Cambodian youth from Long Beach featured in PBS documentary series
The
latest installment, “Pass or Fail in Cambodia Town,” will be screened
for the first time tonight at Dignity Health in Long Beach. It
highlights the socioeconomic and emotional challenges local Cambodian
youth face. Long Beach reportedly has the largest Cambodian-American
population in the nation.
Long Beach native Alex Pham is one of the young Cambodian-Americans featured in the film.
Born to a pair of Cambodian refugees, Pham, 22, said his parents were not only traumatized by their experiences under the communist Khmer Rouge regime, but also felt alienated once they arrived in the United States three decades ago.
They faced bullying by other minority groups
and “formed gangs to protect ourselves,” Pham said. His father
eventually joined a gang and Pham followed suit as a teenager.
“Being
a minority is one big thing already,” Pham said. But his family’s
refugee status and the trauma they’d experienced made it “hard to focus
and concentrate on school.”
Pham’s family was not unique in this regard. Asian Americans of Cambodian descent face high dropout and poverty rates. The White House’s Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islander
reports that 29.3 percent of Cambodian Americans live in poverty,
higher than any other Southeast Asian group outside of Hmong Americans.
Moreover, 35 percent of Cambodian Americans drop out of high school.
As an adolescent Pham found himself in and out of jail but turned his life around in his late teens.
“I
found my purpose in making music,” said Pham, now an aspiring rapper.
He also works with nonprofit organizations to give formerly incarcerated
youth opportunities to find employment and other avenues to make a
positive shift in life.
Hinojosa, host of “America by the Numbers,” said that she wanted
to shine a spotlight on the obstacles facing Cambodian Americans to
broaden the public’s perceptions about Asian Americans.
“We have
to document communities that are very invisible, document communities
who are facing challenges with poverty and violence,” Hinojosa said.
At
the same time, the documentary highlights how Cambodian Americans are
taking action to address the barriers their community members face.
“There
are so many people who are on the frontline trying to put a searchlight
on this situation,” she said. “That was very inspiring.”
A lead organizer for Cambodian advocacy group Khmer Girls in Action,
Seng So is one such person. Now 29, he was born into a refugee camp and
said that his family suffered emotionally as a result of being
displaced from their homeland.
“My hope in terms of the
documentary is that it really sparks debate and discussion on some of
the issues that are highlighted--health, education, poverty,” So said.
“We’re a very young community. As our community grows, we’re going to
contribute to the country and build it up through voting and
employment.”
So said that he appreciates that the docuseris aims to provide a
full picture of the Cambodian-American experience and the Asian-American
experience generally. Although the “model minority myth” has long been
applied to Asian Americans, Cambodian Americans and others of Southeast
Asian ancestry continue to struggle in the U.S., he said.
“I hope
people come away with an understanding of Asian Americans in all their
different variations,” Hinojosa said. “Asian Americans are part and
parcel Americans and have been for decades and decades and decades. At
the same time we’re prepared to have Hollywood movies about the Killing
Fields and the Vietnam War, we need to see these are real people.
They’re here. They’re part of us.”
“Pass or Fail in Cambodia Town” will screen Thursday, 6:30 p.m.,
at Dignity Health, St. Mary Medical Center - Parr Health Enhancement
Center, 1055 Linden Ave., Long Beach. Admission is free. It will air on
PBS Sunday at 6:30 p.m.
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