The annual Cambodia Town Parade and Culture Festival — a celebration of the Southeast Asian country’s new year, which traditionally takes place from April 14 to 16 — will return to Long Beach this weekend for its 15th iteration.
The free cerebration will kick off at 10 a.m. Sunday, April 2, with a parade that starts between Cherry Avenue and Anaheim Street — and will travel about a half mile to MacArthur Park. The parade will begin after an interfaith program that will include a traditional blessing.
“We are inviting all the great spiritual leaders of Long Beach representing Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and those of the Jewish faith,” said Richer San, a member of the Cambodia Town, Inc. Board of Directors. “We want to promote peace within the community, and all are welcome.”
The Sunday event will finish with a festival — from noon to 5 p.m. — that will feature multiple performances, showcase Cambodian cuisine and art, and offer education about the country’s nearly two-millennium old cultural heritage.
Cambodia Town — which is home to the largest population of Cambodians outside of the country itself — is focused around about a one-mile stretch of Anaheim Street between Atlantic and Junipero avenues.
Long Beach became a second home for Cambodians in the early 1980s — when hundreds of thousands of Cambodian refugees flocked to the United States seeking safety from the brutality of the communist Khmer Rouge. The resulting Cambodian Genocide killed nearly 2 million people.
One exhibit that will be on display during the festival will showcase pictures taken by photographer Colin Grafton from Cambodian refugee camps in the early 1980s — where many who had experienced the horrors of war went to apply for resettlement in other countries after the Khmer Rouge fell in 1979.
“As many of them came to the United States with nothing, these photos will allow both first-generation Cambodian Americans and their children to connect with the homeland they were forced to leave,” an announcement about the exhibit said. “Cambodian and Cambodian American memories were destroyed by nearly three decades of war and genocide. These photographs will help connect the Long Beach community to their past.”
Long Beach is home to nearly 500,000 Cambodians.
The first Cambodian New Year Parade was hosted in April 2005 after years of advocacy from community members, who wanted to ensure their culture and heritage wouldn’t be forgotten in America, according to the event’s website.
The event draws thousands to Cambodia Town every year — and offers a way for the community to celebrate the new year, honor and carry on Khmer culture and traditions, and share it with others. The organizers are expecting about 3,000 attendees this year — with millions of others expected to watch the celebrations virtually.
“Last year, we had more than 5 million viewers watching,” San said. “This year, we anticipate there will be even more people because we are really trying to get the word out early.”
This year, the event’s theme is to “Stop Hate With Love” — a mantra that calls for the coming together of Long Beach’s diverse communities.
“This means a lot to us,” San previously told the Long Beach Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We want to share our culture with Long Beach. So many good things come from this.”
The blessing starts at 9 a.m., with the parade following at 10 a.m. on Sunday, April 2, between Cherry Avenue and Anaheim Street. The festival will begin at noon at MacArthur Park, 1321 E Anaheim St.
Contributing writer Enrique Rodriguez contributed to this report.
Source: Orange County Register
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