Threads of Gold

It has been more than 20 years since the Cham community settled en masse in Kuala Terengganu Malaysia. Yet hardly much is written about them. This book aims to provide an ethnographical study and examine the immediate history networks and identity of the Cham Diaspora. The locals had assumed that they are either 'Malays' from Cambodia or 'Vietnamese Muslim converts'. They are Muslim-Cham from Cambodia and Vietnam who fearing the assaults of the Pol Pot regime and possible threats to their identity-and-religion have from 1975 begun to flee to various United Nations-run refugee camps in Thailand hoping to be resettled in Malaysia. From their initial occupations as petty traders and odd job labourers they have emerged as successful textile and gold retailers in KT. They have also built a socio-economic network within their community on which they could depend for various form of support. This book would be of interest to anthropologists and political analysts who are studying minority group relations and the social-political dynamics of refugees-local population interactions.