ABC Radio Australia
Tens of thousands of Cambodians fled the Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s and ended up in refugee camps on the Thai border.
Some of those families were resettled in the United States and their children were raised as Americans, often with little connection to their homeland.
A small number of young Cambodian-Americans find themselves in trouble with the law... drugs and gang violence mostly... and their convictions earn them a one-way ticket to a country many have never known.
For many, it's the first time they realise they're not full citizens of America, despite their parents being granted asylum and permanent residency.
More than 200 people have been deported to Cambodia under this scheme since it began in 2003... and an estimated 2,000 more await a similar fate.
In Phnom Penh, Radio Australia's Liam Cochrane met up with one of these deportees, Kosal Khiev... and spoke to him about his childhood alienation and his long stretch in tough U.S prisons, where he discovered the spoken word poetry that's helped him turn his life around.
1 comment:
Land of opportunity is not for trash.
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