Book Review: Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America. Aihwa Ong Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. 352 pages. Cloth, $55; paper $21.95.

Book ReviewsBuddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America.Aihwa Ong Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003.

352 pages. Cloth, $55; paper $21.95.This book provides extensive information on the lives of Cambodian refugees, from Pol Pot times through resettlement in California.

The focus is on how various governmental policies and institutions

have affected their lives, with the major portion of the book dealing

with their time in the U.S. The author frames her interpretation of

their experiences in the U.S. through a discussion of citizenship,

which encompasses more than voting and legal rights. Ong summarizes two divergent views about citizenship as it applies to ethnic

minorities: ethnic succession which suggests that through the trials

and hardships of each generation, successive generations will rise to

a higher level and eventually be equivalent to mainstream Whites in

terms of citizenship; and cultural citizenship or the right to be culturally different from the nations dominant norms yet included as

full and equally valued citizens. In her interpretation of citizenship,

the legal, economic, political and social agencies with which refugees

interact define citizenship by teaching newcomers how to be American based on the institutions portrayal of the prevailing norms

without sufficiently considering the newcomers cultural values. Ong

sets this discussion of citizenship for ethnic minorities in a wider

context of other ethnic groups who have experienced discrimination

and exclusion, and contrasts the treatment of low income ethnic

minorities with the favorable treatment wealthy Asian entrepreneurs receive.Ong provides a comprehensive overview of the constant upheaval

and change Cambodians have experienced in their lives, from their

valued way of life in Cambodia before Pol Pot, to their life during

the Pol Pot regime, then in the refugee camps, and finally during

their first 10 years in California. The focus is on how the norms and

values they were expected to follow changed in each phase of theirJournal of Family and Economic Issues, Vol. 25(4), Winter 2004 2004 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 541542 Journal of Family and Economic Issueslives and the strategies they developed to get what they needed to

survive and, if possible, to improve their situation.The first major upheaval was during the Pol Pot regime, in which

the fundamental values of Cambodian life were negated and social

order was reversed:...