Welcome to Cambodia Town

Abstract

Cambodian American communities are at an inflection point as the generation that arrived in the U.S as refugees start to retire, and the younger generation often have other aspirations than to carry on their parents’ businesses. Cambodia Town—as the largest conglomeration of Cambodians in the U.S—embodies these changes in the form of population decline, and small businesses closing down. However, a new wave of Cambodian American digital creators that seek to use storytelling and design to represent and shape Khmer culture has also emerged out of this transition.

I undertake a product design and development process that uncovers the needs of Cambodian American small businesses, and digital creators related to digital engagement, and develop a prototype of a mobile application to support them. I conduct exploratory data analysis of small businesses in Cambodia Town, and in-depth interviews with target users of the mobile app, which I translate into the prototype design.

The heart of this work asks how might we imagine a platform that threads together digital and physical worlds for a geographically fragmented group of people, and what are the implications of such an endeavor for placemaking.