A Cruel Past Lingers

Some call it "Pol Pot sickness. " Symptoms include hearing voices, disassociative episodes, depression, nightmares, dizziness, panic attacks, chronic headaches, hallucinations, sleeplessness and flashbacks.

Although Cambodia's barbaric Khmer Rouge leader is dead, the horrors of Pol Pot's 1970s regime, which wiped out nearly a quarter of the population, continue to plague the survivors. Many of them now live in Philadelphia, which has the fourth-largest settlement of these refugees in the country.

The effects of that bloody era have deepened the normal troubles immigrants experience in assimilating. For many, their lives have improved little if at all.

Philadelphia's Cambodians suffer acute mental distress and other health problems, extreme levels of poverty, dependence on public assistance, truancy and difficulties in school, isolation and neglect. And the weight of all these burdens is harming family relationships.

Cambodians "really need a lot of help. More than anybody else, they need help," said Evelyn Marcha-Hidalgo, executive director of Intercultural Family Services, a nonprofit social services agency in West Philadelphia. Yet the city and the state pay them little attention.

And no one has answered for the crimes that forced their resettlement here. But that may soon change. A genocide tribunal is expected to be held outside Phnom Penh next year, which Philadelphia's community awaits with excitement and wariness.

The connection to Cambodia is still profound for these displaced people. Every year dozens journey home, looking for missing relatives.

Without resolution, many who endured that dark period never really escape it. Today, 25 years later, the legacy of the Killing Fields reverberates still - into the neighborhoods of Philadelphia and into the lives of a new generation.

*

The Khmer Rouge, Maoist-inspired Communists, undertook one of the most drastic social reorganizations ever attempted in the ruthless pursuit of an agrarian utopia. Anyone in the way was annihilated.

From 1975 until 1979, when the regime was ousted by Vietnam, at least 1.7 million people perished from execution, overwork, starvation and disease.

These zealous radicals employed a particularly vicious, primitive form of oppression. They beat captives with clubs, pulled out fingernails, and cut off fingers. They slashed throats with serrated palm tree branches. They impaled victims on bamboo stakes. They smashed babies against trees. They forced family members to watch as loved ones were raped and murdered and forbade witnesses from showing emotion.

A regime slogan was "to keep you is no benefit; to destroy you is no loss. "

Heang Prak was not destroyed, but she was shattered.

In a recurring nightmare, the quiet 54-year-old Olney resident is struck in the head with a club, as she once was in Battambang province. She takes pain medication every six hours for headaches, but they are the least of her concerns. Many afternoons, she hears voices calling her name. Or someone knocking on her door. But when she opens it, no one is there.

Sometimes, though she is awake and in her rowhouse, she is also somehow running through a field. And Khmer Rouge guards are chasing her.

This has been her life for more than 20 years.

Last year, she was buoyed by surprising good news. A friend who had gone back to Cambodia found Prak's son, long presumed dead. He was an infant when she last saw him in 1978. She was fleeing during the Vietnamese invasion and had given him for safety to people with an oxcart. They were to meet up later, but the chaos of battle swallowed their plan. Her son is now 26. She hopes to somehow raise money so she can go meet him.

*

City and state officials concede they don't know how big Philadelphia's Cambodian population is. The 2000 U.S. Census estimates 6,570 people; the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia insists the number is three times that many.

That numerical limbo - within the city administration, the Philadelphia School District, state and federal agencies, and health and mental health care providers - hampers the ability to get help.

Although no local government agency has studied the problem, caseworkers and advocates say that as many as half of the adults are afflicted with profound mental anguish. Alcoholism and gambling are persistent problems. Diabetes and hypertension have become common. At least a third live below the federal poverty level; the per capita annual income, according to the census, is $10,215. Nationally (the only measurement available), nearly one-third of households are "linguistically isolated. " In Philadelphia, Cambodians rank fourth among foreign-language populations receiving public assistance. The census places the high school graduation rate at an appalling 47 percent.

But the mental-health problem compounds all others. "It's become a quiet crisis that no one talks about," said An D. Thach, a Cambodian caseworker at Hall Mercer Southeast Asian Mental Health Program at Pennsylvania Hospital. "We have seen parents so traumatized they are emotionally dry and unable to give to their children anymore . . . and the families are falling apart. "

Many cannot talk about what happened. "We have had no chance to settle down and mourn our loss," said Bunrath Math, a social worker at Intercultural Family Services. When asked about lost relatives, more than a dozen men and women sobbed and could not finish their stories.

"Cambodians are no better off than they were 25 years ago," said Mary Scully, a psychiatric nurse and executive director of Khmer Health Advocates in West Hartford, Conn., which provides mental-health care and other care for that area's Cambodians. "As a matter of fact, they're worse. "

The pain persists, in part, because of the long duration and unusual intensity of the violence they experienced. Scully, who has been treating Cambodians since 1980, said her patients displayed the same level of trauma symptoms they did when they arrived in the United States.

For some survivors, especially those who were forced to spy on their own families, paranoia still thrives. "In the back of their minds, they're always aware of potential danger," said Kim Hort Ou, a revered elder. The fear is not entirely frivolous; it is fed by sightings in Philadelphia of former Khmer Rouge members, who have blended into the population.

These individuals, Hort said, range from low-level operatives to those whose hands are "filled with blood."

*

Cambodians didn't choose to come to America. After years in refugee camps, they were placed in Philadelphia by resettlement agencies such as the Nationalities Service Center and Lutheran Children and Family Service. The population grew, as people from other parts of the country migrated to the region for factory and farm jobs.

Because the Khmer Rouge targeted professionals, intellectuals, artists, musicians and monks, those who landed here were mostly uneducated rice farmers. And the task of building a community in an alien, at times hostile, place without the benefit of leaders or traditional structures was gargantuan.

Cambodians clustered in gritty pockets in South Philadelphia near Seventh and Wolf Streets and around Olney and Logan in North Philadelphia. Over the years, they have become the city's second-most concentrated immigrant group, after Russians, according to a study by the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. While that concentration has provided comfort, it has also isolated them and kept them hidden.

"I think we are unknown to most Philadelphians," said Wutha Chin, president of the Cambodian Association. "Unless you live next to a Cambodian, you're not going to know them. "

The picture is not uniformly gloomy. Some Cambodians have made remarkable strides, considering the obstacles they faced. More now attend college and graduate school, become citizens, buy homes, start businesses, and raise healthy families. A new generation of leaders, in their 20s and 30s and educated here, is emerging.

At celebrations in Cambodian neighborhoods, shadows and grief are banished. The camaraderie and hospitality of the old country revive, and these refugees come into their own. Like other immigrants, they add verve and diversity to a great city.

*

Trieu Det, 49, walked into a fluorescent-lit waiting room, worry etching her face.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, dozens of people file into the cramped offices of the Cambodian Association on North Fifth Street in Olney. Most are middle-aged and elderly with no formal education. Although they have lived here for years, few speak any English.

They need someone to explain Philadelphia's still unfamiliar world for them. Many feel intimidated by local institutions - the welfare department, the police department, the court system and hospitals - where interpretation is unavailable or inadequate. Some want help scheduling a doctor's appointment, deciphering a gas bill, or navigating paperwork from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Others want an escort to a parent-teacher conference or a meeting with a caseworker. Without this support, many could not function.

Hands folded in her lap, Trieu listened as a staff member explained a public-assistance form and showed her where to sign. Afterward, through an interpreter, she related the story of her family.

One of her four sons dropped out of school, joined a gang and was killed in a 1997 shoot-out in South Philadelphia. She never learned whether the killer was caught. Last year, her husband died in a local emergency room, but she has never understood the cause of death. She does not like to go out, since a knife-wielding mugger stole a treasured necklace. She did not report the incident to the police.

Trieu is among more than 600 people the Cambodian Association aided in the last year. Others receive services from the Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Association Coalition and the Cambodian American Seniors Association. But those getting help are a small percentage of the ones with problems. The Cambodian Association, founded in 1979, has only six full-time employees.

"We can't meet all those needs, but we try to," said executive director Cindy Suy. "Because if we don't do it, where are they going to go? Are they going to miss that surgery? Are they going to miss that X-ray? These things are life-and-death."

*

The Khmer Palelai Buddhist Monastery, on Greenwich Street in South Philadelphia, was founded in 1987 and has about 1,000 members. It is one of four Cambodian Buddhist temples in the city.

Temples are places of solace, particularly for elderly Cambodians, who seek counsel on spiritual and everyday matters. Some feel so comfortable here, they sleep at night on the floor.

Monk Neang Thol estimated that "almost 100 percent" of congregants regularly suffered "bad feelings. "

The monks try to assuage people's grief, Neang said. Live in the present, he advises. "Don't let the bad things invade your head. . . . If you get the bad things, get them out."

*

Massachusetts is home to the second-largest U.S. Cambodian population. In 1989, it conducted a survey of refugee mental health; 95 percent of Cambodians reported the loss of relatives in an "unnatural manner," 83 percent felt depressed, and half experienced sleep difficulties or anxiety. Using that information, the state then identified obstacles to mental-health care and expanded services to address the problem.

In Pennsylvania, the depth and breadth of the mental anguish are unmeasured. Language barriers and a stigma about mental illness are formidable obstacles to getting help. In addition, most providers know little of the history and culture of Cambodians and do not reach out to them.

As a result, the majority of those who need mental-health care do not get it, according to advocates and caseworkers.

"The city fails to recognize how serious the problem is," said Thach, the caseworker. "There is such a need. . . . It is going to put a lot of stress on the system if they don't tackle this problem. "

The city has taken some steps, said Tom O'Hara, an administrator at the city's Office of Behavioral Health: It reimburses Hall Mercer and other agencies that aid Cambodians. In 2000, the city gave two onetime grants, $340,000 to Intercultural Family Services, and $90,000 to Hall Mercer, to provide mental-health care and promote outreach among Southeast Asians - Vietnamese, Laotians, and Hmong as well as Cambodians.

"My sense is that there doesn't seem to be a lack of available outpatient services for people who are Cambodian," O'Hara said.

A major gap is the scarcity of Cambodian therapists, without whom patients will not open up as readily. Pat Palmer, executive director of the Wedge Medical Center in North Philadelphia, said, "I could use two more Cambodian therapists if I could find them, the need is growing so quickly. "

So quickly, in fact, that one of Palmer's two part-time Cambodian therapists, Sivann Douk, juggles the job with college studies. To accelerate his availability, Douk was exempted from some city requirements so he could receive his credentials.

Douk, 29, said some clients were even unaware they were sick. "Some . . . feel this is absolutely normal – flashbacks, depression, panic attacks. They don't even know they've been traumatized until we revisit these events in session. "

Compounding the problem, say Douk, Thach and several caseworkers, is an inability or unwillingness among doctors to diagnose symptoms of trauma. Many patients who complain of chronic headaches or chest pain, for instance, are simply prescribed pain medication and sent home. Large stockpiles of aspirin are common in Cambodian households.

"I have clients who literally bring me a brown paper bag of prescriptions that have expired," said Douk. "They don't even know what they are taking."

*

In April, David Seng and other members of his fledgling United Cambodian American Youth Association spent more than $3,000 of their own money to host Mayor Street for a seven-course seafood feast.

Enjoying the dinner along with the mayor were Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, Managing Director Phil Goldsmith, and Department of Licenses and Inspections Commissioner Robert D. Solvibile. As traditional music wafted from a small stage, community members took the occasion to put their priorities before the city administration.

They asked: Would the mayor support a youth center? Can city departments hire more Cambodian personnel? What is your plan to reach out to and help our people?

The mayor and his cabinet said they would look into the concerns.

Now, eight months later, David Seng wished he had saved his money.

"There's been no follow-through," said Seng, 34. "I was disappointed I wasted all that food on public officials. I was hoping we were constructing a relationship. "

Street's appearance before the Cambodian community was rare. Its leaders say the city ignores them.

"I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease," Seng said. "Our wheel is wobbling and about to fall off, but it doesn't make the squeaking noise. "

In May 2003, the Cambodian Association got its first significant city grant, renewed in January, at $60,000 a year. And in July, it received $94,846 for a parenting program.

Executive director Suy said Street has never attended any function held by the association, the primary organization representing Cambodians in the city.

"We just want to have our voice heard, like any other community," said Wutha Chin, president of the Cambodian Association. "It seems like you have to work so hard, break down so many walls, to get someone's ear. We've been in existence for 29 years, and we have to remind people, call people and bring every issue to them. It's a one-way thing. If we don't call them, they don't call us. "

Barbara Grant, spokeswoman for Street, said the mayor had made "an unprecedented outreach into the Asian community. " She expressed regret that Seng was disappointed.

"We want the Cambodian community to feel they are full partners with us in terms of being a part, contributing to the city, getting the services that they have a right to expect from the city. "

She added that the mayor's liaison to the city's Asians, Korean businessman Mahn Suh Park, "has taken great pains to make sure that various cultures in the Asian community all have the opportunity to get access to this administration. "

Several Cambodian leaders complain that Park neither understands them nor represents their interests. Park disputes that.

"Killing Fields or whatever. Does that mean that they have to have the special treatment? . . . Whether the Killing Fields or not, that's their fault. "

He added: "If they say I'm not their leader, if they say I'm not representing their community, it's fine. If they do that, I have less work."

*

Though the Killing Fields of Cambodia continue to shape their lives, many teenagers know little about their history.

At the Cambodian Association one evening, adults and teens discussed their heritage, school problems, deportations, and justice for Khmer Rouge members. The conversation turned to the death in 1998 of genocidal dictator Pol Pot, whose regime created the diaspora that had brought these people to this room.

A girl raised her hand.

"Pol Pot was a person?" she asked, surprised.

"I always thought it was just another name for the Khmer Rouge organization. "

Many parents, concerned that grisly stories of the past could upset their children, don't talk about what happened.

The closest some young Cambodian Americans come to understanding these events is by watching the 1984 film The Killing Fields.

Chamroeun Chow, 17, a senior at South Philadelphia High School who cited Bart Simpson as a role model, said the movie angered him. "My dad had nine brothers and sisters. My mom had eight brothers and sisters. I only have one uncle in Cambodia left. "

As Cambodian American children immerse themselves in popular culture, many parents hold all the more tightly to traditional values. The split within families has yawned so wide that some have little opportunity to communicate.

"They don't have the education or the knowledge of how to raise their kids here in America," said Rorng Sorn, program director for the Cambodian Association. "The history doesn't affect the kids directly, but indirectly it's affecting them. "

Parents are often uninvolved in their children's education and unaware of their lives outside the house. And some parents avoid contact with teachers, especially if they bear bad news. "The second or third time they hear negative things, they cut their phone lines," said Chiny Ky, a Cambodian who is the Philadelphia School District's liaison to the Asian community.

Some teens, taking advantage of parents' inability to read truancy and other notices, have dropped out of school.

The district says the truancy rate is 14.5 percent, about twice the normal figure. The district could not provide a high school dropout rate. The Cambodian Association estimates that 40 percent to 45 percent of Cambodian students give up high school.

Cambodians make up the largest group of Asians in the school district; 2,032 students identify themselves as living in a Cambodian household. Khmer is the second-most predominant foreign language, after Spanish, that district students speak.

For that population, the district employs 10 Cambodian teachers and 14 Cambodian counselor assistants. Some advocates say that is not enough and that the district overlooks their students.

At Furness High School, which 102 Cambodians attend, there is only one Cambodian counselor assistant assigned two days a week.

Community leaders say that with so little understanding of the culture, mistakes can happen. Thach, the mental-health specialist, recalled working with a family last year whose developmentally disabled daughter was placed in a mainstream ninth-grade class.

Because the girl did not speak much, the teacher assumed she was foreign. The girl's grades sank.

"I saw her report card," said Thach, who went to school on the girl's behalf. "I walked to the special-ed director and said, 'She needs to be in special ed.' "

Through Thach's intervention, the girl at last received appropriate attention.

District officials said they could not comment about the case. In general, said Charles R. Glean, a special services administrator, the policy is to keep students in mainstream classes until a series of assessments can be performed. "We are loath to identify kids as being disabled if disabilities aren't there. "

Conversely, Cambodian advocates contend, the school district strands U.S.-born Cambodian students who speak English fluently in the English as a Second Language program.

School district officials said the ESL program was overhauled this fall. Revised testing procedures will better assess who should be in the program, they said. In November, the district hired a firm to provide telephone interpretation services.

"We are doing our best to hire as many people as we can," district spokesman Fernando Gallard said. "We are a district that is not very wealthy. "

Without more people, the children often miss the benefit of valuable mentors. Cambodians, said the district's Ky, have "so many more problems than any other group" - among the biggest concerns are gangs, drugs and fighting.

Gangs, including the Tiny Rascals, were a conspicuous sight in the 1990s, exacerbated by bullying and racial harassment. "If they go to school, they get harassed," said the Cambodian Association's Sorn. "If they go to the library, they get harassed. If they go to the corner, they get harassed. So they organized. "

Gang violence has waned as members have been incarcerated and others entered the drug trade, according to Rudy Braxton, a detective with the Philadelphia Police Department's Organized Crime Unit. "They still have quite a few young boys hanging out there. "

Nathan Ung, 18, of South Philadelphia, said he started "hanging out with the Bloods" when he was about 8. "I just chilled with them, smoke cigarettes, smoke marijuana. " Ung, who admitted he rarely speaks to his parents, said he felt included by the gang. "They keep me company. " Now a junior at an alternative disciplinary high school, Ung has been aided by a youth program at Intercultural Family Services.

Advocates say the lack of role models leaves many teens struggling to know who they are. "Some kids don't want to identify themselves as Cambodians," said Sorn. " 'Why do I have to go through this? Other kids don't have to go through this.' . . . They don't have their identity. "

Thierry McEldowney, a lawyer who represents many Cambodian clients, said: "The young kids are in serious trouble. They've lost their way. . . . I just don't see where the end of the tunnel, the light, is. . . .

"I just don't see the parents being able to give the guidance they need, not because they don't want to, but when they try, the kids have shut them out. "

Max Niedzwiecki, executive director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center in Washington, said given the brutality their parents experienced, it's no surprise Cambodian teenagers were so troubled. "All of these psychological disabilities can prevent people from learning new things and from engaging with each other. It's a tragic phenomenon. "

Contact staff writer Adam Fifield at 856-779-3917 or afifield@phillynews.com.

How This Series Was Reported

Staff writer Adam Fifield interviewed more than 170 people, including more than 40 in Cambodia, more than 80 Cambodians in Philadelphia, more than 50 experts, advocates, city and government officials, and national authorities on Cambodians in the United States. His writing on Cambodia also draws extensively on work he has done on the subject since 1996. His book A Blessing Over Ashes: The Remarkable Odyssey of My Unlikely Brother, about his Cambodian foster brother, was published by William Morrow in 2000.

The analysis of 2000 U.S. Census data is from the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center in Washington.

The Cambodian Community In Philadelphia

Fourth-largest settlement in U.S.

Second-most concentrated immigrant group in city

Largest Asian population in Philadelphia School District

Truancy 14.5 percent, about double the norm

Second-most predominant foreign language in school district

Fourth-largest foreign-language population receiving public assistance

In the Nation

Per capita income $10,215

27.1 percent between ages 10 and 19, double the norm

Nearly one-third of households are "linguistically isolated"

47 percent graduate high school