Meng So: A campus voice for the undocumented

Meng So, coordinator of the Undocumented Student Program at UC Berkeley, in his office in the Cesar Chavez student center. (Carol Ness / NewsCenter)

By Carol Ness, NewsCenter | September 18, 2012
UC Berkely News Center (California, USA)

BERKELEY — Meng So arrived in the Bay Area the way many children do — in the arms of parents fleeing strife in their homeland. Born in a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border, he was not quite 2. The family settled in Hayward. So’s father and mother worked 15 hours a day or more and raised their kids, five boys and a girl.

Though they came as refugees from the Khmer Rouge genocide that devastated Cambodia in the late 1980s, the Sos lacked full legal status for about a dozen years. Watching his parents jump through hoops and hurdles trying to secure food, housing, health care — the basics of life — while seeking citizenship was tough, their middle son says.

“That informs my work — my parents’ struggles,” says So, who now, with a B.A. from UC Berkeley and a master’s in higher ed from UCLA, serves as Berkeley’s first Undocumented Student Program coordinator.

A lost-and-found story with a great ending and a new beginning

Wednesday, August 29, 2012
By Bill Nemitz bnemitz@mainetoday.com
Kennebec Journal (Maine, USA)

Put yourself in 8-year-old Abbie Jacobson's place.

You're walking into Sam's Club in Scarborough when you spot something unusual on the ground.

It's a small, green money purse. Scattered around it are several $100 bills. Inside the purse, you find several pieces of heirloom gold jewelry, a debit card and a large wad of $100 bills rolled up tightly and secured with a rubber band.

Your first thought?

While you ponder that one, here's Abbie's: "We need to find who dropped it," recalled the soon-to-be third-grader from Scarborough this week. "Because I wouldn't want to lose all that money and have someone take it. It was a lot of money!"

Now put yourself in Ra Rim's place. You came to Maine from Cambodia just less than two years ago. You speak no English and are about to travel back to your homeland to visit relatives when your savings for the journey -- $4,202, to be exact -- vanish during a day of last-minute errands.

"I felt like I was going to faint," said Ra in Cambodian while her daughter, Chansatha Meas, translated. "I felt like there was no hope I would ever get it back."

Somaly Hay escaped political oppression - and now helps those left behind

Somaly Hay uses the proceeds from her business, Somaly Hay & Co. on Golden Street in New London, to help villagers in her native Cambodia. (Tim Cook photo)

08/15/2012
By Julianne Hanckel
TheDay.com (Connecticut)

Somaly Hay & Co. is an unassuming storefront on Golden Street in New London. Step inside and you’ll quickly discover that it’s more than a cornucopia of jewel-toned colors, one-of-a-kind pieces and handmade crafts. It’s also a jewelry lover’s paradise.

With gold, silver, pearl and precious stone jewelry and layers upon layers of hand sewn silk and cotton dresses, pants and scarves, one could easily get lost in the store’s featured Cambodian collections, but the real treat is the shop’s owner, Somaly Hay.

Get her talking and her sincerity and sense of humor flow; traits that also shine in her deeply-rooted passion for helping others who are trying to help themselves. But underneath her vibrant personality is a scarred heart.

At 53, she is a survivor of one of the worst mass killings in the 20th century.

World Refugee Day

Press Statement
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC

June 20, 2012

The United States joins the international community in commemorating the courage and determination of millions of refugees around the globe. The United States is strongly committed to protecting and assisting refugees and we offer resettlement to more refugees each year than all other countries in the world combined. Since 1975, more than three million refugees have made new homes in the United States, and nearly half of them have become U.S. citizens.

Refugees are contributing in ways large and small to business, academia, the arts, science and technology. Today we celebrate the success of refugees who have built new lives here and in other resettlement countries, but we also recognize the millions of refugees who remain displaced in camps, cities, and rural settlements around the world. We are proud to support the efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the many other organizations that work on behalf of refugees worldwide, and recommit ourselves to provide protection and assistance to some of the world's most vulnerable people.

Displaced: The Cambodian Diaspora

Sunny Vaahn, 25, holds the refugee identification card of his family members, which was given upon initial entry into a refugee camp along the Thai-Cambodian border following the end of the Killing Fields in Cambodia.

A man prays at an altar in the backyard of a Cambodian Buddhist temple in the Bronx. The temple was founded in 1982 by Cambodian refugees who pooled their resources to raise $100,000 shortly after their resettlement in America. (Photos: Pete Pin - Magnum Foundation)

Wedding of Molly Sopuok, 38, and Todd Prom, 38, in a Cambodian home.

Joseph, 30, Sothea, 28, and Sovahnny, 2, at Montefiore hospital in the Bronx, NY, hours after the delivery of the newest addition to their family.

Sophie Keo plays with her first-born son while her husband, Paul, works in the yard of their recently purchased home.

Monday, February 6, 2012
By Pete Pin
Time Magazine (Lightbox)

As a son of the Killing Fields born in 1982 in the refugee camp to which my family had fled following the Cambodian genocide, I have struggled for most of my life to understand the legacy of my people. Over the last year, I engaged in a series of conversations with Cambodian-Americans about our history and the complexity of their experience while photographing community members in Philadelphia, Pa.; Lowell, Mass. and the Bronx, N.Y.

The Cambodian people are among the most heavily traumatized people in modern memory. They are the human aftermath of a cultural, political, and economic revolution by the Khmer Rouge that killed an estimated two million, nearly a third of the entire population, within a span of four years from 1975-1979. The entire backbone of society—educated professionals, artists, musicians and monks—were systematically executed in a brutal attempt to transform the entirety of Cambodian society to a classless rural collective of peasants. That tragedy casts a long shadow on the lives of Cambodians. It bleeds generationally, manifesting itself subtly within my own family in ways that I am only starting to fully comprehend as an adult. It is ingrained in the sorrow of my grandmother’s eyes; it is sown in the furrows of my parents’ faces. This is my inheritance; this is what it means to be Cambodian.

New Play Highlights Struggles of Deportees

Photo: Courtesy of “Red Earth, Gold Gate, Shadow Sky” production

Friday, 02 December 2011
Borei Sylyvann, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC

“They do not understand how hard our lives are, what we have been through just to come to America.”

“Red Earth, Gold Gate, Shadow Sky” depicts the lives of a younger generation of Cambodian youth struggling to find their way in American society, where gangs, crime and the prospect of prison are parts of everyday life.

The play, which ran in November in Seattle tells the story of a single family that survived the Khmer Rouge and refugee camps and found its way to the US.

Mark Jenkins, a drama professor at the University of Washington, wrote the play after spending several years researching and interviewing Cambodian-American returnees.

“Red Earth” follows the journey of one young man, Cam, through life in America, where he joins a gang and goes to prison, only to be deported on his release.

Red Earth, Gold Gate, Shadow Sky

School of Drama: University of Washington

Red Earth, Gold Gate, Shadow Sky

A refugee's odyssey from the killing fields of Cambodia to the mean streets of an American ghetto

Caberet Theatre: Hutchinson Hall

November 9, 11-12 @ 7:30p.m. and November 13 @ 2:30 p.m.

Neighborhood House, High Point Center

November 18-19 @ 7:00 p.m.

$5 suggested donation

Contact: Terry Bleifuss

206-685-0600

bleifuss@u.washington.edu

http://www.box.net/shared/i2m2cols4gyfl1x6grm0

Pol Pot’s Legacy: Cambodian Refugees in Poor Health

Rann Vann holds a picture of her father, who died two weeks after the family arrived in the U.S. from Cambodia. (Gale Zucker)

Advocates look to expand programs that address a legacy of the Pol Pot era: an epidemic of heart disease, diabetes and stroke among Cambodian-Americans.

June 23, 2011

By Colleen Shaddox

Miller-McCune

Sobin weeps and curls tightly into herself, as if she’s trying to disappear into the folds of her overstuffed sofa. Moments later, scowling, she plants her feet and shouts in Khmer. She shakes her fist at someone who isn’t there. The objects of her fear and rage are the Khmer Rouge soldiers who forced her into slave labor as a child on what was once her family’s farm. Convinced that the Khmer Rouge continue to look for her, Sobin, who lives in a small city in the Northeast, asked that her last name not be used in this article.

During her captivity in the 1970s, Sobin was surviving on a small daily ration of rice porridge. Sometimes, she could not work as quickly as the soldiers demanded, and they would tie her down in the hot sun for hours. Sobin estimates her age at 49, explaining that deep in the jungle, no one kept track. She has spent her adult life in the United States. But for this refugee, the past has not receded into mere memory. She remains that terrified girl.

A poignant immigrant story

Tim Chiou and Christine Corpuz star in the West Coast premiere of "Year Zero," written by Michael Golamco and directed by David Rose, now playing at the Colony Theatre in Burbank. (photo by Michael Lamont)

June 19, 2011
By James Petrillo
Glendale News-Press (California, USA)

The Colony Theatre opens its 37th season with a brave selection — the West Coast premiere of Michael Golamco’s “Year Zero.” With a unique structure and a stellar young cast, it’s a quietly powerful work that sneaks up on you slowly.

Definitely not your typical immigrant story, “Year Zero” follows the two children of a woman who survived genocide in Cambodia. The title refers to 1976, when the Khmer Rouge took control of the country. Brutal leader Pol Pot declared this “year zero” to be a reboot of civilization that would erase thousands of years of Cambodian history and culture.

Over the next four years, millions of Cambodians died from starvation and overwork in the countryside. Educated people, monks, ethnic Chinese, Christians and other enemies of this “new” society were immediately executed.

Restaurateur shares how he survived Killing Fields in memoir

Sam Ung and wife, Kim, in Khao-I-Dang refugee camp in Thailand. (Photo from Sam Ung)

From left to right, top to bottom: Sam Ung, Kim (wife), and daughters Dawn, Diane, and Darlene

Phnom Penh Noodle House owner and chef Sam Ung (Photo courtesy of Thomas McElroy)

16 June 2011
By Irfan Shariff
Northwest Asian Weekly

Sam (Seng) Ung and Thomas McElroy have known each other for 15 years. They were neighbors in the same South Seattle neighborhood. Ung introduced himself to McElroy’s dog in Chinese. McElroy knew then, as his dog listened patiently to Ung, that this would be a long-lasting friendship.

Over the years, Ung, his wife, and three daughters became like family to McElroy and his wife. Although no longer neighbors, their bond has only strengthened.

In 2009, Ung and McElroy embarked on a journey to write Ung’s memoir, “I Survived the Killing Fields: The True Life Story of a Cambodia Refugee,” which was published earlier this year.

“It was my first dream,” said Ung. Since 1980, when he arrived in Seattle, he had wanted to write about his history so that future generations would know what happened to him and other Cambodians.

“[Until] the book came out, even the kids (Ung’s daughters) had no idea what their dad had been through,” said McElroy. “You don’t talk about those things.” McElroy noticed the same thing about other Cambodian refugees.

[Cambodian] Refugees in Rochester

Jan 11, 2011
By Heidi Wigdahl

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) -- Every year immigrants and refugees come to Rochester to start a new chapter in their lives.

The Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association (IMAA) in Rochester hopes to help make that transition a little easier.

Sarun Prum said he was only 21-years-old when he fled his home to escape the genocide in Cambodia.

"It was pretty dangerous," Prum said. "I walked through and ran through at night, through the land mines and before getting to our refugee camp, there was a soldier that could shoot and kill you."

Prum landed in Rochester in 1983 and sought help from IMAA.

CAMBODIA: "A Khmer's 'one kilo of brain' that is as good as any other brain"

2010-10-15
Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Asian Human Rights Commission

My Sep. 22 column, "Effect of teachers is long lasting," brought an anonymous blogger's comments, signed "kaun khmer" (Khmer child), who thanked all educators for helping shape lives, and thanked me for sharing my life story in that article. The blogger wrote about having had no schooling under Pol Pot or in refugee camps, until resettlement in Minnesota in 1982. All the blogger knew was to "carry young rice on my head and care for water buffaloes." I was intrigued with the blogger's good English -- but one could learn good English in 28 years, from 1982 to today, I thought.

A week later I referenced "kaun khmer" in another column. Within days, an e-mail was in my box: The anonymous blogger, Ms. Sovathana Sokhom, was a 'girl' who picked up her life in Minnesota at age 14, and is currently a candidate for a Ph.D. degree in politics and economics in California, having earned a Master's degree in Business Administration in International Trade (MBA-IT) in 1993 from Texas A&M International University. Besides, she has been a lecturer at Loyola Marymount University in principles of macroeconomics and has a substantial record of publications.

My communications with "kaun khmer" brought forth an incredible life history.

Ms. Sokhom describes herself as just "one girl" who has been making her way from among the fifth of the world’s population who live below the poverty level, fighting "to find her way in the world." After I asked her to share her personal history to inspire and incentivize other Khmers, she agreed: "If I can give, I give; if I can share, I share; if I can help, I help."

Life pre-Pol Pot

Sovathana was born in Kompong Cham, a third child in a family of four children, to a father who was a painter and a builder, and a mother who taught elementary school and became a housewife after marriage.

She couldn't go to school then because she could not put her hand over her head to touch her ear at the other side -- a determination of school age at the time.

Events turned her young life asunder: United States B-52 bombings were regular occurrences, and the Khmer Rouge were moving on Kompong Cham. At age 6, her uncle threw her down from the window into her father's arms, and off they scrambled into a foxhole. Then the family evacuated to Phnom Penh, and on to Battambang and Poipet.

In April 1975, she was 7, living in Battambang. Khmer Rouge Angkar extended the Khmer New Year another three days. A friend of her father's told him "something wasn't right" in Cambodia, and failed to convince him to take the family to Thailand.

Her mother was happy then: the price of pork had dropped from 1,000 riels per kilo before the New Year to 300 after the New Year. Her father was also happy: King Sihanouk was returning to Phnom Penh "to take care of the country again!"

Yet, Angkar ordered citizens to move 10 kilometers outside of the city for "three days" because American planes were coming to drop bombs. Angkar pushed the people deeper into the forests.

Then one day, Angkar’s train took her family to Nikum, in Battambang.

Under the Khmer Rouge

First, Angkar took away her older sister to build the infamous dam at Phnom Komping Puoy. Then it took away her brother. She was the third. Her younger sister was able to stay with her parents. Her father told his children: "Conditions will change, you'll return to Nikum where your mother and I will be waiting!"

She was taken to a labor camp. The mean group leader told her to stop crying: her parents could no longer care for her, only Angkar could. She was given black clothes to wear; no shoes. Her group was tasked to carry young rice on their heads for planting at a larger rice field. Wake-up time was 5 a.m. Three lines of 10 children each walked to the rice field, swearing: "I promise to grow three tons of rice per hectare of land, three times a year," and shouted, "chay yo, chay yo, chay yo!" (victory, victory, victory!), with right fists raised high in the air.

There never was breakfast, and lunch consisted of porridge with watercress, sometimes baby shrimps fetched in the rice field. No one returned to camp before sunset, not without bringing two armloads of watercress for the communal kitchen. Before dinner, kids watered sugar cane plants.

They slept in two rows in a hut with feet pointed toward one another. She was too tired to care whether there was a mosquito net. Angkar gave the group a square soap that was cut into 30 pieces, each the size smaller than a finger. She kept hers to smell at night as a remembrance of her mother.

She was one of the children tasked to carry food for the whole group. Very small, she tripped in the rice field spilling porridge from the two baskets on her shoulders, destined for the group to eat. Angry, the Khmer Rouge group leader punished her by ordering each child to hit her hard with their porridge baskets. She bled and was taken to the commune clinic.

Conditions changed

In the clinic, she heard on the nurse's radio that the Vietnamese were moving in on Phnom Penh -- she was 10. She recalled her father's words: Conditions would change and her parents would be waiting at Nikum. She asked and obtained a three-day permission from the clinic to "return to camp."

Instead of returning to the camp, she went looking for direction to Nikum. Two truckers pitied her and let her ride in the back, where she shivered to see so many guns. They dropped her off at a crossroad and told her to walk straight to Nikum. There, villagers directed her to her parents' hut; she also found her older sister. Missing was her brother, whom she and her sister located in another clinic in another village in bad shape: He couldn't talk but could hear.

Since it was believed that "Cambodia was going to be broken" as the Vietnamese were taking over, the two sisters were allowed to take their brother to be reunited with the family at Nikum.

From refugee camps to Minnesota

The story about the family's flight to Thailand after the Vietnamese takeover in January 1979 is long. They first fled to Siemreap. Later, they found two guides, paid them gold to take them across the border. The journey took them through Kauk Khyoung, Camp 007, and Khao I Dang, among other camps. They were also at a refugee camp in Indonesia.

Finally, on Nov. 14, 1981, under the sponsorship of the Khmer Community in Minnesota via World Lutheran Services, the family was resettled in the cold and freezing Minnesota.

A Khmer's brain is as good as another

In early 1982, Sovathana, the unschooled kid who carried rice on her head and cared for water buffaloes, first attended school in Saint Paul. Classes and cultural clashes made her life extremely hard. In high school, she simply followed her brother's footsteps, taking any courses he was taking, and she thought she would never finish high school.

In 1986 she graduated from high school and was accepted to Saint Olaf College, where her brother had attended since 1984. She studied economics and maths like her brother. In her sophomore year, she met a classmate who majored in political science, so she took her first international relations course. That class changed her interest from maths to economics and political science.

She gave herself 15 minutes each day to cry, and then she did her homework. She studied until the library closed at midnight, and never spent more than 20 minutes for lunch or dinner. "For a while I couldn't even afford to self-pity," she wrote, "Just do what needs to be done."

She got a D in her first economics exam and cried. A faculty member suggested she change her major, but she stuck to economics, "determined to prove that I can do it." She slept four hours per night, and sought help from her teaching assistant, classmates, and professor.

In 1990, she graduated from Olaf with a double major in economics and political science. Watching her brother going to Thunderbird Graduate School in Arizona, gave her the idea she could, too, go to graduate school. She applied and was accepted to Texas A&M International University in the Master's degree program in Business Administration in International Trade (MBA-IT). In 1993, she received her MBA-IT degree.

Her father encouraged his children to see the world. So, while at Olaf, she enrolled in a six-week "Latin American Social/Political Problems" program in Mexico in 1987; and a six-week "Economic and Political Transition of Brazil in the 1980s" program in Brazil in 1989. And while she studied at Texas A&M she studied five weeks of "European Integration: the French Perspective," at the French Ecole Superieure de Commerce at Chambery, and five weeks in the "German Business and Cultural Exchange" program at Fachhochschule Nurtingen, Germany.

Experiences in Cambodia

She said she felt burnt out after her MBA-IT in 1993, and the thought of her native Cambodia was never far from her mind. She had visited developing areas, including Egypt, and what she saw in the poor everywhere was a mirror of her own experience. "I was one of them" -- everyone wants food, everyone wants clothes, everyone wants a roof over their heads.

So, in 1994 Ms. Sokhom joined the CANDO program (Cambodian American National Development Organization), volunteered to go to Cambodia, and left for the land of her birth in May of that year. There, she taught business, marketing, and management at Cambodia's Faculty of Business -- now National Institute for Management. In 1996, she returned to Cambodia again, and experienced the July 5-6 coup d'etat of 1997 and had to be evacuated.

In 2000, she returned to the United States and decided to stay in California, where she worked for the Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, learning how U.S. federal programs help the poor to become self-sufficient. She taught non-English speaking immigrants and high school drop-outs self-esteem and self-motivation, which she also taught herself.

In 2004 she was enrolled at the Claremont Graduate University, a private, graduate-only institution. She had her eyes set on a Ph.D. degree. In 2008, she received a Master's degree in International Economy (IPE) and was admitted to candidacy to the Ph.D. degree in the Interfield of Politics and Economics.

And that's where Ms. Sokhom is today -- a long journey for an unschooled girl who endured Pol Pot's child labor camp at ages 7-10, and endured the cultural changes and clashes in the U.S., and is competing in a world that doesn't stand still.

……………

The views shared in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the AHRC, and the AHRC takes no responsibility for them.

About the Author:

Dr. Gaffar Peang-Meth is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. He currently lives in the United States. He can be contacted at peangmeth@gmail.com.

# # #

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

Massachusetts program turns refugees into farmers

Friday, July 23, 2010
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS (AP)

DRACUT, Mass. — The bullet wounds show on Rechhat Proum's back when he bends down to pull lemon grass or water spinach on his farm in peaceful northern Massachusetts. When the 56-year-old Cambodian refugee lifts a pumpkin, the movement of his shirt reveals deep stab wounds on his stomach.

Nearby, Bessie and Samuel Tsimba tend African maize. The Zimbabwean immigrants deflect questions about the country's violence and instead direct attention to the freshness of their cucumbers. "They'll taste better than what you'll get at most supermarkets," promises Bessie, 43.

Proum and the Tsimbas got their start through a program that has quietly trained about 150 refugees of war, famine and genocide in modern farming to help them integrate into American life. On farms along the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border, the refugees have slowly replaced aging farmers and put back into use land that has been idle for years, the program's organizers said.

They supply the region's farmers markets and ethnic stores with beets, cabbage, egg plant, Asian spices and other produce.

"Some were farmers. Some come from a family of farmers," said Jennifer Hashley, project director of the 12-year-old New Entry Sustainable Farming Project. "What we do is provide them with the means to return to agriculture by figuring out financial resources and developing a production plan."

The program was launched in 1998 largely with the help of John Ogonowski, the pilot on American Airlines flight 11 to Los Angeles that crashed into the World Trade Center during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Ogonowski served as the program's first mentor farmer and let Cambodian and Hmong refugees use his land to get started.

Proum credited Ogonowski for introducing him to modern irrigation techniques and said Ogonowski wouldn't accept money from him, only fresh vegetables.

After Sept. 11, Ogonowski's widow, Peggy, helped create a farm trust as a memorial to her husband. Meanwhile, Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science's Center for Agriculture, Food and Environment secured $500,000 in grants to expand the program and train more farmers, Hashley said.

Under the program, refugees take a six-week course at Tufts on agriculture and commercial farming. Would-be farmers then enter a three-year transition program in which they farm small plots, typically earning $5,000 to $10,000 a year to help supplement their non-farm incomes.

Bessie Tsimba, of Tyngsboro, a second-year trainee with her husband, said working her plot has introduced her to the basics of farming and allowed her to pick up techniques from other refugees. "You hear all sorts of languages when you're out here," said Tsimba, while cutting weeds with a machete. "We pick up new ideas from each other."

The apprentice farmers also work to find steady, new markets to sell their produce.

"People call me up for orders and I can barely keep up," said Tsimba, who sells to African churches in northern Massachusetts.

After three years, graduates lease a new plot from the trust set up by Peggy Ogonowski or New Entry helps them find other land.

Visoth Kim, 64, of Lawrence, one of the program's original farmers, has built a steady business on a couple of acres he leases. A former teacher and survivor of the Khmer Rouge, a regime that slaughtered more 20 percent of the Cambodian population in the 1970s, Kim sells sweet potatoes, redroot pigweed and tomatoes to Boston-based Tropical Foods and stores in Maine.

"I wake up at 4 every morning and pay close attention to everything I grow," Kim said. "They like what I give them."

Lori Deliso, marketing manager for the Lexington Farmers Market in Lexington, Mass., said refugee farmers have introduced new foods to her market that proved popular, even if customers were a little apprehensive at first about buying "exotic" vegetables.

"They've been great to work with and they always bring different kinds of ethnic foods," Deliso said. "They offer wonderful suggestions on recipes and are quick to show us how good everything tastes."

The program has developed a reputation for teaching about locally grown food and is now attracting American-born would-be farmers, Hashley said. In three years, it has grown from 15 trainees a year to 30 — with more than half American-born.

Amanda Munsie, 34, of Wilmington, said she came from a family of Ohio farmers and wanted to get involved in the locally grown food movement. African and Asian refugees in the New Entry program introduced her to new foods.

"They farm so differently than the way we did back in Ohio," said Munsie, a trainee who farms next to the Tsimbas. "Now, I want to grow some of (their) vegetables because they looked so colorful and tasty to eat."

Proum, who recently lost his full-time job at a technology company, said farming his 3-acre lot gives him solace and keeps him busy. If he is idle, his mind drifts to painful memories of the Cambodian-Vietnamese war or losing his friend Ogonowski on Sept. 11, he said.

"I don't like to think about all of that," Proum said while looking over his Chinese long beans. "I want to think about these."

Man sentenced to life for murder over gambling loss

Franco Neftali booking photo (COURTESY ORANGE COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY)

July 16, 2010
By LARRY WELBORN
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER (California, USA)

Story Highlights

Ex-apartment manager gets 50 years to life in prison for shooting a man between the eyes after losing hundreds of dollars in a dice game.

SANTA ANA – A former Santa Ana apartment manager was sentenced to 50-years to life in prison Friday for shooting a man between the eyes after he lost hundreds of dollars in a Cambodian dice game.

Franco Edgar Neftali, 44, was convicted of first degree murder plus use of a gun in March for gunning down Son Neou, 67, on Jan. 11, 2007, in the Bishop Manor apartment complex about 15 minutes after he lost his stash in the illegal dice game.

Neou was one of the organizers of the dice game and was in charge of collecting the money, according to witnesses.

Deputy District Attorney Scott Simmons said Neftali was unhappy about losing his bets and came back with a gun and shot Neou once between the eyes out of revenge, then fled from the scene.

Witnesses testified they saw Neftali with a gun beforehand, but no one claimed they saw the actual shooting, Simmons said.

Neftali, who contends that he was not the gunman, did not comment before was sentenced by Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly.

Sam Son, an Iraq war veteran and the son of the victim, said he tried to forgive Neftali for murdering his father, but could not do so after seeing his demeanor in court.

He also read a victim-impact statement from his sister, who could not be present for the sentencing.

"The most heartbreaking part of losing my father was the pain my mother had to undergo losing her husband in such a tragic way," Jane Son wrote. "It opened a much deeper wound inside her than anything I could comprehend."

Contact the writer: lwelborn@ocregister.com or 714-834-3784

Cambodian Dice Game Killer Gets Rolled

Fri, Jul. 16 2010
By R. Scott Moxley
OC Weekly (Orange County, California, USA)

A handcuffed Franco Edgar Neftali entered an Orange County courtroom this afternoon with a smirk on his face but by the time his sentencing hearing was over the 44-year-old killer found himself frowning after getting a 50 years to life prison sentence.

A jury convicted Neftali of fatally shooting 67-year-old Cambodian immigrant Son Neou in the head after he'd lost hundreds of dollars playing a Cambodian dice game at a Santa Ana apartment complex in 2007.

To the immense frustration of the victim's family, Neftali had a defense lawyer proclaim his innocence and declare that he had not received a fair trial before Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly's issued punishment.

An unamused Kelly rejected both assertions.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Scott Simons said Neftali was upset that he'd lost money before the killing.

The victim's wife--a survivor of Khmer Rouge attrocities, son and daughter submitted touching, emotional impact statements.

"I can never forgive him," said the victim's visibly distraught son, Sam Son, who was a special forces soldier deployed in Iraq when his father was killed. "My mother lost everything . . . I'd rather have had two soldiers come to my mother and tell her I was killed than this."

Kelly asked Neftali if he wanted to address the court but the killer--a short, pudgy man who worked as an apartment manager--said through an interpreter, "I have nothing to comment."

"You will be transported to a state prison forthwith," said the judge.

The Nurse - Another slide show/interview by Stephane Janin

The Nurse

Malida's journey from Khao-I-Dang refugee camp to serving the needy in Lowell

(All photos: Stéphane Janin)

Malida’s Suong parents fled Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime, and escaped to Khao-I-Dang refugee camp on the Thai border, where an estimated population of 160,000 refugees was living. Malida was born there in 1981. In 1985, the whole family finally left for a new life in a new country, the United States. After a short period in Maine, Malida’s family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, where South-East Asian refugee families had already settled, among them a big majority of Cambodians. Malida’s parents found jobs easily there, factory works… It’s not until she traveled back to Cambodia in 2004 - the first time since her family had left the country - that Malida envisioned the career she wanted to embrace: public health and nursing. In May 2009, she has graduated with a Masters in Science and received her license to be a nurse practitioner. Malida is now working at LCHC (Lowell Community Health Center), a non-profit organization that started in 1970 to serve the diverse ethnic population of Lowell, with high quality and affordable health care services.

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Cambodian-American Dr. Sam Keo Recognized at Cultural Competence and Mental Health Summit XVI

KEO RECOGNIZED AT CULTURAL COMPETENCE AND MENTAL HEALTH SUMMIT XVI

Source: LA County, Dept. of Mental Health

Sam Keo was recognized with the Statewide Cultural Competency Award for his leadership, professional contributions and service, promoting equity and cultural competence at the at the Mental Health Summit: Embracing Social Justice and Equity to Build Healthier Communities on November 17, 2009. The award was presented to Sam by Louise Rogers, MPA, Director of San Mateo County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services and Rachel Guerrero, LCSW, Chief, Office of Multicultural Services, California Department of Mental Health.

Dr. Keo arrived in this country in 1981 as a refugee from war torn Cambodia. Not only he had to learn English, but he also had to learn to survive especially after a caseworker told him that "he would not amount to anything but a slave to the Americans." He struggled to educate himself first earning a GED and ultimately a doctorate in Psychology. His own experience with post-traumatic stress and his journey to recovery deepened Dr. Keo's compassion for the struggles of others and enduring commitment to helping his community. Dr. Keo does not forget his past; nor is he ashamed of it. This is what gives him strength and resolve.

For more than 18 years, Sam has been a professional in mental health and alcohol and other drug services--and for his tireless advocacy and years of volunteer service to Asian Pacific Islander communities. He currently serves as a Training Coordinator and Continuing Education Director with Los Angeles County Mental Health Department.

Previously, Dr. Keo worked in Long Beach as a clinician and provided interpretation for Cambodian clients. He began his mental health career with Orange County Behavioral Health where he provided direct services to his clients--most of whom were refugees, like himself. He acted as a cultural broker to his fellow clinicians, consulting not only with agency but also to schools, and communities agencies used by the Cambodian community.

As a Training Coordinator, Dr. Keo has been involved in the planning and implementation of annual events such as the Multicultural Conference, Latino Behavioral Health Institute's Conference, the Mental Health and Spirituality Conference, and the Older Adult "Hoarding " Conference.

During the prop 63 campaign, he organized stakeholder meetings in English and Khmer to inform and engage the Cambodian Community. He has volunteered to review written translations to assure accuracy and the cultural relevance of mental health concepts for Cambodian clients and their families. Dr. Keo advocates that the services to the underserved must be culturally sensitive and holistic. Last year, he was honored with the "LBHI Community Award 2008" for his work with diverse populations.
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Cultural Competence Professional Award
Acceptance Speech by Dr. Samuel N. Keo
November 17, 2009

I am honored to be selected as a recipient for the Cultural Competence Professional Award for the Summit XVI 2009. I am also honored to be selected from among well deserved nominees.

I was told that America is the land of opportunity. If you work hard, you will get what you want. But, when I first arrived here as a refugee, my Cambodian case worker told me, “You will not amount to anything but a slave to an American.” I shed my tears and I refused to believe him. I know I came to this country with multiple problems. My father and sister were killed by the Communists. My 4 younger brothers, who were under the age of 10, died of starvation and diseases, and I had multiple near death experiences from torture, diseases, and starvation. Half of the Cambodian population perished during the 3 and ½ years of communist regime.

As a result, all Cambodians suffered this sudden loss of family members. In turn, many of them who were in the middle of the holocaust experience PTSD, a disease, multiple problems that I also carry. So when you meet a refugee, whether he or she is Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laos, or Hmong. Please remember that he or she may carry many scars that are invisible, Or wounds that have not yet healed. When you see children of these refugees, perhaps, already born in this country. Please think that they, too have some of these invisible scars. They hear the pains, the torturous stories and the fears from their parents. They witness their parents' reactions and they internalize these as if they are their own. The horrors of war do not end with the refugees but they continue to be lived by their children and their children's children.

As a refugee, I told myself that I would work hard to help my community. Education is the only vehicle that would help me achieve my commitment. I struggled through school and finally got where I wanted to be. My own unique experiences, from trauma to success, have made it easier for me to empathize with the consumers and my fellow Cambodians. There are uncalculated challenges for transformation, outreach and engagement in the underserved Asian population, especially the former refugees from Southeast Asia, such as, Cambodian, Hmong, Laos, and Vietnamese. Let’s assure them that they will get the service that is appropriate to their needs culturally and let them know that “America is still the land of opportunity”.

Before I close, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family, my friends, and my colleagues who believed in me and who have supported me through my difficult time. This award is as much for my family and my community as it is for me.

Thank You!

Cambodian refugee among 10 Americans chosen to receive national award

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to present Sonith Peou with the 2009 Community Health Leaders Award for providing health services to the Southeast Asian immigrants

PRINCETON, N.J. (October 8, 2009) — The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) today announced its selection of Sonith Peou, program director of the Metta Health Center in Lowell, Mass., to receive a Community Health Leaders Award. He is one of 10 extraordinary Americans who will receive the RWJF honor for 2009 at a ceremony this evening at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Peou is being honored for his work to provide culturally competent services for Southeast Asian immigrants in Lowell, Mass., helping them to become healthy, economically independent citizens. "Sonith Peou has triumphed over tragedy in order to provide health care services to disadvantaged immigrants in the United States, many of whom were persecuted in their home countries," said Janice Ford Griffin, national program director for the award.

Peou helped to establish the Metta Health Center, an initiative of the Lowell Community Health Center, and he designed the facility to look like a clinic in Cambodia. He staffed it with native speakers and incorporated elements of Eastern medicine that are more traditional in Asian countries. Today, the Metta Health Center provides culturally competent health care services to thousands of Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnamese. Like other community clinics, the center focuses on preventive care and tries to keep members of the community out of the emergency room.

"I am very grateful for this award, but it would not have been possible without the strong and supportive leadership of the Lowell Community Health Center, whose leaders believed in this project," said Peou, who emigrated from Cambodia in 1981. "I hope this award will bring attention to the importance of providing quality health care to immigrants, as good health is the cornerstone to healing and making a better life."

The chief executive officer of the Lowell Community Health Center, Dorcas Grigg-Saito, said of Peou that he is a "born leader" who has risen to become one of the most respected Cambodian-American leaders in the Greater Lowell area, as well as nationally. "Throughout his work, Sonith displays a level of loving kindness and compassion (the definition of 'metta' in Khmer) that has created a welcoming atmosphere that engages a truly underserved population in ongoing primary and preventive care and ultimately better health outcomes," Grigg-Saito said.

The Community Health Leaders Award honors exceptional men and women from all over the country who overcome significant obstacles to tackle some of the most challenging health and health care problems facing their communities and the nation. The award elevates the work of the leaders by raising awareness of their extraordinary contributions through national visibility, a $125,000 award and networking opportunities. This year the Foundation received 532 nominations from across the United States and selected 10 outstanding individuals who have worked to improve health conditions in their communities with exceptional creativity, courage and commitment.

There are nine other 2009 Community Health Leaders in addition to Peou. Their work includes oral health services for remote communities; self-directed care for persons with physical disabilities; a marriage between health care and legal aid; a mentoring program to help disadvantaged youth pursue health careers; care for victims of torture; an innovative approach to combat obesity; quality health services for Native American elders; family planning and health services for women, men and teens; and mental health services for the underserved.

Since 1993 the program has honored more than 160 Community Health Leaders in nearly every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Nominations can be submitted for the 2010 Community Health Leaders Award through October 15, 2009. For details on how to submit a nomination, including eligibility requirements and selection criteria, visit www.communityhealthleaders.org.

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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) established the Community Health Leaders (CHL) Award to recognize individuals who overcome daunting obstacles to improve health and health care in their communities. Today, there are 173 outstanding Community Health Leaders in nearly all states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. For more information, visit www.communityhealthleaders.org.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 35 years, the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org.

Jury says man competent for trial in wife's killing

Friday, Sep. 04, 2009
By Pablo Lopez
The Fresno Bee

A 69-year-old Fresno man who police say has confessed to killing his wife in October is legally competent to stand trial, a Fresno County Superior Court jury has ruled.

Pech Sok is an uneducated Cambodian refugee who knows little English and has lived a miserable life, lawyers told jurors this week during Sok's competency hearing. He was tortured in Cambodia and his first wife died there, the lawyers said.

He hasn't fared much better in Fresno. In August 1998, Sok's second wife, Eng Ath, and two of the couple's children, Sophan and Sopheap, drowned in the San Joaquin River while fishing.

Now, Sok is charged with killing his third wife, Bouen Say, 61, who was stabbed to death at the couple's home in the 400 block of South Woodrow Avenue on Oct. 1. After the attack, police said, Sok cut himself with a knife.

Prosecutor Jeff Dupras told jurors that it was OK to feel sorry for Sok "but it can't cloud your judgment."

Crime and courts coverage Sok has already confessed to police that he killed his wife because she was leaving him, Dupras said. "He knows what he did and he expects to be punished," Dupras said.

The hearing in Judge Gary Orozco's courtroom, however, wasn't to determine whether he was guilty of the crime, Dupras said. It was to determine whether he could understand the court proceedings and assist in his defense.

Psychologist Laura Geiger and Harold Seymour testified that they examined Sok in jail and determined he was legally incompetent because he had problems with his memory and signs of dementia.

His problems stem from being tortured in Cambodia and knocked out several times, attorney Manuel Nieto, who represented Sok, told the panel. Nieto argued that Sok should be sent to a Atascadero State Hospital for treatment.

Dr. Julian Smith, a psychiatrist, however, testified that Sok declined to be evaluated by him, but nevertheless showed enough signs of competency to stand trial.

Dupras told the panel that Sok doesn't have a diagnosed mental disorder. He also said that just because Sok doesn't want to assist his counsel, that doesn't give him the legal grounds to be declared incompetent.

Since his wife's killing, Dupras said, Sok's attitude has been: "Just put me in jail and leave me alone."

After hearing the legal arguments, the jury deliberated about an hour before announcing late Wednesday that Sok was legally competent. Sok's preliminary hearing is now scheduled for Sept. 30.

Khmer Rouge Survivors Gather in US

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
03 September 2009

Gathering at a Buddhist temple in the US state of Maryland over the weekend, a group of Khmer Rouge survivors sobbed as they tried to recall their suffering under the regime and expressed doubts over whether a UN-backed court could deliver enough justice for them.

There were survivors like 67-year-old Ty Kasem, who wore sunglasses to conceal his tears as he recalled leaving his home in Phnom Penh with a wife who had just given birth, to his fifth child, a week earlier. He pretended to be a fool, he said, to avoid suspicion from the guerrillas who had overrun the capital.

And like Keo Veasna, 63, whose name means Lucky, and who successfully hid his background as a soldier from the rebels. He was fortunate enough to escape a Khmer Rouge detention center, after a brief internment, and to escape, on several occasions, death from the regime, who suspected him of Lon Nol loyalties.

Sunday’s meeting, at Buddhikaram pagoda, brought around 30 people and was organized by Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia in collaboration with Cambodian-American Association for Democracy and Human Rights.

Corruption, scandal and restriction of prosecution, to only five suspects so far, have made participants doubt the UN-backed tribunal will bring a satisfying justice to the regime that saw the death of as many as 2 million Cambodians and destroyed the fabric of the country.

The only trial the tribunal has so far managed to muster is that of prison chief Duch, who was arrested in 1999 and held in a Cambodian military prison until he was turned over to the tribunal. Kaing Kek Iev, his real name, 66, faces atrocity crimes charges for his role administering two prisons and an execution site and overseeing the deaths of 12,380 people. That trial began in March, nearly three years after the tribunal was established.

Four more senior leaders are in custody, but Cambodian judges and political leaders have been resistant to indicting more, even though an international prosecutor motioned earlier this year to charge six more.

“There should not be a restriction,” said Tun Sovan, a participant of Sunday’s meeting. “There should be more investigation to uncover more Khmer Rouge leaders. There were not only five of them.”

Sunday’s pagoda gathering was a part of Applied Social Research’s attempts to give survivors a chance to speak about their grief, and to turn that into documentation for upcoming trials in Cambodia. The tribunal provides an opportunity for victims to file complaints.

Applied Social Research believes this is a step toward healing the trauma caused by the Khmer Rouge, which has ripple effects through Cambodian communities today.

But news of the tribunal has cast some doubts as to whether the trials by themselves will be enough.

“Because there are news accounts out there and people have seen through the news that there have been allegations of corruption, sure most people that are following the news have questions about whether these allegations are true,” Julie Sheker, a legal adviser for the research institute, told VOA Khmer after the meeting. “But I think that what we saw today was an interest in the court activities and an interest in being involved and a hope that the court will do justice for the Cambodian people.”