University of Massachusetts Amherst

From the SelectedWorks of Benjamin Bailey

2000

Description/background of Cambodian community pathways and selectiono processes and the Providence community Benjamin Bailey, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Available at: https://works.bepress.com/benjamin_bailey/64/ Benjamin’s September 1999 (updated 6/2000)

Description/Background of Cambodian Community

Refugee pathways and selection processes and the Providence community

Background History and Refugee Processes

Cambodia became a French protectorate/colony in 1863. It achieved independence under French- supported Prince Sihanouk in 1953. In 1970, prime minister Lon Nol led a coup d’etat replacing Sihanouk.

From 1970-1975 there was increased involvement in the Vietnam War as well as on-going civil war between the government and various(?) groups including the , who gained control of the country in 1975. It is estimated that 600,000 to 800,000 Cambodians were killed during this 1970-1975 period (Mortland 1996:235) and many people, e.g. along the Vietnam border, were in flight, so the country was already experiencing violence and displacement long before the Khmer Rouge gained power.

Under the Khmer Rouge from 1975-1978 it is estimated that between 700,000 and two million more people died than would have under normal conditions during this period. Vickery (in Mortland

1996:236) suggests that half of these died of illness, starvation, and overwork and half were executed.

Between 1 in 5 and 1 in 8 Cambodians thus died during this period.

Executions and persecution were selective, aimed at those with the resources to oppose the regime, particularly the small educated class (in a country with very low levels of overall education).

Specifically, the Khmer Rouge sought out for special torture and killing anyone with

education, including anyone who spoke French (since it was learned only in school

and represented education), monks (as dual symbols of Buddhism and intellect), and

schoolteachers (Hopkins 1996:131).

Many of the individuals who would have been best positioned to thrive educationally and socio- economically in the United States--urban, educated, and Western-oriented--were thus killed. It has been suggested that ethnic Chinese were not more specifically targeted than other urban/business groups because the Khmer Rouge were backed by the People’s Republic of China.

Refugee Waves

Researchers describe several waves of people fleeing , each wave with distinctive socioeconomic character, and corresponding various waves of arriving in the United States. Escapees (Mortland 1996:238-9)

Wave 1:

1975 before Khmer Rouge came to power: 35,000 to Thailand and 150,000 to Vietnam; virtually all resettled in France, US, Canada, Australia--officials, professionals, moneyed or aristocratic classes; some farmers and townspeople near western border. The few members of the Providence community who got out by 1975, e.g. Sina Bieu and Kai Lee (spelling?), form a significant part of the small educated .

Wave 2:

December 1978--early months of 1979--Vietnam invasion--100,000 fled West to Thailand--a cross-section of people

Wave 3: late Spring ‘79 to early months of 1980; worsening food shortages and famine, rumors of food on the Thai-

Cambodian border; UN began distributing food, tools, and seed rice at the border encouraging people to stay in Cambodia; as many as 1 million came to the border area

These people were very unlike immigrants in that they were seeking temporary refuge and were not looking to emigrate and were not drawn to any third country:

When Cambodians in these first three waves fled their country, they were not

thinking of migration. They were thinking of temporary refuge, then of eventually

returning home, of finding their children and parents, of finding food. They feared

the Khmer Rouge, they feared the Vietnamese, they feared everything Cambodian

had become. ...They were thinking they would die if they stayed in Cambodia, and

going was the only alternative they saw. This was especially true of those who fled

to Thailand immediately after the fall of the Khmer Rouge.

Only later did Cambodians begin traveling to the border in order to gain

admittance to a Thai refugee camp and, ultimately, resettlement in the United States.

As the months passed, an increasing number of Cambodians began to see

resettlement to a Western country as a possibility, even a goal (Mortland 1996:239).

Kunz (1973) differentiates between immigrants and refugees in that immigrants experience a

“pull” of another destination while refugees experience only a “push” of conditions in the home country.

He also differentiates between “anticipatory” refugees and “acute” refugees. Anticipatory refugees have more resources, know the situation is deteriorating, and get out early, going straight to a destination country

Acute refugee movements contrast with anticipatory movements sharply both in their

selectiveness and their kinetics. Acute refugee movements arise from great political

changes or movements of armies. The refugees flee either in mass or, if their flight is

obstructed, in bursts of individual or group escapes, and their primary purpose is to

reach safety in a neighboring or nearby country which will grant them asylum. The

emphasis is on the escape and at the time of passing through the border few refugees

partaking in acute movements are aware that later further migration will become a

necessity (1973:132).

People making their way to camps in the 1980’s may have been oriented toward resettlement, but they were generally unsuccessful, even after many years in the camps.

Wave 4:

This was much smaller wave during the 1980’s, most of whom were unsuccessful in their attempt to resettle in a third country. In 1992-1993, 362,000 Cambodians were forcibly trucked to Cambodia from

Thailand as part of UN brokered peace agreement

Resulting waves of resettled refugees (and eventually, immigrants) to the US :

Wave 1

1975-77: 6000 people, most of them from the educated and urbanized and most connected to

Americans (e.g. had worked for American organizations) or the Vietnam War.

Wave 2

Late 1970’s; 10,000 without such connections who had fled before the KR came to power, and hadn’t experienced the KR time, e.g. farmers and townspeople living near the Western border (with Thailand)

Wave 3

1980-1986--This period accounts for the vast majority of refugees resettled in the US (see the year-by-year breakdown, below). These refugees had fled during the collapse of the Khmer Rouge during and after the

Vietnamese invasion, in 1979-1980.

Wave 4

1987-present--Much smaller groups coming as immigrants rather than refugees, through family reunification. (I have not found INS numbers for these, but they must exist.)

Although there were about 10 camps around the Thai border after 1979, only one, Khao I Dang, was a route to third country resettlement for those who didn’t have connections, e.g. relatives, to sponsor them. (Providence Cambodians who made it to the US from other camps might be assumed to have greater social capital, e.g. connections to relatives or US organizations abroad or the Lon Nol military. This greater social capital should translate into greater socio-economic mobility in the US.) Khao I Dang was run by the UN High Commission on Refugees. The others were controlled by Cambodian political/military factions, including the Khmer Rouge. Khao I Dang was thus the safest, healthiest, etc. camp. One

Providence informant who had arrived at Khao I Dang at age 13 said he “liked” the camp, even though it was a little like a jail. He said there was food and he could go to school, and after school he could go to the temple, all of which he hadn’t been able to do in Cambodia.

Khao I Dang had over 100,000 people in January 1980, 130,000 by May 1980. Just about everyone was able to be resettled except for ca. 10,000 who were alleged to have had connections to the

Khmer Rouge.

Cambodians I talked to in Providence were in camps 2-5 years, including 6 months in special orientation and English language camps (many did this in the Philippines) immediately prior to coming to the US. (I found no ethnographies or detailed descriptions of Cambodian camps. Mortland (1987) describes a Phillipine processing center.)

Large numbers of refugees were possible after 1980 because of the 1980 Refugee Act under

Carter. Each year the president, with congressional approval, set ceilings for the numbers of refugees to be admitted, and Carter immediately raised ceilings.

Mortland (1996:252-253) gives the following figures for Cambodian refugee resettlement in the US, drawing from various sources (I don’t think this includes later, family sponsored immigration)

1975 4,600

1976 1,100

1977 300

1978 1,300

1979 6,000

1980 16,000

1981 27,100

1982 20,234

1983 13,115

1984 19,851

1985 19,097

1986 9,789

1987 1,539

1988 2,805

1989 1,916

1990 2,166

1991 38

1992 141

1993 22

The largest resettlement years were thus 1980-1986. The earlier waves of more educated refugees and those who had not experienced the physical and emotional trauma of the Khmer Rouge years were much smaller. Smith-Hefner (1999) suggests that the early, more educated refugees ended up primarily in

DC, NY, CA (Long Beach being the largest Cambodian community in the US), and France.

A linguistic (self-)selection process occurred in the camps, especially with the first waves of refugees (who were generally resettled in France, Australia, the US, and Canada):

When opportunities came to go to a third country [from the camps], there was a

further filtering on the basis of education. Those who had some higher education

knew French, not English, and so often chose to go to France; consequently many of

those who came to the United States were often those with less education or less

choice (Hopkins 1996:132).

According to the 1990 census, foreign born Cambodians living in RI entered the US in the following numbers in the following periods: before 1980 323

1980-1981 441 (220.5/year average)

1982-1984 1068 (356/year average)

1985-1986 429 (214.5/year average)

1987-1990 412 (103/year average)

The figures for Massachusetts should be on the 1990 Census Foreign Born CD-ROM. A Cambodia-based journalist told me that Lowell was the 4th largest Cambodian city in the world, following Phnom Pen, Long

Beach (CA), and Paris.

Sponsorship/Secondary migration

Settlement in the US and secondary migration within the US are strongly shaped by the nature of being a refugee (as opposed to voluntary migrant). Refugees who qualified for resettlement needed sponsors before they could resettle. In contrast to immigrant groups who use family reunification to migrate, Cambodians were primarily sponsored by institutions, especially before the communities became more established. The period of greatest refugee resettlement, 1980-1986, was so short that the community was not well established in the ways that historical immigrant communities have become over decades. In

Rhode Island the major sponsoring institutions were International Institute, Catholic Social Services,

Jewish Family Services, and the Woonsockett branch of the Tolstoy Foundation. [Hoeum Mak, the (Cambodian) head of refugee resettlement at International Institute probably knows more about the specifics of sponsorship and resettlement process than anyone else.]

These social service agencies thus filled many of the roles traditionally served by relatives or the immigrant community itself. International Institute, for example, would meet arriving refugees at the airport, clothe them, place them in housing, help find them jobs, etc. in addition to giving them ESL and literacy classes and, eventually, job training. The quality and nature of the sponsorship was crucial to refugees socioeconomic trajectories, according to Hopkins (1996:154-5), who did an ethnography on a midwestern community:

Looking at school success and failure, I considered all the usual factors: ethnic

origins, religion, family system, economics, race, knowledge of English, health,

“wave,” and “voluntary” vs. “involuntary” status. Clearly some of those factors

presented barriers to school success for the Cambodian children: , minority

racial status, lack of English in a monolingual society, the appalling state of their

health, being at the tail end of the “wave” of Southeast Asians and their

“involuntary” status. Indeed, most school success stories included some of the

following: urban origins, facility with English, some parental education, shorter time

in refugee camps, less severe mental or physical torture. But they almost all included

something else: sincere, capable, and generous sponsors with the resources to give

the necessary attention and assistance to the refugee family from the beginning and

on a long-term basis. Such sponsors helped by personally finding clean, safe

housing; meeting with the family on a regular basis, daily at first, to take them

shopping and elsewhere; tutoring them in English and physically taking them to

English classes; monitoring the health care they received, getting them to

appointments, talking to the doctors, and so on; tutoring the children through their

first few years of school and occasionally after that; personally employing or

monitoring the employment situation of adults; sometimes ......

Because the government and local sponsors were responsible for the initial resettlement of the refugees, they were not initially settled into the enclaves that have historically formed among immigrants.

To the contrary, they were intentionally “scattered” to “lessen impact” on existing US communities.

Through scatter placement and American sponsorship, policymakers tried to prevent

Cambodians from settling into ethnic enclaves, hoping thus to reduce refugee

visibility, increase their economic prospects, and decrease refugee costs to American

taxpayers (Skinner and Hendricks 1979).

Cambodians, however, did not remain dispersed. They moved for a variety of

reasons, most obviously to be with one another, and the immediate result of their

movement was the rapid creation of Cambodian enclaves in several cities. An

increasing number of resettled Cambodians became sponsors to their own relatives,

adding to Cambodian clustering. (Mortland 1996:243-4)

According to Mortland and Ledgerwood (1987:305), this secondary migration is more common among refugees than voluntary migrants:

It has been noted that refugees who have been forced to flee their homelands are

already a more mobile population than other immigrants; more so than with

voluntary migrants, most involuntary migrants such as refugees have not focused on

a specific destination for resettlement. As Kunz (1973:130) states: It is the reluctance

to uproot oneself, and the absence of positive original motivations to settle

elsewhere, which characterizes all refugee decisions and distinguishes the refugee

from the voluntary migrants”. Because the refugee does not have “positive original

motivations” for going to a country of resettlement--only for leaving the country of

birth--the tendency toward secondary migration is greater.

In some senses, this secondary intra-US migration may be more similar to the initial emigration of members of other groups, in that Cambodians are voluntarily responding to a “pull” to a specific destination with co-ethnics/family. In the early 1980’s, the federal government wanted to deter additional settlement in Philadelphia,

Long Beach, and Seattle, so they tried to build up smaller, but still attractively large enclaves in 12 additional cities. In the late 1980’s, the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the Department of Health and

Human Services funded the research and publication of a report entitled Profiles of Some Good Places for

Cambodians to Live in the United States (North and Nim Sok 1989--I have not been able locate this. Is it a government document?). The report describes 22 communities (Providence among them) where there were available jobs, generally self-sufficient Cambodian residents, a moderate-sized Khmer community, and minimum crime problems. The report details job opportunities, size of Cambodian community, and town characteristics.

Some characteristics of the Providence Cambodian Community:

According to the 1990 census, Providence had 3124 Cambodians. The entire state had 3,664, of whom 616 were US born. Cambodians in Providence were concentrated in three, adjoining census tracts south and west of downtown, 3,13, and 14, with 480, 448, and 876 Cambodians respectively. These three tracts accounted for 58% of the Providence population. The only other tract with more than 200, tract #26, i.e. north of Smith street, is isolated from the other Cambodian tracts, and mingles with the northern part of the Laotian enclave on Smith Hill (tracts 25 and 26). (Hmong were overwhelming concentrated in tract 2, with some in 3 and 4. They were thus South of downtown, and less West than the Cambodians.) In the

1990 census, there were only 53 Cambodians living in Cranston, but there are apparently many more there now (disproportionately the ones who are doing better socio-economically?), having moved there for safety, better schools, etc.

Consultants said that first generation Cambodians who arrived as adults often have economic problems related to language use.

Benjamin: What are the biggest problems facing the Cambodian community?

John Chea: With any immigrant, it’s the same with any other immigrant. The Cambodians continue to have economic problems. The illiteracy, trying to-- my parents, other people’s parents who came to this country were guardians, of each family, those are the people who are having the greatest difficulty. For one reason, the language barrier. They are too old to learn, too busy trying to support the family. So they’re caught-- they would like to learn the language but they’re too old and they’re too busy trying to support a family. Their problem is economic: poverty. They’re making minimum wage, they’re working 12-13 hours a day trying to support a family. For that generation, that is the biggest problem.

[numerous consultants and written works emphasize the incompatible demands of a) long hours of work and family management with b) the time and energy required to learn English well; some consultants and research also emphasize that Cambodians face greater difficulties because of trauma experienced in

Cambodia--more difficulty concentrating, e.g. because of lost family and friends, violence, etc.]

Anecdotally, consultants described Texas Instruments, Bostich, Gtech, MSA (now closed), Tyco,

Montsifi(?), and Providence Metallizing (now closed) as providing/having provided employment for many

Cambodians. Some reportedly had done well and been promoted which had paved the way for friends and relatives to be hired. Consultants reported that women tended to work in the local costume jewelry industry.

[asked if Cambodians cluster in industries where everyone on the shop floor will speak Cambodian, just as many shop floors are Spanish]

Chea: It’s the same, the same idea. One will get a job, for example, at Bostich. Many more go and apply.

They kind of cluster together, and they kind of have a group of their own within that company.

I talked to the personell offices at various manufacturers. At the larger companies, the number of

Cambodians may be significant, but percentage-wise very small. Many larger companies only have figures for “Asian”. At smaller companies, e.g. Teka, Cambodians may constitute almost all the production

(factory floor) jobs.

Stanley Bostich (E Greenwich) about 25 Cambodians, 4% of production workers, about 5-6 on 1st shift, about 20 on second shift; work in different positions; no Cambodian foremen

ON Semiconductor (formerly Cherry); E Greenwich 26 floor workers, 21 female, 5 male, (8% of floor workers)

Teka (now a new name....?) 100 Pioneer Ave. Warwick 15-20 of the 23 production workers are Cambodians; mostly women; one Cambodian male foreman

Entrepreneurial Presence

The Cambodian entrepreneurial/small retail business presence is small in Providence and adjacent

Cranston. The relatively few restaurants, markets, and retail stores can be found on Broad St., Elmwood

Ave, Cranston, Potters off Cranston, and Reservoir Ave. There are at least nine Cambodian-owned food markets, one of which is also a Texaco gas station, and at least seven restaurants. In contrast to the food markets, which serve an overwhelmingly Southeast Asian clientele (primarily Cambodian, followed by

Laotians, based on my observations and owners reports), the restaurants have a primarily non-Southeast

Asian client base, and one, on the East Side, has virtually no local Southeast Asian customers. In addition to the markets, there are at least three Cambodian owned jewelry stores (two on Reservoir in Cranston) and two clothing stores (on Elmwood), one of which specializes in traditional Cambodian clothing, the other of which rents from a selection of hundreds of Cambodian (and Cambodian-dubbed) videos. Job Lot Plaza, on

Reservoir in Cranston, has emerged as a concentration of Cambodian businesses (restaurant, jewelry, hair dresser).

The food markets sell cookware, videos, CD’s, cassettes, and long-distance calling cards, in addition to food. They also serve as impromptu community bulletin boards. Signs posted in September

1999 included a computer-created announcement, in both English and Khmer, of the upcoming All Soul’s

Day celebration at Goddard Park (proceeds going toward an eventual new temple). Hand-written signs variously advertised apartments/houses for rent, Siamese fighting fish for sale, and various “parties.” Local producers rent spaces (e.g. the Riviera Bingo Hall in Cranston) and book Cambodian movie/singing pop stars to make appearances and give performances, for which they charge an admission fee. A local insurance agency had an ad in one store, but when I called the agency, there was only a Laotian representative, the Cambodian one having left. One store also had an ad in Lao which appeared to be offering moving services. (Broad St. also has a Vietnamese-owned market catering to Southeast Asians and the Smith Hill area has at least two Laotian owned markets.)

Despite the casual nature of these postings at the markets, such leaflets are the only form of mass communication for reaching the Cambodian community.

(1.5 generation professional):

The Southeast Asian community right now, there’s no TV, no radio, no newspaper, no magazines, nothing.

How are we going to reach them? Almost zero. Only by word of mouth, or posting stuff at the grocery stores..... Almost like a community center type, they’re using the restaurants and grocery stores almost like a community center where all the information would go, would be posted there.

When agencies, e.g. RiteCare, need to reach the Cambodian community, they contract with the language translation arm of SEDC (the umbrella mutual aid association), which translates the documents, prints flyers/posters, and puts them in the restaurants, markets, and social service agencies (e.g. International

Institute) frequented by Cambodians. At least one Cambodian American professional thought people did not pay much attention to such postings (which makes sense in an adult community with poor levels of

Khmer literacy).

The businesses are also a nexus for word-of-mouth community communication. Dian Siphan said that people who knew of jobs would tell her mother (hair salon owner), who would tell others.

(No) Local Media

Unlike many other linguistic minority enclaves, the Cambodians in Providence have no local

Cambodian or Cambodian-language media. A privately sponsored hour of Cambodian AM radio programming (790 WALE) had been cancelled by early 1999. Community members disagree on the importance it had. Some say that many people listened to it and missed it; others argued that it was of limited value because of its extremely marginal time slot: 7 am on Sundays. There are no local periodicals in Khmer. The markets stock a newspaper from the Lowell, MA area, that appears around once a month.

One store also stocks a paper from Southern California that appears several time a month. Stores also carry between one and five movie star/pop singer magazines with little text. Storekeepers said that one cannot buy any Khmer-language books in Providence, but that they could be found in Lowell, MA, which is the largest Cambodian community on the East Coast. Children’s books in Khmer that I saw at an informant’s house had just been purchased at a summer “Water Festival” in Lowell.

Chinese Cambodians and Business

At least 80% of the businesses I surveyed were run by “Chinese Cambodians” despite the fact that

Sino-Khmer make up less than 10% of the Cambodian population in the US. Smith-Hefner (1995) estimates that 3% of Cambodians are easily identifiable as Chinese (pure Chinese, or cau chen ), while 6-

10% are noticeably of some (recent) Chinese descent (Chinese-Cambodian khmae chen ). Individuals are generally seen to count as Chinese-Cambodian if one grandparent is Chinese. A successful restaurant owner identified herself as “Chinese” on the basis of the fact that her father was an ethnic Chinese originally from Thailand and her mother was half-Vietnamese, half-Cambodian. In Smith-Hefner’s survey of Boston-area businesses, 85% were run by Sino Khmer. Willmott (1967) estimated that Chinese accounted for some 90% of the population involved in commerce in Cambodia and some 95% of the merchant class itself, many of them in rural areas.

The negative mutual stereotypes regarding business success are that the Khmer are interested in social face, ritual consumption, social largesse, and reincarnation, while the ethnic Chinese are thought to be money-minded, hard-nosed, individualistic people interested in growing their businesses. (In a familiar pattern, Chinese were barred from government and bureaucratic jobs in Cambodia. Under French rule, many administrators were Vietnamese.) According to Smith-Hefner (1995) the majority of Chinese

Cambodians are Teochieu speakers, which isolates them from the large Cantonese and other Chinese speaking populations in the US. Even though rates of intermarriage in Cambodia have been high, individuals still identify themselves--and are identified by others--as Chinese. One storekeeper in

Providence, for example, explained that her great-grandparents came from China and that she barely spoke any Chinese, but that people see her white skin and consider her Chinese. Despite intermarriage and assimilation (relative to other SE Asian nations) in Cambodia, Chinese Cambodians have maintained a distinctive entrepreneurial advantage. Smith-Hefner (1995) suggests that business-owning Sino Khmer push their children more in education, and encourage them to seek professional careers in engineering, health care, and computers. Not surprisingly, the community people with resources, education, and some financial success in Providece are disproportionately of some Chinese descent. [In our child survey interviewers identify kids by phenotype as Chinese/Chinese-Cambodian/just Cambodian].

Some of the Chinese-Cambodian-owned businesses in Providence highlight their Chinese aspect rather than their Cambodian background. The largest market (on Reservoir) is called “Little China Town.” I initially mistook several restaurants for Chinese owned rather than (Chinese-)Cambodian-owned because of their Chinese-style decor and names: Four Seasons, Lucky Inn, and Galaxy. Only one restaurant has a clearly Cambodian name, New Ang Kor, on Elmwood, and the proprietress is not seen by others as being

Chinese-Cambodian.

Isolation from Cambodia and the Generation Gap

Noticeably absent from the Cambodian business community are the international/transnational services typical of immigrant communities with on-going and circular migration: long distance calling centers, money wiring services, freight forwarding agencies, and travel agencies (there is a Laotian travel agency, DK Travel, in Woonsockett, but no there speaks Khmer). Consultants report that some

Cambodians have gone back to visit the country (the UN brokered peace was in the early 1990’s; the first elections were in 1998?), but it is a small number, and some still consider it to be unsafe there. While immigrants such as Dominicans regularly call the DR, visit the island, send remittances, ship things back and forth, re-migrate, sponsor an on-going stream of relatives, etc., the Cambodian community is in many ways cut off from their original homes in Cambodia. They have been isolated through years of warfare and genocide starting in 1970, years in camps, a hostile regime in Phnom Penh until the 1990’s, and the short window of time during which refugees were accepted as refugees (e.g. at Khao I Dang camp) in Thailand and resettled in the US.

This disjuncture in contact between the US ethnic community and the sending country shapes not only the nature of the community but intergenerational relationships. There is no on-going stream of migrants or circular migration re-invigorating the “Cambodian” aspects of the community. Children have little/no contact with newly arrived cousins/peers, so Cambodian culture and language and values are something that are only represented in the parents. Given the stark cultural differences between Cambodia and the US, parents can seem even more out of touch with reality to the younger generations than is typical in immigrant situations. Flourishing immigrant communities can recreate institutions and attitudes from the home country, inculcating youth with a common cultural memory based on shared language and customs.

Portes (1995) calls such ethnicity --based on continuation of cultural practices from the home country--

“linear” ethnicity (contrasted with reactive ethnicity):

Linear ethnicity...gives rise to an entirely different outlook based on the partial

recreation of institutions brought from the home country. The emergence of

immigrant churches, schools, restaurants, shops, and financial institutions patterned

in the mold of the old country reinforces the first-generation stance in two ways:

first, by creating a social environment that validates its norms and values; second, by creating opportunities within the immigrant community that are absent in the outside.

(Portes 1995:257)

There are not a lot of institutions, and no on-going migrant stream, in the Providence community to validate the norms and values of refugees who came as adults, contributing to a generation gap.

John Chea:

Talk about the generation gap, that’s one of the areas you mentioned that you were going to get into. For many years, we have had problems with gang activities, drop out, the whole teen-age, junior high school and high school generations. We have had so much problems. The reason why we thing there were problems came down to the fact that it’s a lost culture. That my generation, the early 20’s or late 20’s-early

30’s generation South East Asian, we were able to bridge both worlds. When I came to this country, I was

14, so I at least remember a lot of the stuff before I came into this country. And my generation continues to hold onto what we remember from the old country and then accumulate whatever knowledge the United

States, the culture, and the laws and the rules, and the language and the knowledge and the education and all that. So we combine both of them together. So it was easier for us to understand what it used to be and what it is. So we’re able to tell what is true and what is not. And so we’re able to make conscious or educated decisions about whatever we want to do to better our lives. But within the next generation, behind us, who are now in high school or junior high school, they don’t remember that. They don’t remember what it used to be. They don’t remember what the authentic Cambodian culture is, you know what practices, what family rules are. So they become rebellious. All they know is what they learn in school, what they learn on the street, what they learn in their community. Unfortunately that whole system is different from the old system back in the country.

This gap may have been most pronounced in the early 1990’s with mid- to late-adolescents--there were huge problems with SE Asian gangs with considerable violence at that time. Those who arrived during their mid-teens in the early to mid-1980’s, could bridge both worlds. Those who are now in elementary school are born to Cambodians who came between mid-teens and early 20’s (and have been in the US 15-20 years), so they are really children of the 1.25 generation, i.e. the parents are acculturated to the US. In between was a partial generation who were raised almost entirely in the US by parents who came as adults to the US and were relatively unacculturated. John Chea

To go to the next explanation, with their parents, who understand, who expect from what they learned.

They’re 100% taught from the old country, so all of their values, all of their rules and so on within the family are from the old country. So they’re very strict. They would like the child at a certain hour, they expect if they say “sit”, you’re expected to sit, and so on and so forth. And the child says, “I don’t think so.

Why should I listen to you? My friend who lives down the street, he’s White American, or he’s Black

American, or he’s Hispanic, he can go out all night long, his Mom doesn’t say anything. Why should I listen to you, Mom or Dad? I should be able to do the same thing. I’m not in Cambodia anymore, I’m not in

Laos anymore. I’m not in Thailand, I’m not in Vietnam anymore. I’m in Rhode Island, I’m in Providence. I can go out, I can go party. I can hang out with my friends as long as I want. So that’s the conflict that we’ve had for a long time. And to bridge that gap has been very difficult. And we continue to try to bridge that gap.

Benjamin: Can you think of specific examples of things that kids would say to the parents that would upset the parents?

Howard Phengsomphone: Well, the kids upset their parents, they say that their parents don’t know anything.

“You don’t understand, Mom. You don’t understand. You don’t know what I’m going to do every day in the school.” “It’s hard for me to tell you what’s happening in the school.” “You don’t know any thing.”

If I happen to be the parent, I would be upset, too! I mean I bring you here, I raise you up, now I know nothing! That, in very generalized terms, is the view of the parent.

The great cultural distance between Cambodia and the United States (relative to Portugal and the

DR) plays out significantly in intergenerational Cambodian relations and is thus most significant in the family . Our elementary school aged target group is US-born and raised, so their exposure to Cambodian language and culture is almost solely through their parents. Their issue is not to acculturate to the US, but to reconcile home life and outside world.

Cultural and linguistic distance also affects children because older parents face great difficulties in becoming fluent English speakers, which directly limits the training and jobs they can get in the US.

Co-ethnics

Unlike Dominicans who join a huge pan-national/ethnic linguistic community in the US, and unlike Portuguese who join a large, centuries-long established community, Cambodians did not join a longer present community and they do not share a language with any other national group. Although

Khmer is related to Lao, they are not mutually intelligible, and I have not encountered anyone claming to be bilingual in Khmer and Lao (or in Khmer and the unrelated Hmong, for that matter--(adult?) Hmong speakers are frequently bilingual in Lao). Although Cambodian refugees share considerable structural circumstances with Laotian, Hmong, and Vietnamese refugees, they cannot communicate with each other except in English or through interpreters. For the adult Cambodian generation, SE Asian identity and solidarity is very much situational and secondary to national/lingual identity:

Benjamin: Do Cambodians and Laotians feel like they’re part of the same community in Providence?

John Chea: For economic and for political and social reasons the communities in the last fifteen years have been pulled together. At least on the surface, the leaders of the groups have pulled together, have pooled their resources to assist all community members. One good example is the SEDC, the Socio-Economic

Development Center for Southeast Asians. That organization was formed back in 1987 for that reason, for pooling resources to assist all community members. Again, because of the language barrier among the four groups, they’re not really doing things together, but as far as for political and social and you know influences, they are together, they are very strong. When it’s a meeting or things are needed, they pull together and form a group. They are close within that matter. But again, the Cambodians celebrate their

New Year on a different day, the Laotians celebrate it on their day, the Vietnamese and the Hmong, they all have their own New Years and their own celebrations, which are all different.

A sense of pan-ethnicity is much more developed in the younger generations who grew up in the

US and are English-dominant. Howard Phengsomephone differentiated between the older generation and younger generation precisely in such terms:

HP: The older generation would say, because of the Vietnamese, they chased me out, the mentality, politically. I have to hate Vietnamese because Vietnamese...that’s kind of an old story. Old song. It’s gone. We’re in

America now. More educated people are not thinking of that. It’s only history....

Benjamin: Do they [the younger generation] start to think of themselves as Asian? Or do they continue to think of themselves as national, like as Laotian or Cambodian?

HP: To me, what I’ve learned from them [HP works primarily with middle school aged kids], is they think of themselves as-- they’re thinking they’re Asian American.

Community Institutions/Organizations/Activities

There are two, related organizations in Providence that are specifically Cambodian (as opposed to

SE Asian more generally), the temple on Hannover St, and the Cambodian Society of RI. The Cambodian

Society was started informally in the late 1970’s as a mutual aid association. In 1982 in incorporated as a non-profit and had a paid staff. (When Cambodians were new refugees, there were considerable federal programs/money aimed at them). Sokvann Sam came on as an outreach worker in 1987. In 1988 the funding ran out, and services were consolidated under SEDC (the Socio-Economic Development Center for

SE Asians). The Cambodian Society maintained a formal structure, but they have no paid staff.

The three programs that the society have been involved in are 1) organizing New Years and Souls

Day celebrations, 2) running a summer Khmer literacy program, and 3) organizing a brief volleyball tournament at the end of June/beginning of July (volleyball was refugee camp past-time?).

The New Years celebration is the biggest Cambodian event of the year, and they rent spaces for it, e.g. Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet. Souls Day is more religious and centered on the temple (although there was a celebration of it at Goddard Park this year).

The Khmer literacy program (which did not take place in the summer of 1999 for lack of a teacher) is taught by a Cambodian volunteer at Asa Messer or the temple. The program runs 6 weeks, with

4 classes at three different levels, serving over 100 students, aged 6-18. Instruction includes not just literacy but moral/values training and some Cambodian culture/history, e.g. how Cambodians ended up in

Providence. The Cambodian Society has purchased a building across the street from the temple (with a federal bloc grant given out through the city--Makna Men is at the center of this) and plans to renovate it into a space with offices, a library, classroom, and a small museum. Regular temple attendance is small--10-15 older people--attending services on the weekends, but Sokvann Sam, President of the Cambodian Society sees the temple as the most important institution, based in part on its traditional role in Cambodia. (There is interlocking of leadership-Sam is the “vice-president” of the temple, second only to the monk, and the boards interlock). [Another? group is raising money for a temple outside the city, trying to get a more tranquil spot with more space. The Hannover Street temple is in a crowded, low-income neighborhood. It’s within walking distance for many (elderly) Cambodian residents of Elmwood, however.]

Benjamin

What holds the Cambodian community together?

Sam:

I feel [the New Years celebration and All Souls/Memorial Day do] and I think religion plays a big part in our daily life. Even if we don’t like each other, we’re about to kill each other, but in terms of the celebration, we would come together, even those who don’t talk to each other would be there together, celebrate together, we forget what happened. But right at the right moment. I think religion plays a big part in there.

I don’t know what people say about our people trusting one another, we don’t trust each other that much at all, we really don’t. Because during the Khmer Rouge time, we just learned, were taught in that direction.

We were taught to spy on each other, father, mother, children, this and that. I think that stigma was captured and stayed in our heads. And we are here, I think we’re distrustful with one another. It’s really tough. That’s why when we have the Cambodian society and we have the temple, sometimes it’s there, but it’s hard to get our people to come and share openly with each other.

......

[In retrospect, some Cambodians have described the 1953-1970 Prince Sihanouk period as a Golden Era-- independence from France and no war.]

We used to get all kinds of services from the temple [in Cambodia]. We didn’t have a Department of

Human Services. So whenever we need help, mentally, physically, we would go to the temple, go to the head monk. And ask what his advice is, ask for his praying, his chanting, a blessing with holy water. If worse comes to worse, we have a healing person in the community, someone who is older...... We really don’t have a community center, so the temple plays a big role, a big part, and not only preserves the culture, but also expand and teach. I feel that it’s not only the culture or the religion itself, but also teach people morals and other, vocational, that type of things. It’s very, very broad, and Buddhism play in our community and our society. That’s why I feel strongly that I would like to have a Buddhist temple here play a lead role and the Cambodian society second....or hand in hand and try to rebuild our community.

Smith-Hefner (1999:29), and other ethnographers, echo this central role of the temple in traditional

Cambodian life:

Traditionally, the wat serves as the center of social and religious life. It was not only

a place of monastic residence, study, and meditation but also “a school, social center,

medical dispensary, counselling center, home for the aged and destitute, news and

information center, and social work and welfare agency for the larger society”

(Lester 1973:6; see also Ebihara 1966:182)

SEDC

SEDC (the Socio-Economic Development Center for SE Asians) is the most important (SE Asian) organization in terms of programs, services, and getting grants. It is headed by Joseph Le, a Vietnamese. In the summer of 1999, Mr. Le enumerated over a dozen programs, with various funding sources, that SEDC was involved in:

1. Health education for 0-3 year olds, e.g. nutrition and vaccines (DCYF)

2. Family networks, kids 6-13, parent-child communication and discipline, mediation between DCYF and parents (DCYF)

3. victims of domestic violence

4. Substance abuse, particular alcohol, for survivors of war-torn countries (MHH?)

5. Youth anti-smoking 6. Woonsockett community bloc grant: vocational ESL and in Woonsockett; Providence has citizenship classes

7. workshops on hypertension, cholesterol, etc. (Dept. of Minority Health)

8. Yearly SE Asian cultural training for mainstream social service agencies

9. Elderly preventative care

10. Drop out and gang prevention (aimed at middle school kids): a. Year-round tutoring program b. Summer academy

11. Language bank translation service: contracts with DCYF, school dept, etc.

12. Rite Care enrollment (Department of Human Services?)

In the past SEDC had a highly successful truancy program, but the funding dried up. The school department would call with names of absent students, and people at SEDC would find the students/parents that day and get the kids to school.

SEDC, like CHisPA, is run on soft money, grant to grant for specific programs. Is “Youth Anti-

Smoking” at the top of the Cambodian agenda? There’s grant money available, so it’s one of SEDC’s programs. This government/soft money basis of SEDC (and CHisPA) is very different from the institutions of 1880-1920 immigrants and the Portuguese “halls” and “social clubs” in East Providence, that rely on members’ dues....

The “drop out and gang prevention” program reaches many students. The tutors for the tutoring program are volunteers from area colleges (Brown has SEAM, the SE Asian mentoring program at the

Swearer Center--some Thai and East Asian students do it). Tutoring takes place one-on-one after school at

SEDC (620 Potters Ave in Elmwood). The seven-year-old summer academy includes English and Math classes taught at several levels by certified Providence public school teachers. In also includes education on substance abuse (sponsored by dept. of health?) and decision-making, e.g. regarding gangs. In the summer of 1999 there were 85 students in the program which took place at the Bridgeham middle school (used to be at PC). Related to this program are 3x/year workshops for parents and children that focus on communication, and anger management for the parents in disciplining their children. Some of the older students need the classes, including final mastery tests, to count as summer school for continuing in school without repeating a grade. The English teacher I saw was ineffective and students were not engaged. The Cambodian administrator of the summer program said that one function of the program was simply to give kids a place to go to, in order to dry up the supply of (idle and available) youth who could be recruited for gangs. The program is aimed at middle school students because of the belief that older students can be unreachable and more difficult to get back on track.

SEDC has some pull; within a couple of months of being hired, the new Providence

Superintendent of schools, Lam had visited there and talked to parents there.

The Southeast Asian Youth and Family Development Project is another agency serving

Cambodians. It started around 1993 with a federal grant written by the city (there were a lot gang killings, shootings, and truancy at that time). The SEDC program was once part of it, but the funding ended in 1996.

At its peak, 400 students/year were reached through tutoring at 6 area middle schools, and there were afterschool recreation/club activities with adult role models. The entire program has shrunk to about 140 students (Indo-Chinese Advocacy Project--under orthodox priest Vasily Lickwar) with at least 40 in the

SEDC mentoring program, and there is a waiting list. Phengsomphone credits the larger version of the program with dramatically reducing gang activity from the early to late 1990’s.

Phengsomphone gives an account of gang genesis that closely follows the pattern described by Vigil in

Barrio Street Gangs :

HP: When the kids go to school, they learn American ways, they disrespect for the parents. The Asian parents very strict and discipline, kind of own tradition, because of the culture, they hold onto it. Now the kids believe cultural traditions decline. Those kinds of reasons. The kids and parents don’t have so much bonding because of the communication gap......

And now the kids don’t have love and care at home, a sense of belonging, a sense of recognition, which

American kids have at home, since they don’t get along with their parents. They don’t have what they want to have at home. And the kids don’t have that at home since the parents don’t know how to raise the kids in the different culture. So the gangs, the gangs come in now to approach the kid. “Hey, do you want to work for me? You are my friend, for life. I will like you, I will love you. I will take care of you, I will give you some easy money. Do you see my necklace? You see my car?” Things like that, you know? These guys walk in to those kids who desperately need help, who desperately need a sense of belonging, who desperately need a role model to look up to, which the parents don’t have it [i.e. don’t fulfill it]. That’s how it bursts. In the early ‘90’s there were killings, shootings, and a high rate of school drop out and bunking school. It was a problem, huge. Go back 5 or 10 years you will see the path, the problem of how it occurred.

Other relevant programs/institutions :

International Institute (called Project Persona into the 1980’s--it’s a local branch of the American

Council of Nationalities Service) was one of the main sponsors of refugees during the 1970’s-1980’s resettlement period. They offer ESL, citizenship classes, ESL for work, welfare to work job training, immigration/ services, and other social services. Fewer than 10% of students in their classes

(about 700 people/year) are SE Asian at this point (roughly 70% are Dominican); SE Asians do use the immigration/naturalization services, e.g. to petition to bring over relatives. The head of the Refugee

Resettlement Program is Hoeum Mak, a Cambodian, who is far-and-away the most-mentioned person on adult questionnaires as someone who can help people. The whole institute serves 10,000 people/year.

The Genesis Center, located in the same building as SEDC, serves some SE Asians. It offers ESL, parenting/intergenerational, office skills, food service, and citizenship classes but no immigration services.

The director estimated that 15-20% of the 350 they serve per year are SE Asian.

The Catholic Diocese Immigration and Refugee Services, which served many Cambodians in the

1980’s, now handles primarily Guatemalans, Haitians, and Liberians.

During the 1980’s, as refugees, Cambodians were eligible for 18 months of federally sponsored language and job training. [Hoeum Mak can probably describe these programs the best.]

Political Representation

John Chea is one of seven mayor’s aides, sharing responsibility for day-to-day activities and appointments, and serving on community boards, e.g. he’s co-vice-president, under the monk, of the temple. He’s 1.5 generation, arriving in Utah at age 13 after 4-5 years in camps, went to high school in CA, then got his BA at RIC. He says there is one Cambodian MD (who grew up largely in Providence as the adopted orphan of Anglo-Americans) and one dentist in RI, and one Cambodian attorney in Massachusetts, but he thinks there are individuals working their way up who will soon be professionals. Chea says he is responsible to the mayor and all constituents, but that “my hear and soul is still with the community.” His mother ran a Cambodian restaurant in Providence, and now runs one in Fall River, and his younger brother is head of the language translation bank at International Institute. (Two of the aides were Black, two

Hispanic aides--Olga Noguera and Carlos Lopez, had recently left the mayor’s office.)

Simon Kue, a (1.5 generation?) Hmong, is a member of the school board.

Representation in Schools

The only administrator is Vilai Or, assistant principal at Nathan Bishop. There are five Cambodian teachers: 1 at Central, 2 at Hope, 1 at Bridgeham, 1 at Perry (wife of Vilai Or and best friend of our Diane

Siphan). Asa Messer had a Cambodian social worker who has moved to Springfield, Central has a “human relations specialist”, Green has a Hmong liaison and a Cambodian social worker (who was formerly at Asa

Messer), and a Hmong and 1 Cambodian work at the Student Relations Office (truancy). 1 Makna Men was a counselor at Central for 1-1/2 years before leaving for the Education Alliance. There are a number of

“teacher’s assistants” who are Cambodian--25 system wide are Asian, largely Cambodian. [Teacher’s assistants have a high school diploma (formerly GED), and are stationed in K-3 classrooms. Diana Lam is talking about doing away with them.]

The Education Alliance is currently helping two cohorts of 15 Cambodians to become certified as high school teachers (Project Advance, and Project Impact). They’re taking teaching assistants, high school graduates, and some college students who will not become teachers/graduate without help, and giving them tuition assistance and mentoring. These 30 prospective teachers will have a huge impact on the number of

Cambodians in the pool of certified teachers in Providence. Given the historically obscure and political nature of teacher hiring in Providence, it is difficult to say whether many would get hired here.

Education in Cambodia; “Cultural” Attitudes towards School; Parental Involvement in Education

1 Distribution of ethnic employees is not done based on the needs of ethnic children in the system, but on the basis of union contracts, historical patterns, seniority, available openings etc. Thus, Serei Tan and Sina Bieu, Cambodian social workers both left Asa Messer, the most heavily Cambodian school, in order to get permanent jobs that were only available at schools with many fewer Asians (Springfield and Greene, respectively). Similarly, Assistant Principal Vilai Or is not at Brideham Middle school, that is 22% Asian (double the overall district rate), but at Nathan The nature of Cambodian families with children in elementary school is very different than it was even five years ago. Many parents of current elementary school students left Cambodia by their early teens and arrived in the US during their mid- teens to early 20’s and have experienced considerable US socialization, education, and English language learning. Many such parents are really the 1.25 generation, rather than the classic adult, first generation. I have found little research on Cambodia Americans that reflects this changing reality (not surprising, given the lag times in academic publishing). The two major ethnographies are based on research from the late 1980’s to early 1990’s, and they don’t capture this shift. I expect to see a significant divide in our data between parents who arrived by mid-20’s on up and those who arrived during their teens, especially mid-teens.

In explaining obstacles to Cambodian American success in schools, ethnographies, local informants, and articles on Cambodian Americans emphasize 1) the low levels of education of Cambodian immigrant parents 2) discontinuities between Cambodian and US educational systems, and 3) related cultural values and emphases that are at odds with the individualistic, achievement-based orientation of US schooling, particularly from middle school on up. [It is difficult to dis-entangle “cultural” explanations from the socio-economic status of the cultural subjects. The fatalism that various authors attribute to

Cambodian culture and Buddhism also reflects the SES of people who have historically not gotten ahead.]

1) Low adult education

For a variety of reasons--lower overall levels of , wars that ended schooling, and the refugee stream selection processes described above--first-generation refugees in many US locations have very low levels of education. In a sample of 100 parents and grandparents in Boston, Smith-Hefner (1999) found that men averaged 6 years of schooling, much of it in temporary monkshood or temple schools; women averaged 3 years. Providence consultants varied in their estimates of literacy among adult refugees-

-some thought it was less than half, others more than half. One figured that only 5% of the refugees in

Providence had completed high school. Some adults learned to read for the first time in refugee camps.

2) Differences in education systems:

Bishop, which is only 9% Asian. Hope High has 2 Cambodian teachers, but less than 1/2 the Asian student population of Central, which has only 1 Cambodian teacher.... Teachers in Cambodia have traditionally been relatively revered, given great authority over their pupils, and been expected to act in loco parentis.

John Chea, 1.5 generation, describes these differences between the systems:

In the school system here, the teacher teaches. They don’t teach you moral values, they don’t teach you religious values. That is something the teacher says you have to learn from your parents or your church or whatever. Back in the old country, what I remember, what my generation remembers, if you go to school, your teacher is to teach you everything from how to add 2 and 2 to learn how to go to the bathroom correctly. We were taught everything, from 7 in the morning, when our parents sent us to school, the teacher became our parents, our guardians our teachers, our advisors, everything you need to learn to become a productive citizen. And our parents would say, “this is my son, this is my daughter. You have every authority, and you have every right to do whatever you want to this child. As long as you don’t kill them. Pretty much that’s the slogan they would tell the teacher. With these new kids, none of that is being taught. So what they learn on the street is what they learn.

There is a set phrase “all I need is eyes and bones” that parents told teachers, giving teachers great authority to discipline their kids.

Benjamin: Is there a Cambodian tradition in Cambodia where parents didn’t have to watch their kids so closely? [Sam had been describing need to monitor kids closely in US]

Sam: Yeah! Because when I was sent to the temple....My Dad, he said to the Buddhist monk, “well, he’s yours. I don’t want anything but eyes or bone.”

Benjamin: What does that mean?

Sam: Whatever the head monk does to me, as long as he doesn’t do anything to blind me or do anything to break my bones. Whatever they do, just do it. That’s how discipline starts. So they don’t need to be there with the children all the time. And also at the village, the same thing. The neighbors, they would watch for each other. Because a lot of time in the village, like relatives live in the village. Like if my parents go off somewhere, they would say, “keep your eyes on my children.” They could spank, they could bang, whatever they want, that’s how they discipline.

In a Cambodian frame of reference, the teachers should be watching out for children’s overall development and socialization much more than is expected in the US (perhaps particularly in the Providence public schools where many teachers are poorly equipped to reach students):

Parents view teachers not primarily as inculcators of knowledge or skills but as

honored partners in the project of moral education. Thus, parents often comment that

they “give” (aoy) their children to the teacher, which makes the teacher a “second

mother” (mae chong) or “second father” (ov chong)......

Khmer teachers are revered both as knowledgeable people and as role models for

proper behavior. As such teachers are expected to be able to advise adults and guide

children. And just as parents are responsible for their children’s behavior, teachers

are viewed as responsible for the behavior of their students. (Smith-Hefner

1999:123)

Correspondingly, parents take a hands-off approach to their children’s schooling, according to Smith-

Hefner (1999:124):

Even as they enunciate such views in support of education, however, Khmer parents

rarely attend school meetings, typically do not assist children with homework, and

are usually not involved in school activities. Most parents feel that in turning their

children over to the school, they have done their part; the rest is up to the teacher and

the individual child.

[This matches SALT data that indicate Cambodians come to meetings less than other teachers and give less appearance of caring about their kids’ schooling that other parents.]

Similarly, according to Hopkins (1996:130)

Because monks were the traditional teachers, parents avoid visiting the school or

questioning teachers, for to do so would be a challenge to the monks’ authority over

the child...... Following this pattern, Cambodian parents in Middle City seldom

question teachers or decisions made by school authorities and don’t query their

children about their schoolday or their homework. Although the schools read this as

lack of interest and lack of support, for the parents it is simply the proper demonstration of respect. Parents often say the children “belong to the teachers,”

much in the way children were “given to” the monks in the old days. Some parents

also say that it’s pointless and embarrassing to talk to their children about school;

since they are unlikely to understand much of the discussion, it presents another

situation for inversion of the parent-child hierarchy and contributes to the

undermining of parental authority.

3) Culture and Educational Achievement

Smith-Hefner (1999:18) links relatively low achievement of Cambodian students (relative to Hmong, for example, who are the least educated and most rural of SE Asian refugees) to Buddhist beliefs and destiny or fate (veasna or samnang).

...parents also emphasize that, whatever their own desires, educational achievement

is ultimately up to the individual child. Again and again, parents stress at it is not

possible to “push” one’s child, that one must “look to the child to determine his

future.” Khmer parents may decide that the child who does not perform well in

school is not just destined for that particular “path”.

She (1999:149) writes that:

It is noteworthy that Vietnamese, Sino-Vietnamese, and Hmong refugees--most of

whom are not Theravada Buddhist--indicate very different attitudes toward

and achievement. In various accounts, parents consistently emphasize

clear career and educational gals for their children. They also stress that children

must make sacrifices for the benefit and prestige of the group and put strong

pressures on children to succeed against all odds.

[local consultants as well as academics, e.g. Weinstein-Shr 1990, point to the great social control exercised by Hmong through their clan and kinship system, in explaining their relative success for a rural refugee group with little prior formal education. This group cohesiveness also resulted in a stronger RI mutual aid association among Hmong than among other groups according to Alan Dieffenbach, who held various social service positions in RI in the 1980’s. (Lind 1989:12). Other groups, such as Vietnamese were more urban and educated than Cambodians, which can explain their greater educational/socio-economic success.

]

At the same time, Smith-Hefner argues that this fatalism is less common among the relatively educated and middle-class Cambodians, and it disappears when it comes to pressing issues like premarital sex (for girls) and marriage (1999:151-186). There the parents are willing to bring all sorts of pressures to bear! So this

“Buddhist fatalism” may have more to do with a history of being in which education was relatively unavailable and did not bring the rewards it brings in developed, urban societies. In such contexts, the marriageability of children and control over the linking of families through marriage could be more salient and significant than higher education.

Hopkins (1996:126) suggests that “cultural” factors interact with US school expectations in different ways across different developmental times:

Generally, the little children appear to do well in Middle City elementary schools.

The middle-class teachers, used to fairly tough inner-city kids, are attracted to and

respond warmly to the charming, reasonably quiet, extremely polite, and respectful

little cherubs entering kindergarten. The children do what they are told and are

inordinately cooperative; they are seldom absent and get good grades. By junior

high, the story is changing. The material becomes more difficulty, requires more

study, more memorizing, and more homework. more assumptions are made about

children’s background life experiences--their knowledge about current events, sports,

the city, and so on. In addition, Cambodian teenagers aren’t developing what one

teacher calls “student behaviors,” such as habits of taking notes in class, doing

homework, and studying.

Cambodian ideals of what makes for a good person: selflessness, cooperation, respect--thus help children to succeed in the earliest grades. The emphasis on family and hierarchical relations within the family help the younger children but later interfere with individual achievement: Time and energy are due first to the family, particularly as respect to elders, but also

to the unit as a whole. Children learn to help at minor household tasks at a very early

age and seek to participate in family life in this way. Teenage who seek time away

from family and with outsiders are going astray, becoming selfish....The focus is

always on the good of the family, bringing honor to the family, rather than on

bringing honor and good to the self. [for the more educated, school success is a way

of bringing this honor, but this more educated group is a minority]. Schools

challenge this by encouraging adolescents to spend more time alone in study and

with peers in school-related activities. (Hopkins 1996:128)

The basic values that characterize a “good person”--selflessness, cooperation, respect, which are intertwined with family and Buddhism--have little to do with formal schooling in the US, and can be achieved without success in school. At times these values are even at odds with school success: striving for individual honor and achievement--in competition with ones peers--is poorly regarded. And the most venerated members of the community--the elderly--are respected without regard to formal educational achievement, of which they may have very little.

References

Hopkins, MaryCarol. 1996. Braving a new World: Camboidan (Khmer) Refugees in an American City. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.

Kunz, 1973. The Refugee in Flight: Kinetic Models and Forms of Displacement. International Migration Review 7:2:125-146.

Lind, Louise. 1989. Southeast Asians in Rhode Island. Providence: RI Heritage Commission and the RI Publications Society.

Mortland, Carol.1996. Khmer. in David Haines (ed.) Refugees in American in the 1990’s. A Reference Handbook (pp. 232-258). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

---1987. Transforming Refugees in Refugee Camps. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural....V. 16, #3-4. 375-404.

Mortland, Carol and Judy Ledgerwood. 1987. Secondary Migration among Southeast Asian refugees in the United States. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural..... 16:3-4:291-325.

Portes, Alejandro. 1995. Children of Immigrants: Segmented Assimilation and Its Determinants. in Portes (ed.) The Economic Sociology of Immigration: Essays on Networks, Ethnicity, and Entrepreneurship . New York: Russell Sage. Pp. 248-279.

Skinner, Kenneth and Glenn Hendricks, 1979. the Shaping of Ethnic Self-Identity among Indochinese Refugees. The Journal of Ethnic Studies 7:3:25-41.

Smith-Hefner, Nancy J. 1999. Khmer American: Identity and Moreal Education in a Diasporic Community. Berkeley/LA: UC Press.

---1995. The Culture of Entrepreneurship among Khmer Refguees. In Marilyn Halter (ed.) New Immigrants in the Marketplace: Boston’s Ethnic Entrepreneurs. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Willmott, William. 1967. The Chinese in Cambodian. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.