Tiny Toones shows how to turn endangered young lives upside down

Tiny Toones dancer 13-year-old Vy practising flips at Hun Sen Park, Phnom Penh. Photo: Stuart Isett

Tuy Sobil. Photo: Romi Grossberg

January 2, 201
Carolyn Webb
The Sydney Morning Herald

MELBOURNE social worker Romi Grossberg is dreading the day in March when her two-year post volunteering with Cambodian street kids ends.

''Every day, something here makes me smile,'' she says of her management adviser role at Tiny Toones, a youth drop-in centre in inner Phnom Penh.

''I love my job here so much. I can't ever imagine doing anything else.''

Tiny Toones teaches dance, music, English, Khmer and computer skills, as well as hygiene and HIV, drug and sex education.

He flips, spins, turns his life around

Tuy "K.K." Sobil, right, dances with Sovann "Fresh" Dyrithy, 18, a teacher, at the Tiny Toones youth center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Lianne Milton / For The Times / April 22, 2010)

Deported from the U.S., a former Long Beach gang member makes a name break dancing in Cambodia and becomes a role model.

June 10, 2010
By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Phnom Penh, Cambodia —

His arms and chest coated with gangland-style tattoos, his eyebrow pierced, Tuy "K.K." Sobil sits in a cafe in Phnom Penh beside his 5-year-old son, Unique, adopted from drug dealer parents who couldn't cope.

"I'm trying to get him to eat his vegetables," he said. "He gets his bad habits from me."

K.K., short for "Krazy Kat," knows all about bad habits: The onetime member of the Long Beach Crips served eight years in prison for armed robbery before being deported in 2004 to Cambodia, his parents' homeland.

Now, six years after he found himself abandoned, impoverished and largely unwelcome in an ancestral land he'd never seen, the 32-year-old has tapped into long-forgotten break-dancing skills to become one of Cambodia's unlikeliest role models.

His goal: to keep thousands of street children from making the same mistakes he did.

K.K.'s life was upended by a U.S. law that authorized deportations of noncitizens with any criminal conviction, from murder to shoplifting. Although he was born in a Thai refugee camp, never visited Cambodia and lived in the United States since he was 4, neither K.K. nor his illiterate parents formally applied for citizenship after he turned 18.

But K.K. reckons the deportation pulled him out of a life that probably would have led him back to prison, or possibly to his death by now. "Doper, may he rest in peace, Doper passed away," he said of one former gang member.

When K.K. landed, shellshocked, in Phnom Penh and looked around at the impoverished, war-torn country, the last thing he envisioned was a return to break dancing, which he hadn't done since he was 13. But after another deportee who knew of his reputation spread the word of his skills, street urchins badgered him until he finally agreed to give lessons in his living room.

"There were 40 kids in the room every night," said Michael Otto, K.K.'s best man at his wedding to a Cambodian woman. "It was like a sauna."

Working with youngsters left little room for self-pity. Sure, he'd had it tough. But at least the United States had public schools and welfare departments, both sorely lacking here.

"I realized I needed to help out," he said.

Before long, he left his job at Korsang, a nonprofit drug treatment center, to start the Tiny Toones youth center, housed in a run-down building with surging electricity, rats and leaking walls. Poverty, gangs, drugs and family abuse, a legacy of decades of war and dysfunctional government, left thousands of orphans and street children badly in need of help.

Although rapping, break dancing, beat boxing, and deejaying — and K.K. — are the center's trademark, its real mission is to empower youngsters, help them kick drugs, and teach basic language, arts and computer skills.

"K.K.'s my hero," said Sun Makara, 19, who grew up on the street scrounging garbage, stealing and doing drugs.

Makara, who sports a pierced left eyebrow and wears exposed underwear over low-hanging pants, has turned his life around and is teaching break dancing to troubled youths at Korsang and Tiny Toones.

At the center's large outdoor dance floor, young wannabe hip-hop stars do headstands, back flips, one-hand hops and windmills to a pounding boombox, while around back, new tracks are being cut in a makeshift recording studio.

The center is partly funded by grants from charitable foundations, individual donations and money earned selling T-shirts, hats, stickers and a short Tiny Toones album mixed on aging equipment. Funders say the group needs to get more organized to help more youngsters, and hire more support staff. K.K. acknowledges that administration isn't necessarily his strong suit.

"K.K.'s story is very inspirational at many levels: himself, the children and Cambodia trying to come back," said Hoa Tu Duong, a program officer at the charity Global Fund for Children. "We see enormous potential, but we also see there's lots of work to do."

Many of the songs coming out of the center have a social message; one, "Huff Gow," is about sniffing glue. They often integrate modern vocals and beats with 1960s Cambodian oldies, which took their inspiration from Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and big band music.

Break dancing, which started in the 1970s in the U.S., has expanded worldwide, especially in Asia, with a global Battle of the Year dance competition featuring top contestants from around the world.

As Tiny Toones' reputation has grown, other doors have opened. American hip-hop group Jurassic 5 has stopped by, and six top dancers whom K.K. taught toured the U.S. last year.

As a deportee, K.K. couldn't accompany them. But he followed them on YouTube as they showed off their moves and out-danced competitors in formal and informal matchups in Madison, Wis., New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and Los Angeles.

Seeing them perform without him by their side was bittersweet.

"It made me sad, but also proud," he said.

Tiny Toones dancers will represent Cambodia at the regional Battle of the Year in Singapore this summer. (In a strange coincidence, during a previous performance overseas, in Hong Kong in 2008, K.K. ended up sitting beside former President Clinton, who had signed the deportation law.)

Tiny Toones' success is a reflection of K.K.'s charisma and his connection with youngsters, said Holly Bradford, an American who was his employer at Korsang.

"He has a magic to him that continues to amaze me. He's done right, he's proven himself. It's America's loss in my book."

K.K., the oldest child of impoverished onetime farmers, started hanging out on the streets of Long Beach early and drifted into break dancing when he was 8.

Over the next few years, he developed a reputation for his hip-hop moves as far south as San Diego.

"We had no fear," he said.

At 13, he joined the Crips, drifted into crack and dropped break dancing, leading to his armed robbery conviction at 18.

He insists that he wasn't guilty, but he's not making excuses.

"What I didn't do, I got caught for," he said. "Everything I did do, I didn't get caught. What comes around goes around."

He was deported in 2004, a few weeks after his release in 2004, leaving behind his estranged former partner and son Kayshawn — now 10 or 11, he's not sure — with whom he stays in periodic phone contact.

Gang life in Phnom Penh and the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is similar, he said, but Cambodia is more violent. Police here often respond slowly or not at all, and it's more a knife than gun culture.

Although he understands the code of the street among gang members, K.K. said he's become increasingly worried about getting caught in the middle when he's called to break up a fight.

"You try to be a role model, but it gets scary," he said. "Over here, there's no insurance, no benefits. And I have a family now."

His growing fame has attracted critics. Some Cambodians assume from his looks that he must be a drug dealer. Others accuse him of undermining Khmer culture.

His response: "Everywhere in the world you have hip-hop. Don't forget your culture, but you got to learn new things."

He's made peace with the move here and now considers Phnom Penh home, though he misses his parents and three siblings.

During his proteges' U.S. tour, someone put his mother, whom he hasn't seen since 2004, on the phone without warning. Although he's talked to her often, emotion overwhelmed him and the tough street guy broke down.

"She cried," he said. "Then I cried. Everyone started crying."

As he looks back, his biggest regret is not being a better father to his American son.

"Every day I ask forgiveness; I made big mistakes," he said. "But I've fallen in love with what I'm doing: Tiny Toones is now my life, my family. Let these kids have a chance."

mark.magnier@latimes.com

In Cambodia, a Deportee Breakdances to Success

Cambodian hip hop trainer Tuy Sobil, right, trains a boy in hip hop dance at his club in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on June 12, 2009 (TANG CHHIN SOTHY / AFP / Getty Images)

Saturday, Sep. 19, 2009
By Christopher Shay
Time Magazine (USA)

Tuy Sobil, who goes by the street name K.K., joined the Crips in Long Beach, Calif., when he was 13, started smoking crack, and was in jail for armed robbery by the time he was 18. After serving two years in Taft Prison in California and another three years in an immigration detention facility, the U.S. deported him to Cambodia in 2004 — even though he had never set foot in the country, couldn't speak the local language, and had a son back in California. "When I first came here at first I was scared," K.K. said. "You're always thinking you don't have anybody there."

Now on the eve of his 32nd birthday, K.K. has become one of the most admired men in Cambodia, running an organization called Tiny Toones in Phnom Penh that mentors and provides education to thousands of kids every year. Tiny Toones has earned write-ups in the local and international media, and his breakdancing group has spawned copycat troupes across the capital. In 2008, K.K. even performed in Hong Kong in front of President Bill Clinton — the same man who signed the law that got K.K. deported. Now, if K.K. gets his way, his program that turns hip-hop culture into an educational tool will reach thousands more of Cambodia's most vulnerable kids. "K.K. represents the opportunity to explore and discover your potential," says Holly Bradford, the founder of a local NGO that K.K. used to work for. "It's very appealing to people in Cambodia."

Despite these successes, K.K. will never be allowed to visit his mother or nine-year-old son back in California. In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which stipulates that any non-citizen living in the United States can be deported if convicted of an aggravated felony. From 1997 to 2005, about 675,000 non-citizens were deported for their crimes under the law, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

But for six years after IRRIRA was passed, Cambodia refused to accept the deportees, believing that they would be a burden on an already burdened country. Following the Vietnam War, the U.S. accepted tens of thousands of refugees from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, granting them asylum and permanent residency. Laos and Vietnam still won't accept deportees from the U.S., but in 2002 Phnom Penh gave in as U.S. government pressure mounted. Roland Eng, Cambodia's former ambassador to the U.S., told an American journalist last year that the U.S. threatened Cambodia: "The U.S. told us that there would be no more visas issued, and our kids couldn't go to school in America. They forced the deal on us." Since then, 212 Cambodian-Americans have been deported under IRRIRA, and back in the U.S. between 1,400 and 2,000 Cambodian-Americans could be kicked out at any time. (Read "The Fallout of a Deportation.")

Some of the Cambodian-Americans now living in Phnom Penh with K.K. have been deported for aggravated felonies as minor as shoplifting and public urination. The law is also retroactive, meaning many had already finished their prison sentences and started rebuilding their lives in the U.S. before finding out that they would be deported. Sophea Heng, 28, who goes by his nickname Wicked, completed his yearlong prison sentence for assault with a deadly weapon in 2001, but was immediately transferred to an immigration detention center where he was held without a release date for two years. Wicked was only released after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a related case that Cambodian Kim Ho Ma could not be held indefinitely while awaiting deportation to a country that wouldn't accept him. For the next year and half, he kept clean, started college and found a new job, until one day the Immigration and Naturalization Service contacted him to fill out some forms. When he left the house, he had no idea that his time in America was up. "When I arrived they arrested me on the spot," he said. "I did everything I was supposed to do." Before Wicked knew it, he was in Cambodia.

All of the Cambodian-American deportees like K.K. and Wicked were given permanent residency in the U.S. as refugees or children of refugees; they were not in the U.S. illegally. But in many cases, their parents, new immigrants themselves, never went through the process of applying for U.S. citizenship. K.K. did not know he wasn't a U.S. citizen until he was convicted. After being dropped off in Cambodia with no support, K.K. volunteered to be part of the outreach staff at Korsang, a local NGO that has employed about a quarter of the Cambodian-American deportees. K.K. started visiting the slums of Phnom Penh and educating Cambodians about drug abuse and HIV/AIDS. When word spread that he was once a champion breakdancer in the U.S., he says a group of kids he was working with kept asking him for dance lessons. "On the third time the kids came to my house, I gave it a try," K.K. said, "And that's how Tiny Toones started."

That was December 2004. In less than five years, the organization has grown to reach more than 5,000 kids every year at its six sites, most in the heart of Phnom Penh's slums. Though Tiny Toones started off as a breakdancing group, it quickly expanded to include computer literacy, art, HIV/AIDS prevention, and lessons in English and Khmer, the local language. "We're using hip-hop," says Randy Sary, 28, who works at Tiny Toones. "After we get kids in, we have other programs like English and Khmer. You can't just be athletic. You have to be educated." K.K. plans to grow Tiny Toones even more, hoping to open a school for at-risk children by 2011. "A real, decent school that doesn't charge. One with a cafeteria that serves breakfast and lunch, like when I was kid," he said.

For every success story like K.K. — and he's not the only one — there are more who are just eking out a living in their new home, and a few that just couldn't make the transition. Ver Chan, 33, whom Holly Bradford describes as a "sweet, gentle kid," was sent to Cambodia. In December 2007 — just shy of a year in country — he hung himself after struggling with bipolar disorder in Cambodia, where he couldn't get access the medicine he needed. Just this year, the U.S. deported another Cambodian-American with severe psychological problems. "The U.S. knew that these people had psychological problems. They had them on meds," says Bill Herod, director of the Returnee Assistance Program (RAP) from 2002 to 2005. "To deport them without any warning or medication... that's a violation of their human rights."

Since 2002, one other deportee is suspected of committing suicide and two others have been murdered, one of which happened after a deportee got involved with local criminals. Bradford, who was Chan's boss at Korsang, lays the blame for the suicides squarely on the U.S. government. "The guys that come here, they're products of American society," says Bradford. "They're American responsibility, end of story."

Hiphop school saves souls

Besides helping bring hip hop culture to Cambodia, Tiny Toones and its founder Tuy Sobil (left), better known as Kay Kay, have won accolades for helping drug addicts and poor street kids transform their lives. -- PHOTO: AFP

Aug 18, 2009
AFP

PHNOM PENH - A SLIM boy with curly hair spins on his head to hip hop music at a house down a crowded and dusty road in the Cambodian capital.

The dancer, 11-year-old Soeurn Nhanh, says he had a hopeless existence as a shoeshine boy until he discovered Cambodia's first and only breakdancing and hip hop school. 'When I grow up, I want to be a breakdancing teacher and earn money to support myself and my family,' he says, grinning.

Established a few years ago by a former US gang member deported after being convicted of armed robbery, the Tiny Toones centre also teaches disc jockey skills and rapping to nearly 400 children.

Besides helping bring hip hop culture to Cambodia, Tiny Toones and its founder Tuy Sobil, better known as Kay Kay, have won accolades for helping drug addicts and poor street kids transform their lives.

'Our doesn't judge where the kids come from. It doesn't matter whether it's the rich, poor, or orphans, sex workers or drug kids...we just make everybody equal here,' Kay Kay says.

'I'm happy to tell them that one day they will get better,' he adds.

The centre now also teaches English, Khmer and computers. Kay Kay, 32, brings lessons from his own life to the job. He is one of some 200 Cambodians ejected from the United States over the past several years under a law which deports felons who do not have American citizenship.

Kay Kay had never been back to Cambodia, which he left as a baby when his family emigrated to the US. His parents neglected to complete US citizenship documents when they arrived in California and after being jailed for armed robbery at 18 he was deported, leaving his family and young son behind.

When he arrived in Cambodia, Kay Kay seemed to leave his old life far behind, working as a counsellor for drug addicts. But in almost every way, Kay Kay is American.

He named his centre 'Tiny Toones' for the classic US children's cartoon programmes, and although his students mimic his baggy trousers and colourful over-sized t-shirts, he still draws attention around Phnom Penh.

'With tied-up long hair and a heavily-tattooed body, I get a bad impression from people. I might look like I'm very violent but I'm not,' Kay Kay says.

Cambodian dance troupe's US tour comes to an emotional close

Ray Chum, right, is overcome with emotion as she talks with her son, KK, on back screen, during a Skype video call in Inglewood, Calif. on May 3, 2009. Tiny Toones is a hip hop group founded by KK, a former Long Beach gang member who was deported to Cambodia. (Jeff Gritchen/Staff Photographer)

05/04/2009
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

INGLEWOOD - As Ray Chum looked at the face of the son she hadn't seen since 2003 displayed on the wall via a computer screen projection, her voice broke and the tears flowed.

The son, Tuy "KK" Sobil, whose image was being broadcast from an Internet cafe in Cambodia, was also speechless in tears.

The exchange brought an emotional climax to what has been an amazing tour of the United States by a dance troupe KK founded and comprised of street kids from Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Dabson Tuy, KK's brother, took the microphone from his mother and talked to his brother.

"Mom just wants you to be a better person," Dabson said. "To see what you're doing today, we're just so proud of you. Just keep it positive. I'm sorry you had to see all that pain."

However, the heart rending pain underscored a success story that has been nothing short of miraculous. It is a story that would never happened but for KK's fall.

About 150 people had gathered at Chuco's Justice Center in Inglewood to see the final U.S. performance of Tiny Toones, a hip-hop dance crew, and Cambodian rapper Chan Samnang, also known as K-Dep.

The story of KK and Tiny Toones has received national and international recognition in recent years.

KK was born in a Thai refugee camp and later became a gang member in Long Beach after emigrating to the U.S. with his family. In 2003, after serving a conviction for armed robbery, he was deported to Cambodia, a country he had never visited.

After KK's arrival, kids began asking him to show them dance moves. Eventually, he relented, put his personal despair aside and formed Tiny Toones.

The lure of hip-hop has since been used not only to teach kids break dancing, but provide English language education, HIV/AIDs awareness, gang prevention and other arts and life skills. Through the help of donors and other charities, Tiny Toones now has a drop-in center for impoverished teens and children in Phnom Penh.

The U.S. trip was just the latest remarkable event in the rise of Tiny Toones. Supporters here in the United States were able to secure an invitation and funding to bring six dancers and K-Dep to the U.S. for an international hip-hop dance competition in Madison, Wis., followed by trips to perform in New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and the Southland.

Although the fund-raiser in Inglewood was the group's last performance, plans are already afoot to bring them back next year.

For the dancers, the trip has been magical. Dyrithy Sovann, who goes by the stage name Fresh, said he never dreamed he'd ever see the United States.

Sovann, 17, is particularly adept at one-hand stands and head spins. On Sunday, he was learning the excitement of skateboarding, which the group was first introduced to several days ago.

Sovann met KK four years ago after going with some friends to watch him dance.

At Saturday's performance, Sovann played a lead role in the Monkey Dance, which has become the group's signature piece.

In the dance, the troupe begins with Keo Srey Leak, aka Diamond, the lone girl in the troupe dancing in classical Cambodian style. Gradually, traditional music gives way to hip-hop and the entire troupe launches into a full-fledged tumbling, spinning, hip-hop routine.

In addition to the performances, Tiny Toones dancers have engaged in impromptu cultural exchanges.

In Seattle, they met with a group of first-generation Cambodians from a group called Khmer In Action.

Grace Kong of KIA said the two groups learned much from each other.

Kong said the dancers feared they would be looked down upon and shunned when they came to the U.S.

Instead they have been overcome by the welcome they have received.

"We wanted them to see that no matter what, they have our support, they have Khmer Americans who love them," Kong said.

Information on Tiny Toones can be found online at www.tinytoonescambodia.com.

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291

Cambodian hip-hop dance troupe started by ex-gang member plans local fundraiser

KK (Tuy Sobil) keeps an eye on breakdancers at Korsang, a center for returnees, in Phonm Penh, Cambodia, on February 13, 2008. (Jeff Gritchen / Staff Photographer)

04/30/2009
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

Want to go?

• What: Hip-hop community event featuring Cambodian break dancers
• When: Sunday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
• Where: Chuco's Justice Center, 1137 E. Redondo Blvd., Inglewood
• Admission: $5 - $10 donation requested

LONG BEACH - When Tuy Sobil, better known as KK, started teaching children and teens in the slums of Cambodia how to break dance, he couldn't have foreseen all this.

A former Crips gang member from Long Beach, who was deported to Cambodia in 2004 after serving time for armed robbery, KK was still coming to grips with his own travails when word spread in Phnom Penh that he was a talented breaker.

After turning down initial pleas by kids to teach his technique, KK relented and Tiny Toones was born.

The goal was to "provide a safe, positive environment for at-risk youth to channel their energy and creativity into the arts and education" and away from the rampant drugs, gangs and criminal activity that infect the streets.

From meager beginnings, Tiny Toones has enjoyed rapid growth and become something of a media phenomenon.

The group has a drop-in center in Phnom Penh and offers educational and social services to needy kids.

Now Tiny Toones has gone global.

And a half-dozen dancers and a rapper are getting a chance of a lifetime.

On Sunday, the Tiny Toones crew concludes a U.S. tour as headliners at a hip-hop community fund-raiser in Inglewood. The event will also feature a live video conference from Cambodia with KK, who is barred from returning to the United States.

However, his dancers were granted visas and have spent the last two weeks traveling the United States, competing in hip-hop battles and packing in a lifetime of experiences that were once unimaginable.

Organizers had hoped to stage the event in Long Beach but ran into complications.

Those who can't make it to Inglewood can meet Tiny Toones at noon Sunday at Cesar Chavez Park, 401 Golden Ave. where a hip-hop/reggae community picnic will be staged with DJs, graffiti artists, b-boys, drum circles, fire dancers, and other artists.

The members of Tiny Toones may wear sideways ball caps, baggy clothes and strike American urban poses, but "Suicide," "T-Boy," "Diamond," "Fresh," "Honey, "Sokha" and "K-Dep" are pure Cambodian.

Dara Chan, a grad student and child of Cambodian immigrants, spearheaded the effort to get Tiny Toones to the U.S.

He said he was "blown away," when he saw the Cambodian crew perform.

Although the dancers, who range in age from 16 to 23, have only been at it for a couple of years, Chan says "they really pushed themselves. They created a really original show."

The routine begins as a traditional Cambodian "Monkey Dance," before transforming into a modern and urban interpretation of the classic tale.

Chan says he has been amazed at the love and welcome the Cambodian crew has received.

The idea of bringing Tiny Toones began with an invitation to an annual international dance battle called "Breakin' the Law," sponsored by the University of Wisconsin as part of its Hip Hop as a Movement week.

After strings were pulled and letters of support from numerous charities and law firms written, the Tiny Toones kids were granted visas.

Chan said efforts to get a temporary waiver for KK were unsuccessful.

After the show in Wisconsin, Tiny Toones traveled to New York, Philadelphia and Seattle. They return home after Sunday's performance.

In addition to Tiny Toones, the event will include art demonstrations and workshops, live graffiti and silk screening and performances by dancers, rappers, spoken word artists and DJs.

June Kaeswith, a student at Cal State Long Beach, organized the event.

"We want to bring back what hip-hop was originally about, which is peace, love, unity, having fun and knowledge," Kaeswith says. "This event is to revive that."

Information about the events is available by e-mail at jumakae@gmail.com. Information about Tiny Toones can be found online at www.tinytoonescambodia.com.

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291

Break Dancing, Phnom Penh-Style

A former gang member from Long Beach, California, teaches break dancing to at-risk youths in Cambodia.

U.S. Deportee Brings Street Dance to Street Boys of Cambodia

Tuy Sobil, or K.K., right, a former gang member from Long Beach, Calif., founded the club after being deported in 2004. (Photo: Stuart Isett for The New York Times)
Tach Piseth, 11, practiced spinning on his head at the Tiny Toones break dancing club in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The club teaches about 150 youngsters. (Photo: Stuart Isett for The New York Times)

November 30, 2008
By SETH MYDANS
The New York Times

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — It may be the only place in Cambodia where the children are nicknamed Homey, Frog, Floater, Fresh, Bugs and Diamond.

And there are not many places like this small courtyard, thumping with the beat of a boom box, where dozens of boys in big T-shirts are spinning on their heads and doing one-hand hops, elbow tracks, flairs, halos, air tracks and windmills. And, of course, krumping.

It is a little slice of Long Beach, Calif., brought here by a former gang member by way of a federal prison, an immigration jail and then expulsion four years ago from his homeland, the United States, to the homeland of his parents, Cambodia.

The former gang member is Tuy Sobil, 30, who goes by the street name K.K. The boys are Cambodian street children he has taken under his wing as he teaches them the art he brought with him, break dancing, as well as his hard lessons in life.

K.K. is not here because he wants to be. He is one of 189 Cambodians who have been banished from the United States in the past six years under a law that mandates deportations for noncitizens who commit felonies. Hundreds more are on a waiting list for deportation. Like most of the others, K.K. is a noncitizen only by a technicality. He was not an illegal immigrant. He was a refugee from Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge “killing fields” who found a haven in the United States in 1980.

He was an infant when he arrived. In fact, he was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and had never seen Cambodia before he was deported. But K.K.’s parents were simple farmers who failed to complete the citizenship process when they arrived.

Like some children of poor immigrants, K.K. drifted to the streets, where he became a member of the Crips gang and a champion break dancer. It was only after he was convicted of armed robbery at 18 that he discovered that he was not a citizen.

Like many deportees, he arrived in Cambodia without possessions and without family contacts. He was a drug counselor at first and then founded his break dancing club, Tiny Toones Cambodia, where he now earns a living teaching about 150 youngsters and reaching out to hundreds more.

With the financial support of international aid groups like Bridges Across Borders, based in Graham, Fla., he has expanded his center into a small school that teaches English and Khmer and computers in addition to back flips, head stands and krumping, or crazy dancing.

Some other deportees have found work that uses their fluency in English, particularly in hotels. Some have reunited with families. But many have slipped into unemployment, depression and sometimes drug use.

“Some were doing well initially but now over time have become unemployed or never did get employment, and just got discouraged,” said Dimple Rana, who works with Deported Diaspora, which is based in Revere, Mass., and helps deportees adjust.

“I know of a whole bunch of returnees whose mothers were sending money from their Social Security,” she said. “Now, with the economy in the United States, it is very hard and families are not able to send even $100 or $150.”

K.K. stands out as a success, both in finding a calling and in embracing his fate. He has a fair command of the language, unlike some deportees who arrived with no knowledge of Khmer.

“I think it was meant for me to be here, even though I lost my family,” he said. “And my kid is there, Kayshawn. He is 8.”

K.K. is in touch with his relatives in Long Beach but has not seen them since he was deported.

“Right now, you know, these kids are my family,” he said. “I don’t have a kid here, but I adopted one, a street kid. His mom and dad are on drugs.”

The boys and girls leaping and spinning here are the children of Cambodia’s underclass, like thousands who fill the slums of Phnom Penh — children who spend their evenings, as K.K. put it, “begging and digging through garbage to find food.”

K.K., whose youth was not so different from theirs, said he teaches them to find pride in who they are. A wall of his center is marked with students’ graffiti: “I want to be a rapper,” “I want to be a D.J.,” “I want to be a doctor.”

“I try to tell them not to judge people by the way they look,” he said. “I still have a struggle here in Cambodia. People judge me. People see me with tattoos and think I’m a bad guy.

“Sometimes it’s, ‘Come on, we’re going to kill some Americans,’ ” he said, describing threats from street toughs. “I’m not American. I’m Khmer, man.”

His journey between identities reached a point of strangeness when he was invited last December to perform with some of his students at a Christmas party at the United States Embassy.

“The American ambassador gave me a handshake and a hug, and asked me one day when his kid is a little older he wanted to put him in my school,” K.K. said.

The ambassador at the time, Joseph A. Mussomeli, recalled the performance as “great fun,” but he said the piquancy of the moment had not been lost on him.

“You are right that there is a certain wonderful irony to him being ‘rejected’ or at least ‘ejected’ from the U.S. and still landing on his feet — or shoulders and head — dancing,” Mr. Mussomeli said in an e-mail message.

“While watching him I was reminded of that great patriotic speech by Bill Murray in ‘Stripes,’ ” he added, “where he talks about Americans as being rejects from all the good, decent countries of the world! K.K. is/was an American in everything except in law — and he has shown this by his creativity, tenacity, and undying optimism.”

Now another irony is in store for K.K. His club has been invited to send dancers to perform in the United States — Cambodian boys who speak no English and have never left their country.

The real American among them, K.K., deported and excluded from the United States for the rest of his life, must stay behind.

“I can’t go,” he said over the thump of the boom box, as his boys jumped and bounced around him like tiny springs. “I can understand that they deported me here. I’d like to go visit — only visit, because I live here now. I have a brand new life.”

Cambodian-Americans are changing their parents' homeland

Tiny Toones performs most Sunday afternoons in the parks along Phnom Penh’s riverfront. The events draw curious onlookers as well as street kids to see the group perform. Such events are used as outreach to the city’s poor and young. (Photo: Stuart Isett)
Phnom Penh, Cambodia -- The Tiny Toones break dancing troupe was founded by Tuy Sobil (shown here at a show along Phnom Penh's riverfront), a 30-year-old Cambodian deported from the United States in 2004. Working out of a shop house in Phnom Penh's Tonle Sap neighborhood, which doubles as a makeshift community center and dance studio as well as Tuy's home, the group now has 600 members. (Photo: Stuart Isett)

They're giving at-risk youth a break with dance lessons

April 25, 2008
By ATHIMA CHANSANCHAI
Seattle P-I REPORTER (Washington State, USA)

Click here to view the photo gallery of the B-boys of Massive Monkees

Next time the Massive Monkees mesmerize you with their break dancing, check out the lanky boy with the waves of curly hair, nicknamed Peanut, the one known for his windmills.

He's also the one moving to a country he never visited before last year, the country his parents fled during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror.

Peanut, whose real name is Phanna Nam, is following a dream to dance in Cambodia and teach poor kids the moves that have been second nature to him since he was a child growing up in Mount Baker. The Franklin High School grad, 23, was born in Tacoma and visited Cambodia for the first time in 2007, for a month.

Behind the moves of Massive Monkees, one of Seattle's top B-boy groups (B-Boy is hip-hop slang for break dancer), is the story of how Cambodian-Americans like Nam are changing their parents' homeland. Although Nam is going back by choice, others forced back by deportation are finding redemption in a country torn apart by genocide, war and violence.

Nam and his crew -- the tight-knit 19 or so young men and women of Massive Monkees -- perform Saturday night at the Greenwood Collective. Proceeds will go toward Tiny Toones, an organization in Cambodia's capital of Phnom Penh that reaches out to about 600 at-risk and street children through break dancing.

Tiny Toones uses any donations it receives to provide food, shelter and education to these kids, who learn about HIV, sex and drugs -- and how those things can't fit into a life of dancing. Kids also meet with other volunteers/deportees and the group's founder, Tuy Sobil (nicknamed KK) every day after he gets off work to practice moves, which can last all night. Nam met Sobil in January on his second monthlong visit to Cambodia -- and they hit it off.

Sobil is an ex-Crips gang member from Long Beach, Calif., who, after a felony conviction for armed robbery at 18, spent a decade in jail and immigration detention centers. He wasn't even born in Cambodia, having come into the world in a Thai refugee camp.

His story isn't so different from that of Many Uch, 32, a local Cambodian man whose life has been in limbo as he waits to be deported. He served 40 months in prison because, at 18, he also was involved in an armed robbery -- as a getaway driver -- and also was running in a local gang. Uch spent an additional 28 months detained by immigration officials after his release from prison in 1997.

"I regret making poor choices, but not that I went to prison. Prison changed my life, in a way that it saved me," said Uch, who will speak at Saturday's fundraiser. "Not religiously, but mentally, in growing up."

Uch is no longer in custody, but his situation hangs over his head daily. As coordinator for the Seattle-based Refugee Justice Project, he works closely with other Cambodian-Americans facing deportation.

The father of a 21-month-old daughter, Uch is engaged to be married and has a full life in this country with all the family he has ever known. He arrived in the U.S. when he was 4, and says he has no memory of Cambodia.

"I feel for KK. He mentioned one time that he would be hanging out in the streets if he was in America and would likely fall back in jail," Uch said. "I admire people that try to make a difference in children's lives. Most deportees are not really making it in Cambodia, and KK tries really hard to change his life and others.

"We made poor choices when we were younger and that's what I can relate to. I spent time in prison and now changed my life. But Immigration doesn't understand that and won't give me another chance. What else can you do but make the best out of it?"

Although he's never been in the kind of trouble that sent Sobil back to Cambodia, Nam knows what it's like to grow up in a rough neighborhood, and is able to relate to the kids in Phnom Penh.

"It's just like the projects, but a lot worse. You gotta be street smart," he said. "I realized I was more Cambodian than American. I don't go to McDonald's. I eat pho or Thai food. I always prefer Asian food. When I was in Cambodia, I ate like a Cambodian, went to the bathroom like one, rode mopeds like one."

Growing up surrounded by other Cambodians, Nam retained his culture and traditions, kept them close. The oldest of four children -- all of whom dance -- he set an example for his siblings by staying out of gangs and finding work taking care of mentally disabled clients. But dancing has always been in his life and being part of Massive Monkees has exposed him to other crews around the world. They've even been world champs, once, in London, in 2004. But Nam jokes, "We're like the Seahawks, we're the masters of second place."

"Seattle B-boys and girls are world class, there's no doubt about it," said Charles Peterson, a counterculture photographer best known for capturing grunge. Later this year a new book on break dancing, "Cypher," comes out. Peterson will be at the fundraiser Saturday, showing his work.

"A large part of the scene are Asian and Hispanic-Americans, and we have such a big Asian-American community here," he said. "There's always a Seattle contingent. They definitely hold their own."

Stuart Isett, another Seattle photographer, who's been working on a 15-year photo essay about Cambodian gangs in the U.S. and the deportation of young Cambodian refugees to Cambodia, also will be showing his work.

Isett's work has concentrated more on B-boys like Sobil, and not as much on B-boys like Nam who choose to go back.

Nam says he will miss his crew in Seattle, but he feels his place is halfway around the world.

"I always had this calling, this sense of destiny to go back to Cambodia. My mom thinks I'm crazy and my dad just tells me to stay safe. But I'm tired of the American dream. It's a fantasy. I feel more real living in the 'hood," said Nam, who's going to Alaska this summer to make money fishing, then making the big move abroad.

"I don't know how to do anything else but break dance. If I'm gonna shed tears, blood and sweat, it might as well be for Cambodia. I can't change Cambodia, but these kids can. ...Through dancing, these kids are going to be inspired to do more."

COMING UP TINY TOONES B-BOY BENEFIT FOR CAMBODIA

WHAT: Performances by Massive Monkees and an address by Many Uch; photographs for sale by Charles Peterson and Stuart Isett
WHEN/WHERE: 6 p.m. Saturday, Greenwood Collective, 8537 Greenwood Ave. N.
COST: $5 donation
MORE INFO: goto.seattlepi.com/r1403, tinytoonescambodia.com.

P-I reporter Athima Chansanchai can be reached at 206-448-8041 or athimachansanchai@seattlepi.com.