution condemning racism and anti-Asian sentiment.
Remembering Cambodian genocide
Mayor Edward Wilson presented a proclamation to representatives of the local Cambodian community recognizing Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Day.
The proclamation acknowledges the Khmer Rouge regime’s killing of nearly 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. The City flew the Cambodian flag during the month of April to mark the genocide.
Wilson said the Khmer Rouge regime seized the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, driving 2 million residents into forced-labor camps—outlawing money, property, books and religion.
“We remember those lives lost and celebrate the resilience of the Cambodian community,” Wilson said. “Today, the Long Beach/Signal Hill area has the largest and oldest Cambodian community in the nation.”
The Cambodian embassy’s Consul General Kim Chha Hout thanked the mayor and City for the recognition.
Thary Ung, president of the nonprofit Cambodian-California Sister State, Inc., also thanked the council.
“I lost a number of family members in the genocide, which ultimately resulted in the death of a quarter of the population,” she said. “It is important to remember the event of the genocide to learn from it so it never repeats again.”
Charles Song, a board member of the Signal Hill Community Foundation, said when the Khmer Rouge regime forced millions of Cambodians into labor camps 46 years ago, it executed former government officials, doctors, artists, scholars and his own family members.
“Most of us who have lived through the regime were severely traumatized by the experience,” Song said.
Several hundred thousand Cambodians left the country and became refugees across the world, Song said. Approximately 140,000 to the U.S. He was one of those refugees.
“We must continue to remember and share the story of this human tragedy in hopes that it will never happen again, in Cambodia or elsewhere in any other country,” he said.
Richer San, on the board of directors of Long Beach’s Cambodia Town, said the reign of terror forced Phnom Penh residents to leave with whatever they could carry, with no transportation. Those who didn’t or couldn’t comply were executed on the spot.
“It is important to remember,” Wilson said, adding that the City will raise the Cambodian flag again at City Hall at 8 a.m. on May 20.
“No child should have to experience that, ever,” San said. “This recognition means the whole world to my community, and especially to me and my family.”
Condemning anti-Asian racism
The City Council also adopted a resolution condemning anti-Asian and anti-Pacific Islander racism.
City Manager Hannah Shin-Heydorn recounted how the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in “harmful and xenophobic rhetoric related to the origins of the disease” resulting in a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI).
Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition addressing AAPI discrimination amid the pandemic, documented over 3,700 hate incidents targeting persons of AAPI heritage in the U.S. since March 2020, Shin-Heydorn said.
The resolution was vetted by the City’s Diversity Coalition Committee (DCC), Shin-Heydorn said, adding that the council had first proposed it in March following the March 16 shootings of mostly Asian spa workers near Atlanta, Georgia.
Members of the DCC expressed support during the meeting, both in person and by email, read aloud by Deputy City Manager Scott Charney.
“It is imperative that we as a city raise awareness and unequivocally express publicly that anti-Asian behavior and sentiments are not acceptable,” DCC Member Lisa Wong said by email. “We should not live in a society where I have to impress upon my mother not to walk out the door for an evening stroll, or limit outdoor activity to avoid arbitrary racial discrimination, verbally or physically.”
The resolution notes that 25% of Signal Hill’s population is of AAPI heritage and that xenophobic comments by federal leadership during the virus inflamed anti-Asian sentiment with regard to COVID-19’s origins.
“Such statements have promoted unfounded fears and perpetuated stigma about persons of [AAPI] heritage and have contributed to increasing rates of bullying, harassment, and hate crimes against them,” it states.
The resolution invites the community to “support inclusion of people of all races, national origins, and ethnicities.”
“When you see things that are not right, it’s important to say something about it at the time,” Wilson said, tying the resolution to Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Day. “Don’t wait until it gets to a point where it’s disastrous.”
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