This book examines how Cambodian American high school youth reconcile stereotypes, identities, and school opportunities and the ways these factors impact academic achievement and well-being, through ethnographic research.

The backdrop for Cambodian American life is intimately embedded within how Asians and Asian Americans are imagined within U.S. society. This book argues that how Cambodian American students negotiate certain identities are in relation to perceived advantages associated with ethnic and panethnic labels across varying social contexts. It highlights how the embrace of the model minority stereotype can come at a psychological cost for Asian Americans including increased feelings of internalized racism. The chapters draw on ethnographic research collected across 2 years in one Southern California community. Through students’ own meaning-making, it shows readers how Cambodian American youth are simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible in their school and community, which shape access to important identities and relationships. This work invites interrogation of the Asian American category itself and seeks to move the fields of Asian American and educational studies forward by critically examining not only how the model minority stereotype is constructed and imposed but also how it can be adopted and affirmed by Asian American youth themselves.

Practitioners who work with marginalized and underrepresented students, students of courses such as Asian American studies, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Education and Psychology will find this to be a helpful and enlightening text. The accessible and clear writing means this book will also be of interest to a general audience.

Vichet Chhuon, PhD, is Associate Professor of Culture and Teaching and Asian American Studies at the University of Minnesota.