Siamese Melting Pot: Ethnic Minorities in the Making of Bangkok

Ethnic minorities historically comprised a solid majority of Bangkok’s population. They played a dominant role in the city’s exuberant economic and social development. In the shadow of Siam’s prideful, flamboyant Thai ruling class, the city’s diverse minorities flourished quietly. The Thai-Portuguese; the Mon; the Lao; the Cham, Persian, Indian, Malay, and Indonesian Muslims; and the Taechiu, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainanese, and Cantonese Chinese speech groups were particularly important. Others, such as the Khmer, Vietnamese, Thai Yuan, Sikhs, and Westerners, were smaller in numbers but no less significant in their influence on the city’s growth and prosperity.

• Edward Van Roy, Author

  Edward Van Roy arrived in Thailand in 1963 with the Cornell-Bennington Survey of Hill Tribes in Thailand and, in effect, never left. His hill tribe research led to a doctorate in economics, credentialled in economic anthropology (University of Texas, 1965) and a monograph titled Economic Systems of Northern Thailand (1971).