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Friday, November 7, 2014

Cambodian youth from Long Beach featured in PBS documentary series

Cambodian youth from Long Beach featured in PBS documentary series


Long Beach native Alex Pham is featured in PBS docuseries “America by the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa.” The latest installment, “Pass or Fail in Cambodia Town,” focuses on the experiences of Cambodian-American youth.

Long Beach nonprofit Khmer Girls in Action was consulted for “Pass or Fail in Cambodia Town,” the latest installment in PBS docuseries “America by the Numbers with Maria Hinojosa.”

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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