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CAMBODIANS IN CRISIS

A Study of the Cambodian Population
In Long Beach, CA

4. COMMUNITY NEEDS AND RESOURCES

A. Statistics and needs
In order to explain the use of some 1990 census figures in this paper, we should explain that there is not direct comparability between the 1990 and 2000 census data. The 1990 census data appears to deal more specifically with the Cambodian community in certain respects. Therefore, we have had to draw on some older data for statistical references. We have endeavored to supplement and test that data with more recent studies and interviews.
In a study conducted by the United Way from data gathered from the 1990 census, the Cambodians in Los Angeles County are significantly challenged compared to other ethnic groups. For example:
  • Cambodians had a 954% population growth between 1980-1990
  • 78% are immigrants
  • Lowest household median income at $17,343
  • Lowest per capita income at $ 4,639
  • Lowest college graduates - 5%
  • Lowest home ownership - 13%
  • Highest level of poverty - 67%

Statistics from the County of Los Angeles show that nearly 65% of Cambodians are receiving some type of Welfare or Supplemental Security Income (SSI). In addition to the economic issues, being concentrated in the inner city of Long Beach, many youth have turned to gangs and crime as a mechanism of survival. Furthermore, according to Jenny Giles Chheang of the Cambodian Association of America, 75% of all Cambodians meet the criteria for clinical depression and 34% of the total population suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Most of the mental health issues, especially PTSD, can be attributed to the mass genocide of two million or more Cambodians. Because of the atrocities committed in Cambodia by Cambodians, there is a high distrust of the government and even shame associated with being Cambodian. 
To get a glimpse of what the Cambodian people have suffered through, the following except is from Dith Pran, a Cambodian refugee whose war time story was portrayed in the movie, The Killing Fields:
“On April 17th, 1975 the Khmer Rouge, a communist guerrilla group led by Pol Pot, took power in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. They forced all city dwellers into the countryside and to labor camps. During their rule, it is estimated that 2 million Cambodians died by starvation, torture or execution. 2 million Cambodians represented approximately 30% of the Cambodian population during that time. The Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia to year zero. They banned all institutions, including stores, banks, hospitals, schools, religion, and the family. Everyone was forced to work 12 - 14 hours a day, every day. Children were separated from their parents to work in mobile groups or as soldiers. People were fed one watery bowl of soup with a few grains of rice thrown in. Babies, children, adults and the elderly were killed everywhere. The Khmer Rouge killed people if they didn’t like them, if didn’t work hard enough, if they were educated, if they came from different ethnic groups, or if they showed sympathy when their family members were taken away to be killed. All were killed without reason. Everyone had to pledge total allegiance to Angka, the Khmer Rouge government. It was a campaign based on instilling constant fear and keeping their victims off balance. After the Vietnamese invaded and liberated the Cambodian people from the Khmer Rouge, 600,000 Cambodians fled to Thai border camps. Ten million landmines were left in the ground, one for every person in Cambodia. The United Nations installed the largest peacekeeping mission in the world in Cambodia in 1991 to ensure free and fair elections after the withdrawal of the Vietnamese troops. Cambodia was turned upside down during the Khmer Rouge years and the country has the daunting task of healing physically, mentally and economically” (Pran 1997) 

Like any new wave of immigrants settling into a new environment, great stress is placed on the resources and infrastructure of the host community. However, the Cambodian experience has resulted in several unique issues: (a) disproportionately high occurrences of PTSD and mental illness; (b) virtually all immigrants were unskilled and uneducated (the educated were killed by Khmer Rouge) leading to lower paying jobs; (c) a high degree of mistrust of governments, which leads to under-reporting; and (d) lack of emphasis on education due to economic realities of providing for family. Ken Kong (community leader) states that many of his peers who are in their mid-twenties, out of necessity, have taken on the role of the parent for the family - working, translating, and caring for younger siblings and parents. “There isn’t much room for anything else...”
“Southeast Asian American communities continue to be characterized by distinctive sets of difficulties with adaptation to life in the United States. For example, many Cambodians continue to suffer from the effects of dislocation and trauma that were most extreme and widespread during the period of Khmer Rouge rule. When the Khmer Rouge was finally toppled from power, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians became trapped for years in unsafe refugee camps. Once they arrived in the United States, many lacked the formal education, work experience, and English” (SERAC 2000:7).

B. Community Organizations
On the bright side, the needs of the Cambodian community have not gone entirely unnoticed. Several community based organizations (CBOs) and Mutual Assistance Associations (MAAs) have developed to meet particular needs of Southeast Asians and the Cambodian Community. The Southeast Asian Resource Action Center (SEARAC), founded in 1979, is located in Washington DC, is a national MAA which helps disseminate information and network other CBOs and MAAs. There are several regional Southeast Asian MAAs serving specific communities.

Long Beach, having one of the largest Cambodian communities in the US, is home to the Cambodian Association of America (CAA). The CAA has its roots back in 1958 on college campuses known as “Cambodian Students Association of America.” When Cambodians started to arrive in California in 1975, they incorporated to assist in the new crisis that lay head. The CAA is the oldest Cambodian organization in the United States and provides counseling and advocacy programs primarily for the Cambodian community in the greater Long Beach area. They also provide advocacy and policy development on a national scale. They are funded by private donations, foundations, and some government assistance. There are nearly twenty programs the CAA provides to the community that can be broken down into three main areas, Counseling/Advocacy programs, Education Programs (including cultural and academic), and Employment placement and development. However, it should not go unsaid that, in a couple of the interviews conducted, interviewees said that they thought the CAA was not meeting the deep needs of the community. As a result, there may be questions that should be asked about the efficacy of the efforts of organizations reaching out to the Cambodian community.
The other main CBO in Long Beach is the United Cambodian Community (UCC), which started out serving Cambodian refugees in Long Beach and now is primarily involved the Arts of Apsara Gallery & Cultural Center and which has been a positive force with regard to the performance arts including dance and music. UCC is currently reassessing its goals and objectives to better serve the community.

In addition to CAA and UCC, there some services provided by Cal State Long Beach, Long Beach City College, and the Long Beach City Parks and Recreation department. A list of basic resources located by the authors can be found in the appendix to this paper

C. Educational Issues
According to the United Way study, less than 5% of Cambodians finish college and only 28% “speak English very well.” This has posed some great challenges to the educational community regarding how to best serve the Cambodians. The Long Beach City school district has made strides to meet the needs of Khmer speaking students though ESL/bi-lingual education. “The district has made special recruiting efforts in recent years and has managed to raise the total number of Khmer-speaking employees to 235, including about 160 teachers” (Walker: 1996). The Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) has a program called the “South East Asian Learners Project” which helps students with English as a Second Language (ESL) related programs. In 2001-2002 there were 3,151 Khmer English learners in grades K to 12 (LBUSD). These are only Cambodian students that were enrolled in an ESL type program. This is about a third of the total Cambodian student population in the Long Beach (California Dept of Education, 2003).

According to the California Department of Education (2003), Long Beach City College has nearly 28,000 students of which 23% are Asian Pacific American (APA). While there are no records kept of what specific Asian group these students identify with, we understand most of the students would be from the Long Beach area, we can conservatively say that 15% of the attendees at Long Beach City College (LBCC) are Cambodian. We then estimate there to be nearly 4,200 Cambodian students at LBCC. California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) also does not keep these detailed records on ethnicity, but community leaders estimated that there are fewer than a thousand Cambodian students on a campus of 33,000 students. CSULB boasts a Cambodian South East Asian Library as part of the Asian and Asian American Studies section of the library run by librarian John D’Amicantonio. D’Amicantonio and Teri Yamada are the faculty advisors for the Cambodian Students Society.

According to Asian Week, in 1995 CSULB was one of only three U.S. universities to offer a Khmer language program that was established by group of faculty and staff from the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Education. But Khmer language courses were non-existent in the 2002-2003 course catalogue. This may have been due to Proposition 227 taking effect in November in 1998, thus virtually eliminating the need for bilingual teachers. For many advocates in the community, that change has hurt Cambodian American students, their families and the entire community (Zimmer 2000). Both CSULB and LBCC do not offer any courses in history or languages even though these institutions are in an area that has the highest concentrations of Cambodians in the US. 

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