Perpetually temporary citizenship and ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia
- There is a clear trend in Western democratic countries towards regularizing the status of long-term ethnic minority residents through the conferral of full and equal citizenship rights. Ethnic minorities who arrived as irregular or temporary migrants in the West are increasingly allowed to follow the immigrant path towards integration into the broader citizenry. This is largely due to recognition that the price of exclusion is not only unjust, but it increases the risk of racial tensions, criminality, and social violence. Investigating the relevance of these Western developments to Cambodia, this article focuses on Cambodia's ethnic Vietnamese minority. Despite residing in Cambodia for generations, ethnic Vietnamese have traditionally been regarded as 'foreign residents' and denied citizenship. Based on extensive field research, this article considers the history and reality of Cambodia's ethnic Vietnamese minority as well as the ethnically-exclusionary policies and practices of the state and Khmer majority towards them.
