Like millions of immigrants before them, the Cham of Southern California are trying to hold onto their identity in a strange land. The Cham, descendants from the Ancient Kingdom of Champa located on the coastline of present-day Vietnam, have spent generations looking for a place to call home.
For centuries, they have been chased from place to place — from the highlands of Vietnam to the rivers of Cambodia and, in the bloody aftermath of genocide, to the United States, where thousands have settled.