Cambodian Student Association Brings New Year to the Twin Cities

Members of the Cambodian Student Association at the University of Minnesota

28 Mar 2008
By Vuth Chhunn and Mary-Ann Em
Asian American Press

“Okay, guys, let’s do it just one more time. The ending was a bit messy,” Sarim Pin urged the other dancers. As the lively, instrumental music began to play, 10 dancers took their places to start again. Since December, these dancers have been practicing almost every weekend to perform for their New Year celebration. They are members of a small student organization at the University of Minnesota called the Cambodian Student Association of Minnesota (CSAM).

While New Year’s Day is celebrated for a single evening, this holiday is given much more importance in Cambodia. Every April, children and adults look forward to the most anticipated holiday of the year, in which 3 days are devoted to festivities.

Not surprisingly, Cambodian New Year 2008 is CSAM’s showcase event of the year. “It’s the biggest celebration in Cambodia and we want to bring it here and share it with other cultures,” says Alexander Sok, a public relations officer for CSAM.

One member, Boramy Kim, feels the holiday is an important occasion for Cambodian-American families and individuals to take pride in their heritage. “It’s a meaningful time to come together as a family to celebrate both the blessing of a New Year and traditional culture.”

Through this celebration, CSAM hopes to unite the Cambodian-American community in the Twin Cities, especially in terms of bridging the gap between the older and younger generations. Sarim Pin, the president of the organization, feels strongly about this. “I hope people will see that we, as Cambodian students, are still holding on to our culture and traditions even though most of us here are second-generation Cambodians in the United States.”

Furthermore, CSAM wants to reach out and include the University community and the general public in the celebration. “Through sharing our food, our music, our dancing, our traditional fashion, and our stories, we want to inform and entertain members of the larger community who may not be familiar with Cambodian culture. After all, Asians and Asian-Americans represent a whole spectrum of unique, distinct cultures,” says Mary-Ann Em, vice president of CSAM.

The celebration will take place on Saturday, April 5th, 2008, at the North Star Ballroom on the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus. Free to the public, the event features authentic Cambodian food, a program of cultural performances, and a Cambodian live band for dancing. Doors open at 6 pm and will last until midnight.

For more information, please contact the Cambodian Student Association of Minnesota at
csam@umn.edu.

Cambodians' Pride of Their Culture and New Lives

Map of Minnesota, USA, a new home for Cambodian-Americans in the US

Wat Munisoratam pagoda (Photo: http://www.wattmunisota.org)
Traditional Khmer dance at Watt Munisotaram pagoda (Photo: http://www.wattmunisota.org)

Thu, 3 Jan 2008
Op-Ed by Khmer Quorum

Minnesota is known as a land of ten thousand lakes and home of Mall of America, the largest shopping mall in the US. Geographically, Minnesota is a large state in the Midwest of the US, which has an area a bit bigger than Cambodia, but it has a population of only 5 million. In term of climate, Minnesota is among the coldest state in the country; temperature in Winter can go as low as -60 degree Fahrenheit (-51 degree Celsius). However, this harsh and dangerous weather doesn't bother many Cambodian-Americans from choosing this state as their permanent place because of job availability, good quality of education and health care services, and moderate cost of living.

Roughly, there are about 10,000 Cambodian Americans currently live in Minnesota; most of them settle in the suburb area of the Twin City (Minneapolis and Saint Paul) where there are a lot of big beautiful homes,city parks, fancy shopping malls, and excellent schools for their children. About 80 percent of them own a single family home which has a price range from $200,000 to $1 million. And each family at least own two cars that are used as their personal transportation for their daily works. They work in different careers from factory workers to upper level of professional jobs such as technicians, engineers, teachers, police officers, lawyers, doctors ... Some successful Cambodian Americans here own restaurants, stores, and mid-size and small companies.

The remarkable success for Cambodian Americans here is based on their hard work, not from any mean of corruption. Most Cambodians like to work overtime from 10 to 12 hours a day, and some work two jobs seven day a week. Too much work load and less time with family has created a lot of stress and family problems also. To release their stress, they like to do party such as Birthday, Graduation, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year. These occasions have provided a great opportunity for them to socialize with relatives and friends. More than this, they have a chance to sing Karaoke and play games or cards together. Others probably choose fishing, camping, hunting, and sport for their leisure time.

Another remarkable success for Cambodian Americans in Minnesota is not about family's wealth but about community. Although we are from the country where national disunity has prevailed for decades, in here Theravada Buddhism has brought us together as a single community. To keep our religion to survive in the new land, All Cambodian here have come together to build a large temple (Wat) on 40 acre land with a price tage of almost $2 million, and it was named Munisotaram. It now become the largest Khmer Buddhist temple (Wat) in the US. The red, golden roof of a two story temple located on a top of the hill, about 20 miles from the Twin City has become a beautiful landmark in Minnesota. When we drive to Munisotaram on a road through the cornfield, we can see the red and golden roof miles away, which appears above the green cornfield during summer and the white snow carpet during winter. We are proud to see our culture still survives in a land that is ten thousand miles away from our motherland. We never know how much we love our culture and motherland until we have become the immigrant living in another country.

Minnesota has a very harsh and severe cold in Winter, but during Summer, it turns into the most beautiful state in the US. With beautiful nature of ten thousand of lakes and green cornfield, job availability, excellent health care and education services, and moderate cost of living, Minnesota has become an attractive place for many immigrants around the world, including Cambodian immigrants.

By Khmer Quorum, MN, USA

For additional information on Watt Munisotaram, please click here.

Cambodian-Americans are among the victims of Interstate 35w Bridge collapse

Marine One flies over the collapsed I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota. President George W. Bush Saturday toured the highway bridge that crumbled into the Mississippi River and officials scrambled to inspect other spans to reassure the public that the country's bridges are safe.(AFP/Mandel Ngan)

Universal sorrow

The victims of the bridge disaster cover the diverse cultural, religious and economic spectrum of the Twin Cities. Although their loved ones' grieving rituals are varied, the sadness is the same.

08/11/2007
BY LAURA YUEN
Pioneer Press
TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press (Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota, USA)

The monks have been called. The food agreed on. Those who knew and loved Vera Peck and her son, Richard Chit, began this week planning a memorial service for the two - even though their bodies haven't been found.

Within seven days of a death, Buddhist custom dictates that the departed receive a proper blessing so their spirits may peacefully enter the next life. With prayers and memories, mourners will gather today to honor the Roseville mother and son who they presume died in the Interstate 35W bridge collapse.

"You're gone now, and you're going to start a new life," said family friend Chantha Eckman, explaining through tears the meaning of the service.

Victims of the Aug. 1 disaster make up a tiny fraction of the 141,000 drivers who passed over one of Minnesota's busiest bridges every day. Nevertheless, they represent the diverse spectrum of the Twin Cities.

United by a few tragic seconds, they spanned culture, faith and class. Now, the communities those people left behind express the diverse ways they mourn.

Anthropologists have written books about grieving across cultures. Jews practice a sitting shiva, a seven-day period after the funeral in which the mourning family returns home and receives visitors.

In Taiwan, families hire professional mourners to wail in funeral processions. Such public displays, the thinking goes, can cast the impression that the deceased were well-loved and improve their chances of getting into heaven.

But no matter the differences in mourning rituals, the pain when losing someone is universal.

In the days following the bridge disaster, social worker Alan Brankline noticed the mix of cultures and faiths represented by the victims' families at the American Red Cross family assistance center.

"But the grief was the same," said Brankline, a Red Cross disaster mental-health specialist.

"In my mind, there was little difference between someone who had a Christian or an Orthodox or a Muslim faith," he said. "The grief is still there, and people experience grief in their own unique ways."

A person's reaction to death had more to do with his or her previous experiences with adversity, said Brankline, who manages medical social services at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

Many were outraged, he added. After all, it wasn't a tornado or a hurricane that snuffed out lives, but a man-made disaster.

"The thing I was hearing was, 'This shouldn't be happening,' " he said. "Some were able to handle it and cope, and some were not able to even go there."

For the Somali refugee community mourning the loss of Sadiya Sahal, 23, and her infant daughter, Hana, the grief is tempered by the fact that Somalis have buried many of their dead in their homeland, said one community leader.

After the bridge disaster, people paid visits to Sahal's family to extend their condolences. Mohamed Hassan, a spokesman for the Somali Institute of Peace and Justice, said the outpouring of support must come as a relief.

"Remember what they have been through before," Hassan said. "They've been through a tragedy created by other human beings, where they were given no empathy."

The bodies of 22-month-old Hana and her mother, a nursing assistant student and graduate of Washburn High School in Minneapolis, were recovered late this week.

It is important for Sadiya Sahal's family to honor her with a respectful burial, local imams said. Typically, an imam washes the deceased, wraps the body in a white shroud and places it in a simple coffin.

"If the body is found, people know it happened. We say it's from God," said Abdirahman Hirsi, imam of the Darul Quba Mosque in Minneapolis.

Muslim leaders in the Twin Cities held a prayer service for Sahal and her daughter, along with the other victims and missing people, Friday at the Brian Coyle Community Center in Minneapolis.

"The memorial plans cannot be made yet, but we can (bring) goodwill, sympathy and soul," said organizer and imam Abdisalam Adam of the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Civic Center.

As of midweek, the family of Christine Sacorafas had not approached her pastor about a funeral. The 45-year-old White Bear Lake woman never made it to her church, where she was headed to teach a Greek dance class, on the evening the bridge collapsed.

"It's on everybody's minds, but we haven't gotten quite that far yet," said the Rev. Paul Paris of St. Mary's Greek Orthodox Church in Minneapolis. "We all have an understanding that she's gone, but, at the same time, we're waiting for her to be found. That would help to bring closure to the situation."

The state of limbo also has been hard on the family of Scott Sathers. The Maple Grove man was going to turn 30 last weekend, and his wife had planned a surprise birthday party with co-workers at a Twins game, said his uncle, Dick Sathers, of Bemidji, Minn.

Now, life has been put on hold.

"It's a sitting, waiting game," Sathers said. Scott's parents "want to have their son back, but who knows when," he said.

Sherry Engebretsen's Shoreview home teemed with family and friends in the days after her disappearance. The Lutheran family drew strength from their faith as well as from a full house of loved ones offering comfort and laughter.

Today, loved ones will pour into the Bloomington home of Richard Chit's father. Vera Peck's girlfriends will prepare dishes from her native Cambodia, including one of her specialties: steamed fish with coconut and vegetables.

If her relatives fail to send her off, her spirit might still hover around and lose its chance of being reborn, said her friend Eckman.

"This is just to send her spirit away and say, 'Go. Don't hang around. Just leave us, and start a new life.' "

Laura Yuen can be reached at lyuen@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5498.

Sadiya Sahal

Sadiya Sahal, of St. Paul, is the latest victim to be recovered from the site of the I-35W bridge collapse. She was a nursing student and five months pregnant. She moved from Somalia to the United States in 2000 and graduated from Washburn High School in Minneapolis.

Her husband is devastated by the loss of his family, according to family friends.