New Year festivities in Santa Ana, California

Santa Ana is located 20 miles East of Long Beach. On Saturday May, 11, 2009 the Cambodian community of the area gathered at the building of “The Cambodian Family” for the festivities of the Cambodian New Year. “The Cambodian Family” - http://www.cambodianfamily.org/ - is a non-profit agency serving the refugee and immigrant community of Orange County, California, promoting social health, helping immigrants in the search of jobs, mentoring youth. If it emphasizes on the Cambodia community, the agency also serves other Southeast Asian immigrants (Vietnamese, Lao/Hmong) and Hispanic immigrants.

As "The Cambodian Family” also serves Hispanic immigrants, Mexican folkloric dances were in the program of the day.

And then came the Cambodian folkloric dances…

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New Year at Willow Temple, Long Beach, California

Wat Khemara Buddhikaram in Long Beach is commonly called ‘Wat Willow” as it is located on 2100 West Willow Street. Even though it is not in the Cambodian “business neighborhood” along Anaheim Street, it remains one important Buddhist temple for the Cambodian community.

During the week of April 14, thousands of people come and gather at the temple, to honor Lord Buddha, give respect to the monks, pray and share food.

The artists of the Cambodian Culture and Arts Association will perform folkloric dances that are still very familiar to those who were born in Cambodia and had to flee or leave the country sometime in their life…

Cambodian elders are happy to contribute financially during a performance of “Chayam” folkloric dance.

Srey Met (pictured above), 61, playing “Chapey dong veng”, a popular Cambodian two-stringed, long-necked guitar.

Before a performance, Nhoeun Gnim, 58, is burning incense in honor of the spirit of the music and instruments.

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Cambodian New Year in Maryland

The Cambodian community in the DC area is around 5000 members. There are bigger communities in the US, in Massachusetts (Lowel) and in California. Here we are at Vatt Buddhikarama in Silver Spring, Maryland, close to the nation's capitol Washington DC for the Khmer New Year festivities on April 12 and 13th 2008. The temple is famous for the high and good Buddhist education of its monks, attracting for the New Year some folks from the area but also some coming from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York.

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See more stories about the Cambodian Americans in the archives of this blog! ..