In 1996 at the age of 13, Vesna Loek left the durian plantations of Kampot, Cambodia to reunite with his biological family in the United States. Settled in Long Beach, California, otherwise known as the Mecca of Khmer America, Loek’s childhood upbringing made the transition easier than most immigrants both culturally and socially. But despite the smooth acclimation, Loek began to encounter resistance later throughout his activism years.
At California State University in Fullerton, California, Loek’s cultural awareness created mixed feelings between his peers. For starters, his vast knowledge in Cambodian history and culture became intimidating to a predominant population of American raised classmates who had very little exposure while growing up. But the situation posed a unique challenge. In late 2005, Loek successfully managed to mobilize like-minded friends to re-establish the Cambodian Student Association (CSA).
Prior to CSA’s reactivation in early 2005, Loek and colleagues had a taste of criticism from his involvement in the First Annual Khmer New Year Parade. The college students drafted a compromise letter addressed to City Council to mediate the rising tensions between factions members of the Cambodian community.
But an uproar engulfed the community as elders accused the students of being pro-Cambodian People Party (CPP) or pro-Khmer Rouge. Recalling the incident, Loek expressed his disappointment in the community’s reaction.
“I plunged into the scene prematurely and was overly naive for it to end up any other way,” said Loek. Yet Loek is proud to have gone through the experience. Loek adds, “No regrets, though. It was through this experience that I woke and realized how deeply conflicted and politically polarized the Cambodian community in Long Beach was at the time. I could not have had a better learning curve.”
It eventually received approval after a series of negotiations.
Despite these bruised battles, Loek is optimistic about his community and remains hopeful. “I feel Khmer Americans are in dire need of role models, and that goes for Khmers all over the world. It is one of the central issues that Khmer Americans of later generations, beginning with ours, have to address,” said Loek.
“The gap has narrowed considerably due to strengthening of cross cultural exchanges domestically and abroad … [via] entrepreneurs, students, scholars, travelers.” Working with Khmerican, Loek hopes that these linkages create positive impact within Khmer America and throughout the global Khmer diaspora.
Vesna joins Khmerican as a English and Khmer reporter covering Long Beach and vicinity.
VP
6 comments:
glad to see more and more younger, new generation of khmer people become proactive and show care and love toward cambodia and other related topics. god bless all new khmer generation of young and youthful people.
Mr. Vesna Loek,
Don't just assume yourself to have "vast knowledge" about Cambodia than many Cambodian of the same generation that live in the United. Know that there have been many young Khmers that had/have been volunteer to help rebuild Cambodia event as current as now! Don't just assume that they are intermidate by you. The reason that they don't want to hang out with you...may be you are lacking of humility and think that you are know about Khmer more than anybody else that live in the US? From my observation these are an attitude that new khmer from Cambodia think that they are more surperior than the people that had come before them.
For you own good Mr. Veasna, I would strongly recomment that you should spend more time to learn more about Khmer community here than just pretending that you know them all...that could do some good for you to integrade with Khmer community here!!
The Cambodian People Party was born
in September 1951,when the Indochinese Communist Party,founded by Ho Chi Minh in 1930.
In 1960,a Khmer newspaper named
Cambodian People Newspaper under
Chou Cheth(printed in Phnom Penh).
Ho Chi Minh created three parties:
in North Vietnam called Vietnamese
Worker Party,in Lao People Party,
and in Cambodia,Cambodian People
Party(CPP).
Cambodian people need a high well
educated Khmer people to lead them.
S/he should know how to lead,to
communicate,and duty or responsibility to share with his/her own community and foreign
community as well.
3:03pm
You bastard again! Why you keep posting this? Your mother used to be fucked by him too? Or you just fuck your mother and go crazy? You must know it is not related to news here. You asshole!Leave KI alone!
I met this young man several times. To me, he is a decent, polite, and humble person; nonetheless, I do not know his political tendency. He often comes to any meeting held by the SRP in Long Beach.
When one person had posted in KI-Media and accused that a con man Pang Sokhoeun is a brother of Som Ek (former Chief of Tiger's head sign guerilla, who was arrested and put in prison by Cambodian government) during that time, a cheater Pang Sokhoeun came to deny in his blogs immediately and had pointed the blame to Mr. Sourn Serey Rotha, but this time, he has bury his head in the sand because he cannot deny the truth that he has cheated his wife. Right now, all he can do is removed and blocked anyone who dared to reveal his cheating.
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