Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the NYC Hyperghetto – A Book Conversation with Eric Tang

Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the NYC Hyperghetto

In the years during and following the Cambodian genocide, hundreds of thousands of Cambodian refugees were resettled in the US. In the 1980s and 1990s, ten thousand of these refugees arrived in the Bronx. Chronicling their unfinished odyssey, through the eyes of one woman, Ra Pronh, Unsettled tells the story of a refugee community’s survival and resistance amid the concentrated poverty of the Bronx. Scholar and organizer Eric Tang (University of Texas, Austin) locates the Bronx Cambodians and their “unclosed sojourn” within a longer history of war and displacement. In so doing he challenges commonly held notions of humanitarian rescue and relief, arguing that refuge cannot be found when resettlement efforts seek to mask the harsh urban conditions faced by poor people of color, immigrants and refugees in cities across the country.

Eric Tang is an Associate Professor in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department and faculty member in the Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Sociology and serves as a faculty fellow with both the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis and the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the NYC Hyperghettois his first book.