January 20, 2008
Urban Tactics
Little Cambodia, Growing Still Littler
By DAVID SHAFTEL

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Data from the 2000 census shows that the city’s Cambodian population decreased by 31 percent from 1990 to 2000. According to a census analysis by the Hmong Studies Internet Resource Center, the decline occurred as nearly all the country’s other Cambodian communities were expanding.

At the high-water mark of 1990, census figures show, 2,565 Cambodians lived in the city, primarily in the Fordham, University Heights and Bronx Park East sections of the Bronx. Most were refugees who were resettled in New York after fleeing the repressive Khmer Rouge regime, which fell in 1979 and claimed nearly two million lives. According to an analysis of 2005 numbers prepared by the Census Bureau, barely 1,000 Cambodians then remained in the city.