Photo: Erika Schultz/The Seattle TimesERIKA SCHULTZ
THE SEATTLE TIMES (Seattle, WA, USA)
Between the long, narrow rows of blueberry bushes, Lina Boun is having lunch and talking with her mother and father.
Several more hours of picking are ahead of them, so it's not long before they grab their buckets and again start inching down the rows of the Mercer Slough Blueberry Farm in Bellevue. Lina and her mother, Chantha, chat across the dense foliage as they go, and every so often, burst into giggles.
The Boun family moved from Cambodia to Seattle about a year ago. In July, Lina worked six days a week at the blueberry farm and cleaned office buildings on the seventh. Evenings, she'd head for English classes at Seattle Community College.
Many Cambodians come to work in the fields for summer harvest. Bill Pace, who supervises the Mercer Slough farm's harvest and sales, says some come only for an afternoon; others work for several days or weeks.
Pace says the Bellevue Cambodians are meticulous berry pickers and seldom bruise the tender fruit. But just like the berries, he says, some of the workers are very sensitive.
"I think it comes from their experience in their country. It's just my feeling."
Washington is home to 15,000 Cambodians. Around 8,000 live in the greater Seattle area, and 3,000 in Tacoma, says Chip Tan of the Asian Counseling and Referral Service. Eighty-five percent of Washington's Cambodian refugees fled between 1979 and 1992, escaping the genocidal regime of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge and its devastating aftermath.
Refugees who've established themselves in America are now sponsoring their family members to relocate from Cambodia, where 40 percent of the population still live below the poverty line.
Lina, who's 20, has come here to work. From the berry fields, she was headed back to Nintendo and a job testing parts. Mostly, she looks forward to school.
Several more hours of picking are ahead of them, so it's not long before they grab their buckets and again start inching down the rows of the Mercer Slough Blueberry Farm in Bellevue. Lina and her mother, Chantha, chat across the dense foliage as they go, and every so often, burst into giggles.
The Boun family moved from Cambodia to Seattle about a year ago. In July, Lina worked six days a week at the blueberry farm and cleaned office buildings on the seventh. Evenings, she'd head for English classes at Seattle Community College.
Many Cambodians come to work in the fields for summer harvest. Bill Pace, who supervises the Mercer Slough farm's harvest and sales, says some come only for an afternoon; others work for several days or weeks.
Pace says the Bellevue Cambodians are meticulous berry pickers and seldom bruise the tender fruit. But just like the berries, he says, some of the workers are very sensitive.
"I think it comes from their experience in their country. It's just my feeling."
Washington is home to 15,000 Cambodians. Around 8,000 live in the greater Seattle area, and 3,000 in Tacoma, says Chip Tan of the Asian Counseling and Referral Service. Eighty-five percent of Washington's Cambodian refugees fled between 1979 and 1992, escaping the genocidal regime of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge and its devastating aftermath.
Refugees who've established themselves in America are now sponsoring their family members to relocate from Cambodia, where 40 percent of the population still live below the poverty line.
Lina, who's 20, has come here to work. From the berry fields, she was headed back to Nintendo and a job testing parts. Mostly, she looks forward to school.
4 comments:
Being a slave for our own freedom is much better way off than live within a criminal hand or in a crook society.
That's the meaning of desirable in each khmer's life and it's a life time opportunity for many khmers ladies such as Lina.
The hard work for today, it will be pay off for tomorrow life.
To 2:00AM
I couldn't say it better than you. I believe people have to start somewhere in life. As long as Khmer people are living with hope and freedom, the next Khmer generation will always out do the first generation.
Poor in material things are a temporary one but poor in the mind and living with hoplessness are a forever curse of death on any human!
If people continue to live in a poor condition after the third generations, then there is something wrong here! Let hope that it is not a generational curse!
This girl has same last name as mine and the first name almost similar, too.
Re: Anon@1:00PM
What's your name then? lolz...
10/16/06
AK4AnetKhmer
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