By Frederic Pierce Staff writer
The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York, USA)
When Jeffrey Tep's fellow Nottingham High School students nicknamed him "Free" 25 years ago, they had no idea how fitting it was.
Tep, a refugee from communist Cambodia, spent most of his teenage years in brutal Khmer Rouge labor camps, digging reservoirs with homemade shovels and catching frogs and snails he could eat to survive.
He didn't go to school. He was separated from his family. Work was a matter of survival, and someone complaining too loudly could be punished with death.
Tep wasn't a dissenter or a criminal. He wasn't a member of the professional class that Cambodia's harsh brand of communism persecuted. He was simply living in the "rural utopia" created by Pol Pot, the dictator blamed for the deaths of 1.5 million of his country's people.
"It was a nightmare," Tep recalled. "At one point, I don't want to live anymore. To die would be better. There's no food to eat. You cannot see your family. What kind of life is that?"
So, at the age of 18, Tep and a friend stole across the border into Thailand. After more than a year in a refugee camp, he was brought to Syracuse, a national relocation center for refugees. Now, at 43, Tep teaches computer skills to refugees just beginning journeys similar to his own. He is married to a woman whose family escaped Cambodia and came to Syracuse before the Khmer Rouge took over. He owns a house in Cicero and has a 13-year-old daughter who is an honors student and a competitive figure skater. “She’s American,” Tep said with a chuckle. “They don’t have anything like skating (in Cambodia). That was something we had to learn from scratch.” Tep was raised in a small village with seven sisters and three brothers. His father was a farmer, and his mother sold items in the family’s market stall. For years, the country’s civil war was mostly explosions they’d hear in the distance. Then the blasts got closer. The soldiers arrived and burned his home. The government flipped to the control of radical communists. Family didn’t belong in Pol Pot’s vision for a utopian society, Tep said. Married couples were allowed to stay together with children younger than 6. Everyone else — including kids 6 and older — were divided into single-gender groups and put to work on projects miles away from their homes, he said. One of Tep’s brothers died in a Khmer Rouge labor camp. His father died while Tep was working at a camp far away from home. During this time, youths like Tep worked seven days a week, using primitive tools made from scrap metal and junk. Often, a small bowl of rice was the only nourishment available, forcing them to forage for whatever they could find, including small animals. “People were getting sick. They were starving,” Tep said. “I remember one boy, he was so sick and thin and hungry that he was trying to eat everything: the grass, the leaves.” Getting into the Thai refugee camp was easy, Tep said. Becoming one of the few to get out and actually come to America, however, took nearly two years. Tep had no money. He said he wore the same shirt for a year and a half inside the camp. He couldn’t get into any of the English classes, so he watched and listened outside the tent door, trying to learn the language spoken in his dream destination: the United States. It was in the camp that Tep learned from older Cambodian men that his birth name, Sereivath, meant “freedom” in the Khmer language. “I thought ‘This is perfect,’” Tep said. “I love freedom. That’s why I’m here.” In Syracuse, refugee resettlement programs helped him deal with unknown challenges — such as snow — and enrolled him at Nottingham. He took the name “Jeffrey,” and his classmates shortened it to the last syllable, “free,” without knowing about his Cambodian name. Tep worked hard, then found other programs and grants to help him through Le Moyne College and Syracuse University, where he earned an engineering degree and learned he had a knack for computers. That led to a job with the Syracuse School District, working with adult refugees like himself.
Tep was interviewed as part of The Post-Standard profile series celebrating National Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Here are excerpts:
As a father, how do you keep your heritage alive in your child? It’s very hard. It’s something, in fact, I have to fight with every day, every time I get up. I think communicating is the most important; to be able to give them the message when they are young, to influence them. ... Sometime, we have to find the right place and the right time to talk about it, otherwise she has no interest. That’s something that scares me. The longer time that I wait, (the) more it will be rejected.
You’re taking your daughter to Cambodia this summer to visit your family. What do you hope she learns? Hopefully, she will learn how people live in Cambodia. She’ll see how people are suffering. They have few clothes; they have to wash them the next day. Sometimes you have to find your own food. Sometimes you have to work even though you’re young because your parents are poor. Maybe she’ll see how lucky we are here in the United States.
What advice do you have for new refugees trying to build a life in America? Never stop trying. At Nottingham when I was learning how to speak English — learning how to have voice like America, an accent, so my friends aren’t making fun of me — I have to dream speaking in English. Even though I sleep, I keep speaking English, because I know I must. I want my tongue to be flexible. I know I must never give up.
Why is education so important to you? My father was a farmer, but he also used to be a monk, so he was educated. And when my father had to raise a family of 12, he knew that education was important. So he had to suffer in order to support the family so he could send us to school. So I have that in my mind: Education is primary. My parents were strict about that. And because of that, that’s how I got here, where I am today. Because of that, that’s how my daughter is able to do what she’s doing.
Frederic Pierce can be reached at fpierce@syracuse.com or 470-6062.
Tep, a refugee from communist Cambodia, spent most of his teenage years in brutal Khmer Rouge labor camps, digging reservoirs with homemade shovels and catching frogs and snails he could eat to survive.
He didn't go to school. He was separated from his family. Work was a matter of survival, and someone complaining too loudly could be punished with death.
Tep wasn't a dissenter or a criminal. He wasn't a member of the professional class that Cambodia's harsh brand of communism persecuted. He was simply living in the "rural utopia" created by Pol Pot, the dictator blamed for the deaths of 1.5 million of his country's people.
"It was a nightmare," Tep recalled. "At one point, I don't want to live anymore. To die would be better. There's no food to eat. You cannot see your family. What kind of life is that?"
So, at the age of 18, Tep and a friend stole across the border into Thailand. After more than a year in a refugee camp, he was brought to Syracuse, a national relocation center for refugees. Now, at 43, Tep teaches computer skills to refugees just beginning journeys similar to his own. He is married to a woman whose family escaped Cambodia and came to Syracuse before the Khmer Rouge took over. He owns a house in Cicero and has a 13-year-old daughter who is an honors student and a competitive figure skater. “She’s American,” Tep said with a chuckle. “They don’t have anything like skating (in Cambodia). That was something we had to learn from scratch.” Tep was raised in a small village with seven sisters and three brothers. His father was a farmer, and his mother sold items in the family’s market stall. For years, the country’s civil war was mostly explosions they’d hear in the distance. Then the blasts got closer. The soldiers arrived and burned his home. The government flipped to the control of radical communists. Family didn’t belong in Pol Pot’s vision for a utopian society, Tep said. Married couples were allowed to stay together with children younger than 6. Everyone else — including kids 6 and older — were divided into single-gender groups and put to work on projects miles away from their homes, he said. One of Tep’s brothers died in a Khmer Rouge labor camp. His father died while Tep was working at a camp far away from home. During this time, youths like Tep worked seven days a week, using primitive tools made from scrap metal and junk. Often, a small bowl of rice was the only nourishment available, forcing them to forage for whatever they could find, including small animals. “People were getting sick. They were starving,” Tep said. “I remember one boy, he was so sick and thin and hungry that he was trying to eat everything: the grass, the leaves.” Getting into the Thai refugee camp was easy, Tep said. Becoming one of the few to get out and actually come to America, however, took nearly two years. Tep had no money. He said he wore the same shirt for a year and a half inside the camp. He couldn’t get into any of the English classes, so he watched and listened outside the tent door, trying to learn the language spoken in his dream destination: the United States. It was in the camp that Tep learned from older Cambodian men that his birth name, Sereivath, meant “freedom” in the Khmer language. “I thought ‘This is perfect,’” Tep said. “I love freedom. That’s why I’m here.” In Syracuse, refugee resettlement programs helped him deal with unknown challenges — such as snow — and enrolled him at Nottingham. He took the name “Jeffrey,” and his classmates shortened it to the last syllable, “free,” without knowing about his Cambodian name. Tep worked hard, then found other programs and grants to help him through Le Moyne College and Syracuse University, where he earned an engineering degree and learned he had a knack for computers. That led to a job with the Syracuse School District, working with adult refugees like himself.
Tep was interviewed as part of The Post-Standard profile series celebrating National Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Here are excerpts:
As a father, how do you keep your heritage alive in your child? It’s very hard. It’s something, in fact, I have to fight with every day, every time I get up. I think communicating is the most important; to be able to give them the message when they are young, to influence them. ... Sometime, we have to find the right place and the right time to talk about it, otherwise she has no interest. That’s something that scares me. The longer time that I wait, (the) more it will be rejected.
You’re taking your daughter to Cambodia this summer to visit your family. What do you hope she learns? Hopefully, she will learn how people live in Cambodia. She’ll see how people are suffering. They have few clothes; they have to wash them the next day. Sometimes you have to find your own food. Sometimes you have to work even though you’re young because your parents are poor. Maybe she’ll see how lucky we are here in the United States.
What advice do you have for new refugees trying to build a life in America? Never stop trying. At Nottingham when I was learning how to speak English — learning how to have voice like America, an accent, so my friends aren’t making fun of me — I have to dream speaking in English. Even though I sleep, I keep speaking English, because I know I must. I want my tongue to be flexible. I know I must never give up.
Why is education so important to you? My father was a farmer, but he also used to be a monk, so he was educated. And when my father had to raise a family of 12, he knew that education was important. So he had to suffer in order to support the family so he could send us to school. So I have that in my mind: Education is primary. My parents were strict about that. And because of that, that’s how I got here, where I am today. Because of that, that’s how my daughter is able to do what she’s doing.
Frederic Pierce can be reached at fpierce@syracuse.com or 470-6062.
1 comment:
Good man!
And he learned it alot from a respected exMonk from Cambodia!
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