Deported Back To Cambodia

[Steve]

Wasn't sure what section to put this in and this section seemed as good as any.

 

I wrote a trip report a couple years ago about my experiences in PP.

 

While there I met a guy who was Cambodian in look but black american gang banger in demeanor, language and attitude. He was from Long Beach and was a former Crip gang member who left Cambo as a baby and was facing his 3rd strike and got deported. Judge gave him the option of doing life and then getting deported (maybe the laws will change while he's in) or just leaving now.

 

Anyway, he was a real character. He was so glad to hear I was living in LA and being black, someone he could identify with. He was not accepted by Cambodians. His Khmer was heavily accented.

 

I wrote back then that I was looking at him as if he was crazy at first because he not only sounded black american but dropped N bombs into his speech like any black guy would and didn't seem the least aware that I would take any more offense at it than I would if he were black. lol...thinking about it I have to laugh. When I thought about stopping him it was obvious to me that he viewed as both the same. In a 'one world' kinda way I actually didn't mind it after a few minutes. He was for all intents and purposes a crip and had far more street cred with the ghetto than I ever could...or would. lol.

 

Anyway, while waiting at the post office to pick up my expedited passport (ordered on Dec. 20th!! wow that was fast!) I saw this article in the LB Press Telegram. It reminded of the guy I met while in PP.

 

Exiled to Cambodia

 

 

 

 

[robaus]

Rough justice with law changes for some of those who are now being deported for a minor offence committed years ago, who have since rehabilitated and could contribute as useful citizens. Pity there isn't some sort of fair minded appeals tribunal - a one off affair, not something dragged through courts for years at taxpayers' expense.

 

It's especially hard on the innocent kids who wonder when daddy is coming home.

 

Maybe a short sharp lesson for other ex Cambodians to:

1. Get US citizenship ASAP

2. Be law abiding citizens.

 

 

[Badger77]

Robaus, Your very last statment is the main point. These thugs wouldnt have this problem if they lived as law abiding citizens. I'm glad my tax dollars arent being used to house and feed him. (enough is already wasted) Good riddence.

[USVirgin]

Cambodian refugees had a rough go of it over here. The parents were mostly poor and often traumatized. Better being in The States than Cambodia, but they didn't have quite the support system of their own established ethnic community here. Their kids grew up in gang infested neighborhoods where they were unwelcome and basically had take sides in order to survive. There were huge gang issues between Cambodians and Mexicans here in Long Beach 20 years ago, but things have improved since then.

 

I do have some sympathy for them. Very hard for the boys to stay out of trouble in those days. Some very good looking Cambodian girls here though - that hasn't changed!

[Hugh_Hoy]

Some very good looking Cambodian girls here though - that hasn't changed!

 

 

HH

 

[kamui]

Cambodian refugees had a rough go of it over here. The parents were mostly poor and often traumatized. Better being in The States than Cambodia, but they didn't have quite the support system of their own established ethnic community here. Their kids grew up in gang infested neighborhoods where they were unwelcome and basically had take sides in order to survive. There were huge gang issues between Cambodians and Mexicans here in Long Beach 20 years ago, but things have improved since then.

 

I do have some sympathy for them. Very hard for the boys to stay out of trouble in those days. Some very good looking Cambodian girls here though - that hasn't changed!

 

 

I have once read an report that by sending those gang members to their 'home' countries the US exported their gangs to those states. Especially in South America you have now satellites of the hardcore US gangs.

Hopefully this will not happen in PP. Weapons and drugs are cheap there...

 

 

In regard to Cambo, I think it was Time Magazine which had a report about a deported Khmer who founded a Hip Hop dance school for street kids in PP. This guy was even invited to the US embassy in PP, but he is not permitted to visit the USA.

[kamui]

I found the article, it's in the NYT:

 

November 30, 2008

U.S. Deportee Brings Street Dance to Street Boys of Cambodia

By SETH MYDANS

 

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia â?? It may be the only place in Cambodia where the children are nicknamed Homey, Frog, Floater, Fresh, Bugs and Diamond.

 

And there are not many places like this small courtyard, thumping with the beat of a boom box, where dozens of boys in big T-shirts are spinning on their heads and doing one-hand hops, elbow tracks, flairs, halos, air tracks and windmills. And, of course, krumping.

 

It is a little slice of Long Beach, Calif., brought here by a former gang member by way of a federal prison, an immigration jail and then expulsion four years ago from his homeland, the United States, to the homeland of his parents, Cambodia.

 

The former gang member is Tuy Sobil, 30, who goes by the street name K.K. The boys are Cambodian street children he has taken under his wing as he teaches them the art he brought with him, break dancing, as well as his hard lessons in life.

 

K.K. is not here because he wants to be. He is one of 189 Cambodians who have been banished from the United States in the past six years under a law that mandates deportations for noncitizens who commit felonies. Hundreds more are on a waiting list for deportation. Like most of the others, K.K. is a noncitizen only by a technicality. He was not an illegal immigrant. He was a refugee from Cambodiaâ??s Khmer Rouge â??killing fieldsâ? who found a haven in the United States in 1980.

...

NYT

[dddave]

One of the USA's largest Cambodian populations is in Lowell, Massachusetts. It was one of the bigger mill towns in the northeast and pretty much died in the '70's.

The place was filled with Hispanic's by the time the Cambodians were dumped there in the early '80s. Hispanic street gangs were already well established and the Cambodian kids had no choice but to band together for protection, not that they weren't pretty tough to start with: you didn't survive the Khmer Rouge or the refugee concentration camps in Thailand for long if you weren't.

 

When the US began deporting them back to Cambodia, it set up an NGO to help re-integrate them into Cambodian society but it went thru countless directors and newer got a program off the ground, just spent the money.

 

There used to be a group of deportees that hung around the small bars on Street 51, just down from FLAMINGOS. They were pretty scruffy, dressed like junior gang bangers as Chocolate Steve described and would try to pull drug scams on the un-wary. I was told that a few of them tried to pimp out some of the local girls but that some well armed, local Khmers dissuaded them from the enterprise.

 

Tuy Sobil, mentioned in Kamui's post above has been given a lot of support by a longtime "360" boardmember who would be too modest to claim any credit.

 

 

[kamui]

Thanks for the information. And I glad to hear that a board member is involved supporting Tuy Sobil.

 

I would love to hear the fellows story how he came in contact with the Khmer guy and how he is supporting him. If he does not want to reveal his identity maybe by using a different nick?

[FarangFatal]

Robaus, Your very last statment is the main point. These thugs wouldnt have this problem if they lived as law abiding citizens. I'm glad my tax dollars arent being used to house and feed him. (enough is already wasted) Good riddence.

 

 

Great side to take, I agree totally. sned the junk home! Yep, why should we pay for all the shite..... No a U.S. Nat'l and a bad guy... off you go, on the cheapest one way coach seat we can buy.. BYE BYE