The US has been honoring its citizens of Asian ancestry with Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month, which ends this week.
Among these are Cambodians, who in the US number 240,000—about .08 percent of the population, according to the US Embassy in Phnom Penh.
Notable Cambodians in the US include Chanrithy Uong, who was elected to the city council of Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1998; Dr. Haing Nor, who won an Academy Award for his performance in “The Killing Fields;” and Linn Yann, who won a county spelling bee after coming to the US without a word of English and who was featured in a television movie, “The Girl Who Spelled Freedom.”
Artiststs Bun Em, Peou Khatna, and Chum Ngek have earned the National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.Whitney Ping, a 2004 Olympian table tennis player, and bodybuilder Krisna "Kris" Dim “have thrilled sports fans,” the embassy said. “Soben Huon was crowned Miss Utah USA in 2006 and went on to compete in the Miss USA pageant.”