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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016. UML 4. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Description
An account of the resource
Four oral history interviews with former staff and board members of the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc., an organization that helped resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the greater Lowell, Massachusetts area during the 1980s. Oral histories were conducted with Jacqueline (Fidler) Moloney, Carol Keirstead, Elise Martin, Hai Pho, and Lan Pho. <br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.<br /><br />The entire collection is accessible on this site.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Carol Keirstead oral history interview audio recording, 2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Adoption
Adoptive parents
Community organization
English language--Study and teaching
Lowell (Mass.)
Nonprofit organizations
Occupational training
Political refugees
Refugee camps
Refugee families
Refugee issues
Refugees--Southeast Asia
Refugees--United States
Social service
Unemployed--Services for
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The audio recording of an oral history with Carol Keirstead on her experiences working with Southeast Asian refugees and as an Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. staff member. Other topics discussed include her work after she left the IRF, sponsoring a family, and adopting a child from Cambodia.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Keirstead, Carol
Connerty, Kale
Ali, Mehmed
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-05
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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1 audio recording; 00:45:44
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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uml4_16.02_i001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
BASF Systems Corporation
Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association
Cambodians
Centralville
International Institute of New England
Laotians
Lowell Public Schools
Moore Street School
Philippine Refugee Processing Center
Sound recordings
The Grove
Vietnamese
Wang Laboratories
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a09e6a58161f68cefa859cf5ce702e00
PDF Text
Text
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
CENTER FOR ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
INFORMANT: CAROL KEIRSTEAD
INTERVIEWER: MEHMED ALI
KALE CONNERTY
DATE: MARCH 5, 2016
C=CAROL
A=ALI
K=KALE
A: So this is interview with Carol Keirstead. Is that how you say it, Keirstead?
C: Keirstead, yup.
A: Keirstead, on March 5, 2016. And Carol thanks very much for willing to share some
time for us.
C: Excited to do it.
A: Good, great.
K: All right. Well I’ll just ask the first question. What do you know about the
circumstances under which the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation] was founded?
C: Um, what I know about its founding was Hai Ba Pho and his wife Lan Pho were
Vietnamese refugees who settled in the country, and they wanted to establish an
organization that was really, ultimately they wanted it sort of for and by the refugee
community. So it was formed at a Mutual Assistance Association, which if memory
serves me correctly was really to be governed by members of the refugee community. So,
and his, his dream which actually came to fruition was to have the refugee community
actually you know, set up their own service organizations. So that’s what I recall about
that a few years ago. [All laugh]
K: When did you start working for the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation]?
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�C: In 1982.
K: Okay. And how long were you working there?
C: Two years.
K: Okay. Where had you previously been working?
C: The year before that I was with the university. I managed a Masters ESL Program for
teachers in Lowell Public Schools. It was a federally funded project. So we trained
“mainstream” classroom teachers to be able to effectively instruct English language
learners. So I did that for a year.
K: While you (--)
A: I’m sorry. And Carol how did you get, get into this field overall?
C: So way back when Ed Moloney and I worked together for CETA, which was the, you
know, federally funded sort of Skills in Employment Service Agency. And for whatever
reason you know at the time when refugees were coming into the city I just sort of took it
upon myself to reach out and do as best I could to serve that community through that
program. And so at one point he said to me, “Carol, you know, Jackie is going to be
leaving her position and I think you’d be great for it.” And I said, “Well I, you know,
I’m not so sure about that,” you know, but anyway. So he encouraged me to apply and I
did and got the job. So.
A: And where were you working for CETA previously like geographically?
C: In Lowell.
A: In Lowell, and where in Lowell?
C: Yup, it was up on Appleton Street. You know where the court is now?
A: Oh 89 Appleton, (C: You got it) The old Post Office?
C: Yup.
A: Okay. All right, that makes sense. And go ahead Kale.
K: How did you see the services offered by the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation]
change while you were there? Did you see any change? You were only there for two
years, but.
C: Right. So in terms of change the actual services didn’t change much that I recall.
Again that was a long time ago. You know what changed over time was either one, the
2
�nature of the population, or the size of the population that we were serving. I mean when
we first started refugees were being resettled at a pretty rapid rate in this city. So we
were pretty, it was a pretty busy place. Yah, so over time I think it was the nature of the
population that we were serving, not so much the services.
A: And tell us about those changes and the different people coming and going.
C: Yah, so you know it would vary. It was Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao that we
served and it just changed over time. The Vietnamese community was much smaller that
we served ultimately just by sheer numbers, and the Cambodian community kind of
started to excel. And there were a fair number of Lao families that we served as well.
And that over time, probably even after I left, just kind of flattened and the Khmer
population just kept, you know, people just kept relocating.
A: And why do you think the Cambodian population kind of grew where the other ones
stayed maybe smaller?
C: You know I think it was just a phenomenon of having a solid sort of community who
then would reach out to family, because Lowell at the time had very good employment
situation. So we could get people jobs pretty easily.
A: Um.
C: So the word would get out and family would come and resettle. You know at the time
there were pockets all across the country for different communities. Like the Hmong
were in Minnesota. So for whatever reason communities just began to sort of invite and
encourage people to come and resettle.
A: Where were you running the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation] out of when you
took over?
C: 79 High Street.
A: And tell us about that building, what was going on there.
C: Yah, so the first floor was the International Institute, and then the second floor was us,
very small office space. And then we had, there was like an annex, which was a very
large room where we could hold functions and hold classes, and stuff like that. So it was
great because the International Institute was right below us. So we could collaborate a lot
on serving people.
K: What do you think were the most essential services you offered? What was the most
important?
C: Hm. Well the obvious ones right would be employment services and language
services. We had ESL Employment and Cultural Orientation Services. So those were
3
�critical. People needed jobs, but I think overall it was the welcoming, culturally
sensitive, supportive, proactive sort of approach that we took to just you know, helping
people to resettle in a new community.
So we’d do things like you know, have big household drives to have people donate all
kinds of things, because the refugee community they just needed so much. They were in
pretty substandard housing by in large. I mean I recall at the time there were a couple of
prominent landlords and the housing was pretty substandard. So you know, that was (--)
So we did what we did and more.
A: Yah. Who were some of the landlords around town that were notable?
C: It was George [Chambros], [Chambers], [Chamberos]?
A: Chamberas?
C: Yah, was the biggie.
A: Okay. How about Mr. Saab?
C: No, he wasn’t, that I knew of he wasn’t somebody that we encountered.
A: He might have gravitated over to the commercial stuff by that point.
C: Yah probably.
A: Because I know he had a lot in the, maybe in the 60s and 70s. I wasn’t sure.
C: And I sponsored a family while I was in my role.
A: Yah?
C: And the family I sponsored was a very, a family you know, non-literate and you know
from the Province. And so I had to work over a year’s time with them to help them get
housing and get settled and all that stuff. I’ll never forget the first time we found an
apartment for them. It was a decent apartment over in Centralville. And I was helping
them unpack, and you know getting everything settled. And we had all kinds of things
donated for them. And you know it was just so remarkable to step back and understand
what the experience was like for them, right. So a hairdryer, like they were just so
fascinated with a hairdryer. They thought it was to cook meat right.
A: Oh, to cook meat?
C: Right, and then you know, we were helping them put stuff away and they were
putting all the meat in the drawers and all of the appliances in the refrigerator. I mean
just you know, they had no idea.
4
�K: Yah.
C: So it was quite the learning experience. And a lot of the work that I did was advocacy
work, particularly with the school department, because at the time they were enrolling I
think it was like fifty students a week at one point.
A: Wow.
K: Wow.
C: And you know, we were hearing, you know there was one case I’ll never forget.
There was a girl who probably had PTSD. No, I know she had PTSD, and they didn’t
know what to do with her. So they kept her home. They didn’t serve her. So a lot of the
work we did had to be sort of advocacy oriented in working with other organizations to
help them understand the population and help them do right by them.
A: Yah. What made you decide that you wanted to sponsor that one family?
C: Well my thing was to sort of walk the talk in what I do. So I just wanted to do that as
part of you know, not just get paid for the work but the refugee community would
actually step up and help out.
K: Okay. So what were all of your duties and stuff? You already talked about advocacy
work, but what else were [unclear]?
C: So I supervised the staff that we had. We had bilingual bicultural staff. I oversaw all
of the programming. Oversaw all of the paperwork with Office of Refugee Resettlement,
you know, had to oversee all of the records and stuff like that.
A: And that was a federal agency?
C: Yes. And so you know, all of the administrative things that go along with an
administrative job, which I didn’t have a clue how to do until I got this job. So it was
really learning on the job, but it was great. And I’d say, you know, a fair amount of it
was really outreach to the community and helping you know, doing cultural orientations
out in the community. Really just helping develop understanding as much as I could
about, you know, the communities that were coming into Lowell.
K: Was there anything while you were on your job that you found unexpected, like any
tasks that you had to do that you weren’t prepared for, well not prepared for but just
weren’t expecting?
C: Yah, firing staff was hard. [Laughs]
5
�A: Yah, and without going into the specific persons what was the kind of nature of the
work that made it difficult?
C: It was a staff person that was, you know, I adored him and he was well respected in
the community, but just didn’t do his job. So you know, at some point you have to
address things like that and it’s hard, particularly when you’re a white female and the
person is a member of the community. It’s very difficult. So that was my probably
biggest challenge.
A: Was there any kind of fallout with the community from that?
C: Yes, this individual actually, yes there was.
A: Okay.
K: How many people do you think you helped over there, how many families?
C: Oh Lord. You know I’m sorry. I wouldn’t even know how to, I wouldn’t know how
to do that. You probably have the record. I just don’t even (--) I know we had to report
on it every month. We had to submit monthly reports.
A: Yah. No, that’s fine.
K: We actually might have those in our archives, yah.
C: That would be interesting to see, yah.
A: Could you describe the community as they were coming into Lowell? And you
talked about the, you know, kind of issues with understanding kind of technology and
things like that, which they had never seen before.
C: Right, right. So I guess it was really recognizing that what they had to become
accustomed to and what they had to learn was going to take time. And that they just
needed a lot of support to acculturating and learning what they needed to learn, and in the
employment setting. So that was a whole other thing. So my job as director that was my
(--) We had ESL teachers, and we had cultural specialists, but my job was to find jobs for
people. That was part of my role. So you know, I had to make sure that the work place
could accommodate people who were, you know, had various levels of education and,
you know, could handle expectations in the work place and stuff like that. So that was,
that was a challenge.
A: So tell us what companies were out kind of that you connected with?
C: I remember a big one was BASF. (A: Umhm) So there were a lot of electronic firms
at that time and medical supply firms where all folks would have to do is piecework, put
stuff together. And it was a pretty good job in the tech industry. So Wang, some people
6
�could get in. Not a lot, but some people could get into Wang. But there were a couple.
BASF I remember and it will come to me after you leave. [Laughs]
A: That’s fine.
C: There are a few sort of you know, our go-tos.
A: Where was BASF? Was that in Nashua?
C: Bedford.
A: Oh Bedford, okay. Good. And do you remember any kind of stories connected with
people getting jobs and you know, perceptions on that and feelings from the community
response?
C: Can you say more about that? What are you, what are you thinking?
A: Yes. Just I mean did, um, you know, do you remember any particular stories where
you know, you got somebody a job and it really kind of changed their outlook, or their
family’s outlook?
C: I’m sure. I just can’t at the top of my head recall. You know I’m sure there were
many, but yah.
A: Yah. What was the, what’s your perception on the city’s reception of these
immigrants?
C: I would say one of the reasons we ended up with such a large community is because
by in large the city stepped up. They didn’t always do the right thing, but by in large the
city really stepped up I think. You know, a lot of the churches were heavily involved.
Eliot Church, Saint Patrick’s was a huge supporter. Yah, so churches played a big role in
really helping refugee communities. So I would say yah, Lowell was pretty, Lowell did a
pretty good job.
A: Is there any way to find like what that could be attributed to?
C: So who would have been there at the time? Gee, I can’t even tell you. George
Tsapatsaris was the Superintendent of Schools.
A: Okay. Did you guys have a relationship with the school department?
C: I did, you know, it was sometimes heated because I did go to bat for people.
A: Okay.
C: So sometimes I’d be told you know, tell that Keirstead to cease and desist. [Laughs]
7
�A: Why? Over what issues?
C: You know, I (--) This is who I am. I don’t like injustice. Where there’s injustice I do
whatever I can do. So when I saw cases where kids weren’t being served well, like a
classroom was set up in a bathroom for a group of Laotian kids. I said, “Uh huh, not
okay.” Um, that student I remember going to bat for because she had some you know,
she was dealing with some emotional trauma and they kept her home. They wouldn’t
serve her. So it was things like that. I just (--)
A: And I’m sorry, when you said they wouldn’t serve, I originally thought you meant the
family, but you were talking about the school department?
C: School department.
A: Okay, and was that Cambodian?
C: She was Lao I believe this particular girl.
A: Okay.
C: You know how certain people stand out in your mind? Yah, but you know so at the
same time George respected me and I respected him, but I had to just, you know, do that
and he had to push back. So you know.
A: Where was the, which school were the kids in the bathroom originally?
C: The Daley.
A: The Daley? Okay. [Chuckles] All right, and I imagine there was some, I mean,
growing pains from the school department’s perspective right?
C: Oh everybody was out of space and it was, I mean really they were registering like
fifty kids a week. And after I left the Indochinese Refugee Foundation I went to work.
They recruited me for the public school system. So I ran the Southeast Asian Curriculum
Program. And so you know, I then saw it on that end. Yah, I mean. And then I worked
at the, did you hear about the Moore Street School?
A: They Morey?
C: Moore Street?
A: Moore Street School up in the Grove.
C: Yah, so it was really the only segregated publically supported school that had existed
in a very long time. It was all Cambodian kids.
8
�A: Now how did that school become only Cambodians? Had it been closed previously?
C: It was a private catholic that was closed by the Diocese.
A: Okay.
C: So Lowell rented it I guess (A: Okay) and set it up to serve this huge population of
kids they didn’t have a place to put. So that was in existence. I worked there for like a
year with Bob Keegan. He was the principle. He’s since passed away, but um, yah. So
that was an interesting experiment.
A: What was that school like? How would you describe it?
C: So I thought it was wonderful. I mean I get segregation, I get it, but it was a
protected, all about these kids, giving them what they needed in environment. They
didn’t have to deal with being treated whatever. So it was a protected environment and
we could design the program just for them.
A: Um.
C: In fact, have you seen the Southeast Asian book? Probably right?
A: The Jim Higgins photo book?
C: The cover, that’s the Moore Street School.
A: Yah, I, well I just was looking at that book recently and I said, “Where the heck was
this school?” I didn’t know anything about it. (C: Yah) So when you said it I was, yah.
C: Yah, funny.
A: What else can you talk about with that school? What were the programs that you
were running that wouldn’t be found anywhere else?
C: Well it was you know, before it was a bilingual program. So back then we believed
in bilingual education in this state. We don’t anymore by the way. So it was a bilingual
program where kids had native language instruction and ESL. So we could design the
program so that they got their content, you know, in the native language and then had sort
of sheltered English class instruction too. So it was great.
A: What was the building like physically? Was it in a decent shape?
C: It was decent.
A: Okay.
9
�C: Yah, yah, it was okay.
A: No leaky roofs or anything?
C: No, no, it was okay.
A: Okay, good. Um, you talk about Lowell being basically an accommodating
community. Any instances where you remember where it didn’t shine in that area?
C: Housing I would say.
A: And what were the issues there?
C: Really substandard housing. I mean most of the families when I’d go visit, you know,
they’d be roaches all over the walls. They’d be roach paper just like wallpaper, you
know, so just really substandard housing.
A: And did the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation] get involved in kind of helping to
change that situation?
C: You know I’m sure we tried. You know we tried to get families into the best housing
situations we could, but there was limited, limited stock so to speak. And you know, it
was a big, it’s a bigger issue than we could take on, because it’s really, it’s you know, it
hasn’t changed. [Laughs]
A: Yah, yah.
C: So.
A: I know there was a group around town I think primarily connected to churches, but
the Ethnic Covenant?
C: Oh my God, yah! Jay. Jay. What was his name? Great group.
A: Okay. Tell us what you know about the group.
C: Oh, [unclear] the dust off the cobwebs. Jay was the gentleman who founded it I
believe. And I remember they authored a paper called “Thirty Pieces of Silver” maybe?
Right, is that is?
A: I think that’s it, yah.
C: Um, so yah, they were a very advocacy oriented group who really I think sought to
speak the truth on behalf of vulnerable populations. Yah, yah, God thank you for
mentioning that.
10
�A: Did the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation] have any connection with them?
C: Yah, yah, we, I can’t remember exactly what we did together, but we definitely
collaborated and communicated a lot. Yah, yup.
A: Tell us about the everyday work week at the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation].
C: It was, I mean the reason I stayed for two years is because I ate, breathed and slept
right, because it was just nonstop, never ending. It didn’t end at 5:00. So yah, I mean
that was primarily why I had to sort of go to a “more normal job”. It was you know,
doing the administrative stuff and then dealing with things all day long that would come
up; refugees coming in with whatever issues that they had and we would have to figure
out how to help them. So it was doing your regular job and then attending to people’s
needs as they would come through the door, which you never knew what those were
going to be.
A: Jackie told us a little bit about some of the issues that the refugees had with kind of
accessing health services. Do you have any (--)
C: Yes, yah, yes. So I would say a big issue for refugees, and I don’t know what Jackie’s
perspective was, they were very reluctant in a way to access American medical services.
And we often would have to (--) Oh, I just thought about this other case. Oh my God.
A: Yah, tell us about that case.
C: I’m just getting emotional. Sorry.
A: That’s okay. That’s okay. Sorry.
C: Wow, I didn’t expect that one. [Crying]
A: That’s okay, take a few minutes.
C: So there was this day, and in walked a woman with her daughter in her arms and her
daughter was almost lifeless. So Chulathy was her name. And so we arranged to have
her taken by ambulance to the hospital and I ended up following her for quite some time
and they could never figure out what was wrong with her. And you know part of me is
feeling like I should have done more, but whatever. And she just like languished in the
system and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. She was dying and I’ll
never (--) They let her go home at some point and somewhat later I heard that she just
died in Lowell High School. She just died. So, I mean and I tried to work with the
family and it was just you know, a lot of Southeast Asians believe in spiritual even
sometimes sort of ghosts like things right. And so translating between that belief system
and western medicine is nearly impossible. And then you got the language barrier in
between. So I, you know, I worked with the family and I worked with you know, I’d go
11
�to visit Chulathy and she just always, she was always doing this. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt,
and they could never figure out what she had.
A: So she was always holding her fist to her chest?
C: Yup, like this and they never could figure out what she had. So, sorry.
A: Other issues on medical or health access?
C: There weren’t the language and cultural resources that of course there are now. So it
was really, really difficult. Yah, I didn’t even think of that. It was really difficult to get
adequate care for people because of the language barrier and the cultural barriers. Yah.
A: So talk about the language barriers in general?
C: Well I didn’t speak any of the language [laughs]. So I always had to rely on you
know, my folks to translate. And so when refugees would go do whatever they had to do
they would always have to find somebody, oftentimes the younger kid in the family, and
rely on that person as their translator which right, is not ideal. So yah, it was, it was really
tough. And that was a lot of the work that our staff had to do, which they weren’t paid to
do really. I mean their jobs were not to be translators, but there you go right.
K: Umhm.
A: Yah, yah. Any funny stories about IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation]
workplace?
C: Yah, so this may not want to be (--) [Laughs] You don’t have to stop it but there were
a lot of funny things, but I’ll never forget this one time. Alise Martin, do you know Alise
Martin?
A: Yah.
C: She was the ESL teacher.
A: Oh she worked at the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation]?
C: Yah.
A: Okay. That’s another interview.
K: We have her [unclear].
C: And I think she was the teacher at this time. We had a couple while I was there, but I
went down to the classroom just to check on things. And we often had people donate
goods. So we’d have plastic bags all along the side of the classroom. So I went down
12
�and looked in the classroom and there was a big ruckus going on. And I’m like
everybody is laughing and you know, I’m like what’s going on? So what happened was
somebody had donated things and there was a box on tampons in there. And the Ref,
whoever found them thought they were firecrackers. So they’re all trying to light
tampons. [All laugh] That was a fun one, yah.
A: Other kind of workplace issues at the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation]?
C: You know we always could have used more. It was always a scramble to have
enough resources to do what we needed to do. And I don’t remember at the time. I
remember getting some grants here and there, some small grants to do different things,
but I can’t recall what they were.
A: Yah. Now you worked with the federal government. Did you work with any state
agencies?
C: We, I’m trying to think. Well there was the Office of Refugee Resettlement in
Massachusetts. So every state has its own.
A: Okay.
C: Yah, yah.
A: Okay. So the office you primarily dealt with was kind of, they controlled the funds
that the federal government (--)
C: Right.
A: Okay I see.
C: They were sort of a pass through.
A: Do you remember any individuals or issues with the state?
C: No. I mean like any, I’ve managed many of those things since then. Like there are
always challenges with it, but you know.
A: Yah, regular bureaucracy stuff.
C: Yah, right, right, nothing that I can recall out of the ordinary.
A: Good.
K: Did you see funding change while you were there at all?
C: I don’t remember. Really I don’t remember.
13
�K: Did working with the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation] change your perspective
on anything, like such as minority groups, non-profit work?
C: It was life changing for me.
K: Really.
C: Because when I left there I went to work for the school department and then I went to
work overseas in a Refugee Program. So I never would have done that if I hadn’t had
this opportunity. And then I adopted somebody from Cambodia. So it really was life
changing for me.
K: Now where did you work overseas?
C: In the Philippines, in the Philippine Refugee Camp.
K: And was that the camp where Cambodians and other folks from Southeast Asia were
coming?
C: A lot. There were several camps in Thailand and then there was PRPC in the
Philippines, and there were a couple of smaller ones in Indonesia.
A: Okay.
C: When I went the largest population were Amerasians.
A: From mainly from Vietnam?
C: Umhm.
A: Okay. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got involved in that project?
C: So when I was at the Refugee Foundation I was able to make contacts. I also worked
at Middlesex Community College in between, that’s right. So I worked at Lowell Public
Schools. Then I went to Middlesex and help set up the new campus, because what they
wanted to do in setting up the new campus with Molly Sheehy was my, person I worked
with, was to set up what they called a Resource Center, because they wanted to provide
outreach services to the Southeast Asians in setting up the new campus. So I did that for
two years. So through my work at the Foundation and through Middlesex I made
contacts with the U.S. State Department. And when I decided I wanted to try it I just
called and said, “How do you do that?” And the women said, “Well here’s what you do.”
And so I applied to this organization and they flew me down for an interview. And
within a month I was gone. So yah, it was great.
A: Good. So tell us about the camps. There was one major camp for?
14
�C: The one I worked in was one major camp, but there were many camps and operation
at that time in Thailand. So a lot of Refugees from Lowell, some would have come
through the camp I worked at, some would have come through Thailand.
A: From Khao-I-Dang
C: Yup, Phanat Nikhom, Khao-I-Dang, yup.
A: And what was the camp that you worked at in the Philippines?
C: It was called PRPC, Philippine Refugee Processing Center. Bad name! What are we,
cows? Yah, anyway. So it was a really large camp. We serviced I think at any one time
there were about 100,000 people there. It was nine kilometers long. It was along a ridge.
It was beautiful, gorgeous, and there were several international organizations there, like
World Relief. ICMC was the group I worked for. There were many, many, many. So
my group ran the, what they called the Pass Program, which was for kids 11.5 - 16 who
were coming to the states. So it was like a school to get them ready for school here. So I
ran that program.
A: And would those kids be orphans primarily?
C: They were, they were not on paper orphans. So a lot of the, you probably know this,
so a lot of the Amerasians kids that ended up coming came through very nefarious means.
So they were orphans in their country, but because people knew they were gold tickets to
get to the states. That’s what they were called. They would sort of adopt them to get to
the states.
A: Oh! So parents that had no blood, or people that had no blood connections to (--)
C: In some cases right. And in some, you know, that wasn’t all of the cases, but it was
prevalent. And in some cases you know, the families really did care about the kids. And
then we had a Khmer population while I was there. And did we have Lao? If we had
Lao it was like miniscule. So it was mostly Vietnamese and Khmer when I was there.
And the Catholic Church was there, the Mormons were there. I mean it was like a whole
community.
A: Yah. Any difficulties there between the different nationalities?
C: Sometimes, yah. Sometimes they’d be pretty nasty clashes.
A: Remember any stories or incidents?
C: Not particularly, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t often, but you know, once in a while, yup.
15
�A: Now did you, did you work with Cambodian folks (C: Yup) there? And did some of
those people end up in Lowell?
C: Yah. Like you know, if I’m talking to somebody whose, who I think could fit the age
range, if I meet somebody, I’ll ask them. “So what camp were you in?” And sometimes
it will be that one. Yah, it’s kind of cool.
A: How long did you end up staying there?
C: Two years. I do everything for two years I think. [Laughs] I like to start things up. I
did. I’ve been in my job for twenty. So yah.
A: Maybe we should go back a little bit more and talk about your transition from IRF
[Indochinese Refugee Foundation] to the School Department. How did that come about?
C: If memory serves me, which sometimes it doesn’t, I believe Ann O’Donnell
approached me.
A: Don Pearson?
C: Ann O’Donnell.
A: Oh I’m sorry, Ann O’Donnell.
C: She was the head of the bilingual program.
A: Okay.
C: For a very long time. And I believe she approached me and asked me if I’d be
interested. They had this position. I think they got federal funds for it or something.
A: It was a new position?
C: Yup, to oversee development of a Southeast Asian curriculum. So yup.
A: Tell us all about that.
C: So in my role I oversaw, I had three curriculum developers, one Lao, one Khmer, and
one Vietnamese. And so our job was to try to develop a, you know, native language
curriculum that they could use in the schools, and that was a huge lift, because you know,
we’re talking K-12. I mean it was a huge lift. So we mostly focused on literacy, and then
would you know as we could develop materials, you know, in other content areas. But
we’d produce our own books and stuff like that, yup. And I believe, and you guys would
know maybe the timeline. So there was a time when there was going to be a shift away
from the Indochinese Foundation to splitting off the groups. When you talk to Hai he’ll
know.
16
�A: Okay. So like when the CMAA [Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association] was
formed?
C: Yah!
A: Yah, so the CMAA [Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association] was formed in 84.
C: Yup.
A: And I don’t know. Was there a Lao and Vietnamese?
C: There, well there was an effort. (A: Okay) It didn’t take hold, but there was an effort
to do that, yah.
A: Okay. So the CMAA was really the only group that kind of had legs?
C: It ended up, yup, that I recall. Yup.
K: Do you keep in touch with anyone you worked with, or while working for, at the
IRF?
C: Not really keep in touch. I, you know, I would see people out in the community and
you know, a couple of families I keep in touch with that I served, but I don’t keep in
touch with staff as much. In fact it’s funny one of the families that I for whatever reason
just became really close with, a Lao family, their daughter now has children my middle
son’s age and they’re best friends.
K: Oh.
C: So she, so you know when she came to the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation]
she was like yay big, and now she’s mom to two kids and so it’s yah, it’s great.
K: What about the family you sponsored?
C: I have no idea. [Unclear], I have no idea. You know my life took a, you know, a left
turn. You know, when you have kids everything, everything changes. So you know, I
became much less involved in the community. I took this job up in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire. So I became sort of much less connected here.
A: Yah. So you went from IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation] to the school
department and then (--)
C: Then to Middlesex.
17
�A: And then to Middlesex. And how did you get connected up with Middlesex if you
recall?
C: Maybe Molly Sheehy?
A: Okay.
C: Yah, I think that’s probably likely.
A: Okay. And what did you do at (--) You talked a little bit about it already, but.
C: So you know, in setting up the Lowell Campus they were mindful, right that they
wanted to serve the Southeast Asian population. So we set up this um, and they had a
Gateway City’s Grant I believe to do that. So myself and a Hispanic community Leader,
Peki Wilson, who was at the time really well regarded in the Latino community (--)
A: How do you spell the first name?
C: Peki, P E K I was her nickname. Griselda was her first name.
A: Raselda?
C: Griselda.
A: Griselda. Okay.
C: She was Cuban, but very well regarded in the Hispanic community. So she and I
were sort of the two key staff at the Resource Center which operated out of Wannalancit
at the time, because we started at Wannalancit right?
A: Yah.
C: And so our job really was to provide sort of counseling so to speak to you know, kids
who were interested in maybe attending Middlesex, and while they were at the college
providing a lot of bicultural support for them. You know, doing special events with them
and just being there as a listening ear.
A: Were there a lot of students coming to Middlesex when, at the beginning essentially?
C: Well I think because of our outreach we started really to get kids you know aware of
the college and starting to come into the college.
A: How did you do the outreach? Do you recall?
18
�C: Well by that time I had, you know, because of my work at the Foundation I had a
pretty good network. So that wasn’t a huge lift. You know, without that I don’t know
what I would have done, but yah.
A: So who were some of the community leaders from the different refugee communities
at that time?
C: So the Lao I would say Kumson Silavong. I think he’s passed recently. Sommanee
Bounphasaysone, she’s actually a really good friend of mine. Who else in the Lao
community? That’s what I recall, and Sommanee worked for the DCF ultimately.
A: So many Lao folks or?
C: Sommanee is her name, sorry. [Laughs]
A: [Laughs] I’m going deaf anyways, so.
C: I know you and me both. So in the Cambodian community at the time it was Michael
Ben Ho (A: Umhm), great man.
A: Yah, he just passed away as well.
C: I know. Narin Sao. (A: Umhm) You probably know them all. I’m trying to think
who else. Those are the two that come to mind really.
A: Okay. Is Narin still around?
C: Yup.
A: Okay.
C: Yah, he lives in Chelmsford but he’s around. He’s a great guy, great guy.
A: Any politicians that stood out either kind of pro refugee, or not so pro?
C: Like if you tick check off names I could say “Oh yah, I know,” but (--)
A: One of the guys over the years, a couple of the guys that could be perceived as not
being super friendly would be Tarsy Poulios. [Both same name at same time].
C: Tarsy Poulios, right, it just all of a sudden came back to me! Yah, he was like the
Donald Trump of Lowell. So I’d say yah.
A: Do you remember any interactions with any of your jobs with him?
C: No.
19
�A: Okay. Anybody on the pro side?
C: I’m sure there were, because again we had, you know, we had a fair amount of (--)
Oh God I’m just remember on the school board, Katherine Stoklosa. She blamed me for
all of the refugees coming to the city.
A: How so?
C: At the school committee meeting.
A: Oh really?
C: Yah.
A: And so she didn’t think it was a good idea?
C: Oh no! We should stop those people from coming, yup. I mean a lot of people were
(--) It’s you know, it’s fear you know the unknown. Right, it’s so common, we don’t
learn.
A: Good.
K: Do you see any similarities in your job today with working with the IRF [Indochinese
Refugee Foundation]
C: No. I wish I did. [Laughs] No, I’m (--)
A: We won’t leave that on the record.
C: Yah! I’m pretty far removed from feeling like I have an impact on people’s lives, but
that’s okay.
K: He kind of skips this question, but what was the most interesting or enjoyable part of
your job?
C: Oh the people. Oh God yah. Just really, just delightful people, and some of them
could be like royal pains in the asses, but you know. Hai’s father worked for me, and a
wonderful, wonderful man. And he was very set in his ways. So supervising him was a
challenge, but you know, wonderful, wonderful man. And so just really wonderful
people and I learned a lot.
A: Any final thoughts about your time working for the IRF [Indochinese Refugee
Foundation]?
20
�C: No, just that you know, I want to thank Jackie’s husband. [Laughs] Really it was a
life changer for me, that opportunity, and Hai. It really was. I mean they took a risk with
me, because I was (--) How old was I? I was young, really and you know, I guess the
good thing for me was nobody had that experience because it was so new. So they took a
chance with me and it was great.
A: Yah, you said Jackie’s husband?
C: He’s the one that recommended me for the job.
A: Jackie Moloney’s husband?
C: Yup.
A: Oh, okay, and how did you know him?
C: I worked with him at CETA, the (--) Yup, Ed.
A: Yah, okay. What did he do at CETA?
C: He was one of the managers. So there was Ed and Henry Przydzial, and yah. But
yah, he just pulled me aside and said, “Hey, Jackie’s leaving this job. I think you should
go for it.” Now Jackie is brilliant. And going in trying to fill her shoes, I had to get over
that one right away. Yup, she’s brilliant.
A: How so?
C: I don’t know she just is.
A: But I mean how did you feel that you (--) Was there a learning curve from what
Jackie had done?
C: I mean I would have, if I tried to sort of emulate what she did, or be who she was I
would have failed. So I had to just find my own way in the job and yah. And I was
successful, but I’m just saying you know, yah.
A: Any final thoughts about your time working here in the city.
C: No, I mean I miss it. I loved doing that kind of work. My work is like I said, very
removed. You know, I have a federally funded job where I lead a multi-million dollar
grant, blah, blah, blah. So it’s a great job and but I loved doing community work.
Someday in my retirement.
A: Yah, why not?
C: Yah.
21
�A: Great.
K: I think that’s it, right?
C: Thank you so much.
K: Thank you.
A: Thank you.
K: Yah, this is great.
C: So are you a student at UMass?
K: Yah, I’m a student. I’m a sophomore.
C: What are you studying?
Interview ends
jw
22
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016. UML 4. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Description
An account of the resource
Four oral history interviews with former staff and board members of the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc., an organization that helped resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the greater Lowell, Massachusetts area during the 1980s. Oral histories were conducted with Jacqueline (Fidler) Moloney, Carol Keirstead, Elise Martin, Hai Pho, and Lan Pho. <br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.<br /><br />The entire collection is accessible on this site.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Carol Keirstead oral history interview transcript, 2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Adoption
Adoptive parents
Community organization
English language--Study and teaching
Lowell (Mass.)
Nonprofit organizations
Occupational training
Political refugees
Refugee camps
Refugee families
Refugee issues
Refugees--Southeast Asia
Refugees--United States
Social service
Unemployed--Services for
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of an oral history with Carol Keirstead on her experiences working with Southeast Asian refugees and as an Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. staff member. Other topics discussed include her work after she left the IRF, sponsoring a family, and adopting a child from Cambodia.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Keirstead, Carol
Connerty, Kale
Ali, Mehmed
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-03-05
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
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22 p., 21.5 x 28
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Identifier
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uml4_16.02_i002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
BASF Systems Corporation
Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association
Cambodians
Centralville
Daley Middle School
Documents
International Institute of New England
Laotians
Lowell Public Schools
Moore Street School
Philippine Refugee Processing Center
The Grove
Vietnamese
Wang Laboratories
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016. UML 4. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Description
An account of the resource
Four oral history interviews with former staff and board members of the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc., an organization that helped resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the greater Lowell, Massachusetts area during the 1980s. Oral histories were conducted with Jacqueline (Fidler) Moloney, Carol Keirstead, Elise Martin, Hai Pho, and Lan Pho. <br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.<br /><br />The entire collection is accessible on this site.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
University of Massachusetts Lowell
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A related resource
The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Elise Martin oral history interview audio recording, 2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Community organization
English language--Study and teaching
Lowell (Mass.)
Nonprofit organizations
Occupational training
Oral history
Political refugees
Refugee families
Refugee issues
Refugees--United States
Social service
Unemployed--Services for
Description
An account of the resource
The audio recording of an oral history with Elise Martin on her experiences working with Southeast Asian refugees and as an Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. staff member. Other topics discussed include her work after she left the organization.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Martin, Elise
Connerty, Kale
Ali, Mehmed
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-06-24
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
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1 audio recording; 00:50:30
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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uml4_16.09_i001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodians
International Institute of New England Lowell
Lowell Public Schools
Sound recordings
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PDF Text
Text
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
CENTER FOR ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
INFORMANT: ELISE MARTIN
INTERVIEWER: KALE CONNERTY
MEHMED ALI
DATE: JUNE 24, 2016
E=ELISE
K=KALE
A=ALI
Mehmed Ali begins interview with introduction:
A: Okay, so this is interview with Elise Martin on June 24, 2016. Thanks, and Kale is going to
take over.
K: So Elise when did you start working at the IRF [Indochinese Refugee Foundation]?
E: I was looking through my memorabilia trying to remember exactly when. I believe it was in
April of 1981. It was 1981.
K: Where had you previously been working?
E: Lowell Public Schools.
K: Okay, so how did you come to start working for the IRF?
E: It was I’m pretty sure that, remembering that this was a really long time ago, but I’m pretty
sure that there was an ad in the Lowell Sun. I hadn’t known Jackie until that job if I’m not
mistaken, and I think that’s how we became friendly and Carol Keirstead as well. So I wouldn’t
have gotten the information about the potential position from a personal relationship with
Jackie. I think that happened afterwards. So it must have been in the paper. An ESL teacher, I
was, you know, I was in education. So an ESL teacher, that’s the role that I was hired for.
K: Did you then become the coordinator, or was your position title teacher?
1
�E: No, Jackie was the Project Manager, or Project Director and I was the ESL teacher and kind
of, I guess we’d now call it Workforce Development Person. We all and the roles were
intermingled. I wouldn’t say that anybody did just one thing, but I, our curriculum (--) You’re
going to take pictures of my water? [Mehmed Ali is taking photos] Do you want me to take
that off the table? Do you care? You don’t care? I don’t care.
K: [Sounds like: Oh, let me slide, let me slide over]
E: Okay.
M: We’re candid.
E: Where was I?
K: [Sounds like: We’ll cut it out]
E: Okay. Where was I? So the intent was to provide skills to enable the new immigrant
population to both survive and thrive here. And so that meant like essential English and we
started with really like essential English skills. But then it also evolved into more contextually
relevant language development for people who had mastered the basics of you know, help me
I’m lost, or how do you get to, to job, job application. And some kind of like industrial
manufacturing was still pretty big here. We were helping to place people in jobs. I wasn’t
doing job placement services. I was doing language development and interview techniques for,
but we were placing people in companies like Raytheon, and so contextually relevant skills as
well as language. It was fun.
K: So there were different types of classes that were offered we found in the archives and stuff
for survival, (E: Right, that was our) prevocational life skills, literacy training, pre-employment
orientation. (E: Umhm) So you just offered all of these different (--)
E: Yeah, we developed the, you know, we evolved as the population evolved in terms of their
language competency and their like needs at the time.
K: Where were the classes held?
E: At the International Institute.
K: And was that still on, in 79 High Street?
E: On High Street, yah, umhm.
K: Okay. How long did you work for the IRF?
2
�E: Probably two years. I can’t remember an exact ending date. And I also can’t remember why
that would have been. So it’s possible that the funding for that grant could have terminated at
that point, or the funding for the position. Or it’s possible, because that period of my life I
remember around when I had babies. I was in the middle of having babies at that time.
K: Yes, Jackie mentioned that, that you two were pregnant at the same time.
E: So I was very pregnant. And I had thought about it this morning, I didn’t have time to go
through my attic, but I have some old photos. I don’t know if you’d have any interest in them,
[K: Definitely] but I have some old photos of some of the events we had there. So I don’t (--) I
may have been pregnant with my third child and that might have been what caused me to
leave. In any case it would have been at least two years that I was there.
K: So what was a typical class like? Like how long, or like how many students were in each
class? Things like that.
E: Maybe, first of all it would depend. We offered the classes every day. We (--) I worked
thirty hours a week. I was hired to work thirty hours a week. And I think that for all of us
whatever the minimum requirement was turned into something more than that because you
were, you became very committed to the people you were working with, but. And so within
that time frame we developed as the need arose and it hadn’t been written into the grant
necessarily. So we might have started off by every class was offered every day to begin with,
and that was the survival skills. And then, and then we might offer, and then as the need arose
and or like the different immigrant populations out of this, from the three primary countries
from which the immigrants came, the Vietnamese, the Cambodian and the Laotian, they were
different, slightly different needs based on the country of origin. So we offered, we never
offered classes for a particular, for people of a particular country of origin, but we offered
classes based on those kind of conglomerate needs. So then we started offering, we’d be up to
maybe three or four classes a day.
And then the classes were (--) There was a curriculum (--) If I’m not mistaken, when I took the
job there was kind of a curriculum for basic survival skills, but quickly it became, I made it more
current. So you know, what are the things? What are the (--) Bringing in the Lowell Sun and
the job wanted ads and the language there. And asking people to bring in a rental, looking for
apartments, you know, what are the kinds of words you need to be able to read, and what are
the speaking skills involved. And it was emphasis on conversational English. And so you had to
build trust with a group of people in order for them to feel comfortable trying to speak in a new
language that was not even phonetically familiar. You know, like the whole conversion from
their language to our language in order to be able to read was a huge (--) And many of the
people that came from in particular the Vietnamese immigrants that we serviced during this
two years that I was there in general may have had a higher educational level coming out of
their country. The Cambodian and Laotian people had been the farmers. And because Pol Pot
had gone through and massacred anyone that wore eye glasses for example, that was like
they’d go through your house, or your hut and if you had glasses it was a sign that you needed
3
�them to be able to read. So you were gone. So there was a different level of education coming
from their own country and therefore different levels of job interest. So we tried to tailor it and
build a level of security, and comfort and trust, and mutual support within the groups
particularly for the conversational English. Imagine what it’s like to try to like start to speak.
I’m so monolingual. I mean I took four or five years of French and I’m still pretty monolingual,
and that was a fairly familiar you know, comparable language, so. So that was really important
establishing trust in a sense of confidence that we were there to help them, and that we were
all in this together, and that they could help each other and themselves.
There’s some great stories. I don’t know if you’re interested in any of the stories, but
K: Absolutely, yup.
E: As I speak I remember. So, and so I really would like to read the transcription of this,
because I want to make sure that my words don’t come out (--) You’ll be able to understand
the meaning, but I may speak in forked tongues to get there. So at the same time that this first
wave of Southeast Asian immigrants were coming into Lowell, and I think that this first wave of
immigration started somewhere like in the late 70s, maybe 1980, with church groups being the
predominant sponsoring organizations that brought the first wave in. As that, actually I do
remember because then my children were in school and the impact was clear in the public
school system. But as the numbers of Southeast Asian people grew in the city so grew a sense
of, I would like to say that it’s like fear of the other or the unknown kind of thing. It wasn’t a
negative or a prejudicial sense. It was just, who are all these people, and what are they doing
here in our city, and what’s going on, and the resources? And so then out of that, not a whole
lot different from, we’re actually much more, much more civilized than some of what is
happening in our country today. But out of that came a lot of urban myths and people
wouldn’t, I would be at like you know, parties or someone’s house, or whatever, and here I am
like white middle class girl in Lowell right, woman. And so people make assumptions
sometimes about what they can say in front of certain groups of people based on how you look.
So I would hear things like, “Do they really eat, you know, all kinds of animals?” And “Do they
really keep this in their apartment?” “Do they really have twenty people living in one, you
know, one-room apartment,” and dadadadadada. And the code violations, and the this and the
that, and the other thing. And it was really, actually it was a lot of fun. It was like I went to a
costume party and I was, and so no one would knew who I was, or you know, what I knew and
what my experience was and then I would get to like break the urban myth. Because what I
discovered, or what I learned about, first of all people would say to me, “Oh, and they get,” you
know, “Each person gets $2,000 when they come here to Lowell,” and you know, “We’re giving
them all this money for free and they’re,” you know, “eating our dogs” and all kinds of like
really weird far out things. It would have been very easy to verify had anybody bothered to like
take the time to get to know someone, but people sometimes prefer to spin the tail. So what I
discovered was at the time that people, that the refugees were getting a $200.00 stipend, or
whatever, resettlement, which doesn’t take one too far, right, in terms of coming here with
absolutely nothing. Like no clothes, except what the sponsoring agency was able to offer you.
No housing except if the church was able. Sometimes the church members would be able to
4
�provide people housing. And then what they were doing, and this was, I don’t know if this was
actually a particular, I was going to say this was particularly towards the Cambodian and Laotian
men, but that may not be true. It may have been true of all three groups. Was that the men
were, as quickly as they were able to, buying a car and a relatively new car. And that would be
another thing I’d here. “Whoah, we’re giving them $2000.00 and they’re going and buying new
cars and they’re driving around the city, and I’m driving this old crappy car,” you know, dadada.
And then what they would do is buy this new car and get (--) They would wait until they knew
they had a job where they were all applying to the same company, and then they would buy
this new car together, like four or five or six men. And they would live, they would squeeze
themselves into the most affordable housing they could find and spend the money for the car,
because their rationale was, if we can’t get to work, if we buy six, or three or four junks and
rent a bigger apartment we may not be able to count on getting to work if it’s a place you
know, we’re not walking to work, they were traveling to Andover, whatever, and then we’ll lose
our jobs and we can’t let that happen. So they did that. And that was like, so smart. And you
know, no one I know ever like thought that intelligently about how to get by kind of collectively
instead of the individualistic society that we have. Like each person gets their money and they
buy the best thing they can with their money. And their society, or at least as a result of their
experience, but probably their culture prior to coming here was more collectivist, and you
know, we come together as a village to support each other. And so they mirrored that in their
strategy for insuring that they had employment so that they were not looking for federal, or
state, or city subsidies to get by.
K: That’s great. So what was the most challenging part of your job, like difficulties? Were their
difficulties getting like books or teaching materials, or anything like that?
E: No, there wasn’t, because it was, it was easy enough to supply my own materials once I
figured out what I was doing, and improvised to be relevant to the moment. And there was no,
it wasn’t like you know you’re teaching in a high school, or a college program and you’re
teaching Bio I, and the students have to take Bio 2 next so you have a certain set. (K: Right) So
it was what do we need for today? And as I became more comfortable, like anyone, as you
become more comfortable in your role, less insecure in whether or not you’re going to be able
to do it I was able to ask them to help me to develop the curriculum going forward. You know,
what do we (--) So what should be on the agenda for next month and how do we build these
classes? What do you want to learn? What are some of your problems? How can we use
language to help you adjust those problems? So I don’t know. I can’t imagine what the worst
part of my job was. Every day was different and every day I felt like I was doing something that
mattered and that means a lot. So I would say probably the struggle to (--) There were (--) As I
mentioned, the levels of prior education where the discrepancies were significant. And so
there are, and then there are also individual learning styles and speeds. And so there were (--)
And then their age range, that was also fairly significant. The age range was relatively
significant. We had, we had young, maybe late teenage young men coming here having lost
their families in many cases. And then we had a lot of older people, well older, younger than I
am now, but like probably people in their 40s coming, and 30s who had babies and somehow
had escaped you know, with some part of their family, or not. And so the younger people
5
�regardless of their level of education previously were, I don’t know, is it that you’re more
flexible to learning new things when you’re younger? And then there were some people, some
men in particular, you know, some women who’d never even, it was enough that their
husbands would learn the language. But there were many more men in my classes than
women even though, and I don’t think that that gender ratio was representative of the
population that was here. I think that’s also very cultural, you know, going to school, but there
were men that were in their 40s who had, you know, who hadn’t been able to read in their
native language, or were necessarily particularly articulate in their (--) You know, they were
farmers and they may never have even bumped into anybody else, and so for them, to try to
help them to develop the communication skills to be successful. Sometimes you knew that this
person was, was going to have a really hard time if at all able to be successful in communicating
enough to get a job, which was what they all wanted to do. So that was, but that’s the case no
matter who you’re teaching, where you’re teaching.
K: Right.
A: So with the women learning was there family kind of, was family holding women back from
coming to the IRF?
E: No, I would not say that, because the women were usually there with their husbands. I
mean they stuck together. The husband/wife unit was pretty tight because you’re strangers in
a new place, right. So the women didn’t speak. Most of the women, most of the Cambodian
Laotian women did not speak any English. So to be left home while your husband is at the
International Institute meant that you were like totally unable to communicate with anybody
unless you happened to be in a building with people who spoke your language. So, but they,
they didn’t engage in the class to the same degree that the men did. Often they were taking
care of the babies. Not taking care of, because seriously the babies went in the infancy that
was usually like supplied by the church. And when I think about like I know how the daughter
has a baby, and you know, the baby cries and everybody jumps. And this was like (--) It’s like
okay baby, lie there because we have something really important to do. So you’re going to
adapt to the family’s needs right now. It’s really good parenting. But I don’t think they had a
confidence in themselves. I think culturally that they weren’t you know, called upon. They
weren’t like village elders that had been female. So I think it was really primarily cultural. And I
think the Vietnamese (--) We had more female Vietnamese people in our classes than we had
female Cambodian or Laotian. And again that’s, that has to be a direct correlation with the
level of education in their country, and even the infrastructure in Vietnam prior to the war. You
know, there were cities and universities, and there was far less formal education available in
Laos and Cambodia at the time.
K: How big were the classes? There were like how many people do you think?
E: Twenty. As I’m thinking back on this I’m thinking that like for the intro, the survival skills,
there were always, it was a pretty consistent number. Because as some people became
relatively, not fluent, but fluent enough to move on to another level, or gain employment, then
6
�the ages of people attending got older. So some of the elders that came thought, well all right,
now I’ll go in and see, try my hand at it. There weren’t many school aged children obviously,
because once they were school aged they were in school.
Another thing that I really remember clearly from both my role in the public schools and my
role at the International Institute and they kind of went back and forth and blurred, is that the
Southeast Asian (--) This is a generalization, but as with every other ethnic, or language
linguistically diverse group that comes to this city, students and their families are offered the
opportunity for whatever it happens to be called at the time ELL, ESL, bilingual education, you
know, it had different names. And most of the Southeast Asian people who talked to me about
that in class, the parents, because they were, because I was the teacher and they were
navigating the public school system at the same time, when they spoke about it said they didn’t
want their children in ELL bilingual education. They wanted them mainstreamed from the start
to be, and they didn’t use the word immersed in the language, but that’s what they (--) Because
(--) And I was reminded back to my undergraduate years at UMass, I went to UMass Boston for
a year and studied urban sociology while I was there. And there was theory about immigrants
resettling in an urban area and the idea of the political refugee as opposed to the non-political
refugee, and the idea that if you can’t go back to where you came from then your motivation to
adopt the new, the cultural identity of the place that you’ve landed as quickly as possible, and
master, you know, become whatever that place is, become one of them, is stronger than if you
have the options of going back home should it not work out. So I think that the parents were,
wanted their kids to learn English fast and there was not going to be any like you know.
K: In the archives we’ve seen lots of papers trying to distinguish between political refugees and
economic migrants was the other term that they used for the opposite difficulty.
E: Oh nice, nice.
K: Were you the only ESL teacher while you were there, because we have some records like of
other people teaching classes. I have names. Maybe you’ll know.
E: Okay, try the names.
K: Gea Pho?
E: So that must be, is that (--) That’s got to be Hai’s relative right, Gea Pho?
K: I would think, yah.
M: Maybe that’s (--) Didn’t Jackie or Carol tell us about one of the Pho’s, like the wife’s father
worked there?
K: Oh yah.
7
�M: Maybe that’s who it is?
E: Oh okay, maybe.
K: Yah, that could be, umhm.
M: You don’t recognize that name right Elise?
E: No.
Mehmed: Okay.
E: No, not the first name at all. So my (--) So I’m thinking back to timing. This isn’t about the
question you just asked me, but when you asked me how long I was there I know I came in like
the spring of ’81. Jackie left sometime maybe in ’82. And Carol came in to replace her as
Project Director, and I was there for probably a year with Carol. So that’s about what my time
frame looked like.
K: And I think what ended up happening was that ESL got transferred over to other
associations. Like there was the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association.
E: Yes, yah, yup, but I don’t know if that happened. I can’t remember the reason I left. I can’t
remember whether, you know, there are certain jobs that you remember it was time to get out.
This wasn’t one of them. The thirty hours a week worked beautifully with my schedule of three
little kids, you know. So it was ideal. So I don’t know whether that the funding for that piece of
the program ran out, or if other, you know, they’re probably, the funding probably came in in a
block, and then Jackie as the Project Manager, or Carol had to redistribute it according to
needs. And maybe as other community services became available for language development
we had less need to put the hours into the ESL teaching or whatever it was, bilingual.
M: The CMAA (Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association) started in 1984. (E: Okay) So it
would have been after you, a year or so after.
E: Yah, yah, because I don’t remember. If they were, although some of the, I do remember
that some of the Cambodian men in particular, because it seemed that the Laotian, much of our
Laotian population, many of the people that first were there when I was first there, seemed to
have moved on to California within like a year. There was, and they probably went to, well I
don’t know if they went to Long Beach or not actually, because that’s the first largest
Cambodian, but they went to another place where there were more Laotian people. And that
might have been because there were more Cambodian people coming into this city and there
was this tension between the three groups. And Vietnamese people in many cases started to
move out into the suburbs and/or into the suburban Lowell neighborhoods more quickly
because they were employed at a higher level probably because of their educational
experience.
8
�K: Right.
M: Did you experience, was there any kind of minor conflicts between the groups?
E: So with the, you know, so you have a group of young guys in there. There were, there was a
little bit of, there was no over conflict, there was no physical conflict that ever like happened, or
that we were even aware of. And we got like the stories of what was going on in the
community, but there was a little bit of the snipping behind the back, you know, people’s back
about, you know, this group or that group from another group, from the men. The woman
couldn’t speak enough English to be able to say that necessarily.
M: And when you were doing ESL classes were all three groups in at the same classroom?
E: Umhm, yeah.
M: You didn’t have a Lao class and a Cambodian.
E: No, no, no. No, no, no.
M: Okay.
E: But then as we offered different levels of language development services, self-selection
would cause the groups to be a little bit more dominated by one ethnic, one ethnicity or
another.
M: Were there any problems getting enough like money for getting books or anything like that
over the budget?
E: You know I don’t, it didn’t, I don’t remember it being a problem. It may have been that we
didn’t have money for books, but it wasn’t anything I was looking for anyway. I felt like the best
teaching materials were the materials that were (--) I wasn’t teaching like a, I wasn’t teaching
the equivalent of like French I, or English I, (K: Right) or anything like that. I was teaching how
to get yourself going here in this community. So there are probably some text books, but they
would not have been contextualized to Lowell, or the Merrimack Valley in the same way that I
could do it with the resources I had.
M: So did you create your own handouts?
E: Yeah, yeah, umhm.
M: Do you remember specific stuff that you might have created for the curriculum?
9
�E: I just, I remember using want ads, job ads, and rental ads, having to read the language of
those ads in order. And then we would role play like what’s the response to this? What’s the
written response? What’s the interviewing with the perspective landlord? Because, because I
think that people came in with (--) Many of the refugees came in with their rent, their rental
situation or the living situation already established, whether it was through the support of the
church group, or whatever the resettlement agency was. But they were not, I don’t recall, they
were looking to become quickly independent, which meant having to navigate like the market
rental, the market rate rental market. So it was that kind. It was just in time language skills.
K: Yah. Did people have to repeat classes ever if they were (--)
E: You got to (--) You just stayed in a level. A lot of the times people would go to like multiple
levels. They would just, I think they felt like if I just, even if I can’t. So like the levels were the
survival, and they were the like there was the general readiness for job application process, and
then there was the more specific language development for people that were going to work.
And so let’s say there were three levels of language class, three different topics as oppose to
levels. It was never called that, but. Then somebody who really was at the survival language
level might still sit in the other classes figuring I’m bound to pick up something, you know. The
people that came to class were hungry to learn.
K: What was the most enjoyable part of your job?
E: The getting to, getting beyond the (--) They put (--) Teachers were on a pedestal. In at least,
perhaps in all three of those countries, but definitely in Cambodia and Laos, because there was
so little education available, the teacher, whether it was back in their village, or their town, or
their city, or and then here was the, like up there with the Monk. So you know, clearly coming
out of having taught at the Lowell Public, in the Lowell Public Schools, or you know, here at
Middlesex that’s not the same. We don’t elevate our teachers to such worship status. And so
having to (--) So at first it was kind of like, whoah, but you can’t, you can’t really help people
until you can help them to become self-sufficient and engage with them to the level that they’ll
share what they need. So that you can help them until there’s this trust, and there can’t be
trust between like a God and a person. So once we got passed that, to like I would have people
to my house. I brought my kids to the, to the International Institute as did Jackie. So we kind of
(--) And we had like little social events and stuff, and we would bring our families. And so that
kind of put everybody on the same footing you know. And then, and then the people that we
were working with would share with us like what was going on in their life, what their life had
been like. Very, I heard very few people got into (--) First of all they may not have had the
English language capability, but second of all they may not have wanted to go too deep into the
horrors that they had lived through. They would talk about being (--) Many, actually the filter,
or the funnel through which at least the Cambodian and the Laotian people came was Thailand.
So they had spent time in the camps in Thailand waiting to be resettled in another country.
And so they would talk about that. And they would talk a little bit about like getting to Thailand
and having to escape, but they didn’t get into the deep pain that they had experienced in their
lives too much. So, but as they talked about their lives and what they hoped for, and who they
10
�were and stuff, and how they felt about this new place, that was the most fun. And it was also
really fun when somebody came back and said, “I got a job,” you know, and you think I had
something to do with you getting that job. So.
K: Do you have any more stories that you want to share, or were there any interesting people
that you can remember that really stuck out?
E: Well I remember, I was thinking about this working earlier today. I can remember the,
whether they were informal or formal, community leaders for the Cambodian and Laotian
community at the time. I can picture the woman, and so right there is a difference. There was
a Vietnamese woman, young woman, well I don’t know. So I was, you know, twenty-eight. So,
but she was not forty-five, who was the, with Hai [Ba] Pho and Lan Pho as the like penultimate
leaders of that community, there was a woman there and actually that could have been their
daughter. I’m wondering if (--)
M: Oh they have a daughter. Yah, I don’t know.
E: I think they had a daughter. Well it could have been (--) It wasn’t a man. There was a
woman. It could have been their like somebody they just was close, they were close to,
whatever, but she was kind of the representative of the community for us there. But I can’t
remember her name and I racked my brain this morning. I’ll see if she’s in any of my pictures
and I’ll email you the pictures. I’ll snap them in. But (--)
M: Elise, if we could borrow the photos we can scan at a high resolution.
E: The actual one? Okay, sure.
M: And we’ll get them right back to you in two weeks or something?
E: Happy to. Umhm. They’ll all be (--) I have everything in photograph albums chronologically
from those years. And so I just, I’ll only need to pull out like three albums and I can go through
those and I’ll find those pictures.
M: Okay, wonderful.
E: But Khamsone Silavong was the Laotian community representative leader. Like everything
went through him. And he lived not too far from me in the Highlands. He had two sons and
one of them developed leukemia while he was here, but he was treated and survived it then.
And because we lived in the highlands I would bump into him on an ongoing basis. And then
the Cambodian leader was Socheat Uch, and he also lived here. He was, well he might have
been older, or he might have just lived a harder life and looked older, you know, but he, I still
would see him. And I probably haven’t seen, I haven’t seen Khamsone in fifteen years anyway,
and I probably haven’t seen Socheat in that long, but I would bump into them all the time
downtown at like Folk Festival or whatever. And they, like they were the leaders in their
11
�community. And both of those men had been farmers in their country. So they were, but they
had like survived and gotten jobs and had families. And their children went to school and were
thriving. And so it was all real good.
K: Could you spell those names or [unclear]?
E: Yah, I think I can. So Khamsone was K H A M S O N E, Silavong S I L A V O N G.
K: What was it? S I L V.
E: S I L , Sila.
M: A
E: A
M: V O N G
K: A V O N G, okay.
E: And Socheat was S O C H, so I’m pronouncing it phonectically. It probably sounded nothing
like that. S O C H E A T, and then his last name was U C H if I’m not mistaken. And I was really
pleased with myself when I pulled those names out of my head today. So those two men were
a part of my life. I have pictures of I think both of them in my albums, but (M: Okay) definitely I
have a picture of Socheat. So you’ll get those.
M: Great.
K: So is there anyone that you’ve kept in touch with from working there?
E: Um, no, not (--) I mean from the student population no, but again living in the Highlands my
kids went to school at the Daley. A significant (--) My kids’ friends, like so my kids new their
kids kind of thing. So I would like bump into the parents at school functions and stuff like that.
And then like all other associations after a while they kind of fade away. Well not all other, but
except for your closest people. So no, I haven’t stayed in touch with them.
K: Did you see the services that the IRF offered change at all while you were there?
E: No, not during. You know, we adapted to the needs of the population, but I don’t recall
being impacted by, but again I could have left that job because the funds were, you know, cut
back so that my hours were going to be too small, and I can’t remember that. But while we
were there, I mean I’m sure that, and I didn’t worry about the budgets first of all. Okay, I got
the fun job of working with the people. I think we had a job counselor too. I think we had
somebody who was like directly involved in making the connections between the companies
12
�and the, our students. And I don’t remember who that was, but I’m pretty sure that, I’m
positive that position existed because I didn’t do that, but that person and I communicated.
And it’s too bad that they’re not even coming to mind. It wasn’t Maria Cunha either. Jackie or
Carol didn’t mention anybody in a position like that?
K: I’m trying to think.
M: I’m not sure. We might have it in the archives, you know, so.
E: Okay, yah.
K: Yah, [unclear].
E: I forget why I went down that road of that question about the job counselor. You had asked
me something that made me (--)
K: Oh, different services that were offered?
E: Yeah, so those, so those were the basic services that we (--) Oh, and so Jackie and Carol as
the Project Directors, or Project Managers, whatever their titles were had to worry about the
funding and like how to balance the funding among the services that needed to be offered. We
also did like language around the hospital, like medical situations, and also around, we did kind
of informal child rearing. How to translate your child bearing practices to this new. So they
just, you know, they said to me you have this much time to, we can pay you for this much. And
then I kind of got to go with what I felt like the community needed in that. You know, what a
great job!
K: [Unclear]
M: Did the community suffer and racism that they brought to your attention when they first
showed up?
E: They were not able (--) I’m sure Hai and Lan would have been able to articulate that and
there’s probably some of the, some, many of the Vietnamese people, but they stopped coming
to the English language classes when they didn’t need those services. So the people I was
working with, and for the most part the people who are using the services of the refugees, the
International Institute were people who were in need still, hadn’t made the launch into
employment and stable housing. So that would have precluded them from, now that doesn’t
mean they wouldn’t have articulated if it had been rampant. I never mentioned to them what I
would hear from white people in the city, but they never said anything about that to me. And I
don’t think there would have been, there wouldn’t have been in a conversation where that
would have been you know, spoken, allowed. And I don’t think they would have necessarily
been familiar enough with our, with our cultural cues to read people’s expressions or, and plus
13
�they were coming out of such difficult circumstances that probably as long as you weren’t like
being overtly aggressive towards them it was fine.
M: Yah.
K: Did working for the IRF change your perspective on anything, such as working with [word
unclear]?
E: Oh yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, are you kidding? It has contributed to why I went back to
teaching in Lowell. In ’88 I went back to teaching in Lowell. So I did some like other stuff that
had nothing to do with anything except making a little part-time money, real estate and stuff
like that for a few years when my, when I had three kids in daycare that was just very difficult to
afford on the salaries of those kinds of jobs that I’m talking about right now, but then I went
back to teaching and I stayed in Lowell. And then when I left the Lowell Public Schools I did
some consulting for a year, but I wanted to come back to the urban environment where the
work that you do empowers the next, you know, the people who need the empowerment and
they’re most often the most recent refugees here, the cultures, the incoming countries have
changed, but the need hasn’t changed. So that’s why I came back here. So I guess, yah, it did.
K: So what did you teach when you were teaching at the schools?
E: I was, actually I was a computer teacher.
K: Oh! Is that what you do now?
E: No, now I’m an administrator, but I (--) Then I started teaching psychology here, but I
actually (--) It was a very fun time to be a computer teacher as the beginning of the like the
infusion of computers into schools in the late 80s. And so I got a job and (--) I got a job, my first
job at St. Margaret’s and they were paying six thousand dollars a year. So that was 1988. And
so someone said to me, “You should apply for that.” And I said, “I don’t know anything about
computers. I’ve never used a computer.” They said, “Yah, but they’re paying six thousand
dollars. Who are they going to get that knows anything about a computer for six thousand
dollars?” So I went in and I got the job, and I like self-taught, you know, figured it out. So then
the Lowell Public Schools got a lot of money to build, to outfit their schools with technology.
And I applied there and got a job there because I had this experience. And what I remember
doing with that, that I think is directly related to my work at the International Institute, I was at
the Wang School for a while and my computer classroom lab was right next to one of the
bilingual, it was the seventh grade bilingual classroom. And the Wang was a Hispanic Magnet
School. So you were either a Cambodian or a Hispanic Magnet School at that time. And so if
you needed bilingual services you went to the schools that provided those kinds of services in
your language.
M: And where was the Cambodian Magnet School?
14
�E: The Daley. So this was a Middle School. So the Daley, and the Sullivan, and the Wang were,
and I believe the Robinson were Hispanic Magnets. The Daley, and the Butler, and the Bartlett
maybe were the Cambodian. So anyway, so there’s this classroom of seventh grade Hispanic
bilingual, needing bilingual services students, and they were predominantly male students at
that point. And seventh grade is a very like ugly time in a kid’s life and they were, many of
them were a lot older than like the typical, or the traditional U.S. seventh grader. They had
either left school, or come in from another country late. So this was like a group of fifteen year
old testosterone ridden young men who were not turned on to school at all, or they wouldn’t
necessarily be in bilingual like not mainstreamed. (K: Right) So my computer lab was right next
door to them. And so, so the bilingual classes came in separately one at a time for computer
classes. And there were some of these young men who like really took to the technology. Well
back in the 80s it seemed like the boys took to the technology. I don’t know why that is,
because I’m like a wicked feminist, but it seemed like I don’t know, girls didn’t have the
confidence to approach it and troubleshoot, and be willing to risk making a mistake and the
boys did. Anyway, so these young men, a lot of them got really engaged in it, and like even
though they didn’t have mastery of the language they could master the technology, then
networking and that kind of stuff. And I would get all these calls all day long from the teachers
who would be like, you know, people like me, middle aged at the time, or whatever,
somewhere, white women, and they would say, “Oh, I can’t, I need help with my computer.”
And my job was to teach students, not to teach them. And so I developed a technology what
do you call them? It was like my tech team, and they were the seventh grade bilingual students
who were always in trouble right. So they were always in the principal’s office. But then all of a
sudden they (--) So when a teacher call and needed help I would ask the teacher of this bilingual
class next door if I could have a student to serve as a tech team person to go out and help the
instructor, the teacher. And so he loved the idea. I mean he and I kind of collaborated on this
idea. And all of a sudden (--) So he started keeping attendance records for the rest of the year,
and he said, “My students had perfect attendance for the rest of the year”, because they were
always hoping that they were going to be the ones that were going down. Because like what a
difference in the power shift of being the person who’s showing your teacher who usually
thinks you’re an idiot, like you know, “What’s the matter with you, you’re always goofing off,”
and you’re showing them how to use a computer is like so cool. So I would say that that like
whole idea of empowering people to, that the language limitation isn’t like, you have
something to offer. That came out of my work at the International Institute, or maybe it was
there and the International Institute fed it, and then.
K: That’s great.
M: Great story.
K: Do you have any more questions?
M: No.
K: I think I’m all set.
15
�E: Okay.
M: Oh I got one more question. So was there a sense of community at the Indochinese
Refugee Foundation.
E: Yeah.
M: How? Describe it for us.
E: Amongst the staff and the people that we served there was a sense of (--) We were friends,
like the people who worked. You can’t work in environments like that, and you’re not sitting
behind a desk and being autocratic, bureaucratic. You’re like all pitching in. And so we all like, I
don’t mean we were friends like we didn’t necessarily, well sometimes we did actually hang out
together, but we were just like all collaborative and collegial, and bringing families in. And so
then the, the refugee population, the immigrant population were like got really (--) They loved
when we would bring our kids in, and our kids and their kids would like hang out together and
stuff. And so you ended up caring about each other in ways beyond any kind of like a service
provider organization. Like in ways beyond what happens in a classroom, in a school. Not that
the teacher doesn’t care about the people, but this was much more holistic. Like you’re
working with the whole person, you’re not just teaching them some subject for six hours a day.
This is their family. This is what’s going on in their life. And our services allowed them to talk
about that and then address all the things that were their issues. So yah, so community evolves
out of that I think.
M: Um. Elise, any finals thoughts about your time with IRF?
E: No, but if I think of any when I send you the pictures I’ll jot down anything else I can think of.
M: Yah, if you can connect with Kale and maybe bring the photos?
E: Yah, I have her email. I’ll do that.
M: She can pick them up, we’ll scan them.
K: Sure!
E: Okay. Okay, I can do, yah, okay. Sure.
M: We’ll give them back to you. That will be great.
E: Looking at the pictures might remind me of some stories.
K: Yah.
16
�M: Okay. Good. Well thanks very much for your time.
K: Well thank you.
E: Okay, my pleasure. It was fun. It was fun to relive that.
Interview ends
jw
17
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016. UML 4. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Description
An account of the resource
Four oral history interviews with former staff and board members of the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc., an organization that helped resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the greater Lowell, Massachusetts area during the 1980s. Oral histories were conducted with Jacqueline (Fidler) Moloney, Carol Keirstead, Elise Martin, Hai Pho, and Lan Pho. <br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.<br /><br />The entire collection is accessible on this site.
Creator
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Elise Martin oral history interview transcript, 2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Community organization
English language--Study and teaching
Lowell (Mass.)
Nonprofit organizations
Occupational training
Oral history
Political refugees
Refugee families
Refugee issues
Refugees--United States
Social service
Unemployed--Services for
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of an oral history with Elise Martin on her experiences working with Southeast Asian refugees and as an Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. staff member. Other topics discussed include her work after she left the organization.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Martin, Elise
Connerty, Kale
Ali, Mehmed
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
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2016-06-24
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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17 p.; 21.5 x 28
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
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uml4_16.09_i002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodians
Documents
International Institute of New England Lowell
Lowell Public Schools
-
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4061ce115a0b6ff9589cad42ca2e48c9
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016. UML 4. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Description
An account of the resource
Four oral history interviews with former staff and board members of the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc., an organization that helped resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the greater Lowell, Massachusetts area during the 1980s. Oral histories were conducted with Jacqueline (Fidler) Moloney, Carol Keirstead, Elise Martin, Hai Pho, and Lan Pho. <br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.<br /><br />The entire collection is accessible on this site.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Jacqueline Moloney oral history interview audio recording, 2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Community organization
English language--Study and teaching
Lowell (Mass.)
Nonprofit organizations
Occupational training
Political refugees
Refugee families
Refugee issues
Refugees--Southeast Asia
Refugees--United States
Social service
Unemployed--Services for
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The audio recording of an oral history with Jacqueline Moloney, current Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, on her experiences as an Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. staff member during the late 1970s. Topics include programs, government policy, Southeast Asian refugees, and Lowell, Massachusetts.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Moloney, Jacqueline
Connerty, Kale
Ali, Mehmed
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-02-11
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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1 audio recording; 00:28:13
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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uml4_16.01_i001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodians
Highlands
Hmong
Indochinese Self-Help Program
International Institute of New England
Laotians
Sound recordings
Vietnamese
-
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PDF Text
Text
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
CENTER FOR LOWELL HISTORY
CENTER FOR ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
INFORMANT: JACQUELINE MOLONEY
INTERVIEWER: MEHMED ALI
KALE CONNERTY
DATE: 2/11/2016
J=JACKIE
A=ALI
K=KALE
A: Okay. This is interview with Jacqueline Moloney on February 11, 2016. And thanks again
Jackie for being here with us.
J: It’s great to be here.
K: Okay. So I guess I’ll just start with asking you about the Foundation, The Indochinese Refuge
Foundation. Do you know how and why it was established in Lowell?
J: Yes. Actually the Founders of the Indochinese Self-Help Foundation, one of them was a
member of the faculty here. His name was Hai Pho, and his wife’s name was Lan Pho. And they
were from Vietnam. And they had family in Vietnam during the fall of Vietnam, and were
instrumental in trying to create a kind of what they called at the time, Mutual Assistance
Associations to enable refugees who were fleeing from Southeast Asia to support each other in
the U.S. So they were very involved in the Refugee Resettlement Movement and they created
that Foundation to do that work.
K: Do you know what year that was?
J: What year they founded the Foundation? I’m trying to think of when I started working for
them. So I would say, I could give you roughly the late seventies, but I don’t have the actual
date.
K: And when did you start working there?
1
�J: About 79.
K: 79? (J: Umhm) Okay.
A: So you started right at the very beginning Jackie?
J: It was pretty close to the beginning. I was their second Executive Director.
A: Okay.
J: And the first one, I don’t think she lasted that long. It was really hard work and there were a
lot of cultural differences in the way that you know, even for me when I took on that job I had
to make a lot of adjustments in the way that I thought about running a non-profit that surprised
me in my first couple of weeks there. And it quickly became a labor of love for me. And I knew,
and maybe because they had learned from the first director that they had, that it didn’t work at
all because she wanted to do things in a certain way and they knew that would not work with
this refugee population, which honestly we can talk about in a minute, surprised me. I mean
these were people who were being resettled in Lowell in very large numbers, very irresponsible
way. They were being dropped in the city. The resettlement agency who was resettling them,
it wasn’t the Indochinese Self-Help Group, but there were different resettlement agencies
across the country who were, they would be paid $500.00 a person to resettle a refugee. Now
in some places, you know, like in the Mid-West there were a lot of small towns. They would
take that money in the church say, and help a family to resettle in you know, wherever, Idaho.
So that was one model.
In a place like Lowell unfortunately there was a resettlement agency that would take many,
many families, take their money and place them in very inadequate housing with no training,
no ESL, no support services, you know, to the point where we were finding people. I would get
calls from the hospital or police and say, “We just picked up this family. They have no shoes.
They don’t speak a word of English. It’s the middle of winter. They’re walking on Merrimack
Street with no shoes on. What are you doing about that?” So we had to develop a pretty, you
know large scale, very fast-responding mobilize the community to care for this group of
refugees that were basically dumped in the city. And the city was not prepared for it. The
schools were not prepared. The hospitals were not prepared. There were no translators, no
interpreters anywhere.
And so that was, that was my first job. I rang the first round of interpreters in the city of Lowell
providing ESL classes and then where we could you know, helping families to resettle and you
know, distributing goods that we were collecting to the families themselves.
K: Those were the main services then?
J: Those were it, yah.
2
�K: So during your time there, there was the Indochinese Self-Help Project, correct?
J: Yes.
K: So was that a separate function of the IRF?
J: So the IRF was broader than just Lowell. In fact a lot of their work was in Boston. So you
know I honestly didn’t have as much to do with them. They got funding, this Indochinese
Refugees Foundation got funding to do the Self-Help Project from the Resettlement Agency.
K: So the Self-Help Project is what offered those services?
J: Yes.
K: Okay.
A: And the IRF was, the Headquarters was not based in Lowell?
J: Honestly the, I wonder if the (--) It was a Board. A lot of the members were from Boston and
they would hold their meetings where we were housed, which was the International Institute.
But they had other meetings that I didn’t always go to all their meetings Mehmed. So they
might have had some in Boston.
A: Okay.
J: So they were a broader base, more of the, I would say established, you know, well
established. They weren’t refugees. These were Southeast Asians who were well established
who created this Foundation. You know, they would hold, I remember them holding fashion
shows, fundraisers, but it was really to help build their own ethnic community until this crisis
happened. And that’s when they got funding to help intervene in the city of Lowell.
K: As Director what were your main duties with the Self-Help Project?
J: Well it was everything. The chief, cook and bottle washer. I mean there were really only I (-) There were probably six of us. And so one was to run the, set up and run the ESL Program and
to get those refugees to the point where they could actually go into the Adult Education
Program. So you think about Fred Abisi and Adult Education, which they were totally opened to
helping these refugees, but they didn’t have the resources either. They were not prepared for
people who were you know, Laotian, Cambodian whose you know first language, the alphabet
didn’t even look like ours. I mean you come into Lowell now, it’s so much more diverse and
people coming from so many different countries, Lowell was really not prepared for this
generation of refugees that came here. So we set up that first ESL class. That was a big deal.
We did work with companies trying to get job placements. And then I had this whole group of
interpreters. And their work was to go to the hospitals to you know, I mean there were battles
3
�over everything going into the schools. There are a lot of cultural issues where you know, a
woman would go into the birthing center at Lowell General, and Lowell General was not
equipped to deal with the cultural traditions of these women coming from Cambodia, or from
Laos. And the interpreters, I mean they could barely speak English you know. I remember my
first Cambodian interpreter really barely, barely could speak English. And they were the most
challenged community, because of course of the genocide that had happened. So there
weren’t a lot of educated Cambodian refugees who could even read and write.
So we had a lot of challenges to overcome. It certainly changed their way of looking, changed
my way of looking at life for sure. You know the things that you take for granted, and dealing
with people who were traumatized by the wars in their countries. You know the civil wars as
well as the Vietnam War. And so there’s a lot of suspicion that we had to overcome, a lot of
worry about an agency. It took me a long time to earn the trust and respect of those people.
And that was the biggest surprise for me to be honest. I just thought, well I’m here. I’ve got
English language for you. I can help you find a job. You know, we might have some silverware
for your kitchen. Why would you not welcome me into your home? Well trust me, they did
not. It took me a long (--) But I really worked at it. And you know things like, and of course to
add to it, at the time I was pregnant.
Well there are certain customs which were unbeknown to me. There’s a whole hierarchy in
their cultures of you know, gratefully teachers are very important in their culture, women was
not. You know that I would go literally into the family home and the women would sit behind
the men. And here I as a woman who was pregnant no less, we’re pregnant and you were just
supposed to stay home and not even go outdoors, and I’m this pregnant woman walking into
their home trying to help them. And they would, some of them would take it like she’s trying to
tell me what to do. So I had to be very careful and very respectful, and really learn the
protocol. Things like who goes out of the room first? That was my first confusing you know,
cultural episode when you know, my first meeting I would just walk out the door. And then I
realized I was really upsetting some of the elders and I learned how to gracefully bow out of the
room, or let them go first. If they were the elder you always give them the respect. If they
hand you something you take it with two hands. You don’t just take it with one. So all of these
small things to show them the respect coming from what they had come from was a big deal.
So it was everything you know. We had our first, the first death of that community. I
remember we were about six months into this, so I was in pretty good shape with the
community at that point. We had delivered a lot of food and silverware and done a lot of ESL,
and gotten jobs and intervened in a lot of emergency room people calling, saying, “You’ve got
to get someone down here. These people are all [unclear].” So we settled a lot of those kind of
things. So we had great trust at that point from the community. And we had a death, and it
was a young man I think he was probably 32, or 33. And there was a belief among the Lao
Hmong people who were more, much more tribal, but they were a whole group of people in
Laos that had been displaced because they had helped the CIA. So this was this whole group of
people who were taken from their very tribal culture, ethnic culture, and dropped in the city.
It’s very, very difficult. And this young man died and they felt it was from his home sickness.
4
�And they said that they would will themselves to death in a way, and that’s how they felt this
young man died.
Now of course here we go again. How do you bury him? They have all of these burial rituals. I
can remember bringing in the funeral directors into the International Institute and the city
health inspectors, and we had to meet and figure out how we were going to bury this young
man and respect their cultures, because it was even more traumatic that he had died this way.
And if we didn’t bury him the right way his spirit would wander forever. So that was on
everyone’s head, but there were all these city rules about you know, you have to cremate the
body first, not cremate it but what is it when you take the blood out of people? Do you know?
A: The embalming process?
J: Embalming. Yes, and when the embalming happened, that’s what it was. Oh boy trying to
resolve that! And to everyone’s credit in this city, you know, when I really learned to love this
city, because people figured it out and they made it work, and they made it right for that family.
And that fellow was buried the right way. And everybody changed everything that they were
doing to accommodate that. One small person’s life, you know I don’t think that would happen
everywhere. I know it wouldn’t. So it just, it really made me appreciate the compassion of the
people in this city and their inclination to really welcome people from diverse backgrounds, and
to try to find solutions rather than (--) I think in some cities they would have been so
overwhelmed. They would have said (--) We see it happening now and I understand it, in cities
in Europe where they’re saying stop. We can’t take any more of these refugees. You know, this
is overwhelming our community. Well this community was overwhelmed but people stepped
up. The school system stepped up. They hired teachers eventually. It took us some time, but
you know it was a challenging time.
K: You’re still working in Lowell here thirty years later. Do you think that working for the IRF
had any impact on your decision to stay involved in the Lowell Community?
J: Oh absolutely. Like I said, it was a life altering experience for me. And I was only there a
little over a year, but I never lost my tie with that community you know. It was just a
phenomenal experience. And I just described to you how it just changed my view of this city
and what the city is capable of doing, and has helped me to keep faith and focused. And having
been involved now in a lot of non-profits like Lowell General Hospital, now I’m on the board,
then I was taking people to the emergency room. Now I’m on the board. But I can tell you I
know that Lowell General Hospital really honors the diversity of people that come there, and
they’re well cared for. Lowell Community Health is there for that reason. And I just, I still see
how you know, this community embraced that community and really made it special for them.
I remember (--) Who? There was a special thing every year. It was before the Farmer’s Market
in downtown, but they would have these monthly whatever it is, some show or something
downtown Lowell, and they were so kind and reached out the Southeast Asian Community.
And these people were hurting. You know they left their countries with nothing. So culturally
like they didn’t have many of their clothes or their instruments; they didn’t even know who was
5
�the singer from there, how to find a singer, or dance, or how to do the dance. So we were kind
of coddling together the first Cambodian Dance Troupe.
K: That’s wonderful.
J: And I remember them performing in JFK Center and it was just really hard to pull that off. I
remember how hard they worked. And they’re calling their friend in Connecticut and their
friend in California. People are trying to ship stuff here. We were trying to coddle together
enough little outfits for the women to do the dance, and you know the different instruments.
And we coddled together that first group and there was such great pride in the community.
And I think for them it was also just bringing their culture here and having it back and be part of
who they were was very, very important for them. So it was nice to be a part of it.
A: Could you speak a little bit about the jobs program that the IRF had when you were there, if
you remember any details? Do you remember any?
J: I don’t. I know that we worked with a lot of companies and did entry level training. The ESL
was big, but beyond that I don’t really remember.
A: Okay.
J: Did you remember it?
A: Nope. I mean we found some of the companies in the photographs. Now I’ve forgotten. I
don’t know if you remember it.
K: Just kind of like linen work, or just working in like clothing factories, or anything like that.
There are a lot of pictures of people working.
J: Yeah, and you know, so we would arrange the transportation. And what’s funny to me is
now when I drive home I drive down Westford Street where of course a lot of the Southeast
Asians settled in the highlands. And you still see the buses, the vans going up that street and
dropping workers off at different plants. So you know, again, the plants were great. Of course
they loved these employees because they were very hard working.
K: So the building where you worked was 79 High Street, correct?
J: Yes, the International Institute.
K: What was that building like? Was it, is it still there? Is it, it changed right?
J: Well it’s still there. It got sold to a private residence. The International Institute moved. I
don’t even know where they are now. Do they even have a place in Lowell?
6
�A: Yes, because Derek Mitchell was in charge of it until recently.
J: Yes.
A: I think they’re at 144 Merrimack Street.
J: Okay.
A: But the building itself, what was?
J: It was a big old house. It was, you know, the International Institute was downstairs, but it
was perfect for us because they had a lot of space, actually classroom space. And there was an
apartment in the building, and they needed someone to take care of it. So we had our first
interpreter, the Cambodian interpreter who lived in the building. So it was great for them too.
So it was great shelter. It was a great building. There was a big beautiful opened room. And I
still remember the, on the cultural, what we had to overcome. You know, probably at this point
we were four months, it was before that death, and many of the people had not seen a monk
for a year or two and they were really desperate to see a monk. So we, they connected with
friends and somewhere in Connecticut, they had some other group in Connecticut and the
monk came. So we announced the monk. I felt like there must have been 250 people in this
room where there should have been 100 people. And the same thing happened. And then I
was standing there and now I’m eight months pregnant, and everyone in the room dropped to
the floor in honor of the monk, you know the bow and hitting the floor and prostrating
themselves. And I’m standing there and I’m thinking it’s me and the monk. I don’t know what
to do. I’m not going to drop to the floor because I’ll never get up. And you know it wasn’t my
religion. I wasn’t disrespectful to him, but I didn’t know what else to do. Nobody coached me
on that one Kale. I didn’t really know what to do. But we had a lot of moments like that, that
were so special and people were just I mean crying and so happy to have a monk among them
again. And to have their traditions back, and to be able to say their prayers, and it was very,
very nice to be a part of that. So that building really lent itself to those meetings, a special
place.
K: What were your reasons for leaving the IRF?
J: I was pregnant.
K: Yah, that’s what I figured.
J: I just mentioned that, and I was having my second daughter. You know, I never intended to
stay there. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I took on that job. I probably
wouldn’t have done it if I had known, because I knew they needed a longer term solution. But I
had hired a couple of people who were very involved as the teachers, and one of them in social
work is Carol Keirstead who kind of took over.
7
�K: She took over?
J: Yah. So that was great. It’s amazing the way things happen, but it’s funny they were very
concerned when I was leaving. And I was in labor and they did not want me to leave. And you
know, at this point my office would always have like fifteen, sixteen of the elder men because
they decided everything as a community. And they would sit in my office every day and they’d
you know, bring me all like ginger root. I was supposed to eat ginger root and this big (egg?).
And Alise Martin was a teacher then too. Do you know Alise?
A: Yeah Alise.
K: Umhm.
J: Yah, that worked at Middlesex and she was pregnant too. It was just unusual. And they
didn’t want me to leave. And I’m like, “I have to leave. I’m in labor. I’m going. Bye, I’m
leaving.” And I got to the hospital and I had my daughter. And the nurse came in to me the
next morning and said, “Excuse me Ms. Moloney, but you’re going to have to help us. There
are all these people out in the waiting room and they won’t leave!” [All laugh] The same elders
and their families out in the waiting room and they wanted to talk to me. They wanted to talk
to me. I just had this little (--) I’m like we don’t do that here. We’re not going to talk, but I had
to go talk to them and tell them I’m okay and I will come back. [Laughing] And you know, it
was just again, because they knew at the hospital too what had been going on because I had
been helping them with different patients that were being admitted there. So that’s why I left.
K: So over your time there it seems like it became a lot easier, they warmed up to you. What
do you think was the most important thing that you did in kind of helping build that
relationship?
J: You know I’m a big believer as you know, maybe you’ve heard about my feelings about
students is to empower people to have control over their lives. And I think that self-help
project blossomed beautifully and it was because you know, having those elders in the room
and helping them to build their own community, get their own temple, build their own dance
groups, their own churches, you know, to take care of themselves and become their own
leaders. I think that’s what it was all about. [Repeats] That’s what it was all about. And I
believe that Lowell is a testament to how you do refugee resettlement correctly, because so
many, that community is so strong here. They’re such a strong part of this community and look
at where the first Cambodian State Legislator in the country. I mean that is a lot to be proud of
for this city. And I just, so when I look around me and most of the South Asians don’t have any
idea who I am, or what happened back then, it doesn’t matter to me at all. It was an honor to
be a part of it.
A: Two more questions Jackie.
J: Sure.
8
�A: One, any stories about coworkers, colleagues, special people that were there with you
during that time?
J: Absolutely. The interpreters were amazing. They were amazing people. And you know, they
came, they were very different. We had a fellow who was a Vietnamese. He was a refugee in
some ways, but he is a very well-educated man who had a wonderful family. So he wasn’t
coming out of poverty, didn’t live in (--) He had a family to come to here. [Ja] Pho, he was Lan
and Hai, he was Lan Pho’s father.
A: Okay.
J: But he was such a gentleman. He didn’t want to have any special treatment. So when I met
him I didn’t know he was Lan’s father. He wanted me to treat him like any other interpreter,
and he wasn’t like any other interpreter. This was a very distinguished scholar, wonderful man,
so well educated, and he just wanted to be you know, acted like the other interpreters. And of
course it took us about a month, but gradually I let him know I really needed him to do more
than be just (--) I needed advice. I needed guidance. And so he was very special. And the
other interpreter [So Chet Urk] was a Cambodian interpreter. He’s the one who really could
barely speak English, had grown up as a farmer, but worked so hard to help his people. Just
didn’t sleep, didn’t sleep. Twenty-four seven these people were on the road, they were on call
and they were needed, and we needed them to do it. And their community needed them to do
it. And you know, I know, I’ve met So Chet’s son like as a student here at the University. And I
hadn’t been in touch with So Chet for twenty years. You know, and to see his son be a student
here, that’s a pretty special feeling. That’s a pretty special feeling. They were great people.
K: So do you see any similarities in your job today as Chancellor as with working with for the
IRF?
J: I do always, everything I’ve ever done in my career to me it’s about building community, and
a community that thinks about making the world a better place. So certainly in that sense yes.
I think that that job really sensitized me to what it means to help people who are in trauma,
who have been traumatized and who need really emergency, immediate, deep care. And but
the biggest part of that is that it has to be done with respect. So I feel like, you know, certainly
at the university we have students who come here who are in that situation, who need that
help. As a community I feel like my greatest pride in UMass Lowell is that we are certainly, you
know, it goes without saying we’re an excellent academic institution, right? We are excellent in
research that we do. We provide excellent academic programs. But I think what gives me the
greatest pride (--) My greatest pride is that we’re a compassionate community. We are
compassionate to each other. Students, every day, every day I hear a story of students helping
other students. That gives me great pride. Every day I hear about our staff. Somebody, you
know, their child has cancer, or they’ve gone through a divorce, or they lost a parent, or
whatever happened, people reach across and help each other here. And that is what I think
9
�makes this place so unique and so special, and so extraordinary. So you know, to the extent
that I brought some of that because of that experience, all to the good.
A: Well thank you Jackie very much.
K: That you so much.
M: That helpful I hope?
K: Yah it was.
A: Wonderful.
M: Good. Good. A special group.
Interview ends
jw
10
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Source
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Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016. UML 4. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Description
An account of the resource
Four oral history interviews with former staff and board members of the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc., an organization that helped resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the greater Lowell, Massachusetts area during the 1980s. Oral histories were conducted with Jacqueline (Fidler) Moloney, Carol Keirstead, Elise Martin, Hai Pho, and Lan Pho. <br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.<br /><br />The entire collection is accessible on this site.
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Relation
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The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Jacqueline Moloney oral history interview transcript, 2016
Subject
The topic of the resource
Community organization
English language--Study and teaching
Lowell (Mass.)
Nonprofit organizations
Occupational training
Political refugees
Refugee families
Refugee issues
Refugees--Southeast Asia
Refugees--United States
Social service
Unemployed--Services for
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of an oral history with Jacqueline Moloney, current Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, on her experiences as an Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. staff member during the late 1970s. Topics include programs, government policy, Southeast Asian refugees, and Lowell, Massachusetts.
Creator
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Moloney, Jacqueline
Connerty, Kale
Ali, Mehmed
Source
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Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
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2016-02-11
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
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10 p., 21.5 x 28
Language
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English
Type
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Text
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uml4_16.01_i002
Coverage
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Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodians
Documents
Highlands
Hmong
Indochinese Self-Help Program
International Institute of New England
Laotians
Vietnamese
-
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Text
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
CENTER FOR ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
INFORMANT: LAN & HAI PHO
INTERVIEWER: KALE CONNERTY
DATE: October 5th, 2016
L=LAN
H=HAI
K=KALE
[Note: At the request of Lan and Hai Pho minor edits have been made to this transcript for clarification.
An unedited version of this transcript is available.]
H: Okay, why don’t you introduce yourself and then I’ll do it?
L: My name is Lan Pho. And my husband and I have participated in the resettlement of refugees from
Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, into Massachusetts in general and in Lowell and the greater Lowell area
to be more specific since the late 70s.
H: My name is Hai Pho. I am a member of the initial establishment of the Indochinese Refugee
Foundation back in 1976. And with the participation and support of my wife Lan, and five other
members, we established what is known as the Indochinese Refugee Foundation Incorporated in 1977,
on January 27, 1977 by the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Thank you.
K: So just to get started, what were the circumstances under which the IRF was started? Or how did
you decide to start it?
H: Okay, all right. The histories of immigration and refugees are quite different. The U.S. program for
immigrants started a long, long time ago, but I think in 1965, ‘66 there was a law by the Congress to
define immigration. And the status of refugees were not well defined then. So people that came
before 1975 were classified by law not as refugees but as immigrants. Immigrants came to better their
lives economically, socially. Refugees came as a place for protection because they were pushed out.
1
�So there’s a theory, there’s a pull and push theory. Immigrants are pulled into the U.S. for the
economic social betterment. Refugees were people whose lives were threatened and were pushed out
of their countries and they came for shelter, for protection, for survival. And so in 1975 at the end of
the Vietnam War some hundred and a hundred and thirty thousand refugees from Vietnam were
hosted in the U.S. for their survival, because they were pushed out by the Communist army victory in
South Vietnam. In 1980 the U.S. Congress established a law, the 1980 Refugee Act, that defined the
meaning of refugees and provided a systematic procedures and numbers for annual admission of
refugees into the US, the quota for Indochinese refugees to be resettled in the U.S. per year. And that
is the beginning as far as a statutory refugee definition is concerned.
As far as the Indochinese Refugee Foundation is concerned, we established it in 1977 because in 1975
some Vietnamese refugees just came to New England, to Boston, most of them with nothing but the
clothes on their back. So for the first year or so we were just trying to establish our life, re-establish
our life. And we do try to pull our community together. And we made an appeal on September 27,
1976 for Vietnamese and American friends and supporters to help us organize into a kind of a Mutual
Assistance Association. And that sort of launched the action to create an Indochinese Refugee
Foundation that was drafted. The Charter was drafted and then finally incorporated in the spring of,
January 27, 1977.
K: So going off of talking about the definition of refugees. Looking through the archives we see
documents that are trying to distinguish between political refugees and economic migrants. So were
there any difficulties, or controversies involved with trying to make that distinction? Or did you have
any problems?
H: There are a lot of difficulties. In most peoples’ mind immigrants come [here] to better themselves,
and they should not be dependent on anybody, particularly on public assistance. When refugees came
they had nothing with them. There was no preparation. There was no anticipation of self-sufficiency
at that particular point. In fact total lack of preparation. So from Southeast Asia, from Vietnam, Laos
and Cambodia, there are two phases. The first phase in 1975 to 1977, these people came from a very
advanced background, and so they can establish, re-establish themselves very fast, very well. In fact
there are a lot of studies that prove how successful that first phase of resettlement of refugees from
Vietnam at that time [was]. There’s a group of studies that was made [showing] there’s no impact on
the host country, on the United States, particularly with the initial U.S. policy of integration. In the
policy of integration of Indochinese refugees in 1975 there was an effort to disperse, meaning to
spread them out. How did they do that? By a hosting requirement, a requirement having a host, a
family host or a church, or an agency to host each family from Vietnam to settle in the U.S. Because of
that requirement, the Vietnamese who first came as refugees in 1975, ‘76 were spread out all across
the U.S. But – and in addition they were well, trained well, professional people, so with their
2
�background and skills they could find jobs, they could find housing on their own. They didn’t need to
depend on any help from agencies of the states or the federal government.
The phase of refugees that came from 1979, 1980 on were pushed out from Southeast Asia, from
Cambodia, from Vietnam because of the drastic, drastic, horrible, horrible violent policy of the regimes
in Southeast Asia. Those people were not prepared and they had to be dependent on public
assistance, and that created a lot of objections.
K: So – I’ll start with you Hai – what were your specific roles in the IRF, first as a member of the Board
of Directors?
H: Yes, I was fortunate to be educated, trained, get my Doctorate Degree at Boston University, teach
at UMass Lowell from 1968 on. So I have a well established root in Lowell. In fact I came to Lowell
some five, six years before anybody else was here, my wife and I, our family. And, in 1975 when the
first wave of Vietnamese refugees came, I was with my friend Doctor Nghia Nguyen, a physicist at
Draper Labs in Cambridge and we put together a group of leading Vietnamese refugees. They are
lawyers, they are engineers, they are scholars, and an American retiree from the State Department,
[unintelligible] to form the founding members group of the Indochinese Refugee Foundation to help to
provide the technical skill to help those who follow us who need some help to create a Mutual
Assistance Association. That is my role.
K: And what about your duties as the Coordinator for the Indochinese Self-Help Project?
H: Then three, four years later when the boat people from Vietnam and the Cambodian Refugees from
Cambodia who were sheltered on the Thailand borders, came. The State Department, because of
[continued need] to resettle Cambodians and Laotians, instead of dispersal they created a cluster
system, meaning they bring them as groups into different locations in the U.S. There were about five,
six clusters, one of which was the Lawrence/Lowell cluster. And each cluster, they bring about a
hundred families to the area, and these are supposed to receive not only assistance in resettlement,
but also to receive assistance in language skills, in employment training and job placement. So the
resettlement consisted of two phases. One is housing and (L: Language skills) language skills. No, that
is training, training in employment. ET, training, education and training. Okay. The first phase is
housing welfare resettlement, just to get them settled in a local community. The second phase is
Employment and Training. And because of the cluster system there was a high demand for
employment training in the Lawrence/Lowell area, [such] that the agencies, the local agencies that
provide the resettlement cannot handle it and do not have the staff, the skill to handle the education,
English as a Second Language, the job preparation and employment placement for them. So we sort of
see the need for it and find ways voluntarily to do it, but [there are] not enough resources available to
3
�us, because we are just resettling five years ago and it’s just not enough resources available to us. So
we call on the U.S Government, which at the time [it] is the State Department that is responsible for
resettlement to give us the funding. And so they did earmark some five million dollars to those selfhelp groups, mutual assistance groups, to apply. And if we did qualify they would give us the grant to
provide English as a Second Language, and orientation to resettle, and Employment and Training. So
that’s how I submit an application, because they sent out what is called a “Request for Proposal”
across the United States. And we are among the four or five Mutual Assistance Associations that
received that funding to provide Employment and Training here.
K: Was that the same as the Targeted Assistance Grants Program, or is that something different?
H: Separate.
K: Separate, okay. We won’t talk about that.
H: Target Assistance is different. (K: Okay) So that is the Self-Help Project from the Indochinese
Refugee Foundation.
K: Which was later renamed, years later, to the (--)
H: Employment Training.
K: Employment, yeah.
H: Yes, yes, because – well, before I jump into that. That is how the Mutual Assistance Association
transformed itself in this activity through the Self-Help Project because we believe that we can do it
just as well as anyone else. And in doing that we really make a special effort to find qualified
Vietnamese, qualified Cambodian, qualified Laotian refugees unlike many VOLAGs that relied on
American staffs. We screen ourselves to ask them to provide us staff for these services. The only ones
that we need are Americans who are skilled in teaching English as a Second Language, who are skilled
in running the businesses of Self-Help Project. So that’s how we recruited Miss Jacqueline [Fidler]
Moloney as the Project Director, and Miss Elise Martin as an English language teacher. But the rest of
the staff, and these are very important people, the Vietnamese social workers, the Cambodian social
works, Laotian social workers to go out and do the actual helping of refugee families that came to
Lowell.
K: Okay, I’ll move to Lan. Oh –
4
�H: Just one more step.
K: Okay, go ahead.
H: The first one hundred families in Lowell consist of about maybe four or five hundred people, mostly
children and women. There are very few men, okay, because as you can understand the men were
killed in the war or they run all over the place. So the fact that from 1979 to 1982 there’s a large
number of children that need to go to school, there’s quite a few women that need to get the health,
medical health, mental health and welfare, creates some kind of pressure on the community, but
because of the capabilities of these native social providers, workers, they did manage so well that their
reputation gets across the United States to the other clusters. And the problem with that is that it
creates what is known as the second migration. It creates the attraction for Cambodians, for Laotians,
from other clusters who are in South Carolina, who are in Louisiana, who are in Minnesota, who are in
Oregon, who are in California, to drift on their own, nobody brings them here, but on their own they
slowly migrated to Lowell. That increased the population several folds that nobody anticipated. No
one from the State Department, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare – in those days
HEW is also the one that provided the funding – and we did not anticipate that, definitely. We didn’t
know what’s happening there. So that creates a kind of pressure on the host, on the city of Lowell.
K: Were you able to get more funding from the state because of that influx?
H: No! There’s no (--) [Laughs]. That’s the problem. That’s the original problem that creates a lot of
pressure. That’s where my wife came into play.
K: Okay. So [addressing Lan] what were your duties as President of the IRF?
L: Well I immersed [myself in] an effort to relieve the community at large of number one, the
challenge of housing and feeding the refugees and their families. I realized [the need to] get them to
be self-sufficient. Get them to be able to communicate in English and give them an opportunity to
work and earn the bread for their family. I realized that if we don’t want to add any more burden to
the community then we have to seek help from the prospective employer to take part of the, to
provide you know, some limited English language capability and job training for their own employees.
So I went into different companies and appealed to them, that if they like to have good and faithful
employees, then they have to provide some extra services to their employees. For example, the
provision of on-the-job English training. So we came to the company at first learning the job ourselves
and what kind of English that the employees would need. And we developed a curriculum for job
related English training. And we also appealed to the company to provide at least one hour a day for
their employee who came from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to learn English on the job, and also to do
5
�show-and-tell on how to do the job, you know, more efficiently. And it turned out that the curriculum
that we helped to develop is very helpful. And the employers are very happy with it. The employees
are very excited about it. So I think all in all the placement of, you know, the refugees into entry level
jobs is not difficult at all. And we started out with one company at the time. And the first one in
Lowell is Lowell Lingerie, which is a textile company. And then we went into Billerica to get into a little
bit of a higher skilled job. At Lowell Lingerie it’s basically training stitchers, you know, who can work on
a sewing machine and do the sewing job. And when we brought the project to BASF, which is a
medical instrument manufacturing company – [H: Medical instruments.] –medical instruments
producing company, it worked out also very well. The job requirement was a bit higher than at Lowell
Lingerie. And it worked out fine. And then we brought it into Bedford with Bedford Glen Hotel and
Resort Center, to train housekeepers, and people in the food processing area. So these are examples
of the three companies lend a hand into the recruitment training maintaining their employees who
came from the Southeast Asian Community.
K: That’s great.
H: That explains the switches, the changes in name of this Self-Help Association, because the Self-Help
start with the resettlement mostly, but by 1982, ‘83, as you know, it split. The program changed name.
And the reason for that is that we’ve now set up the process of recruiting Cambodian, Laotian,
Vietnamese to be providers themselves, to be direct participants themselves. Now we manage to get
them into three separate identities. I don’t know if you realize Indochinese is an umbrella, broad
umbrella, but the fact that the Cambodian are to help themselves, the Vietnamese are to help
themselves, the Laotian are to help themselves, became a reality around 1982, ‘83 – that’s the turning
point. That’s when the Indochinese Refugee Foundation focused on Employment and Training.
K: Did [focusing on] that have anything to do with the struggling economy that was happening at the
time just right in the early 80s?
H: The economy actually is part of the issues, but at that time I think we mostly focused on providing
services. And when we applied for funding for the Mutual Assistance Association we were focusing
mainly at the beginning on resettlement, but by 1982, ‘83, the Employment and Training became very
important, critical because there’s pressure to place these people and get them out from dependency
on welfare. So maybe it played a role, but I don’t think that’s a major role. The major role is the
pressure put on the community, the host community, that means the Lowell inner city agencies, and
that coming to issue is education too, the children, schooling. And that’s where my wife again has to
do the advocacy with the help of city fathers. She can tell you about the effort to do that.
6
�L: I guess, you know, at that time, the practice of school desegregation started in the Lowell Public
Schools, because some educators believed that the Southeast Asian children should be integrated into
different schools rather than concentrated in the Acres area, you know, which is also in the heart of the
Lowell area.
H: Also that’s the low cost housing, that’s where the refugees kind of get stuck into. So the children,
you know, naturally are placed into the Acres school and they are all over, in the closet, sitting in the
hallways, etc. They even rented spaces from the YMCA and to house the children.
L: Wherever they can find space for the children, but mostly concentrated in the number schools in
the Acres area. And both the parents and the teachers are not happy about that. No, no, not just the
community, not just the students. So the school undertook a desegregation, it started out with busing
children across the school district rather than concentrated them in one area. At first the movement
or the practice was met with a lot of challenges from not just the community, but from the teachers
themselves. In addition, because parents in the Belvidere area of Lowell would not like to have refugee
children attending the same school with their children.
H: They fall behind and sort of drag the mainstream students. There are a lot of problems then.
L: However I believe that there is a short vision from both the parents and schools. I believe that
diversity started in the school system. You don’t have to wait until the student graduates and is
suddenly met with the challenge of being different. That’s what my personal belief [was], and I fully
agreed with the school desegregation and supported busing of students to different schools in the
district, rather than a concentration of refugee students in a couple of schools. And I was very
fortunate to get the support of first, the Dean of the Graduate School of Education from UMass Lowell.
So together we provide training to the teachers on how to work with students of different cultural
backgrounds and different English capability. So when teachers felt their job was very rewarding –
challenging, but very rewarding – then they started to feel like diversity needed to be started in the
school.
H: I think in addition to that there was such a large influx of children from the refugee community that
the school system was overwhelmed. And because of that there was a lot of resistance not only to
school, but also to refugees and immigrants that fled into Lowell, and they start a movement of antirefugee, anti-immigrants. And in fact it involved the city mayor [Dick Howe]. He had to come up and
justify why, you know, what are we going to do with all of these kids in the school? And so I recall a
time when Dick Howe I think called on us to do something. And so Lan was the one that joined him to
go to Washington to demand more support, you know? And I remember she made a couple of trips
7
�with him to HEW, what’s that, Health, Education and Welfare Department to get funding. We got a lot
of additional funds from the federal government to support the school system here.
L: In fact, you know, in the period of five years from a joint effort between the mayor of the city, the
superintendent of schools (H: Mr. Mroz) yah, Mr. Mroz, we went to Washington, DC and knocked at
the door of then Senator Kennedy and Congressman Atkins.
H: Paul Tsongas.
L: Yes, Paul Tsongas, and all together they were able to advise us how to approach in terms of applying
for funding from a pool of money for what they called the Dire Need of Refugee Resettlement, which is
a federal pool of money. And in the period of five years we were able to bring in more than two
million dollars [K: Wow] to this school system, the public school system in Lowell. So it alleviated the
school budget quite a bit, and they were able to hire ESL teachers, guidance counselors, and also to
provide some limited services to students, like free lunch, you know, for the children. So all in all I
think it’s an effort of a community, you know, together with the parents to make school for the
children from refugee families available to them and also it’s a pleasant experience.
K: You were also involved on an Affirmative Action Committee at the, I think maybe at UMass Lowell?
Do you remember?
L: I think (--) Correct, I think at UMass Lowell I was asked to join as a group of faculty to assist the
person in charge of the Affirmative Action Program, or at the time I think it was known as EEO, which is
Equal Employment Opportunity (--)
H: Equal Employment Opportunity.
L: Yes, Equal Employment Opportunity, which is a kind of a different look at Affirmative Action. It’s a
matter of wording, but I think it’s more than that, because with EEO, people feel like, well I can work
with you, but with Affirmative Action Program, it looked like, I have to accommodate you. So I think
it’s a slightly different perspective, but is very helpful you know, to get any initiative started.
K: Do you think there was a problem of discrimination against refugees when they came to Lowell, or
do you think it was more (--)
L: I think there’s a level of challenges. I wouldn’t say discrimination. I think the physical appearance of
children, or adults, from Southeast Asia is very much different from the so to say Caucasian
mainstream. The ability to communicate is also different. And people usually do not have time to
8
�understand and to be patient enough to make themselves understood. So I think it created challenges,
but I wouldn’t say discrimination.
K: So the building where the IRF was kind of held, or, was at the International Institute. Were there
any other associations that used that building?
H: Well from 1980 up until 1983 there’s only one, the Self-Help Project that has the funding to pay for
the rent and the classrooms at the International Institute of Lowell, on High Street. And the other, the
Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, the Laos Mutual Assistance Association and the Vietnamese
one, were just beginning to perform as social, cultural groups. They used the facility under our, the
Indochinese Refugee umbrella, and we try as much as possible to facilitate the facilities for them. And
in fact we know that – because I’m fully familiar with the history, the rivalry, the hostility – to be
honest with you there’s hostility among the Vietnamese, and the Cambodian, and the Laotian back in
their own country. This is nothing new. So that as the supervisor of the Indochinese Refugee and the
Self-Help Project, I have to anticipate what’s going to happen once each group develops their own
identity. Sort of to reassemble themselves here in Lowell, to gain their own footing in Lowell, they
wanted to be independent from one another. And that is when we prepare the way, honestly at that
time as the program supervisor I don’t expect it to last any more than five years, and that’s exactly
what happened. By 1985 we want to be sure that each one of them can provide service to themselves,
and that the Indochinese would [proceed] in the background and would give up the service providing
for any one of them. Okay, so Miss Keirstead should be the one to tell you how we pulled back and
how the Laotian, the Cambodian, and Vietnamese applied, with her help, their own funding to give
direct support to each other, and that the Indochinese would no longer be there for them. And so in a
way the rental for the International Institute was paid by themselves, no longer [the IRF] by 1985.
K: So after 1985 it seems like you started serving on several advisory councils?
H: That’s correct.
K: So was that kind of the shift with your involvement?
H: That’s correct, yes. Well at that time there was a lot of opposition, a lot of anti-refugee, antiimmigrants across the states, and so it really took more advocacy in the public domain than giving
services to the new refugees. And I really think at that time, I wish I could still stay local, but the
pressure for me to get into the state level to do the advocacy become so critical and there was nobody
else who was doing that. So that’s how we sort of get moving onto that level.
K: So what were some of the things you did as part of the Education Task Force?
9
�H: In, not so much in the Education Task Force, it’s mostly in trying to create a place in the state
government to advocate for refugees. I was very fortunate that in 1982 I had the connection with a
team of four or five persons in Boston. These are volunteers. These are some of the social workers,
but they are volunteers in helping refugees, and that included Dr. Don Luce, Jim Lavelle, from the
Indochinese Psychiatry Clinic, Holly Lockwood from the South Cove Mental Health Center, Kathy Lique
from the Boston School of Social Work and me from UMass Lowell, to petition, to draft a petition, for a
kind of an advisory council to the governor. And when Mr. Dukakis was elected for the second term as
Governor of the State, in fact we go through his wife Kitty Dukakis, to ask him to take a positive role for
refugees. He established an advisory council after his election. He created the refugee advisory
council, on April of 1982. So we start off in the fall of 1981 and helped create a council for him. And
from then on it goes on to advocate for refugees across the state. In 1985 we were fortunate to have a
state senator from Lawrence/Methuen, her name is Patricia McGovern, who really, who was the Chair
of the Ways and Means Committee, you know that’s money, Ways and Means is where the funding is,
to provide several million dollars, I think it’s about twenty, twenty-seven million dollars funding for
cities that have high refugee impact and that’s known as the Gateway Program.
K: Were there any other committees that either of you served on that you’d like to talk about? Those
were just the ones that I saw in the archives.
H: So I served on the Advisory, the Governor’s Advisory Council. I was one of the co-chairs of that.
And I also served as co-chair of the Gateway City Program. It was established we had to hold hearings
to see whether the city can justify to receive the money. So we have to hold hearings in twenty plus
cities to see what they need, and to see whether the agencies, the state agencies can really provide
service to refugees in their cities or not. So we hold whatever, you know, is required as hearings
committee. And there are reports. I don’t know if we have the collection here, but the state do have
these hearing reports from the Gateway City Program.
K: So who was at the hearings?
H: There are, the states have many agencies that provide social services. Mental Health, okay,
Welfare, what is, WIC is for women.
L: For women and children prenatal and natal care.
H: Employment training, there is a Labor Department, but in the state what is it called? I forget, it’s
employment training, really placement training.
10
�L: Employment and Training.
H: The Office of Employment and Training. There are about seven or nine agencies, the state agencies
that deal with refugee trainees. That do not have any you know, in order to get the services you have
to be eligible. And in order to be eligible you have to be a legal resident. Refugees are not legal
residents. You have to remember that. So they are not eligible until the governor issued a new act
authorizing the agency to admit refugees into their services, and that is really where it opens access to
refugees to come and apply for employment training, or apply for welfare, or apply for women and
children assistances. So we really work on that state level between 1985, 1990, but I end my services
by 1989.
K: So speaking on health, were there any significant issues with refugees receiving health care or
mental health care?
L: I think that is a poorly situation. In Vietnam, or Laos, or Cambodia, mental health is not perceived as
a sickness. It’s perceived as karma. You know in your previous life you must have done something
wrong so therefore you pay for it, you know, in this life. That you [are not mentally stable], because of
something you did in the past, in the previous life. So that is one challenge from the patient
perspective of, “what’s wrong with me?” “Do I need help?” Or “This is my karma. I have to live with
it.” And from the perspective of the service provider, guidance and counseling that is appropriate for
the cultural background of the patient was not available. So therefore in dealing specifically with
mental health issues, it is not easy neither for the service provider nor for the patient. So a lot of
education has to be provided before the patient is ready to receive services, and before the medical
staff, or the counselor is ready to provide the service.
H: Well I can remember one incident or a controversy back in those days that creates a lot of issues for
both schools and parents. In the Southeast Asian community, the Laos, and Cambodian, and
Vietnamese, when you catch a cold what do you do? You don’t take aspirin or anything like that. You
have what’s known as coin rubbings. I don’t know if you’re familiar with coin rubbings. They, in order
to increase skin heat, they rub coins over your neck in the back. And when the kids come to school and
they see all these rubbing marks they say, “Abuse, abuse, child abuse,” from the parents. And so
there’s a huge controversy about what’s going on between parents and children, and it takes a lot of
explanation, a lot to the medical staff, to the school, to explain that’s not abuse of children it’s kind of a
medical treatment.
L: Remedy.
11
�H: Remedy for cold, okay. That became a controversy across the refugee community in the U.S. And
they have to have medical doctors from different, you know, perspectives come and explain and write
articles to explain that it is not really an abuse of children. And we here too, are asked to explain
what’s going on with the children, and we have to go to school and explain it to them.
L: And I think, you know, Jim Lavelle who was at the time coordinating the mental health services
providing (H: veterans) at Saint Elizabeth Hospital in (H: In Brighton) in Brighton, would have to do a
lot of education, you know, explaining to both the physician and the parents, to know how to approach
mental health assistance in a very appropriate way.
K: Were there any (--) Going back towards the schooling, were there any controversies with having
bilingual classrooms, or having classrooms set aside for refugee children?
L: There was a movement at the time across the U.S. cities and communities of English as the only
language taught in the schools.
H: Well there were leaders, community leaders, there was George Kouloheras, Lowell school
committeeman who submitted a petition to the legislators, to the state officials, to make Lowell as the
English language school, English language only in school.
L: English only in school. But I guess, you know, there is a transition period whereby students and
teachers need to communicate with each other in order for education or learning to happen. And in
that transitional period, there’s a lot of study that’s been done indicating that bilingual programs –
which means that the subject is being taught in two languages, in English and in the home language
also – would shorten the transitional period for the student into mainstream classroom. And so you
know there’re a lot of challenges that the teachers, the school district and the students are facing and
they try to work out a better way to receive education and to provide education services.
K: There was also a campaign called “Jobs for New Americans.” Do you remember exactly what that
was about, or if it was connected to the Self-Help Project?
H: It’s not connected to the Self-Help Project. How that came about I’m not familiar with.
K: Okay. What was one of the, what do you think, each of you, was your biggest challenge with
working for the IRF, or what was the biggest challenge you faced?
L: I don’t think that you know, there is a notion of the biggest or the smallest challenges that we were
facing at the time, but it is the awareness of, we need to do more work in order to make things happen
12
�either in schools, in hospitals, in the community. And when we came to terms with that challenge, you
know, everything we did was trying to smooth the way and make the challenges less challenging. So I
think we both, you know, the service providers and the service recipients, realized that, it’s just a
matter of making it work. So it’s a challenge, but there’s no big and no small one.
H: The only one of my concerns in those days when we [first] established the Indochinese Refugee
Foundation, [we] focused mostly in Boston, because that was the time when refugees came and
resettled in Boston. But by 1980 the population shifted to Lowell, the refugee population shifted in
Lowell and we had to focus so much work in Lowell that we left out Boston. And in that sense I felt
kind of sad that I could not, we could not do much more for those refugees in the Boston area. And to
that extent the members on the Refugee Foundation Board could not give us, lend us more support,
because most of them were in Boston, they were not in Lowell. However they did come every month
faithfully to the meeting, the board meeting here in Lowell in order to lend us support. We just could
not have enough resources, have enough strength to lend more work to the Boston area. But in a way
we felt that they gave us more support than anybody else that could help us to move on, to establish
the kind of services that we were able to do here in Lowell. So that, I would say that’s the only thing.
K: You spoke about how refugees ended up coming here because of the relative success of the
resettlement program here. Do you think that was the big kind of influence in why there’s such a big
(L: influx) Cambodian population now? Is that the explanation?
L: I think for, you know, that concentration of refugees from Southeast Asia into Massachusetts and
into Lowell, there were three situational factors that influenced the movement. One is the availability
of beginning low skill jobs. The number two factor is the availability of housing, low income housing.
And the number three factor is actually quite important. There are Buddhist Temples, places that are a
different religious entity that are available in support of the refugees who live, or who want to, who
were drawn to Lowell. So I think these are the three major factors that fuel, or attract the second
migration movement into Lowell.
H: These factors are very important, but I think the initial factor is, I believe, the fact that we perhaps
were the first organization that insisted on having a Cambodian, a Laotian, a Vietnamese native to do
the assistance to provide the kind of outreach, resettlement and employment training support within
the refugee communities. That really provided the sense of confidence that we understand what they
have to go through and we know what we can do to help them here. That sort of created a wave, an
appeal to those who are from elsewhere, from other clusters, to drift into Lowell. That I think, that
created the increases in population, and that also increased the support, the social support, the
cultural support, I think critically it’s the cultural, social support that brought about the Temples, that
brought about you know, the family clusters. Otherwise if you just have housing placement alone,
13
�anywhere else in the U.S. you can have that. Housing, jobs, you can go anywhere, but without that
value system, the social, the cultural values that “This is my people,” it will not attract them to come.
K: Do either of you have any other stories you’d like to share from the time, any specific experiences
with somebody?
L: Well actually I think that the interview with the information that we share with you thus far, you
know, would provide a sufficient story of resettlement, of the first wave, the second wave, the third
wave of refugees and immigrants from, you know, Cambodia, from Laos, and from Vietnam. When
you work more on the transcription, if you feel like you need some more information please feel free
to contact us.
K: Okay.
H: Well I just have a little story that I happened to experience. And that is, when we explained the
conditions of refugees in Lowell to Kitty Dukakis, she nearly cried. And she was the one that really said,
“Let me see what I can do.” In 1979 she paid her way to Cambodia, to Thailand in the border. And she
came back and hosted, adopted a Cambodian kid. I mean to me that is something that I will never
forget.
K: How do you think your time working for the IRF has influenced you?
L: I usually think that if I receive some good advice or some services from somebody then I mark on my
bucket list that I will find the opportunity to pay back. And I think the most satisfying feeling that I had
in volunteering my time for more than thirty years in the resettlement of refugees is a way, a very
small way, of paying back.
H: For me I think that it changed my life really. I came here to be a professional. Okay, I came not as a
refugee. I came as a student, went to high school in Waltham. I don’t know if you know anything
about Waltham. In those days back in the 1950s there was not a single Asian around let alone a
Vietnamese. I went to Boston College to get my degree so that I could go home and, you know, be
someone important. The feeling that I’m home-rooted here in Lowell because of that experience,
volunteer work, helping refugees, my own people and getting to know a lot of good people, really
profoundly affected my life. I cannot tell you how much, like Chet Atkins, Congressman from I think
Groton or, no, not Groton, Concord, or Kitty Dukakis, or Elise Martin and Jackie Moloney. These people
affected my life deeply. Made me feel I am rooted here. So I can tell you that really helped me more
than anybody else. Thank you.
14
�End of Interview
jw
edited by kc
15
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016. UML 4. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Description
An account of the resource
Four oral history interviews with former staff and board members of the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc., an organization that helped resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the greater Lowell, Massachusetts area during the 1980s. Oral histories were conducted with Jacqueline (Fidler) Moloney, Carol Keirstead, Elise Martin, Hai Pho, and Lan Pho. <br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.<br /><br />The entire collection is accessible on this site.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lan Pho and Hai Pho oral history interview (edited) transcript, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
The edited transcript of an oral history with Lan Pho and Hai Pho on their experiences establishing and supporting the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Other topics discussed include their involvement helping refugee communities after the the IRF closed.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pho, Lan T.
Pho, Hai B.
Connerty, Kale
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-05
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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15 p., 21.5 x 28
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
uml4_16.14_i002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
Subject
The topic of the resource
Community organization
English language--Study and teaching
Lowell (Mass.)
Nonprofit organizations
Occupational training
Political refugees
Refugee families
Refugee issues
Refugees--Southeast Asia
Refugees--United States
Social service
Unemployed--Services for
Oral history
2010-2019
Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association
Cambodians
Documents
Indochinese Self-Help Program
Laotians
Lowell Lingerie Company
Lowell Public Schools
Mutual Assistance Associations
Stouffer's Bedford Glen Hotel
The Acre
Vietnamese
Vietnamese Mutual Assistance Association
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016. UML 4. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Description
An account of the resource
Four oral history interviews with former staff and board members of the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc., an organization that helped resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the greater Lowell, Massachusetts area during the 1980s. Oral histories were conducted with Jacqueline (Fidler) Moloney, Carol Keirstead, Elise Martin, Hai Pho, and Lan Pho. <br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.<br /><br />The entire collection is accessible on this site.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml4</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Lan Pho and Hai Pho oral history interview audio recording, 2016
Description
An account of the resource
The audio recording of an oral history with Lan Pho and Hai Pho on their experiences establishing and supporting the Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Other topics discussed their involvement helping refugee communities after the the IRF closed.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Pho, Lan T.
Pho, Hai B.
Connerty, Kale
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Indochinese Refugees Foundation, Inc. Oral Histories, 2016
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-10-05
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
2 audio recordings; 01:02:10 and 00:07:20
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
uml4_16.14_i004
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
Subject
The topic of the resource
Community organization
English language--Study and teaching
Lowell (Mass.)
Nonprofit organizations
Occupational training
Political refugees
Refugee families
Refugee issues
Refugees--Southeast Asia
Refugees--United States
Social service
Unemployed--Services for
Oral history
2010-2019
Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association
Cambodians
Indochinese Self-Help Program
Laotians
Lowell Lingerie Company
Lowell Public Schools
Mutual Assistance Associations
Sound recordings
Stouffer's Bedford Glen Hotel
The Acre
Vietnamese
Vietnamese Mutual Assistance Association
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing
Relation
A related resource
<span>The collection draft finding aid, </span><a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17</a><span>.</span>
The oral history project page, <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a>.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is currently in progress and information will be updated as it becomes available. <br /><br />Read more about the project: <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a><br /><br />Part of the collection is accessible on this site. <br /><br />Oral history interviews include: <br /><br /><strong>Maryellen Cuthbert, April 2019, Oral History #19.01</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Maryellen Cuthbert and interviewer Sue J. Kim. Since the mid-1980s, Cuthbert has been a private defense attorney working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area. In this oral history, Cuthbert shares information about her training as a lawyer and reflects on various cases she’s worked with related to Southeast Asian communities. <strong>Content warning: Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and violent situations.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Thel Sar, April 2019, Oral History #19.02</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Thel Sar and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Sar talks about his early life: living through the Khmer Rouge, resettling in the United States, and his education; his career trajectory: working at the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, working at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, and becoming one of the earliest probation officers of Cambodian descent at Lowell District Court; his other community activities; and his family. <br /><br /><strong>Sivaing Suos, August 2019, Oral History #19.05</strong><br />An oral history <span>interview with Sivaing Suos and interviewer Tyler Sar. In this oral history, Suos talks about her early life in Cambodia and immigrating to the U.S., her experiences pursuing education and holding various jobs, including working in the mental health field and with families experiencing domestic violence, and her family.<br /><br /><strong>Niem Nay-kret, September 2019, Oral History #19.06</strong><br />An oral history interview with Niem Nay-kret and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Nay-kret talks about her early life in Cambodia and during the Khmer Rouge and her experiences holding various jobs in the U.S. related to healthcare, including prenatal care, mental health, and more.</span><br /><br />-------------------------- <br />SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Chornai Pech and Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing. UML 17. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Maryellen Cuthbert oral history audio recording, 2019
Subject
The topic of the resource
Crime
Lawyers
Lowell (Mass.)
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The audio recording of an oral history interview with <span class="TextRun SCXW2982357 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW2982357 BCX0">Maryellen Cuthbert and interviewer Sue J. Kim. Since the mid-1980s, Cuthbert has been a private defense attorney working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area. <span class="TextRun SCXW111511619 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW111511619 BCX0">In this oral history, Cuthbert shares information about her training as a lawyer and reflects on various cases she’s worked with<span> </span></span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW111511619 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW111511619 BCX0">related to</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW111511619 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW111511619 BCX0"> Southeast Asian communities.</span></span></span></span><br /><br /><strong>Content warning:</strong> Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and violent situations.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cuthbert, Maryellen
Kim, Sue J.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-04-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
1 audio recording; 01:22:47
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Chelmsford, Massachusetts
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
uml17_19.01_001
2010-2019
Angkor Dance Troupe
Cambodians
Laotians
Light of Cambodian Children
Lowell District Court
Lowell Superior Court
Sound recordings
UTEC
Vietnamese
-
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a308bebb54c5186c31266a403768d8bc
PDF Text
Text
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Maryellen Cuthbert, Oral History #19.01
CONTENT WARNING:
Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and
violent situations
INFORMANT/NARRATOR:
INTERVIEWER:
DATE:
MARYELLEN CUTHBERT (MC)
SUE J. KIM (SK)
APRIL 15, 2019
SPEAKER
DETAILS
SK
So, Okay. All right. Hmm. It sits up pretty well, but I'll put this
here.
MC
Do you think it would be better to put it in here? In the middle.
SK
Okay. Great. Wonderful. Okay. I am Sue J. Kim, and I am the
project director for the Southeast Asian Digital Archive, and the
co-director for the Center for Asian American Studies. Today is
Monday, April 15th, about 12:30 and I am with Maryellen
Cuthbert. Am I saying that right? Cuth-
MC
Yes.
SK
In Chelmsford, Massachusetts at Maryellen's home office. Thank
you so much for agreeing to talk to us today.
MC
I'm looking forward to it.
SK
Let's start a little bit about information about yourself. Sort of
where were you born? Where did you grow up? How did you find
your way to law school? I know that you went to Boston
University. Things of that sort.
MC
I was born in California. Dad was part of defense industry, so we
actually moved around a lot growing up, and we ended up in
Bedford, Massachusetts, but I went to college in New York,
Manhattanville College, undergrad. I then, as an international
affairs, international law, and French major. Then, I decided to
apply to law school. I took a year off and worked, and I actually
started at Franklin Pierce Law Center, and I finished at Boston
University School of Law in 1981. I had been working for an
attorney out in Acton who had a small practice, but was involved
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Maryellen Cuthbert, Oral History #19.01
in a special ed case, special education case out of Burlington. I did
a lot of work and research for him. Then, I also worked for a firm
downtown in Boston that did a lot of medical malpractice and civil
work. I didn't like sitting in the closet answering interrogatories,
but at BU I had done the student prosecutor program. The criminal
law bug bit. I started while I was with the attorney in Acton doing
some court appointed work in Concord District Court. Gradually
moved over to where I was taking cases out of Lowell. Since the
mid to late '80s.
SK:
Okay, so that was about the mid to late '80s when you started
working with cases in Lowell.
MC:
Mm-hmm [affirmative].
SK:
Do you remember what those first cases, sort of what they were
about?
MC:
It was mostly at the district court level, and they were a variety of
cases from drunk driving cases to possession of guns and things.
But I was also at that time taking superior court cases, both in
Lowell Superior and at that time Cambridge Superior Court. I
remember at that time, we did do a lot of cases that involved gang
involvement, both the Hispanic and the Asian gangs. I remember
when I first started in that, we had Laotian. We had Vietnamese
people, as well as Cambodians. There were a lot of Dominicans,
and we also dealt with some of the Hispanic gangs. There were
drug cases also.
SK:
That was about the mid '80s when that started.
MC:
Mid to late '80s.
SK:
Mid to late '80s.
MC:
And then went through the '90s.
SK:
Do you remember some of your first, without getting too specific,
some of the first cases where you were working with Asian and
Asian American youth and gangs?
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Maryellen Cuthbert, Oral History #19.01
MC:
I do, because there were the TRG, and the Grey Rags, and the
Asian Boys.
SK:
The Tiny Rascal Gang.
MC: [00:04:20]
The Tiny Rascal Gang, and all of that. One of the things that was
complicated, particularly because I was also doing juvenile work is
that at that time a lot of the weapons that were used, they were not
guns. They were machetes, and sticks, and things like that. The
cases really involved a lot of kids who I felt had to join up in order
to be safe in the schools. I remember feeling or trying to educate
myself on the gang situation. I hadn't been involved in that. Then,
finding out that there were a lot of wannabes, and people who they
had to be associated in order to be safe, just to travel around
Lowell, or even to be in the high school and some cases middle
school.
SK:
I see. At this point, you were working as a private defense
attorney?
MC:
I've always been a private defense attorney, but I've done a lot of
court appointed work.
SK:
I see.
MC:
I also, I remember at that time, tipped into what is now UTEC,
which was the street worker program, and became involved there. I
remember, and why my connection with UTEC started was I had a
young Asian male who was charged with armed robbery who told
me, "No, I wasn't there. I was at the street worker program." That's
how I became aware of that, because I went and checked it out,
and he was absolutely in that, at that place when this supposedly
robbery took place. But I remember I also at that time did care and
protection cases, which are child welfare cases. Some of the cases
that I remember being really upset about. They were upsetting to
me. Were at that time it was DSS. It's now DCF. Had a lot of very
young quote unquote social workers who were just out of college,
and didn't have a lot of life experience.
MC:
I remember one case in particular where there was a gunshot that
came through an apartment floor, and so the police investigated,
and it had happened downstairs, but the shot came through the
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Maryellen Cuthbert, Oral History #19.01
floor, and so the police went upstairs and investigated what was up
there. There was a family with several children, actually probably a
single woman, and they were sleeping on mats. DCF removed the
children because they were sleeping on mats and not mattresses. I
remember being very angry, because I felt this was cultural, and it
was wrong. I remember I explained, "We need to go get
mattresses." We went to a place where we could then get used
mattresses. I said, "You don't have to use them. We'll just put them
in." We put them in, took pictures, and got the kids back, but it was
really traumatic.
SK:
In those kinds of cases, would you be appointed by the court?
MC:
I was appointed by the court to represent, in that case, the mother
of the children.
SK:
And how many… I know it's difficult to kind of quantify, but out
of your caseload, can you give us a sense of what the scale was, or
like the percentage? In the late '80s, would you say-
MC:
Probably I was working probably at least 30 to 40% of my
caseload involved Asians.
SK:
Right. You were saying at the time in the mid to late '80s, Lowell
is still, it was and still is largely Cambodian, but there were still
Laotian and Vietnamese groups, and things like that.
MC:
Right, that were there. But one of the striking things that I
remembered, when I worked with some of the young people who
are now in trouble, because there was a retaliation, or there was
this or that that was going on between gangs was that when I
represented them and they would come to my office, or I would
meet with them, at that time, the parents, or even older brothers
and sisters, had come via Thailand through Cali, and here. So I was
hearing stories of parents and what they had done as teenagers
escaping Cambodia to get to Thailand.
MC:
I remember one family that was here, they were teachers. The
father was a teacher, and other stories where they had watched a
parent being shot, and then a group of as 14-year-olds making their
way, hiding, to get to Thailand. It was just horrific. I would say, so
then I would see that and juxtapose that against they came here for
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Maryellen Cuthbert, Oral History #19.01
safety, and then realized that they weren't safe with what they'd
done to protect their children, and then have cases like that. It
made me angry.
SK: [00:10:21]
Yeah. Can you remember sort of, tell us more about sort of the
cases that you met? We can talk about, focus maybe on the
juvenile cases first, and then we can talk more about some of the
cases in the care and protection?
MC:
I remember another care and protection case that I had, where I
represented a parent who had a young Asian teenage boy. What
had happened is, of course, during the gang years the parents were
struggling to keep their child off the streets, away from the gangs,
and one of the things I had learned was that particularly women
were not educated, and they tried very hard to communicate with
you.
MC:
I remember getting phone calls, and I just could not understand
what they were saying, but they were desperately trying to
communicate with me over what was going on with the child. In
this particular case, their child had been removed, because they
were trying to keep them inside and make them do homework, that
they because it was so precious to them because they could not
read or write.
SK:
Right.
MC:
So they sometimes resorted to corporal punishment, which was a
problem for DSS at that time, and if a kid reported that, the kid
went out. I remember in that circumstances the child was removed
to a foster home, where there was really no restrictions, and the
child was not under any care, and the mother was seeing her child
on the streets.
SK:
Oh my goodness.
MC:
And really upset, because now there wasn't any supervision going
on, even though their child had been taken away because of the
issue of some corporal punishment that had been used.
SK:
Do you remember the ethnicity of that family?
Page 5 of 35
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Maryellen Cuthbert, Oral History #19.01
MC:
That was Cambodian.
SK:
How did DSS find out about the corporal punishment?
MC:
I think the young man or the child had complained to someone, or
if there was a mark on them or something they'd say, "How did
you get that?" I had two cases like that. One, I remember there was
like a ruler or something that was used, and I remember the other
thing was a lamp cord. I had two cases like that, and I was really
angry about that, because I felt that it was wrong to do that. I had
been brought up with corporal punishment myself.
SK:
I know, me too.
MC:
And I turned out fine, I think. But it was… I also think that
sometimes if it was done by a different culture family, a white
family, the child might not have been removed.
SK:
Right. So you felt like there was bias, intentional or not, on the part
of DSS officers. Especially, like you were saying, if they're young
and inexperienced. I know from teaching contemporary literature
that sometimes the younger students would be more judgmental
than older students who understand that things happen in
complicated ways later in life.
MC:
Right.
SK:
What about communication? You were saying that the parents of
families would be trying to communicate with you sometimes. Did
you-
MC:
That's why very often you saw the family group come. When we're
talking family, we're not talking mom, and dad, and kid. Very
often, we're seeing aunts and uncles, because somebody spoke
better English. So they would come for the purposes of doing that.
It was difficult to get an interpreter to do meetings and things like
that, where you're trying to explain what was going on, and what
the rights were, and that sort of thing. But I learned in the course of
my stuff that there really wasn't a parallel system in Asia, and in
fact in some of the Asian countries there's no jury trial, so trying to
explain that in English, never mind have it interpreted or
translated, was difficult for them to understand. But also, that in
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Maryellen Cuthbert, Oral History #19.01
some Asian countries I learned that some people took their child to
the government to be straightened out, and so on occasion the
expectation was different.
SK: [00:15:09]
I see.
MC:
Versus what happened here.
SK:
I see, so the expectation that the authorities would help straighten
the child out, and then be returned easily, as opposed to having
custody taken away completely.
MC:
Right.
SK:
Wow. When there were these family groups, and you were trying
to explain, I'm just trying to imagine. Was the person who spoke
English, did it tend to be like the second generation, younger
people, or just all over the place?
MC:
It was all over the place. What I find, like many cultures, that they
would say, "I speak English," and they didn't speak English well.
But, very often, also, I would find sometimes they didn't read or
write, and they won't tell you that. I always had to kind of assume
and maneuver around that.
SK:
I'm trying to imagine how you would explain a person's rights, and
the jury trial, and the whole process was so complicated.
MC:
Right.
SK:
What was that like?
MC:
Well, trying to make it so that people understood what that right
was, and very often sometimes you were using a young person
because they spoke better English, but they weren't really that
interested in making sure that all the intricacies were conveyed to a
parent. I saw sometimes that was maybe a little bit of a problem,
because you had a juvenile, or a young person who was maybe
more in charge of the family, because they spoke English, and they
went to all the appointments and places with the parent or the other
people. I had those situations too, where it was a child literally you
Page 7 of 35
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Maryellen Cuthbert, Oral History #19.01
know taking the parent to appointments, and trying to interpret,
and they may not have gotten it themselves.
SK:
You took great pains to try to communicate with your clients. Did
you get much support from the court systems in helping you
managing-
MC:
We had interpreters that were in the court system, and there were
some very good interpreters, but there were other interpreters. I
didn't know what they were saying, but I know that we were
talking constantly, and the interpreter was saying a few words,
stopping. You didn't know what really to do. I will say one time, I
have always, like with my clients who speak Spanish, I speak a
little Spanish. I could go down to the lockup. I could go there and
say, "I am an attorney. I am here for you. I'm going to get an
interpreter. I will be back with an interpreter," or the parents were
there.
MC:
At one point, I will say I contacted, and I set up a lunchtime
training at the Lowell District Court with the Cambodian Mutual
Assistance League, and I asked them to come and teach us some
phrases. They were reticent to do so. In fact, they kind of kept
telling us, "We are not to interpret or anything." I think I might not
have even communicated that. Because it was like, "No, I'm not
asking you to interpret in the court. We're asking you to give us
some phrases," so we could go down and assure somebody that
there was an attorney going to look out for them.
MC:
We did learn a few phrases we forgot, but it was hard. I think it
was really up to us to learn and ask about customs. Cato, who is an
interpreter, I know once came and would explain some customs.
Going into the houses. Because I, especially working with
juveniles, you want to see the home and things. Taking off your
shoes, and doing things like that.
SK:
Did things change at all? Like sort of moving into the early, mid
'90s?
MC:
When it got later, I didn't have defendants or people who were
born outside of the states. Some of them had been here for a long
time. Many of them had come through not… Stockyard,
California.
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
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SK: [00:20:04]
Stockton?
MC:
Stockton, California. There were others that had come through, and
I had learned came through into the Midwest, and had worked for
Blue Bunny Ice Cream. I heard those stories too, that they worked,
and then they would end up coming to Lowell, because they had
relatives, or friends, and there was a community here.
SK:
Right.
MC:
Now I started seeing people who had been here longer, and then
some that had even been born here.
SK:
Did it change? I mean, so when you were describing sort of like
the mid late '90s, the gangs, and then also the care and protection,
did the nature of your work with community-
MC:
I think it did, and I always thought, one of the things that I thought
about was in the gangs and stuff, being Irish, and I had learned
about Irish gangs, which were horrific, which nobody talks about
anymore. But I realized, when you learn the stories of them
coming through Thailand. Many of them had been born either in
Thailand, or they come through the Philippines, or whatever, that
the gang thing was not just gangs to go out and do bad stuff. It's
the way your family got fed in the camps. I learned that, and so I
began to see kids who were older, but had remembered that kind of
lifestyle.
SK:
You were hearing this from, I mean was it the younger kids telling
you, or the parents telling you? It's interesting. How did the I guess
genealogy of gangs-
MC:
The parents would be the ones who would tell you more of the
stories. I think the younger people became like, the term we use
was lace curtain Irish. We didn't want to say we were from the sod.
We were there. They really wanted to appear more Americanized.
One of the things that was interesting is we went from kind of the
gang clashing to times where I remember lots of baby showers, and
barbecues in the backyard, and the police were just showing up and
hassling people, and we would end up with arrests.
SK:
Right, in Lowell.
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MC:
In Lowell.
SK:
Are you talking specifically about Lowell, but also in other places
in Massachusetts?
MC:
No. Mostly Lowell. Mostly Lowell.
SK:
Was it, I guess, in terms of showing up at baby showers and
hassling people, was it people who might have associated with
gangs in the past. You know what I mean? Like wear the clothing,
or have the tattoos and things like that, but be living sort of normal
lives.
MC:
Right.
SK:
But that association was still there with the police.
MC:
Right. The association. Even two years ago, I had a case that
involved, actually it was not an Asian gang, but there were some
Asian members. A group called Young Gunners, in Lowell, and
they were really kids who had grown up together. The police came
in and did a hearing in juvenile court where they said, "These are
gang members." There were a few people in the gang. They had a
portfolio, and a file folder, and were deceased. I recognized kids
that were no longer involved. It was when they were young. So it
was like once a gang member, always a gang member. I still see
that today.
SK:
Do you think that that is racialized at all? That there is a tendency
more to see that particularly with ethnic minority groups?
MC:
Only because my experience in Lowell. The Young Gunners is not
necessarily an Asian gang. It's more of a group of kids, and it was
described on the witness stand as kids who had grown up together.
And so with regards to the Hispanic gangs, which there isn't a lot
in Lowell. We're not really seeing gangs in Lowell. But, the police
will still say. I still see it in the police that they're a self-admitted
gang member, way back when, when they were in school, when
they were a young person. We don't see the gang activity. We don't
see the arrests for that kind of thing now.
SK: [00:25:00]
Right.
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MC:
But, we still see that language and stuff put in a police report.
SK:
Right. What are some of the other stories that sort of stick out in
your mind, particularly say working with the gang members, the
youth, juvenile offenders?
MC:
I remember there were stories where the gangs would go after one
another, and you don't understand why. They were just their
territory, or that territory. Why? That always was like, why?
People really hurt and stuff. But as things progressed, we had more
guns involved. I do remember going and looking at bullet holes at
a house next to the Pailin Palace.
SK:
There were just a couple shootings in 2018. You know.
MC:
Right. And that sort of thing. I had a juvenile who, it wasn't a
juvenile. He was barely an adult. Who, they got a gun, and they
went, and the gun went off, and somebody died, and it was a young
Asian male. I remember dealing with someone who had shot
someone, and it was almost unreal, surreal to them that that
actually happened.
[00:26:32]
[phone begins ringing in background]
SK:
Right.
MC:
But, I think there was a lot of protection that needed to be ... Let
me just shut that off.
[00:26:49]
[answering machine message comes on in background: Hello. This
is Maryellen Cuthbert. I'm unable to take your call at the moment.]
MC: [00:26:55]
Sorry. So we didn't see the machetes and the sticks anymore. We
were seeing guns.
SK:
Would you say that transition happened in the-
MC:
In the '90s.
SK:
'90s.
MC:
The late '90s. Yeah, mid to late '90s. All of a sudden it was guns.
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SK:
What was it like? Did you have kind of more kind of like personal
level? When you were talking to a defender, or meeting with a
defendant for the first time, what was your, I don't know how to
put it, philosophy, or approach, especially given your experience
working with the community members?
MC:
I first always tried to establish a relationship, and made sure they
understood my role was to advocate for them or to defend them, no
matter what. I always thought, and I understood that there really
was a mistrust. They saw us as part of the system, and I could see
that. So initially, you tried to listen, and understand, and that's
where I got a lot of the stories, because I would ask for
background, and how you got here, and things like that. Because
there is a mistrust, and to really make them understand my role
was to defend, no matter what, and they could tell me anything. I
did go to homes to see, and particularly when I'm dealing with a
juvenile, to see what they're dealing with.
MC:
Also my office is here in Chelmsford. They can't find Chelmsford.
In many cases they don't drive. They work. Lowell, I think the
Cambodian community has spread out in Lowell, but it was in the
downtown area, where it was very compact. So, you went there.
And so it's very different now, I think, in terms of being able to
find Chelmsford. They're a little bit more worldly.
SK:
Right. People are moving out into the suburbs in the second to
third generation.
MC:
Right.
SK:
Where your office is, where were you based? Were you always
based here but then you moved around?
MC:
I've always been in Chelmsford. I had another office in
Chelmsford, but I'm in court so much doing criminal defense work,
this allows me to work early morning and late at night.
SK:
Did you work very much with adults in the early years, in the '80s
and the '90s?
MC:
I did. I worked with adults also, and we've changed so that 17 yearolds who were considered adults are no longer adults.
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SK:
I see.
MC:
But, yes. There were young adults who were in the age group, too.
I'd say it was probably 50-50 that were young adults, 17, 18, 19,
20, and then juveniles that were involved in the gangs, and things
like that. For a long time, I hate to say it, when you thought
Cambodian in Lowell or Asian, they must be in a gang.
SK: [00:30:23]
Right.
MC:
I remember learning about tattoos and things that would appear on
the face. The tears and stuff.
SK:
Right.
MC:
The assumption was tattoos, they must have a gang. Until
somebody explained to me when you ask what they are. They're
for somebody who's deceased, or symbols for this or that. That was
another way that sometimes it would be a response. At first I'd ask,
"What does that mean? What does that ..."
SK:
So it was by talking to the clients and their families about what
things mean, learning about their background. As opposed to,
where were you hearing the other? Was it in the courts, or just
social?
MC:
About?
SK:
About the perception of Cambodians, particularly, in Lowell.
MC:
Yeah, just around. I think that's the way it was. It was assumed
they must be in a gang. The other thing that we saw in the '90s
were the girls in the gangs that we did not see very early on, but
then we saw the girls in the gangs.
SK:
What did you see? How did you come across them? How were
they different? How were they similar?
MC:
The girls were generally associated with a gang member, but I
learned about the gang rapes, and the jump-ins and the jump-outs. I
actually was at a jump out once. Somebody alerted me to one. I
went with a group to try to stop it.
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SK:
This is for the record. Can you explain what a jump-out is?
MC:
If you want to leave a gang, and also that was one of the things that
was interesting, particularly in the courts. Judge Blitzman made it a
point to educate himself about things also. So, he began to spread
the word. Where we learned that they'd say no gang involvement.
People didn't understand that to just leave a gang and say, "I'm not
involved with you," was a dangerous proposition for them. That
the seniors had to mediate their way out, and that's a lot of times
where UTEC has come in, the street workers and stuff, and we
begin to explain to judges, because we learned that, so they'd say,
"No gang activity" versus "no gang association."
SK:
Right.
MC:
I still think that's an issue.
SK:
Right.
MC:
I still think that's an issue.
SK:
Actually that brings up a good, interesting ... With the judges, you
mentioned Judge Blitzman. What was his--
MC:
Jay Blitzman is a juvenile judge. He's the chief juvenile judge in
Middlesex County. He sits primarily in Lowell. He became very
aware, and made all kinds of attempts to be involved. He goes into
the schools and stuff, and learn about the culture.
SK:
I would imagine a lot, but how influential was this position, or the
understanding of judges in cases like this? How big of an impact
do you think-
MC:
I'm going to be very blunt. I think he was the only judge that I'm
aware of that made any attempt to understand the cultural and the
norms of that. I know when I became aware of it, I started to
explain to the judges, "Your Honor, we cannot say no gang
association. That would be really dangerous for them to do, to just
say, 'I can't talk to you,' or whatever anymore." So we began to try
to adjust the language and the verbiage that got used in the court in
order to do that. Then, also we did refer to UTEC. When we had a
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kid that wanted to get out, or we said can't get them to mediate
their way.
SK:
How receptive were judges and others in the court system to your
attempts to kind of explain these things to them?
MC: [00:34:51]
I will tell you that Judge Blitzman I thought was very receptive. A
couple years ago, I had a case. It did not involve an Asian gang
member, but it was a Caucasian kid. There was another judge
involved, and he had grown up with a gang. They really weren't
doing anything but hanging out together, but he had gotten caught
doing something, and he was on probation. The term the judge had
used was "no gang activity." He had done some time at DYS, and
he had come out, but this was still his friends, and he was on house
arrest. He was associated with UTEC and doing everything. I had
to say, "You can't say no gang association, because he's doing very
well at UTEC, and there are gang members there."
SK:
Right.
MC:
So you're trying to educate judges, and probation officers and
things that you can't just do this. But in any case, what happened is
there was another member of that gang that was on trial that I had,
and there was some Facebook stuff that went back and forth, and
gang sign that was shown on Facebook. The probation officer
brought them in, and that juvenile was surrendered on a probation
surrender. I appealed it, because I said, "This is not gang activity.
This is association." I went to the appeals court. I don't know
whether they laughed me out or not. I said, "You know what? I
walk into my courthouse every day and I have to show a Bar card,
that I'm associated with the Mass Bar Association, but I do not
subscribe to everything that they do and say. It is the same way.
This is the culture." I lost that one. The argument obviously didn't
fly well, but people don't see it that way, that it was a matter of
survival, and that it became a matter of association.
SK:
And then leaving is not as simple as just turning around and
walking away.
MC:
Right.
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SK:
Right. Other than sort of, you know, we focus a lot on the gang
related activity, and we've talked a little bit about the sort of care
and protection, custody. Were there other sort of areas in which
you had a lot of experience, you had experience with the Southeast
Asian community?
MC:
Well, I used to go to the Cambodian Light of the Children, it was
the reading cover-
SK:
Light of Cambodian Children. Right. Right.
MC:
I missed the, they used to have a big dinner. I enjoyed that. That
was one of the ways where I think some of the population in
Lowell that didn't know where we learned a lot about the dances,
the stories, and food, and things like that.
SK:
You know Sayon Soeun, then? Who was the I think director of
Light of Cambodian Children.
MC:
I don't know personally, but I think Cato was the interpreter made
us aware of that. I went a few times to that. They don't have them
anymore.
SK:
I know. Light of Cambodian Children unfortunately shut down a
few years ago, but they did a lot of work in the '90s and the 2000s,
helping bridge like the youth and the community.
MC:
The dances, and the other thing is the publicity about the Angkor
Dance Troupe, which helped I think show that there is not this
mindset of gang. That there's a whole 'nother group, and that there
are customs to be preserved. There are memories, probably some
bad memories, but there are also some customs that kind of did
what they could to bring that out.
SK:
Did you have very much experience with ... From the academic
perspective, when we talk about health disparities, or educational
disparities, or even oral histories in the Southeast Asian
community, you always have to deal with trauma, because there's
no way to get around sort of like the trauma of the killing fields, or
war, being a refugee, and things like that. I'm sure it was sort of
imbued a lot of what your work with the community members, but
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did you ever come face-to-face with it in specific instances? Like,
you know, from family members, or from your clients?
MC: [00:39:53]
You know, what's really interesting, and I just printed off an article
on trauma, because it is the in thing right now with juveniles, and I
was reading an evaluation for a juvenile, and there were some
articles and stuff, and I was just printing them off so I could read
them and stuff. But, in the '80s and the '90s, we weren't talking
about trauma, but we had to know that's there.
SK:
Right.
MC:
I remember there's a story that I heard, and it was a man who had
come through such trauma. He had been in Cambodia, and this was
an adult superior court client, and he had I believe his family was
shot, and he left with some cousins, and he described to me hiding
in the woods, traveling at night to get to Thailand, and they made it
there. But in that timeframe, so the trauma I knew had to be really
bad for him, but he was just kind of very accepting of things. So he
got to Thailand, and he was there, and he had worked in
construction in Thailand, and then gotten himself ... I think they
joined, and as I understand, sometimes groups would join up and
say, "We're a family," and that they could get here as a family, but
it got people here.
MC:
So he got here with someone who they called a family, and when
they got here, the woman died. But there were some children there,
but he connected with another woman that he had known in
Thailand. Unfortunately, she had a terrible alcohol problem, so he
was kind of raising her now teenage kids. So, the girl, and the girl,
his would have been a step daughter was, as he put it, running the
streets in Lowell, and she was connected with someone who was
an older gang member, and he was trying to keep her home. He
actually went out with her brother, and went to the home, and tried
to pull her back and stuff, and then got her home.
MC:
He put a trash bag over her, because she was acting like trash. I
think he used a broom handle. He was trying to discipline her. This
was a case that I had done. The police became aware of it or
something. She complained. Then, she claimed rape on his part. I
thought about, "How much more trauma can this person take?" She
claimed rape, but she miscarried, or the baby died. She had said
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that all along, that it was his baby. It must have happened because
of that. He was, "No, no, no." We insisted on DNA. Sure enough,
was not his. It was not his.
MC:
He just was like calm. I thought, "How does he deal with this?"
Then, so we went to trial. In fact, the DA's office fought me on
trying to get this information in, that she had made this false claim,
etc, etc. The problem is she had had some bruises, and he had also
spoken with the police, with a Cambodian speaking interpreter
police officer, and made some statements about hitting her, and
why. We went to trial in Lowell Superior Court.
SK:
Was that for assault?
MC:
Initially it was on the rape, and all that stuff, and everything. The
jury found him not guilty of everything, with the exception of
assault and battery.
SK:
Right.
MC:
And I was appalled. They gave him six months. I thought that six
months committed for doing that. He was taking care of someone
else's kids. I was appalled, and I remember we went to the jail. At
this point, he had connected with another young woman wanting a
family. Who wouldn't? He took care of her, because she was
pregnant. She had come through the Midwest somewhere, and she
was pregnant. It wasn't his. She was much younger than he was,
but he was taking care of her.
MC:
I went to the home, and it was neat as a pin, and stuff, and he had
brought a TV that the picture was half gone. He was proudly
showing me how he fixed the vacuum cleaner and stuff. He was
taking care of a family again. I said, "How do you do this and just
keep going?" I did see an obituary a few years ago for him. He
probably died in his 50s, or whatever. Those things, you just, you
think about the trauma and everything, but I think we don't think
about that or attach that label to adults as much as we are with the
children.
SK: [00:46:02]
I think, especially in Southeast Asian American studies, with
adults, it's usually associated with not communicating. So the
second generation or the younger kids might act out in a variety of
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ways, whereas the first generation, a lot of it is very repressed, or
manifests as health problems, and things like that.
MC:
Right.
SK:
There were two things that came up. Did you see or did you have
much experience with domestic violence, or domestic abuse within
the community?
MC:
I'll say that we heard situations, but I would suggest in my
experience across the board, no more than ...
SK:
Right.
MC:
And I didn't hear about it in any other extraordinary way.
SK:
Right. You didn't come across many cases related to that, or
probably for a variety of reasons.
MC:
No. And when you talk about domestic abuse, it may be like mom
hitting the kid to get him to do the homework. But very often, I
will say despite the fact that we did see Cambodian males hookup
and make these families, I will say very often it was a woman
alone raising the family, without being able to speak or read
English.
SK:
Where were the fathers, or the men?
MC:
I think many times they were widowed, or they may have
connected with someone to come through. I heard those stories.
But then, they would leave the family, or the man wasn't, you
know... And so they were on their own raising the kids.
[00:47:44]
[phone begins ringing in background]
SK:
What about substance abuse? How common was that as an issue?
Sorry.
[00:47:49]
[button pressing in background]
MC:
Sorry. I'm trying to turn this just off.
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SK:
I don't think I even know how to use regular phones anymore.
MC:
I know. So anyways, I think that alcohol did play a part. But again,
in every culture we saw that. The thing we might have seen
different a little bit, and I remember I handled a case once, was
gambling, which was, there were the corner stores and the
gambling, which was more prevalent for the Southeast Asian
community.
SK:
What kind of gambling?
MC:
I'm not sure, but there was some kind of number games, or it was
gambling. In fact, I had home invasion cases where they knew that
there would be money, because people were gambling. I don't
know if they were dice games or whatever. I know I had two or
three of those cases where they went in with masks, because they
knew it was an Asian. They were gambling, and there would be
money.
SK:
Right. The perpetrators, the defenders were also Cambodian. They
knew in the community who was-
MC:
Right.
SK:
You mentioned several times working with UTEC, and I'm a huge
fan. When did you start working with them? What was the nature
of your collaborations with them?
MC: [00:49:36]
Well, I started back when it was a street worker program, and that's
because I had a client who said, "I couldn't have been there. I was
here." So then I began working with United Teen Equities Center,
as I found out that they had resources. They would sometimes go
find a kid, that I needed in court, who I couldn't locate. They
weren't showing up for court dates, or they would enable me to
meet with them and the family. Actually sometimes their street
workers would bring a parent and a child, and they would help
interpret for me at the UTEC building. First when it was over
behind the high school there, and then once it became where it is
now. Then there were times when we had a client who had done
something who was on the run and needed to turn themselves in,
and I would assist with that. Sometimes I couldn't do much, but I
could walk through the process with them.
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SK:
Right. That was starting in the '90s, late '90s, early 2000s?
MC:
I'm trying to think. Probably in the '90s, when I knew it as the
street worker program, and when they were over at the church. It
was at St Anne's there. St Anne's.
SK:
Yes.
MC:
I was going over there to ... They could frequently meet a kid, or
because the high school was there I could meet a kid there. I could
get them to go there after high school. Either that, or when Burger
King was downtown, particularly with the boys. I'd have my
coupons, and we would eat. Sometimes it would be them and their
friends. We were sitting at another table. But I knew as long as we
could have food on the table, I could get them to work with me a
little bit.
SK:
You also mentioned the Boys & Girls Club, and the YMCA. I
mean what was-
MC:
And Girls Inc. There are other. Those are organizations that also,
that helped like if we needed community service, or try to get a
program and stuff.
SK:
I see. Right.
MC:
One of the things that I think was very different, and was a struggle
was out here in the suburbs and stuff, the parents signed their kid
up for soccer. There's a sign. Soccer sign ups, T-ball sign up, and
that sort of stuff.
SK:
Yeah. My cousin has my niece's summer all planned out.
MC:
Yeah. They know to do that. As much as I sometimes felt that the
Asian population, they wanted to become, they weren't those
athletes, that kind of stuff. So sometimes, I hate to say this, but
with the Hispanic kids, or for the Brazilian kids, or whatever, I
could go get a soccer sign-up sheet, and fill it out, and say, "Sign
here" and stuff, and get that. Versus I wasn't able to do that so
much. There wasn't an interest.
SK:
Right.
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MC:
On the part of the Asian students in doing that. They weren't aware
of that.
SK:
Right.
MC:
I know that I asked my ... My long-term partner is from Taiwan.
We've traveled back there and stuff, and I'd say, "So, what did you
do for sports? You don't have that." Because I said, "Well, they're
always at the World Series of baseball, so it must be a big sport. Is
it organized?" He said in the Asian countries, and he spent some
time in China and stuff, is that they're just not as organized. He
said like track and field, running. That they did that, but there
wasn't that kind of organized sports. That was another way for kids
to become involved. So we could try to do that, and they would
involve them in other activities, because they weren't so involved
in the sports.
SK:
Right. But what were some of those other activities?
MC:
I know Girls Inc. had the activities for girls. I know they did
different things.
SK:
You mean like crafts and things?
MC:
Crafts. They did some of the swimming lessons at the Y, but they
had just kind of hangout kind of stuff, programs.
SK:
This was even for youth, because this is for a lot of nonprofits.
They do these kinds of things, because in the grant applications
they say this is to sort of prevent, to give you something to do to
prevent sort of like getting into crime and things like that. But
these were also things that you could find for clients like after, like
for community service.
MC: [00:54:57]
You were looking for that, and for after school, because parents
were working, and they're working third shift. That was another
thing that I saw. I don't hear it so much anymore, but was it
MACOM that was up there. One parent was working one shift, and
another parent was working the other shift, and that wasn't
uncommon.
SK:
Right.
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MC:
That wasn't uncommon.
SK:
I think the second and third generations are transitioning more into
normal nine to five jobs, and professions, and things like that.
MC:
Right.
SK:
Yeah.
MC:
Right. So, it was, so you were looking for ways to keep kids
occupied, but I also knew they were kind of, as I spoke, distrustful,
and I don't blame them. But also, within their community.
SK:
Right.
MC:
Taking care of each other within the family oriented.
SK:
Did you have very much experience with or interaction with
immigration? Just because I know that the whole issue of
Southeast Asian deportees now depends on two things, like the
repatriation agreements between the U.S. and like Cambodia and
Vietnam, but then also usually the record of felony or
misdemeanor convictions, and things like that.
MC:
I don't do that kind of work, but at first it really wasn't much of an
issue, and Cambodia didn't take, so it wasn't an issue so much, so
we weren't working that out. So, I became aware in the last year or
so, and I'm not going to say too much of somebody who's working,
or a couple people who have had convictions for serious crimes,
but are now working in the community, raising families, and stuff
like that. They are available to be deported.
SK:
Right.
MC:
I have a brother who's with the Jesuit Volunteer Program, and my
sister-in-law was with the Maryknolls, and they met at BC. They
did that together, and then they went to Bolivia, and were there.
So, when I became aware of this, and that they're kind of living on
the edge, wondering if they're going to get picked up, I contacted
my brother and I found out that there is these Maryknolls who have
in Cambodia a group there, and the Jesuits were there, but I'm not
sure, but they're there. Because, my understanding is that for these
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people who have never been there, or lived there, or whatever, and
they go back, that they're just dropped off with nothing, and they
don't know the language.
SK:
Right. They don't know anything about the country.
MC:
Don't know nothing about the country. Don't have any contacts
there. They end up being like street people and everything. So we
handed the name out to a couple and say, "You need to make sure
you keep this name on you if something happens, and you get
yourself to ..." Because, they do use some of the people that they
can to help with others that are coming back. They start work
projects, and things like that. When somebody came to me and told
me that, I was like horrified, because it's a friend.
SK:
Right. So it's only recently that this has come to your attention?
Because I know before 2002, when Cambodia and U.S. signed a
repatriation, it just they didn't accept deportees at all. Then even
after 2002, they did, but it wasn't ... It wasn't really on your radar
until recently, right?
MC:
Yeah. It wasn't. Not for Cambodia. No.
SK:
Right. I see.
MC:
And it just, that just like horrifies me to think about that.
SK:
Especially people, like you were saying, people who have been
through so much in their early years, and it could be 20 years ago
that they were convicted.
MC:
One of the things that I think is really modern, and I've also
become a little bit aware of, and concerns me a little bit. It's a hot
issue right now. Is trafficking. I know that the legal community is a
little bit concerned because of all of the nail salons.
SK: [01:00:00]
Right. I see.
MC:
And young women that are here. Many of them don't speak
English, and they're here for a short amount of time, and they're
working long hours and stuff. That, people are wondering about
that issue for the Asians. Then of course with the whole Kraft
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thing, like all of a sudden people questioning what's going on in
our nail salons, and our salons here.
SK:
Right.
MC:
If trafficking has become an issue with Asian women.
SK:
I see. Yeah, there's a couple people. Actually, Sheldon Zhang at
UMass Lowell. He's the chair of the School of Criminology and
Justice Studies. He works in trafficking in Asia. There's I think a
couple other faculty there.
MC:
I've had a couple over adult female from China that they said,
women who were I think being trafficked.
SK:
I see. It was an issue of concern, or like ...
MC:
I think it's something, now there's a little bit of issue of concern
about the young women that are here, and clearly recently here,
and whether they're protected.
SK:
I see. Sort of moving towards the end, I want to definitely give you
a chance to talk about any other stories that you want to talk about.
MC:
I hope I'm giving you the information.
SK:
This is great. But I'm wondering, since you started working
particularly with the Southeast Asian community since the '80s,
what would you say are some of the biggest changes? The other
question is what are some of the things that surprisingly have not
changed? In terms of working with, your experiences with the
Southeast Asian community. What's changed?
MC:
Have not changed, I'm going to say dealing with the police
community is like ... They're a self-admitted gang member. When
we really don't have ... I'm not seeing it in stuff, a huge gang issue.
SK:
I see.
MC:
In Lowell, like we were. But, just being able to grow up and move
away from that, and also not seeing it, looking back with some
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perspective and saying, "This is what happened, and why that was
there. That was happening."
SK:
That's what has? Sorry.
MC:
That has not changed. I think law enforcement's perspective.
SK:
I see.
MC:
On-
SK:
Has not changed.
MC:
"You're a gang member-"
SK:
That perspective of, "Once a gang member, always a gang
member."
MC:
Right.
SK:
That perspective has not changed.
MC:
Right.
SK:
I see.
MC:
From that standpoint. I still do think that there is, for the minorities
in Lowell, still a different treatment by law enforcement than
someone who is Caucasian. I still think that in the schools, that
rather than see that there's a kid who was brought up by a mother
who did not speak English, or read or write in any language, so
they didn't get a start, and also dealing with the trauma issues in
terms of helping to catch up kind of thing. The other issue is
because so many people have records, that they're hung around the
neck. We're trying to get to them, and see what we can do to undo
CORIs, and things like that. From that standpoint, growing in
terms of certain aspects of the population.
SK:
What do you mean undoing CORIs.
MC:
Undoing CORI. In other words, trying to seal records, and things
like that, for job opportunities.
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SK:
I see.
MC:
And that sort of thing. And, when you look at it from the
standpoint, also, from ICE standpoint. When you have someone
that 20 years ago, because they were part of a gang, and got
involved in some melee or something, and is now married, and has
children, and working, and stuff, that they cannot get away from
that. That there's kind of the law enforcement government pegging
them, and not being able to move away from that. From the
standpoint of change that we're seeing Asians in the DA's office.
There are a few Asian police officers. We're seeing among our
ranks and attorneys, as well as in other professions that they are
moving beyond Queen Street, and those areas.
SK: [01:05:40]
Right.
MC:
In Lowell. Moving out, and doing those things.
SK:
Are you seeing very many probation officers of Asian descent, or
other corrections officers?
MC:
We have a few within the Lowell community that are Asian and
stuff. But, I still think that there's more diversity. They're aiming
for diversity in the ranks of law enforcement, which I clump as the
police, as well as DAs, probation, courts, things like that.
SK:
So it's gotten better, but it could be more better.
MC:
Right. One of the things, and I'm really happy about this, and I
hope that is there could be really more education put out there for
us. As I said, I try to do that too, communicate to us what the
culture of differences are, how to handle cases and deal with
people so that we are doing it effectively, and being able to work,
and also just being seen as trusted, as part of their team.
SK:
In addition to sort of more people, more cultural diversity, have
you seen any improvements? Like the kinds of work that you were
trying to do by yourself, explaining cultural differences to a judge
or to a probation officer, have there been any kind of efforts to do
that maybe more systemically, or more broadly?
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MC:
Well, a little bit. I'll never forget, we had a kid at the Angkor
Dance Troupe come in, brought a few of his friends. He's doing a
dance on the New Year, with an ankle bracelet, a GPS bracelet
because he was on probation.
SK:
Oh my goodness.
MC:
And stuff. So, I know in our juvenile court, we try to. That there's
been some attempts to make people aware that there's a couple
festivals, and things like that. But, there's always arrests at those
and sometimes people go, "I'm not going in there for that."
SK:
Right. I see. I see.
MC:
It isn't as widely spread as the folk festival, for instance, as
publicized and stuff. I saw this year, like for instance, that is the
Cambodian New Year the same as Chinese New Year?
SK:
The Cambodian New Year is in April.
MC:
That's what I was thinking, that it's different. Versus, there's some
functions and different things that go on for Chinese New Year. In
fact, we go down to Boston.
SK:
Right, in February.
MC:
There's the dragon, the lion dance and stuff down at one of the
restaurants down here. And Westford Academy, for instance, has a
large number of Chinese students, or Taiwanese-Chinese, and so
they had a whole thing in the school. I had never seen that at the
Cambodian New Years celebration. Maybe, but I'm not aware of it
up there, which would make us ... Those kinds of cultural events,
really publicizing them, and making us aware that there's those
holidays too.
SK:
Right.
MC:
Which I would really like to become more aware of.
SK:
But it's not sort of saying the training for police officers, or for
district attorneys. I don't know. Things like, I mean the broad term
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is cultural sensitivity training, or those kinds of things. That hasn't
maybe increased since the '80s.
MC:
I don't think that it has. I don't think that it has. I think Vanna
Howard. Do you know Vanna?
SK: [01:10:01]
Yes. She's fantastic.
MC:
Well, I know her through her husband, Greg. In fact, I was at her
wedding. Has done quite a bit to try to do, but she can't do
everything.
SK:
Right.
MC:
I think she's on the same list with you, isn't she? For being
honored.
SK:
I think that the same things, that there's a lot of parallels between
sort of like the law enforcement, and education, and healthcare.
That there have been improvements since the '80s and the '90s, but
we could still have further to go.
MC:
One of the things that I also became aware of, if you go into
healthcare, into one of the big Boston hospitals, our interpreters
that we use in the courts are also medical interpreters, and they're
being called in there to interpret, and the insurance has to pay for
that and everything. Versus you go to Lowell Community Health
Center, there's no official interpreter there for people who are
going. It's really interesting to me that there's such a disparity in
healthcare making sure that people understand. We now have a
language line that we can use, so that when I'm with someone I can
do that. But I'm also, I'll ask, "Is this your dialect?" They'll say,
"Yes," and sometimes I wonder whether they are understanding
everything.
SK:
Right. The way to check is to ask. But then if you're not
understanding the language, then-
MC:
Yeah, if the interpreter's saying, "Do you understand everything
I'm saying," and everything, and then I try to get them to repeat it
back.
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SK:
Yeah.
MC:
But it's this kind of thing that I'm really excited about, because I
think that will help them more. Like that event that was held by the
Cambodian Children of the Light.
SK:
Yeah, Light of Cambodian Children.
MC:
Yeah, because a lot of attorneys and stuff went, and there were
politicos, and things like that. It was an event to show up at in
Lowell.
SK:
I see.
MC:
And so there became an awareness.
SK:
It was an annual, it was a dinner?
MC:
It was an annual dinner. Yeah.
SK:
I see. They invited like the city council, and just some attorneys,
and then like-
MC:
Yeah, there was a lot of local politicos there, and stuff.
SK:
I see.
MC:
That's one of the things that I think that we had a little more
trouble getting that, versus Spanish, there was always a Spanish
interpreter in the court. For the Asians, it was sort of classified.
The Hispanics did the drugs, the Dominicans, and we had the
gangs and stuff.
SK:
Right. I see.
MC:
But it was somewhat of an issue, because one day they were a
victim, particularly in the young kids, and one day they were a
defendant. I remember sitting at a table once with a group of
attorneys, trying to figure out who didn't have a conflict with this
one, because we had represented this one before because they were
a victim this time because of the clashes.
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SK:
I see. Because of the interconnectedness of the community.
MC:
Mm-hmm [affirmative]. But we see a lot more businesses. Not just
the smaller... Like there was one small grocery store, and that was
it.
SK:
Right.
MC:
Now there's-
SK:
There's Cambodia Town, and restaurants everywhere. Right.
MC:
Right, so that's really nice.
SK:
Yeah.
MC:
Was this the kind of stuff you were looking for?
SK:
Yeah. This was fantastic. This was great. We wanted to get the
perspective of someone who had worked with the community,
particularly with the youth.
MC:
It was a struggle, because of the language, and the cultural
differences, and the mistrust, and you're dealing with the trauma
that they all went through in terms of government authorities,
whereas other groups didn't go through that trauma to get there.
Then being pegged.
SK:
For those issues, like the mistrust, and the kind of dealing with the
second generation trauma, do you see... Or, let me put it this way.
Would you say that your Southeast Asian clients now are about the
same number, or fewer?
MC: [01:15:04]
Fewer.
SK:
Fewer.
MC:
Fewer.
SK:
The kinds of issues that you're seeing versus particularly the '80s
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MC:
The kind of issues we're seeing now are the same kind of issues
we're seeing across the board with depressed teenagers not feeling
like they fit in their school, or not going to school, disrespecting
parents, that kind of stuff. Being on the run, not coming home,
getting into fights.
SK:
Right. In some ways, there are those issues of sort of being a
second generation refugee, and being an ethnic minority. But in
some ways maybe seeing them more becoming like normal
American juveniles of various ethnic backgrounds.
MC:
They are, but then I still think they're ... What's interesting is these
kids, I don't ask so much, "Where were you born?" Because that's
my nice question not to say to an immigrant, "Where were you
born?" I say, "I want to start from the beginning." They're, "Okay.
I don't have an immigration issue." But I'm not sure they know the
stories.
SK:
Right.
MC:
That they really know all the stories.
SK:
Yes, actually when we met, first found this archive, it was the
older generation saying that they were worried that the younger
generations didn't know about the culture, but also didn't know
about the stories of being a refugee, the refugee camps, but then
also early resettlement, and the struggles of those times, because
people don't want to talk about it.
MC:
Right. That's why we call it Irish lace curtain. It's like, okay I'm
done with that.
SK:
Yes.
MC:
To some degree, I get that. But, also, to not forget, somebody did a
film that was on PBS. I saw it. Who had gone back, that was just,
brought it home. Brought it home.
SK:
Was it Lost Child?
MC:
Was it? The name of it. It was... I'm trying to think. I think UMass
Lowell was part of the project. I can't remember what the name of
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it, but it went through kind of history of Pol Pot, the history of
Cambodia, and went to numbers of the temples. Are you familiar
with that film?
SK:
There's a couple of films it could be, so I'm not sure. It could be
Monkey Dance or Lost Child.
MC:
Monkey Dance maybe sounds like ... Sounds either that or because
I've seen the Monkey Dance and that is so fascinating. Fascinating.
SK:
Is there anything else that we haven't had a chance to talk about or
cover? Anything that sticks out in your mind?
MC:
One of the things, this is really kind of funny. But when I went to
the home, as much as I thought there was some distress. But when
I got to the end of a family or working with a family, very often I
was invited for a meal.
SK:
Yeah.
MC:
"I want to cook for you," whatever. So I had curry. I remember
sitting on the floor in one apartment, and it was like a plastic
tablecloth, and she was like macheteing the chicken, and we did
the curry. I was like, "I'm going to be here all night doing curry
from start to finish."
SK:
Wow.
MC:
But she wanted to teach me how to make curry. But it wasn't
unusual that when I went, versus most other places I'll say, "Okay,
I'll bring a pizza." You know, when I'm going to see with a kid I
told you food with teenage boys. I try to do that, "Okay, I'll bring a
pizza," or something. That's kind of a modernization now that they
do that, but they're like, "Oh, I want to cook for you. That was
always something that was very interesting to me.
SK:
Right.
MC:
Just as a comparison, I grew up Catholic and I often though,
"Okay, stand up. Sit down. Say this prayer," whatever, and
everything. That was it. I didn't agree with everything they did.
But, in going to Taiwan with my boyfriend and the temples, and
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seeing how they were much part of the life. You stopped in, and
you could be blessed by it. Then you had an issue, you went to this
temple. You prayed to that. You just threw it down. You brought
fruit. It wasn't money. Things like that. Then, his family even had a
temple. There are sayings about how to live your life. Not, "You've
got to honor God. You've got to honor God." It's, "This is how a
good man or woman lives."
SK: [01:20:06]
Right.
MC:
So, I was looking for that. I started looking for that in Cambodian
religion and stuff, and I didn't trip into it until I recently had a
client that had a lot of tattoos. They were prayer, and they were
sayings on him, because I bring makeup, because people still don't
understand to cover tattoos when I'm trying cases.
SK:
Right.
MC:
But, they don't talk about religion.
SK:
Right.
MC:
At all.
SK:
Right. The temples are such a big part of life for most Cambodians
and Southeast Asians. I was raised Presbyterian. If you don't know
about the Buddhist temples, and how much of a part of everyday
life they are, you don't, until someone starts telling you.
MC:
I understood they were a big part of their life, but I wasn't seeing
them like you've seen some of the other Asian homes will have
something, and I didn't know whether sometimes when you're
oppressed, and you've fallen away, or whatever. That was one
aspect that I hadn't tripped into versus other Asian homes.
SK:
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Having the kind of like shrines and things
like that. It was less visible in the houses you visited.
MC:
Very often in the Cambodian homes, you see the big colorful
picture of I think the matriarch or whatever dressed, and they look
so regal or whatever. You'd see those on the wall.
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SK:
Right.
MC:
That was interesting to me.
SK:
Even though that there was an initial mistrust, or maybe it was
difficult to communicate, but that there was a sense, especially for
people wanting to cook for you, that there was a sense that people
were very welcoming, and they wanted to sort of show gratitude
for your attempts to help them.
MC:
And then more so then any other. I'm telling, you had mothers who
couldn't speak English, who would get on that phone, and try to
make an appointment, and you're like, "Oh my God."
SK:
Right.
MC:
That was the group that did that, despite the fact there was that
initial mistrust.
SK:
Right.
MC:
Anyways, I can't wait to see this, because it is fascinating. It starts
horrific, but it's moving towards a different.
SK:
Great. Thank you so much.
MC:
All right.
SK:
Let me see. I want to make sure I do this right.
Interview ends
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�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing
Relation
A related resource
<span>The collection draft finding aid, </span><a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17</a><span>.</span>
The oral history project page, <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a>.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is currently in progress and information will be updated as it becomes available. <br /><br />Read more about the project: <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a><br /><br />Part of the collection is accessible on this site. <br /><br />Oral history interviews include: <br /><br /><strong>Maryellen Cuthbert, April 2019, Oral History #19.01</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Maryellen Cuthbert and interviewer Sue J. Kim. Since the mid-1980s, Cuthbert has been a private defense attorney working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area. In this oral history, Cuthbert shares information about her training as a lawyer and reflects on various cases she’s worked with related to Southeast Asian communities. <strong>Content warning: Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and violent situations.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Thel Sar, April 2019, Oral History #19.02</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Thel Sar and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Sar talks about his early life: living through the Khmer Rouge, resettling in the United States, and his education; his career trajectory: working at the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, working at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, and becoming one of the earliest probation officers of Cambodian descent at Lowell District Court; his other community activities; and his family. <br /><br /><strong>Sivaing Suos, August 2019, Oral History #19.05</strong><br />An oral history <span>interview with Sivaing Suos and interviewer Tyler Sar. In this oral history, Suos talks about her early life in Cambodia and immigrating to the U.S., her experiences pursuing education and holding various jobs, including working in the mental health field and with families experiencing domestic violence, and her family.<br /><br /><strong>Niem Nay-kret, September 2019, Oral History #19.06</strong><br />An oral history interview with Niem Nay-kret and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Nay-kret talks about her early life in Cambodia and during the Khmer Rouge and her experiences holding various jobs in the U.S. related to healthcare, including prenatal care, mental health, and more.</span><br /><br />-------------------------- <br />SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Chornai Pech and Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing. UML 17. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Maryellen Cuthbert oral history transcript, 2019
Subject
The topic of the resource
Crime
Lawyers
Lowell (Mass.)
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of an oral history interview with Maryellen Cuthbert and interviewer Sue J. Kim. Since the mid-1980s, Cuthbert has been a private defense attorney working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area. In this oral history, Cuthbert shares information about her training as a lawyer and reflects on various cases she’s worked with related to Southeast Asian communities. <br /><br /><strong>Content warning:</strong> Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and violent situations.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Cuthbert, Maryellen
Kim, Sue J.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-04-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 35 p.
Language
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English
Type
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Text
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Chelmsford, Massachusetts
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
uml17_19.01_002
2010-2019
Angkor Dance Troupe
Cambodians
Documents
Laotians
Light of Cambodian Children
Lowell District Court
Lowell Superior Court
UTEC
Vietnamese
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/9e37185727a4bef32b5b596c9bda5450.mp3?Expires=1712793600&Signature=AggBYhpR4wE%7Eg06to8icHWtsUuH4RAezVRiTIRxsQTha4n%7EQb5QkP%7Ev-vwSIqAQqoCT3wm5GUq-hU9kPmOKVHEPy5iujFYQNClbrGC2BG6WbJzOtqdJm-GdC4hYvMxQUr89V9sQC063wkvK4ije1puyoDds5AibSjB4zAvC829VS0T2ydq6yWI0qyCMvfMhwA2h6RgI4bC9td%7EOswoGPL6Fk6osfUELLBLQO96L1ZAscU3vebOZfigxCWKONodloX4aa1qQrANJtBmwtaz9IMk8x51uspptjRuF%7En2%7EWHKU96Bg81sMWE1D2G7VdW%7EFrtyMqF98FEKc7nszjpqEbsQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
67e59fc059fbe101c9beb22cf71f8058
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing
Relation
A related resource
<span>The collection draft finding aid, </span><a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17</a><span>.</span>
The oral history project page, <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a>.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is currently in progress and information will be updated as it becomes available. <br /><br />Read more about the project: <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a><br /><br />Part of the collection is accessible on this site. <br /><br />Oral history interviews include: <br /><br /><strong>Maryellen Cuthbert, April 2019, Oral History #19.01</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Maryellen Cuthbert and interviewer Sue J. Kim. Since the mid-1980s, Cuthbert has been a private defense attorney working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area. In this oral history, Cuthbert shares information about her training as a lawyer and reflects on various cases she’s worked with related to Southeast Asian communities. <strong>Content warning: Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and violent situations.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Thel Sar, April 2019, Oral History #19.02</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Thel Sar and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Sar talks about his early life: living through the Khmer Rouge, resettling in the United States, and his education; his career trajectory: working at the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, working at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, and becoming one of the earliest probation officers of Cambodian descent at Lowell District Court; his other community activities; and his family. <br /><br /><strong>Sivaing Suos, August 2019, Oral History #19.05</strong><br />An oral history <span>interview with Sivaing Suos and interviewer Tyler Sar. In this oral history, Suos talks about her early life in Cambodia and immigrating to the U.S., her experiences pursuing education and holding various jobs, including working in the mental health field and with families experiencing domestic violence, and her family.<br /><br /><strong>Niem Nay-kret, September 2019, Oral History #19.06</strong><br />An oral history interview with Niem Nay-kret and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Nay-kret talks about her early life in Cambodia and during the Khmer Rouge and her experiences holding various jobs in the U.S. related to healthcare, including prenatal care, mental health, and more.</span><br /><br />-------------------------- <br />SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Chornai Pech and Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing. UML 17. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Niem Nay-kret oral history audio recording, 2019
Subject
The topic of the resource
Health services
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The audio recording of an oral history interview with Niem Nay-kret and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Nay-kret talks about her early life in Cambodia and during the Khmer Rouge and her experiences holding various jobs in the U.S. related to healthcare, including prenatal care, mental health, and more.<br /><br /><strong>Content warning: </strong>Mentions of weapons, violent situations, and situations that may be distressing
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Nay-kret, Niem
Kim, Sue J.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-09-15
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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1 audio recording; 01:14:10
Language
A language of the resource
English
Khmer
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
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uml17_19.06_001
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodians
Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic
Lowell Community Health Center
Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services
Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Sound recordings
Southeast Asian Bilingual Advocates Incorporated
Southeast Asian Birthing and Infancy Project
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/b848ee7c760961986e4fcf008835ea57.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=hVhudKMwppg7qn4NMlvdiOdlULy3BR7VNNa%7EbWuV4KQImUG5%7ETg90%7ELykV9-Ihg1pUCj7uXfEPtSQS9kohEAV9Wa5Oq%7EM58jMPd1hBA7c9cFJRTGcq-XnEXVHKH8j2EdxV1D0-75J%7EoE%7E3Ur60U9tVII29Iuy5ZwXLVc6Z8q7EWXy9CclvGBqcTKMi5s37OL2ryiV58haLFd--uTjb-YrNppHJ56IqhIucN9KuzKRv75PVQ9aopKyoXiC5kbahQ4XuwhHoFW%7EePE-8FSOfaVywn7vNABX1sI7SDYOPCtJoQHY6XugDtv23kIhgm-tly8zKeB79U015RVJgZ609jGYg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
e68bc82537814090d0e6ba65a8a68c9d
PDF Text
Text
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
CONTENT WARNING:
Mentions of weapons, violent situations, and situations
that may be distressing
INFORMANT/NARRATOR: NIEM NAY-KRET (NN)
INTERVIEWER: SUE J. KIM (SK)
DATE: SEPTEMBER 15, 2019
SPEAKER
DETAILS
TIME
SK 00:00:02
Okay, right, so this is Sue Kim, I am the co-director for the Center for Asian American
Studies. Today is September 15th 2019, and I am with Niem Nay-Kret at the College of
Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Science office at 820 Broadway Street in Lowell,
Massachusetts. How are you today?
NN 00:00:34
I'm good thank you.
SK 00:00:37
So today we're going to start with some general questions about you and your life and
then we'll go into some questions focusing specifically on healthcare, okay?
SK 00:00:47
So firstly, what is your full name?
NN 00:00:50
My full name is Niem, the English pronunciation is Nie, but actually if it's a French
accenté there, it's Niem Nay-Kret.
SK 00:01:01
Oh, and have you gone by any other names?
NN 00:01:08
No, just that. I keep my original name, because you know how when you spell the
Cambodian name into the English, or into the French, you kind of lost that pronunciation
bit-by-bit.
SK 00:01:26
When were you born? If you are willing to share, also where were you born? You don't
have to share that, when were you born, but where were you born?
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
NN 00:01:35
I'm going to skip when I was born.
SK 00:01:37
Okay.
NN 00:01:38
I want to be 21 forever. So where I was born, I was born in Cambodia, Battambang
province, right now they call it Banteay Meanchey province. It's a city at the border, it's
at Sisophon and Niemith is exactly the crossing between Thai and Cambodia.
SK 00:02:10
Did you grow up there?
NN 00:02:12
I grew up there before the Pol Pot came in, in 1975.
SK 00:02:19
All right, and so you experienced ...? Were you there during the Khmer Rouge?
NN 00:02:25
Yeah, I was there during the Khmer Rouge. My family was totally believe in the life in
Cambodia, born there, grew up there, couldn't leave the country. Help other people who
wanted to leave the country, and they left, but for us, we just couldn't leave the country.
SK 00:02:55
You mean even after ...?
NN 00:02:57
Even before.
SK 00:02:58
Or even before ...?
NN 00:02:58
Uh-huh (affirmative).
SK 00:02:59
... as it was-
Page 2 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
NN 00:02:59
The people who experienced that Mao Zedong, the communist, they immigrate from
China to Cambodia, and when they immigrate to Cambodia, they have their life there.
Some of the elder who make a very good life for themself in Cambodia, but have
experienced communist in China, when they came and stayed with my families, before
they crossed the border, because we wereat the border between Thailand and Cambodia,
they stay with us, they suggested to my parents, "You guys should leave." Communists
is, you know?
SK 00:03:44
Yeah.
NN 00:03:45
It's a hard life, and the life you know is not going to be the same.
SK 00:03:50
This was in the late 60s, early 70s?
NN 00:03:56
Early 70s. Just before, even before the fall in April. April 1975 was the fall into the
communist. They stayed with us, many different families came overSK 00:04:11
I see.
NN 00:04:11
... to stay with us overnight and then they leave from there to cross the border. So that
was a suggestion to my parents, but my parents say, "No, nothing's going to be as bad as
that. We will make it through. We have our farming here, we have our business here, we
have our life here."
SK 00:04:33
Wow. When did you leave Cambodia?
NN 00:04:47
We stay there. We leave Cambodia for a month, went to Thailand. Just the women, my
mom and my sister, we went to Thailand to stay for one month, but then when they have
the fall of Phnom Penh, it went into the communists.
SK 00:05:09
Right, April 1975?
Page 3 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
NN 00:05:11
Yeah, and they put on the radio that Cambodia is free now, you can come in. They make
that announcement, so the moment we hear about that announcement, we think, okay, it's
safe.
SK 00:05:24
Oh my God!
NN 00:05:26
We actually went back in, all the women went back to Cambodia. So we went in back in
and it's only a week or so, they came to each individual home and tell us to get out and
that's when it's really started.
SK 00:05:42
Oh my gosh.
NN 00:05:44
Yeah, so, that's why it's like, we was not as lucky as the other people, my family and the
people who knew my father, who actually helped other people to get out of Cambodia.
And when they get out, they don't return. But where my mom and my sibling, we actually
went back in to the start of the communists.
SK 00:06:07
Oh my God! Oh my goodness. So you were there then through the whole thing?
NN 00:06:12
Yep, through the whole thing, until 1980.
SK 00:06:16
Wow. Do you mind if I ask, how many of your family survived?
NN 00:06:24
Actually my immediate family are lucky, we didn't lose anyone. My mom have any
pregnancy she has during that time, I think she had three or four, she lost the pregnancy
through that time. But outside of that, no, I didn't lose any immediate family, but my
cousins, we lost my cousin, her husband, and then on my husband's side, we lost a lot of
... like the whole families, my father-in-law. So there was more impact on my other side
of my husband's family.
Page 4 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
SK 00:07:18
So in 1979, 1980, when the communist's regime falls to the Vietnamese communist
regime, so then what? I mean, what happened? Were you refugees or what happened
then?
NN 00:07:35
Because I was in Battambang province, I was as Me Chbar. Me Chbar is part of
Battambang province. Me Chbar is the city that's close to the ... We call it Khnal Cheate,
which is like the main, we call it a highway, the main road going in and out all the way to
Phnom Penh. I was there and then you hear the shooting, you hear the shooting. We don't
have radio, we don't have any communication.
NN 00:08:12
I think now it's like in 2019, you take so much advantage of the technologies and
everything, but back then you just go by what you see and you hear the ... What was it?
The missile, the shooting and all that, so that day, that night, I remember what day, what
night, but all I know it was in that 79 and I didn't know anything, but you got scared,
you're just running. People all got separated and all that. Then because I was separated
from my parents, I have to look for my parents. All my siblings was separated.
NN 00:08:56
Then it's like, who is running to come back to look for the parent? And when you look for
your parent, will you find your parent? So for me, I wasn't too far away, so I know where
my mom was, so I went back home and then after that, you have to wait to get all your
family, which is missing my brother, is missing my sister. My father had to look for my
sister, and as the Vietnamese came in, some of them the people who are really into the
regime, they would ask you to go into fighting, part of the troop, the fighting troop, and
they made wherever the troop go, you got to go. That's the worry, is that my brother went
with the troop, my sister went with the troop. They went off to different part of the
mountain in the rural area, that was a worry.
NN 00:09:52
If you're smart enough, if you know enough how to sneak out or get out, then you do. But
if you're so into the cause, the propaganda, then you continue, which is some people do
continue to along the border with Thailand, to Vietnam, or to Laos, and along the border
in the rural area. You're still part of the troop, you're still fighting with Vietnamese
soldier.
SK 00:10:24
Right, so how then did you end up coming to the United States? Or let me put it this way,
when did you come to the United States?
Page 5 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
NN 00:10:35
Because the invasion was in January, so by the time we found my brothers and my sister,
we were trying to come close to the border in Sisophon to cross from Sisophon to
Thailand but we couldn't just cross, right?
SK 00:10:58
Right.
NN 00:10:59
And the village that we lived in, that was just outside of Sisophon. When we went back,
our home was completely changed, converted and you don't really have your home, you
don't really have your garden, your porch or anything like that. Porch, anything like that.
So we know we couldn't live there, so we want to get out, you didn't feel safe, and you
could still hear fighting between the Khmer Rouge troop and the Vietnamese soldier. So
then my father feels that we have to get out.
NN 00:11:32
Finally, we did left, I think, I don't remember the exact month now, because we had only
been to ... You know how here, you write down, put the day and the month, right now?
Nope, back then it was no, not really, no writing, no tracking. Somewhere in there we
actually did went to Thailand and it was ... They didn't even start the refugee camp yet.
SK 00:11:55
Oh wow.
NN 00:11:56
But then what happened was that, when we got there, I don't know how many weeks we
stayed, four week, five weeks or whatever and then the Thai who was in charge along the
border, they said that they're going to change us, relocate us to a different camp. They
wanted to relocate us to a different camp and for everybody to get on the bus. That was
when we crossed the border, we crossed in, where was it? In Nong Chan village. I think
that's close to Anonh, just across the border, close to Baoybet.
NN 00:12:41
We actually did, we actually get on the bus and I don't know how many buses, there was
a lot of buses. They actually took us to Phanom Dong Rak. That was forced repatriations
in 1979 and when ... I'm backing up a little bit. When I was talking about the village, I
said it was not safe, because they have mine, the have bomb, they have things like that
and if you're not careful, you could set off the bomb.
Page 6 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
NN 00:13:16
So crossing the border, the same thing. Was it? I can remember like seeing body, I
remember seeing the body actually die in the water and you needed the waters to drink,
that's in the ... It was a poor little pond along the border. I think those are the things that
I've seen. And then once you get into the ... It's not a camp yet because they didn't really
start a camp yet in Nong Chan. It's just people get there and you make up tents and all
that. You're living there and then they said that they have a different camp relocation.
That's when they relocated us to Phanom Dong Rak.
SK 00:14:01
I see.
NN 00:14:02
And when we were took to Phanom Dong Rak, but it wasn't really relocation, it was
forced repatriation. They have Thai soldier ask us to go into the Phanom Dong Rak and
we do went through Phanom Dong Rak, which is, you go in between the mountain ...
What do you call it? The slope down ravine, like go down the mountain, but I backup
because of the mine bomb and the same thing. So when they force us for repatriation, it
was the bomb, the mine that could set us off and it did.
NN 00:14:50
The people who got off the first few buses, and it gets dark, and when the Sun set in
Southeast Asia, it set quickly. So as we go down, we were just like getting dusk and then
when you go down the mountain, it gets dark even quicker. And you have the Thai
soldier shoot off up at the top of the mountain and you have no way, you can't go up, you
have to go down. And you go down, then you have the bombs setting off. All I remember
is being scared. Scared.
SK 00:15:28
Yeah, I know, you must have been terrified?
NN 00:15:29
Yeah. And it was so dark. It was so dark. That happened, forced repatriations and it took
us a long time, because we pretty much ... You lost your home and everything during the
communists. You have whatever little that you have. Even an earring or jewelry, you lost
more when you crossed the border of Thailand.
NN 00:16:00
Any research or anything like that on war, you always have people who would take
opportunity. When you crossed the border, you'd either get mugged, you get people who
rob you and like that, so that happened along the way. Even during that mountain time,
people felt that if we all gather whatever little possessions we have, it was gold, a bag,
Page 7 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
money or anything like that, if you give it to the soldier, the soldier might let you back
up, but they didn't. But people did gather whatever possessions they had, put it in a
bucket, trying to get back up, they wouldn't accept that. The people who actually went
back up, actually get killed as well.
NN 00:16:46
So if you go forward, some of them get killed by mines that went off, some people get
injury, so we stay overnight in the mountain. At night, people know that the bomb go off,
so they try just to settle down where they are, but in the morning, people start moving,
then you hear it go off. People need the water, people need this, they need that, and yeah,
so that happened.
NN 00:17:17
I think talking about current now, the books [inaudible 00:17:23], Ly Vong from the
Buddhist Glory Temple, with some Kakuen and Vong Wit and others, so that kind of
related to that experience. And I know that others, elders who are here, who actually went
through that experience. I think some of their story isn't, you know, they didn't get to talk,
but it's hard to talk about.
SK 00:17:51
Yes, it is.
NN 00:17:58
It only come up now and then when a close getting together and some night that people
have the same whatever, it would come up.
SK 00:18:10
Right, right, the same memories or experiences?
NN 00:18:13
Yeah, the same memories, the same experiences. Also, it's just, the time is right or
something, like you know, then it comes up. I mentioned this because my friend was
talking about it. She knows somebody and then other people say, "I know about it", and
talk about it. Even my husband's side, the aunts and all that, we don't talk about it, but
there are moments where we have a gathering and we remember things about what
happened, then it comes up.
SK 00:18:44
And that's why the work that you do is so important, because people have all these
trauma and memories, but they don't ... It's so difficult to talk about.
Page 8 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
NN 00:18:55
Yes, yes, it's difficult to talk about. You can't really talk to the kids about it. You cannot
... It's somebody who has that same knowledge about what happened, that you can bring
it up and then you say, oh this, and that, but you bring it in a certain way so that it's not so
much of a burden to you or to the others, but more like a memory, sharing our remember
things of it, appreciating what we have now and what happened then. I think sometime
that conversation come up, where the people who are a little bit older than me, when
those come up and say ... example, about the food. That come up a lot, because of the
starvation during the communists, right?
SK 00:19:52
Right.
NN 00:19:53
So about the food, but the food here is, you cannot eat too much. When we have plenty,
it's plenty. In our culture, our tradition is to be nice, you offer, "Have some of the
chicken. Have some of the rice." And they will say, "Why didn't I know you during
communist during Pol Pot?" "If you offer me that, it's like you will be my best friend
forever, you know?" "Why didn't I know you then?" You know?
SK 00:20:22
Uh-huh (affirmative).
NN 00:20:24
So I think that latent you know, but the one that we share that experience, we know what
we're talking about. The people whom did not go through this, might have different
perceptions or understandings to it.
NN 00:20:37
But for the older, yeah, uh-huh (affirmative), yeah.
SK 00:20:38
Is that part of why you went into healthcare? I mean ... you know, I mean? Or, I'll put it
another way, how did you get into healthcare? Or what started you onNN 00:20:53
Well in terms of healthcare, somehow I did, what was it? A summer job at a hospital, at
St. Mary hospital and well just, a summer student, to enter data, general accounting, just
entering numbers, the general account, and was in a hospital. Then from there, I didn't
think much about it, but when I was looking for a job, my husband was working for the
Department of Mental Retardation, now which is the ... They changed it, was it in 2007
Page 9 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
or 2011? I forgot now, but they changed it from DMR to DDS, Department of
Developmental Services.
NN 00:21:56
So my husband was working in that field and I had just met him and he said, "Oh, there's
a South East Asian Birthing, Infancy project, which is a pilot project in collaboration with
the local community health center and the Department of Public Health, they probably
need somebody." And they wanted somebody who speaks multiple language. And I said,
"Maybe I'll apply for it", and I applied for another job, they interview me, so I applied for
this South East Asian Bilingual Advocates Inc and they hired me for reception, admin
front-desk person and that's how I started.
SK 00:22:44
That was in 2007, 2008?
NN 00:22:44
No, that was in 94.
NN 00:22:44
Yeah, andSK 00:22:44
That's when they changed, towardsNN 00:22:44
Yes.
SK 00:22:44
Towards when they changed the name. I see.
NN 00:22:44
Yeah, this was when they changed the name, because it was just like, Infancy Projects
and then to the ... Bilingual Advocates Inc, changed to Bilingual later on.
SK 00:23:07
I see.
NN 00:23:08
Yeah, but in 2007 it's changed to Bilingual. Before that, in 94, it was not. And that was
directed by Anita Cole, and, who was it?, Bong Paul, was co-director for the program.
And back then it was Arthur Shaplin who was the CEO of the Lowell Community Health
Center. That was before Dorcas' time.
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SK 00:23:33
Arthur Shaplin?
NN 00:23:34
Yes.
SK 00:23:35
I see. So were you already in Lowell? So you were already in Lowell at that point in
1994?
NN 00:23:41
Yeah, I was in ... Well working in Lowell, a little company and in Lowell, but I was
actually living in Brighton. That's where I first landed was in Brighton and my husband's
been in Brighton ever since, because he was teachingSK 00:23:57
I see.
NN 00:23:58
... yeah, at the Boston High over there, before he was working for the DMR, DDS or ...
yeah.
SK 00:24:07
I see, so initially it was a summer job at St. Mary's Hospital, just data entry and then you
learned that SABAI, is it South East Asian Bilingual Advocates Incorporated?
NN 00:24:19
Inc, yes.
SK 00:24:21
... They were looking for someone in 1994. So you started ... Did you say that their initial
name was different? Or thatNN 00:24:29
It wasSK 00:24:30
Birthing?
NN 00:24:30
... Birthing and Infancy Project.
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SK 00:24:33
Oh, South East Asian Birthing and Infancy Project?
NN 00:24:36
Yeah, it was only a pilot program.
SK 00:24:38
I see.
NN 00:24:38
Because of the low birth rate or not accessing pre-natal care by a lot of Southeast Asian.
They started that because they wanted, you know, here the healthcare is that, when you
are pregnant, that first trimester, you want to get people in right?
SK 00:24:57
Right.
NN 00:24:58
The second trimester, third trimester, you're trying to get people in there as soon as
possible for pre-natal care. And a lot of Cambodians, they don't access it, unless you have
complications, you have problems, issues, then you access. If you have really bad
morning sickness, and you're totally not able to function, yes, but if you are a functioning
person, you are able to work, and all that, and you don't even want to anybody that you're
pregnant ...?
SK 00:25:28
Right, right, right, right.
NN 00:25:28
... So, uh-huh (affirmative), uh-huh (affirmative), and then you may not even mention it
until late. If you have a physical check-up, then the doctor said, "Oh, are you pregnant?"
You know? All those, the standard American westerner medical care is that you have a
physical check-up, right? Any changes that you have, you go see your doctor. But
traditionally, we don't.
SK 00:25:55
I see.
NN 00:25:57
And also, if anything then, you know, you do that home culture, like making sure that
you're eating good, you're eating healthy foods, things like that. That's what we do, but
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SK 00:26:14
Right, right, under a doctor care, right?
NN 00:26:15
Yeah, not under a doctor care. That's why they did the projects.
SK 00:26:22
And this was a collaboration between Lowell Community Health Center and the
Department of Public Health?
NN 00:26:27
Yeah, and that program is because we needed that 501(C)(3) thing, so that's why it was
under a program, under the local community health center.
SK 00:26:37
So when you started working there, what was it like? I mean, how big was it? How
people respond to it?
NN 00:26:43
It was small. It was small, I'm trying to think how many people, four, five, six
caseworkers and I think the other one was the Lead Program, they kind of shared the
same building at 280 Appleton Street.
SK 00:26:59
What was it? The Lead?
NN 00:27:00
This was at 280. Lead Program.
SK 00:27:02
What's that?
NN 00:27:02
The Lead Program, when the child, they eat the painting from the house and they get lead
poisoning.
SK 00:27:11
Right, like literally lead, right?
NN 00:27:13
Yeah, lead poisoning, yeah. Because there was two programs, and it was shared at the
same building.
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SK 00:27:19
Oh, I see. How did it work? How did you get the word out into the community? Did
people come?
NN 00:27:29
Back then, I can remember volunteering at the church where we have Project Bread, they
bring food, things like that and we give out to the community. We do a home visit, we
talk to people at the temple, we talk with people we know, distribute the flyers that is
mixed, we have both in English and Khmer, and distribute that, talking to people and it's
by word-of-mouth, people came.
NN 00:28:00
Then some of the coworker I know, some of them are assigned to helping at the Lowell
General, actually helping with interpreting for the patients. Back then, because the ...
What was it? They don't have an interpreter law yet. I think the interpreter law came in,
in 2007 I think ... if I remember correctly.
NN 00:28:39
Before that, you don't have it. You don't have somebody who, you know, an interpreter at
the Lowell General Hospital. You don't have that.
SK 00:28:48
Part of it was providing basic services, like interpreting?
NN 00:28:50
Yes, basics, yeah, interpreting, uh-huh (affirmative), uh-huh (affirmative), for social
services. For us, the pilot program was supposed to be really concentrated on pre-natal
care, but then you don't do just pre-natal care. You come across, I can remember an
elderly man who didn't understand about utility, and he needed help to translate what it is
that, you know, what he's paying, what is due. He didn't have enough, even for food, how
he was going to pay for the food, electricity, things like that, and it's become, pre-natal
care and social services and getting people connected to Food Pantry.
SK 00:29:38
I see.
NN 00:29:39
And then education, you know? A lot of case management. I say case management
because you might be helping the pregnant woman, but then there's the other part of the
family, and then the other knowing the other issues that was happening with other
marginalized people in the community.
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SK 00:30:02
What do you mean? Like the other ...?
NN 00:30:04
When I said others, it could be like the people who are working and they become
unemployed and they're not really not sure how to apply and they get letter, they get the
pink slip, what do they do next? Where do they go next? Some know, some don't. It's a
lot about word-of-mouth.
NN 00:30:23
Then if they know us, they come to us. If they know somebody who's working at the
department assistance center, then they go there. So sometimes you have a different
connection and then they came to us with those questions, because the landlord issues,
they cannot afford it, they're not able to pay it, then what do they do next?
SK 00:30:55
So it's finding, once people knew that you were there, once people knew SABAI was
there as a resource, even though it started as pre-natal, it's like everything else became ...
ask for help?
NN 00:31:08
Yeah. And our thinking was, because it was different from the Cambodian Mutual
Assistance Association, we was concentrating on women's health and pre-natal care.
SK 00:31:18
I see.
NN 00:31:19
That's what we were thinking. But the people goes to whoever they connects to, they trust
and by word-of-mouth, who's telling them about it. So for those who know about the
CMAA, they go to CMAA, but for those who know through the woman, they come to us,
through the woman and that's how it got built up, we were more concentrating on health,
but then for the CMAA, it was concentrating on everything else, helping immigrant and
refugee, helping people access social services.
NN 00:32:01
Ours was okay, women's health, pre-natal care, but then all the other things came with it,
because when the woman came, it's about the woman issues, the pre-natal, but then, by
word-of-mouth getting out that, "Oh this person helped us", "That person helped us", and
then they come to us.
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SK 00:32:21
I see. So most of your clients were women at this time?
NN 00:32:26
That was what we thought, that we would do.
SK 00:32:28
I see.
NN 00:32:28
That we would get 99% woman, but in there somewhere I think we get mixed. Sometime
the man came, sometime the family came, but our concentration was woman, pregnant
woman, reproductive age woman, you know? Any teen pregnant or anything like that,
that would be the one that we were working with.
SK 00:32:54
But you still got a lot of other requests though?
NN 00:32:56
Yes.
SK 00:32:58
I see. In terms of working with women, like pre-natal care, or reproductive services and
stuff like that, what were some of the biggest challenges? I mean, I would imagine, I
mean this is still, this is the 90s, what were some difficulties that you saw often?
NN 00:33:17
The program started a little bit even before the 90s, like late 80s. I don't remember the
exact year, it was 87 or 86 they started it. It was really small, just like two or three
people. Then by the time I joined in 94, that's when we get more to like the six, seven,
eight people.
SK 00:33:41
I see.
NN 00:33:46
And I get in, because one of the, Bong Sambath, she was doing the front desk, but then
she was on maternity leave and then I was covering her, so that's how I started working
there.
SK 00:33:59
I see.
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NN 00:34:03
I think back then, they started the pilot program just because of there was, what was the
tradition that ...? Why wasn't women not accessing pre-natal care? Why are they not
going? What's going on? Why is it the birth rate ...? There was some challenges and also
why is it so low birth, the child that was born, was so, underweightSK 00:34:33
Birth weight.
NN 00:34:33
... weight was so low?
SK 00:34:34
I see, I see.
NN 00:34:35
Was so low? I think it was looking at six pounds, because back then even the average is
more like the seven-something, eight, almost eight pounds. But why the birth weight is so
low? I don't remember what the mortality rate was, but there was some mortality as well.
So I think that miscarriage and all that, soSK 00:34:58
I see.
NN 00:35:01
That remind me go back to my mom, during the communists, she lost, she had so many
miscarriages, and I don't know if like just because when we immigrate to here, is that the
woman, there's more like on my thinking back now, is it why is that women having that?
Is it nutritionally not having enough, the body is not adjusted to living here yet, and
they're not accessing the pre-natal care. I think those were the things that the public
health wanted to be aware of, and that's what we were doing, was doing that educations
and providing information here that you can access pre-natal care.
NN 00:35:51
That first trimester, and then you go on until you actually give birth, because normally we
don't, so that culture, that perceptions, that understanding, from there. So that was, you
know, when you say was it a challenge? I would have said increase understanding and
also then the traditional practice, after you give birth, is that in Cambodia, we always
have when you give birth, you loss blood, so you have that hot and cold. What was it Yin
and Yang? Right?
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SK 00:36:30
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
NN 00:36:31
So after you give birth, you're supposed to stay warm, and to stay warm in Cambodia,
you have that, in Cambodia, in the Cambodian tradition houses, you have the low part of
the house on the ground, but you can actually have a fire in a wooden bed or what you
call it, that you can have fire under, and you will stay over that bed and it will heat it up.
I'm trying to find a word, it's not really a "Bed" bed, because it'sSK 00:37:12
But yeah, no, it's like something over the fire that can be heated?
NN 00:37:14
Yes.
SK 00:37:17
Not too hot, but warm enough.
NN 00:37:18
Yeah, not too hot, but warm enough. And then, that helped you after you give birth and
that's always been the tradition, but then you come here, we don't have that. We don't
have an outdoor, we don't have an under the house ... because the house over there is on a
stilt that you can have it, or even have in an extra, what do you call it? Structure that
connects to the house that you can still have that outside.
SK 00:37:57
So what were women here doing?
NN 00:37:59
That was the thing is, what do the women do? How did they do that thing? The other one
would be like, was it steam, like using the hot steam. You will boil the water with the
different herbs from lemongrass, to basil, to other things, and then there are herbs that are
from China or from Cambodia, they cure for 100 things. That you use it to boil, but you
drink it or you use it so that you can use the steam. ToSK 00:38:39
To breathe it in?
NN 00:38:40
Yeah. Then I think as time goes by, as people are trying to figure out ways to do things,
they use the bricks where they heat up the brick in the oven, and you wrap it around with
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the towel and you put on your stomach, just to give you that warmness and drinking hot
drink, but with the ginger. When I'm talking about the hots and cold, some of the food is
cold and some of the food is hot, ginger being hot, then you might be drinking the ginger.
That and then, what was it? The cupping and coining, those are another tradition. That's
more like for the aches and pains and all that.
NN 00:39:34
Oh yeah, the drink, after giving the birth, they brew the herbs. What is it? Balai? It's
almost like ginger, but it's not ginger, but it's not Galangal either. But it's yellow and what
you do is, you brew it and then you drink it. When you brew it, you brew it with alcohol.
So that was the other concern, what are the women doing in term of the Asian traditions?
SK 00:40:12
Right, because could they get those herbs and those things here?
NN 00:40:22
There are some that was imported from Thailand that was frozen or dry. Some of the
herbs that are from China, that was imported here. So they would try to find that and use
that to brew it.
SK 00:40:39
What was the attitude of the doctors? The non-Asian or the non-Cambodian doctors in
things like that at Lowell General or Lowell Community Health? Did they understand
that they were ...? Like were they trying to understand? Or were they confused? Or were
they just saying like, "This is what you have to do"? What was that ...? I know that the
caseworkers and you are trying to interpret both, interpret language, as well as interpret
culture, right?
NN 00:41:16
Yeah.
SK 00:41:16
But what was theNN 00:41:20
The client doesn't want us to tell or say anything. They just know that the perception,
they just feel that the perception of the western doctors, medical provider, would not
understand it. They have a sense of that, and usually they don't tell. But they might,
because we are the caseworker, bi-cultural and anything like that, they might have said,
"I'm just doing some, you know, drink and that's it. You know about that, but don't tell
them."
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SK 00:41:58
Yay.
NN 00:41:59
We're trying to say what we ... "Don't tell anything unless you ask, want to tell." "We are
supposed to tell the doctors, so the doctor can treat you." I can give one example, when I
mentioned Balai root and brewing, and that is yellow. It's not turmeric okay? But that's
supposed to really help after the delivery.
NN 00:42:33
And what you do is you drink a lot of that and then beside drinking, she put it on, you put
it on like a lotion on your skin, but it will make your skin yellow, and she went to the
doctor, and the doctor see that, it's like, "What is going on?" Did you haveSK 00:42:55
Jaundice?
NN 00:42:56
Yeah, jaundice. "What's going on?" And you say, "Oh nothing." Just like, "No, it's
nothing." "Oh, we need some testing." She's like, "I don't know what happened." But they
order testing on me and until later, one of the girls at the Lowell General, talked to us
later, they were asking what was on my skin, we go through the whole thing and then
they think I have kaet lueng jaundice.
NN 00:43:30
I was telling them, "No, it was a lotion", but it was not a lotion. But then, because it was
brew and alcohol, so that was kind of, finally, and she said, "I think they understand after
explaining again and again and telling them don't, and I'm okay, and not need to lab, but
they actually took the lab. I don't like anybody taking my blood, but they did it."
NN 00:43:57
I think sometimes, that little, western medical doctor, they go by what they, what they
practice, but the mother and the grandmother, who's helping with the daughter who give
birth, is saying, "It's our thing." They say, "Don't tell them, it's ours. We do it, this is the
tradition." That's what her grandparents did.
SK 00:44:23
How did you feel? Because you're in between, how did that make you feel when you're in
the situation like this?
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NN 00:44:30
When that thing happened, I wasn't there at the Lowell General, I was hearing it
afterward when I was doing home visits. So I would kind of listen and was asking them
how they feel and do they understand why? And they said, "No, I was upset when it was
happening." But then I’m… you know. "But it's okay, it's okay, but you just tell them you
know?"
NN 00:44:57
She said she drinks the ... I was afraid that there was a community of drinking too much
alcohol and they might do something and it seems wording was going around. So,
especially in the early 90s, because in Boston, an agency called MICAS, connected with
the DDS, no, DSS, I'm forgetting the acronymSK 00:45:24
What is it?
NN 00:45:25
The Department of Social Services.
SK 00:45:26
And what is MICAS?
NN 00:45:28
MICAS, they work with the Department of Social Services.
SK 00:45:32
How do you spell that? M-A- ?
NN 00:45:35
M-I-C-A-S, was it, MICAS? Yeah.
SK 00:45:38
M-I-C-A-S.
NN 00:45:39
Oh my God! That's the whole thing, Pu Sanith know more. Pu Sanith work there. He
worked with all the other people. But the thing is, when you work with the Department of
Social Services, DCF, now, it's DCF.
SK 00:45:56
I see.
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NN 00:45:57
It is, you get reporting for child negligence or issues and problems, things like that.
SK 00:46:05
I read an earlier interview with you from 2006 where you talk about like the cupping, and
then sometimes if children get reported toNN 00:46:12
Yes, yes. That go with that, okay?
SK 00:46:17
I see.
NN 00:46:20
If you're working, right, in Cambodia it's like you go to the farm, the kid might be at the
house, but you don't have ... You know, you cannot leave a six years old at home by
themself here.
NN 00:46:35
But, over there, you do and you have the neighbors keep an eye on them or whatever. Or
if anything happened, you already tell the kid and the kid is knowledgeable enough to go
over to the neighbors, right?
SK 00:46:46
Yes.
NN 00:46:47
But here it's completely different, and even the medical treatment, going back into the
cupping and coining, it's like when a child is not feeling well, because of the Yin and
Yang, you want to get that hot, blood circulation, things like that, then you do the
cupping, you do the coining. To get rid of, whether it's the headaches or the dizzy spell or
whatever, that's what you do.
SK 00:47:15
My aunt does it all the time.
NN 00:47:17
Yeah, and I was just speaking with my friend, whose mom is now 80, and she wants
cupping all the time. She wants cupping all the time. And you're thinking like, when you
do too much, it's not good. You want to do something to make you feel better, but not too
much.
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NN 00:47:40
But the fact that she's 80, she's like, you know, sometimes she's having onset dementia,
you know, she'll forget and she'll still want it again.
SK 00:47:48
Oh! Oh.
NN 00:47:49
Yeah, and she'll want it again, and that becomes like, how much do you give and how
much are you arguing with your mother, who's having onset dementia and she's not
feeling well and you want her to feel well? It's always tradition that she's doing it. So how
much do you want to give?
SK 00:48:11
So SABAI started maybe early on, like later 80s?
NN 00:48:16
Yes.
SK 00:48:17
And then you started there in 1994 and then it changed to South East AsianNN 00:48:24
Bilingual Advocates.
SK 00:48:25
... Bilingual Advocates in 2007 or so?
NN 00:48:29
No, that was in 2000.
SK 00:48:30
2000?
NN 00:48:31
No, yeah, in 2000. So I was in… In 94, I was the South East Asian Birthing and Infancy
project for a year and then I went to work with the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma.
Doctor Richard Mallika and Doctor Kathleen Alder and the social worker Jim Lavelle,
which is providing mental health services. The Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic, which is
including providing services for the Southeast Asian from Cambodia, from Laos, and
from Vietnam.
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SK 00:49:18
So is that when your work with mental health started or ...?
NN 00:49:21
Yes. That's more my work on mental health. So from pregnancy to mental health, and
even that, I was more in front-desk receptions. But I did some group with Doctor
Kathleen doing a medication group, just helping integrate a little bit, and helping with the
elders that came for the services.
SK 00:49:50
And this is with the mental health ... The Harvard Refugee Trauma Group or the SABAI?
NN 00:49:54
The Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic.
SK 00:49:57
Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic, and was that in Cambridge or ...?
NN 00:50:02
That was at the Deaconess Hospital. Deaconess Hospital later merged with ... What was
it? Merged with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, it became B-I, Beth IsraelSK 00:50:29
Oh yeah. Beth Israel somethingNN 00:50:32
Deaconess, right. It's in my mind it's like, B-I-D-M-C, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center.
SK 00:50:41
I see.
NN 00:50:42
So when they merged.
SK 00:50:45
So there you were helping with trauma?
NN 00:50:52
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
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SK 00:50:52
Was it mostly elders or all ages?
NN 00:50:55
It was elders. See it's called the Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic, Indo-Chinese Psychiatry
Clinic.
SK 00:51:09
And this is like in the mid-90s, right?
NN 00:51:11
Yeah.
SK 00:51:11
1995 or so?
NN 00:51:12
Uh-huh (affirmative), yeah. And the Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic, is part of the
Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma.
SK 00:51:19
I see, I see.
NN 00:51:21
You see? And the one that if you search now, you will find that the Harvard Program in
Refugee Trauma, which is up in Cambridge now.
SK 00:51:31
I see.
NN 00:51:31
Okay? It was between Cambridge and then it was in the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center, when it was in there, it's the Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic.
SK 00:51:45
I see.
NN 00:51:47
So changes over the years.
SK 00:51:49
And what was that like? I mean, ifPage 25 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
NN 00:51:52
That one, it was people who came in with trauma, people who go through during the war.
It was all different ... It's an adult clinic, so it was adult only. I think it was a lot of older
women, or the soldier who had gone through the war. I am not, because we have social
workers that do therapy, they go through the screening. They have the Harvard Program
Refugee Trauma checklist questionnaire screening that they use to screen doing its
intake. I know we have up to 750 people so ...
SK 00:53:05
And were the clients usually referred by someone else, or did they just find it by word-ofmouth? How did they come? How did they find you?
NN 00:53:14
It was referred from different people, by word-of-mouth, the family that have problems. I
can think of a family who have a young man, because he, the young man was not doing
well and he was supposed to attend school, but he's not attending and it was having, you
know, create problem for the parents. The sister who was doing well was finishing her
high school, going into college. I was trying to help the parents, so I brought him in, he
needed psychiatric services, while they're having schizophrenia symptoms and all that,
get him to services.
NN 00:54:12
Then there was, a Vietnamese man who, he was not able to function, he was not able to
sleep, he's going to work, but not able to work and the family brought him in. I heard by
other people, and brought him in, see if they can help him. He was having bad back flash
into what he was doing, as a soldier, and that's how he get into services. So by word-ofmouth, by the family knowing somebody who knows somebody and talking to other
people. That and by the doctors who know that needing that ... because of the language
and they know that it's hard for them to see that patient, then they heard about the IndoChinese Psychiatry Clinic then they refer them always.
SK 00:55:23
I see.
NN 00:55:25
And also the psychiatrist working with the international institute, working with the
Dorchester Health, the Lynn Health Center, different parts of the city. Even get connected
to the local community health center. I know we did, was it, and doing advocacy with the
Department of Mental Health. Even back then, the department of mental health had the
bi-cultural, bilingual directory. They have it way back, starting in, I think even in the 80s.
They listed all their services across the state. Right now, I can remember one where
Doctor Edwin as working at the DMH. All I can remember, one was Mary-Lou Sutter,
Page 26 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
who else? Who was the commissioner for DMH, the Department of Mental Health. There
was different people who was ... You know how the term of the commissioner changes?
SK 00:56:54
Yes.
NN 00:56:55
It's depending on who was on at that time and if they were connected to different social
services, even with the CMAA. I believe it was in 97 that we did a screening here in
Lowell, 97, 98. Did a screening on mental health depression, just so that we can reach out
to the Cambodian community. The Southeast Asian community in Lowell, before the
Metta Health Center.
SK 00:57:32
I see, so this was the Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic, did like a screening or an
assessment of Lowell? I see. And that was before, did that help inform the Metta Health
Center when it was forming?
NN 00:57:46
For me, because I actually went when the psychiatrist went to advocates for the Southeast
Asian community, they wanted somebody who looked Asian to beSK 00:58:00
Yes, of course.
NN 00:58:00
... because the Doctor Richard Mallika and Doctor Kathleen Alder was the one who was
meeting with all the different agency right?
SK 00:58:09
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
NN 00:58:12
And then everyone went with them and that was the idea, that can we have agency that
really provides mental health services for Southeast Asians. The Indo-Chinese Psychiatry
Clinic is right there in Boston, but I was saying that for me, I was living in Brighton, but
then later, I came to live out here closer to Lowell and actually went back and worked
over there at the Deaconess in Boston.
NN 00:58:45
The majority of the Cambodian Americans was living here in Lowell, right?
Page 27 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
SK 00:58:50
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
NN 00:58:50
And then the others in Lynn, and Revere. So the people in Lynn and Revere, they don't
go to the Deaconess Medical Center. But then, if they go over there, what about the
people here? Do they always able to get there or not? And that's where for me and for
other people in the community, was like, "What are we providing services for the people
who have traumas and who are Southeast Asians, whether they actually access mental
health services?" If you are out here in Lowell and then if you are in Lynn or in Revere
and you're not able to go into Boston, then what happened?
NN 00:59:32
I think those were the questions that was coming up and also medically, back then we
was advocating how we will have more services in medical services encouraging Asian
Americans to really, especially Southeast Asian, to get into medical field, because for
myself, it was just a caseworker, we're doing it bilingual, like social workers, we're doing
community health education, so we are not professionally trained as a ... We're just
trained as a community health worker and doing education, but not totally professional
license in that area. But how do we get more nurses orSK 01:00:22
Doctors, clinicians?
NN 01:00:22
Right, doctors, clinicians, yeah, so that was the questions. That was the advocates, for
that and then while we was having talk back then, the Lowell Community Health Center
was changing and later Dorcas came in, and the Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic was
changing as well, because of the merge, before the Deaconess and Beth Israel, and then
the question is also because it was on a grant, then what do you do after such amount of
grant, what is the sustainability, what do you do? And so that changes. But this is a lot of
history.
SK 01:01:18
Yeah, no, that's good, that's good.
NN 01:01:22
And then I left, but by the time I left the Deaconess, it became Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center already in 99, 2000. So because the advocates for a health center that
really provides services for Southeast Asians was before that, it's like two or three years
before that. Even doing, what do you call it? These research into ... Trying to find
Page 28 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
information, data gathering in terms of getting depression screening, things like that, to
get information. When CMAA was doing it, it was before the open of Metta.
SK 01:02:07
I see.
NN 01:02:10
And that was then, meeting with the DMH commissioners and all that, so that they're
aware of the need of the community. Then, because by then, I left the BIDMC and I was
looking for a job, also they was doing wanting more peoples to enroll in getting health ...
you know, the people who don't have health insurance, they are not buying health
insurance, are they eligible for Medicaid? That was the question. And if you are eligible,
will you even go?
NN 01:02:49
So they was finding a lot of people who are uninsured, and also because I left the SABAI
to go to work at the Deaconess, and then there was somebody I was ... There were one or
two persons that was still doing it, but then were just doing Medicaid enrollments, just to
help people by word-of-mouth. We don't really have much money or anything like that,
but people said between volunteering and helping people and finally we get a little grant
from the Boston Women's FundSK 01:03:30
This is SABAI?
NN 01:03:31
Yeah SABAI, in 2000. So I came back to work under SABAISK 01:03:35
Great.
NN 01:03:36.
.. in 2000 and that's when Metta started, and I did a presentation. Oh, what was that?
What is it? Michael Cole, was it Doctor Michael Cole I think? He was the commissioner
for DPH before he went ... during Obama's for ... Michael Cole, I think that was his
name. In 2000, if you look in 2000 you will see. Yeah, I think it was Michael Cole. 2000,
you will seem that it was Michael Cole was the commissioner back then I think. I don't
think it was John. John Auerbach was after. John Auerbach is after, as commissioner for
DPH. Okay, I don't want to remember so ...
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
NN 01:04:30
But anyway, that was what was happening. Then so I did a presentation when Metta
opened, about tradition and culture the Cambodian women practice. That you practice the
hot and cold, the Yin and Yang, the traditional food, the beliefs, using herbs, using
different brewing herbs, those was the presentation I was doing. And in the culture from
the cuppings to the coinings, to there are others like the holy water when you're not
feeling well or changes, you go and get the blessing at the temple that help you
spiritually.
NN 01:05:40
If you are changing mentally, it might be possessions or part of somebody is walking
over your grave or somebody who is putting a spell on you, so that's why you're getting
the blessing. So that was some of the presentation I was doing and then I started with
SABAI, because we got a little grant to do that, increase some monies to do enrolling
people in Medicaid and also providing some women's health educations.
NN 01:06:23
Then when I came there, that's when we had a collaboration with Massachusetts AIDS
Projects.
SK 01:06:33
I see.
NN 01:06:35
Jacob Jan. Who was it before Jacob? The director? Emmet's, oh I forgot Emmet's last
name. Massachusetts AIDS Projects, if you look up they're still in Boston. Right now, all
I can remember is Emmet who was the board member who was in everything I was, he is
the long-term one that is part of that project and we did some collaborations. When I say
collaboration with them, we did women's health education or HIV/AIDS and that was
still an issue in the community, HIV/AIDS. And then they did a bit of women's health
education group presentations, group educations. That allowed us to go to actually home
and get women to train and then to do the extra education at their home, hosting.
SK 01:07:41
I see.
NN 01:07:42
Hosting a house party. They just like, we provide them some stipend, like $150 and you
just gather in the women you know, you come to the home and then you provide
information and then as being helping them, taking all the information on HIV. How does
the HIV transmitted? How would you know? Where will you get testing? I think that
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
was, it's part public health education as well. So we did some of that and we signed
whatever they need, that extra social services information.
SK 01:08:30
So you were working at SABAI, but collaborating with Metta and then on the various
initiatives?
NN 01:08:37
Yes.
SK 01:08:37
So SABAI at this point was Bilingual Advocates ...?
NN 01:08:40
Inc.
SK 01:08:40
All right, and then also partnering with the Mass AIDS project, particularly HIV/AIDS?
NN 01:08:45
Yep, Mm-hmm (affirmative).
SK 01:08:45
All right. I want to be mindful of the time. It's 2:30, but maybe we can ...? I mean I know
that you have to go, but maybe we can schedule another time to ... because I want to ask
you more about the HIV/AIDS stuff, you know? I mean if you worked, if ever like things
like contraception, those kinds of issues?
NN 01:09:05
Yes, those that was part of the education.
SK 01:09:06
Also, if abortion ever came up and those kinds of things right? I mean I'm sure those are
complicated things, but before we finish, just thinking back on those times, is there
anything, like we're talking about the period from mid-90s to 2000, what sticks out most
in your mind about that time? Just in terms of your feelings. I mean, did you enjoy the
work? Was it difficult? I mean as someone who had been through the Khmer Rouge, was
it difficult when you were working with trauma survivors and ...?
NN 01:09:45
What stick the most at this moment was I could remember, people who do, you know,
having a job, able to work and do develop and you have that family whose really
Page 31 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
marginalized and the have a hard time getting jobs, paying their bills and you're thinking
when you get here, is that you're never going to go without the necessities of life, which
is that you have water, you have a house, you have food, you have the things that you
needed.
NN 01:10:30
And that pride in the people, they want to work for themselves, they want to do for
themselves. They don't want to ask for help. You have those people who are like that, that
they will never ask you for help. And then those who will always ask for help and they're
never going to do anything, getting a job, things like that.
NN 01:10:56
I feel bad that I still come across family who was, feel that they don't have enough to eat
here, in America. To me that was hard and those are the ones who don't ask. You can see
the ripped shoes or old clothes that they're wearing, you pick up little things like that, that
you feel really bad. I can think about another man, that he is working, he's like if he
doesn't work, his family might starve or his children might not do well, but he has to
work, but he's mentally stressed-out.
NN 01:11:44
At work can be really stressful. He's doing assembly job, but then,
NN 01:11:49
his other coworkers having music on, and he is needing to concentrate on work. He feels
mentally stressed. That story of that man stick out with me, just because you have so
much stress, the trauma that he went through in the war and then now he come here, he
still feels stressed. If he was to get a new job, he's over the age of 50, almost 60, how he's
going to do it? Things like that.
NN 01:12:21
To me some of those things stick out and stay with you. You feel good that you're able to
help. But suffering or the hardship, the challenges they go through, stay with you. I think
it changes. The housing back then. Whoa, housing was more run-down back then. Even
when I see the downtown, I can remember I could see garbage, paper thing that they had
flying around and in the downtown street. I think in the 2000, it was talking more about
the City of Lowell is being revitalized, and those immigrants and refugees come in, it's
revitalized in the city.
NN 01:13:26
Talking with the Vietnamese Association in Worcester, the same thing. I feel that, they
feel revitalized, because when I was in the Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic, we have
connections to over there. And they feel that way, so to me, yeah.
Page 32 of 33
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Niem Nay-kret, Oral History #19.06
SK 01:13:56
I know it's going to be busy for the next couple of months, but maybe we can make
another date at some point to talk more about what happened to SABAI, work with the
mental health forum and things like that?
NN 01:14:07
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
SK 01:14:08
Okay, thank you.
Interview ends
Page 33 of 33
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing
Relation
A related resource
<span>The collection draft finding aid, </span><a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17</a><span>.</span>
The oral history project page, <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a>.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is currently in progress and information will be updated as it becomes available. <br /><br />Read more about the project: <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a><br /><br />Part of the collection is accessible on this site. <br /><br />Oral history interviews include: <br /><br /><strong>Maryellen Cuthbert, April 2019, Oral History #19.01</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Maryellen Cuthbert and interviewer Sue J. Kim. Since the mid-1980s, Cuthbert has been a private defense attorney working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area. In this oral history, Cuthbert shares information about her training as a lawyer and reflects on various cases she’s worked with related to Southeast Asian communities. <strong>Content warning: Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and violent situations.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Thel Sar, April 2019, Oral History #19.02</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Thel Sar and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Sar talks about his early life: living through the Khmer Rouge, resettling in the United States, and his education; his career trajectory: working at the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, working at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, and becoming one of the earliest probation officers of Cambodian descent at Lowell District Court; his other community activities; and his family. <br /><br /><strong>Sivaing Suos, August 2019, Oral History #19.05</strong><br />An oral history <span>interview with Sivaing Suos and interviewer Tyler Sar. In this oral history, Suos talks about her early life in Cambodia and immigrating to the U.S., her experiences pursuing education and holding various jobs, including working in the mental health field and with families experiencing domestic violence, and her family.<br /><br /><strong>Niem Nay-kret, September 2019, Oral History #19.06</strong><br />An oral history interview with Niem Nay-kret and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Nay-kret talks about her early life in Cambodia and during the Khmer Rouge and her experiences holding various jobs in the U.S. related to healthcare, including prenatal care, mental health, and more.</span><br /><br />-------------------------- <br />SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Chornai Pech and Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing. UML 17. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Niem Nay-kret oral history transcript, 2019
Subject
The topic of the resource
Health services
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of an oral history interview with Niem Nay-kret and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Nay-kret talks about her early life in Cambodia and during the Khmer Rouge and her experiences holding various jobs in the U.S. related to healthcare, including prenatal care, mental health, and more.<br /><br /><strong>Content warning: </strong>Mentions of weapons, violent situations, and situations that may be distressing
Creator
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Nay-kret, Niem
Kim, Sue J.
Source
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Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
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2019-09-15
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
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application/pdf; 33 p.
Language
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English
Khmer
Type
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Text
Identifier
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uml17_19.06_002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodians
Documents
Indo-Chinese Psychiatry Clinic
Lowell Community Health Center
Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services
Massachusetts Department of Public Health
Southeast Asian Bilingual Advocates Incorporated
Southeast Asian Birthing and Infancy Project
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/8ea5ff2c420787c7711c34535efa1984.mp3?Expires=1712793600&Signature=j6OPMGly30iSK893Kgwe2GjU3XPDM1gffW6ejQt1dr7QKyqLZNwfKDyf4O7yF-EJ8NjgLhlFapTOiI-DxFHyzTmInw3YlbsSuwlEnJhvYjncaX67DjJLFvHXh8dFVuTWf5zbjqGYd85vWvWD%7Elduyax63nJrP3viQcGAq7lmVdqkDm%7EwlO8ygRJKE50YwZlDQBm6aRbnbY1B8qBBjm0CR0VHo5yJtq2AeVIgAoZzPs7BaVQViA93ZK1tur2KXApbviWEcqFTa0FI-fZIAa3uGJxFrNOQZ-Ek0xAPeq9TP0jPVZ5sdab9CFMW2Dq8TTntA%7EPxozxwwBHdwdV8vxTTAw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
8e424e276c66f38535108e01e064f75f
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing
Relation
A related resource
<span>The collection draft finding aid, </span><a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17</a><span>.</span>
The oral history project page, <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a>.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is currently in progress and information will be updated as it becomes available. <br /><br />Read more about the project: <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a><br /><br />Part of the collection is accessible on this site. <br /><br />Oral history interviews include: <br /><br /><strong>Maryellen Cuthbert, April 2019, Oral History #19.01</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Maryellen Cuthbert and interviewer Sue J. Kim. Since the mid-1980s, Cuthbert has been a private defense attorney working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area. In this oral history, Cuthbert shares information about her training as a lawyer and reflects on various cases she’s worked with related to Southeast Asian communities. <strong>Content warning: Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and violent situations.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Thel Sar, April 2019, Oral History #19.02</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Thel Sar and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Sar talks about his early life: living through the Khmer Rouge, resettling in the United States, and his education; his career trajectory: working at the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, working at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, and becoming one of the earliest probation officers of Cambodian descent at Lowell District Court; his other community activities; and his family. <br /><br /><strong>Sivaing Suos, August 2019, Oral History #19.05</strong><br />An oral history <span>interview with Sivaing Suos and interviewer Tyler Sar. In this oral history, Suos talks about her early life in Cambodia and immigrating to the U.S., her experiences pursuing education and holding various jobs, including working in the mental health field and with families experiencing domestic violence, and her family.<br /><br /><strong>Niem Nay-kret, September 2019, Oral History #19.06</strong><br />An oral history interview with Niem Nay-kret and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Nay-kret talks about her early life in Cambodia and during the Khmer Rouge and her experiences holding various jobs in the U.S. related to healthcare, including prenatal care, mental health, and more.</span><br /><br />-------------------------- <br />SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Chornai Pech and Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing. UML 17. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sivaing Suos oral history audio recording, 2019
Subject
The topic of the resource
Social workers
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The audio recording of an oral history interview with Sivaing Suos and interviewer Tyler Sar. In this oral history, Suos talks about her early life in Cambodia and immigrating to the U.S., her experiences pursuing education and holding various jobs, including working in the mental health field and with families experiencing domestic violence, and her family and raising her children.
Creator
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Suos, Sivaing
Sar, Tyler
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
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2019-08-19
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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1 audio recording; 01:18:39
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
uml17_19.05_001
2010-2019
Cambodians
Middlesex Community College
Sound recordings
University of Massachusetts Lowell
-
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UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
INFORMANT/NARRATOR: SIVAING SUOS (SS)
INTERVIEWER: TYLER SAR (TS)
DATE: AUGUST 19, 2019
SPEAKER
TIME
DETAILS
TS:
00:00:01
Either is on and working right now.
SS:
00:00:02
Perfect.
TS:
00:00:05
And this one right here? That's okay. So this is Tyler Sar speaking.
And I am the Southeast Asian Digital Archive Archivist at UMass
Lowell. Today is August 19th, 2019 at about 3:00 PM. I'm with
Sivaing Suos at the Center for Humanities Social Sciences at 820
Broadway Street in Lowell, Massachusetts. All right. So let's just
start with general biographical information. So what is your full
name?
SS:
00:00:40
My full name is Sivaing Suos.
TS:
00:00:43
Okay. Have you gone by any other names?
SS:
00:00:46
No.
TS:
00:00:46
Okay. What is your date of birth?
SS:
00:00:47
June 16, 1979.
TS:
00:00:49
Okay. And where were you born?
SS:
00:00:51
Cambodia.
TS:
00:00:51
Cambodia?
SS:
00:00:52
Kampong Chnang, Cambodia.
TS:
00:00:54
Okay. Where do you live right now?
SS:
00:00:57
I live in Townsend, Mass.
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SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
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Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
TS:
00:00:58
Towsend, Massachusetts. Okay. And have you lived anywhere
else?
SS:
00:01:02
Yes, many places.
TS:
00:01:03
Okay. Anywhere notable as longer periods of time?
SS:
00:01:08
Yeah, I lived... So when I first to America, I lived in Fall River for
about five years. Five or six years. And then I moved to live in
Andover, Mass.
TS:
00:01:18
Andover, Okay.
SS:
00:01:18
And then I moved back to live in Cambodia and work there for a
few years. And then when I came back, I lived in Westborough,
Mass. And then I moved Townsend, Mass.
TS:
00:01:30
Okay. So a lot of places in Massachusetts.
SS:
00:01:32
Yes.
TS:
00:01:34
And so where did you go to school growing up?
SS:
00:01:37
Growing up? That's what's complicated. So, I grew up in
Cambodia. I went to school in a small village where I lived. I was
growing up during the postwar. So, my schooling experience was
not typical one like over here?
TS:
00:01:55
Yeah. Yeah. Around what years were you at school?
SS:
00:02:01
I started at first grade when I was about nine years old.
TS:
00:02:06
Nine years old, okay.
SS:
00:02:08
And then I didn't finish my eighth grade until I was about 14 or 15ish. Around there. 15-ish. Yeah.
TS:
00:02:18
Okay. All right. I guess that's good to know. So did you attend
high school after that and then college?
SS:
00:02:27
Not in Cambodia.
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
TS:
00:02:28
Not in Cambodia, okay.
SS:
00:02:30
Because due to my safety I had to escape my hometown and
moved to live in the capital city of Cambodia and I became a
garment factory worker.
TS:
00:02:41
Okay. Do you know around what year?
SS:
00:02:41
I was about 15 and a half.
TS:
00:02:41
15, okay.
SS:
00:02:44
And I worked there until I was 18. 18, yeah. And then I...
TS:
00:02:48
And then so did you say you went to college or university?
SS:
00:02:51
I did here in America. So, I came to United State in July 1997, and
I came here as an immigrant. It was not intention to go to school.
But because I love education and I guess my first reason why I
went to school because when I go to work, I work in a factory. And
my first job in America was a perfume factory where I did not
know a word of English. And then when people talked to me,
people got frustrated that I can't talk back to them.
SS:
00:03:25
And I myself got frustrated, because I can't communicate to them
myself. And I started to learn ESL in a church near where I lived at
that time. And about a few months later, I believe my ESL teacher
recognized that I'm a fast learner. And he then approached the
priest at the church -- because I learned at church. And the next
morning is when he say not planning. The priest ask me if I want
to go to school, and I was still almost 19 years old.
SS:
00:03:53
And then he helped me to... The next morning he picked me up and
got me my physical checkup, and at the same day also took me to
Fall River Durfee High School, almost 19 years old. I started a
freshman there. So yeah, I did go to high school here in America. I
was 19 years old.
TS:
00:04:14
Okay. So did you start off as a freshman?
SS:
00:04:15
Yeah.
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
TS:
00:04:16
Okay. And so you went through all four years?
SS:
00:04:17
All four years. I graduated at about 21 years old.
TS:
00:04:19
Wow. That's really nice of them. And so for university, what was
your major focus?
SS:
00:04:26
My major focus was reverse psychology.
TS:
00:04:29
Okay.
SS:
00:04:31
So I started as an immigrant... My English was... You know when
in four year in high school all my classes were ESL program
classes in high school. So I started at Middlesex Community
College for my associate degree in psychology. And I also moved
onto UMass Lowell when I graduated with a bachelors in liberal
arts concentration on psychology and sociology.
TS:
00:05:02
Okay. So what else? So when did you finish school or college?
SS:
00:05:05
I just graduated 2018.
TS:
00:05:09
Okay. Congratulations.
SS:
00:05:10
Because I... Thank you. Because I took a gap few years after I got
my associate, I went and moved back to Cambodia. I came back in
country and got my bachelors.
TS:
00:05:17
All right. So you probably have... I saw your resume. So you have
a lot of jobs, right? So which jobs would you say are your most
important ones that you've experienced since living in the States?
SS:
00:05:32
All of my jobs are very important. But one of them that really
stand out to me, it was domestic violence. I was a domestic
violence worker from 2012 up until 2000... I'm sorry. From 2002
until 2012.
TS:
00:05:48
Oh wow. That's long time.
SS:
00:05:49
I mean I took up a couple... Actually, two years off, I've been and I
did case manager at a mental health in Providence. But then I went
back to domestic violence. Because that's what I thought I was
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SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
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Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
good at. Well I think I know I'm good at it. So that's very... I love
the job because I got to help a lot of women and children and some
men too. And educate them and help them not just to get out from
an abusive relationship, but also to empower them. Especially
women and children. So they become independent and get out of
the trap basically.
SS:
00:06:30
And more I’d like to say, I'm very -- I really like the job. Because
I’m very passionate about helping people. I help many women
from different countries to be able to stay in America. To get the
green card basically.
TS:
00:06:45
Okay.
SS:
00:06:45
Yeah.
TS:
00:06:46
And so right now, what do you do for a living?
SS:
00:06:48
I am working as a caseworker at the Justice Resource Institute here
and Chelmsford. We covered the Lowell areas. So I would say
Lowell. My office in Chelmsford but I work with the Lowell
residential.
TS:
00:07:05
Okay. So is it with like the juvenile system?
SS:
00:07:09
The program I'm working at right now is called the Young Parent
Support Program. So I work with parents who are young. Who are
22 and younger.
TS:
00:07:16
Okay, okay. All right. Okay. So moving on a bit. I'm just going to
ask a few questions about your family. So what are your parents'
names?
SS:
00:07:27
My mother’s named Thou Meas. First name Thou and last name
Meas. And my father’s name Chan Suos.
TS:
00:07:33
Okay. And what were their backgrounds? Where were they born?
Where did they live? And what kind of jobs they did?
SS:
00:07:41
So my... Both of my parents were born in Kampong Cham
Province in Cambodia. My mother’s deceased. My father is alive.
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
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He also lives in Cambodia. He does not want to come to the States.
He is 80 years old now.
TS:
00:07:57
Okay, wow.
SS:
00:07:59
Yeah. So, yeah.
TS:
00:08:00
Okay. And before they got older, what types of jobs did they do?
SS:
00:08:06
So yeah. Basically my parents... I'm going to give a little
background of them. So my mother she's... Before the war, I think
she had her own business. She graduated from college before the
war. But then as a Cambodian woman, no matter what, you went
back home and got married-- become a mother. And they have
their own business. And my father was a farmer. And then, yeah.
That. Prior to the war.
TS:
00:08:38
And do you remember your grandparents' names?
SS:
00:08:41
No, I never met them. I know their name, but I never met them.
TS:
00:08:44
Okay. Do you know anything about their backgrounds? What they
did?
SS:
00:08:48
I know the grandparents from my mother's side was the wealthiest
family in the village where they were living before the war. And
they got executed as soon as the war start because they are accused
of them of being a... I forgot the word in English. In Khmer we call
moulothon. Like other richer people, they're business owners or
whatever. So those that get-
TS:
00:09:10
So just like wealthy?
SS:
00:09:10
Wealthy. Yeah. So they got... So from my mother's side, both of
my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles they all executed the
same day.
TS:
00:09:19
Oh, God.
SS:
00:09:20
When the war broke out. Yeah.
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
TS:
00:09:22
Okay. And so what would you consider as the ethnicity of you and
your family?
SS:
00:09:29
I'm a Khmer.
TS:
00:09:29
Yeah. Khmer Cambodian?
SS:
00:09:30
Yeah. Cambodian.
TS:
00:09:33
And what languages did you and your families speak?
SS:
00:09:36
Back home we spoke Khmer. We speak Khmer.
TS:
00:09:39
Exclusively like only Khmer? Nothing else?
SS:
00:09:40
When you talk back home, home, you have only Cambodia.
TS:
00:09:43
In Cambodia.
SS:
00:09:44
In Cambodia exclusively yes, Khmer.
TS:
00:09:49
Okay. Do you have any siblings?
SS:
00:09:50
I do. I do have a lot of siblings. If you people ask me about siblings
I always expanded the answer because I do have only one younger
sister that we have the same parents. But I got three step-siblings
from my mother's side and also three step older sibling from my
father's side. Again, because of the war. Their first spouses were…
One of them got executed. My mom’s first husband got executed
in my house. My father’s first wife got starve to death. And so they
were match by the Pol Pot Army. And then they have me and my
younger sister.
TS:
00:10:26
Okay. And so far, I guess starting out with your younger sister,
what's her name?
SS:
00:10:31
Her name is Siva.
TS:
00:10:32
Siva. And what does she do? Just a bit of background.
SS:
00:10:36
Yeah, she is living in Cambodia still. And she is an accountant.
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
TS:
00:10:44
Okay. And so how about the rest of your siblings?
SS:
00:10:48
They are some of them are business owners. Some of them are... I
think two are farmer and the rest are business owner in Cambodia.
They all live in Cambodia.
TS:
00:11:00
They all live in Cambodia still. So do you have any big childhood
memories that you're fond of or that are important to you?
SS:
00:11:12
Childhood? There's a lot. Like I said, I grew up during the postwar.
And the memory was good and bad. One of the good memory that
I grew up in kind of jungle sort of. So I only herd 25 cows. I
herded 25 cows. I loved to spend my time in the forest. And that's
my good memory because I climb a tree. I was a very creative
child. And I love and I was very... I'm like a leader. I had a leader
personality.
SS:
00:11:46
So I kind of like... I know how to control my peer. Can make them
do things on his own. So it's kind of good but bad at the same time
and too bossy whatever. But then another memory that I remember
is when I go to school. Because I was like nine, 10 years old. And I
had to ride a bicycle each way about two and a half hour from my
house to my school. And it was very dangerous.
SS:
00:12:12
So those memories they're vivid... Like sometime when the Pol Pot
Army... Because again, the postwar. So when they come and they
bomb and broke the bridge, we have to buy myself my bicycle and
my backpack. Well it's like a plastic bag, whatever I had at that
time. We have to cross with a very tiny boat. But at that time, at
that particular river, it had a lot of alligators.
TS:
00:12:34
Oh, wow.
SS:
00:12:35
Yeah. And I used it every day. Every time I cross that. So I have
like a thousand butterfly in my stomach. And I feel like all of my
intestine come up to my chest because I'm like, "When they're
going to come to me?"
TS:
00:12:45
Yeah. It's so scary.
SS:
00:12:46
So every time I crossed that river -- that's my vivid memory, that
sometimes I see them merging towards us. And praying to God and
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
to Buddha to... Anyhow, so that those time when I use the memory
that every day that I go to school. Either I fear being raped by other
people or I fear of being eat by alligator.
TS:
00:13:06
That's crazy. Every single day.
SS:
00:13:08
Yeah.
TS:
00:13:09
Anything else you can think of?
SS:
00:13:13
In my childhood when I herd my cows in a forest, I always...
Again, I'm very creative. I always make myself. So I'm very
independent. Even I grew up with my parent, but I know how to
make things to sell. I cut dead branches and tie two bunches and
put in from my house and sell to earn money so I can... And I
know how to grow sweet potato vegetable. All kinds of potato.
SS:
00:13:42
I grew all kind of vegetables and then I would sell them on my way
to school and earn the money to spend for myself so that my...
Basically that's one thing I know about me, that I always know
how to create resources and make my living. That, my parents
never had to worry about get money to buy my clothes and
whatever. I always supported myself when I was little.
TS:
00:14:03
Yeah, yeah. So very resourceful.
SS:
00:14:05
Right.
TS:
00:14:06
That's really good. Okay. So after that, I guess we'll just start
talking a bit about your immigration history. So why did you... So
was it only you that left to the States or was it the rest of your
family?
SS:
00:14:20
Yeah.
TS:
00:14:21
Was it only you.
SS:
00:14:21
I'm by myself came to the States.
TS:
00:14:23
Okay. So why did you leave Cambodia?
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
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Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
SS:
00:14:26
It'll be interesting, to be quite frankly is that I just not... I did not
want to come here. But because of the safety... First I fled my
village. Because there's a guy was scared of a rumor of someone
wanted to kidnap me. So my mom had to evacuate me in the
middle of the day as soon as she heard the news. She sent me to
Phnom Penh. I live at somebody's home and my family. Like with
an extended relative from the village but they live in Phnom Penh.
SS:
00:14:57
So I stayed with them and stayed with their family who gambled.
They work the gamblers. And everyday -- and Phnom Penh is
unsafe for me too. Because there a woman who I stay there. She
always wanted to sell me to prostitution. She wanted to sell me to
many places. But then I got saved by her husband. But anyhow,
long to a short story. The woman, the same woman who wanted to
sell me many time, she end up having the idea.
SS:
00:15:28
Because she gamble, she owe people a lot of money and she have
an idea because I was young. I was 18 at that time. 18 and a half.
And she had an idea of sending me to America so I can work and
earn money to help her so that her husband won't find out about
her gambling issues. So it's all about not my idea. So she would tell
my family in hometown say, "Oh, why don't you send her to
America? She will earn money. She can come... She would help
you guys."
SS:
00:15:56
But her story she told me is a different way from she told my
family. She said, "You've got to go there. You've got to help me. I
offered you my house to stay for a few years. And now your time
to pay me back. How would you want to help me? So you go to
America. You work, you help me as long I pay off the debt. My
husband won't kill me." And I was young. I was very naïve. I
didn’t finish eighth grade from the village. And so yeah. And so I
get whatever she said. And my family said, "Okay, you go". And I
said, "Okay. I come."
SS:
00:16:31
Yeah. When I came here, I came with zero English. So I came here
with $11,000 debt. Because everybody from my family, they try to
gather the money whatever. I have no idea how they did the
paperwork, but they just tell me to answer certain to their embassy.
And then whatever they did, I don't know. But then they got me
here. So I came. So when I came here, that's when I told I work at
the perfume factory. And that's where I felt that I needed to learn
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
English. So to answer a short question -- yeah. I came here, it's not
on my will. I came here because somebody set me up to come.
TS:
00:17:17
And do you remember when you came here? So what age or what
year?
SS:
00:17:19
I came here at 18. So it was July 27, 1997 when I landed here. And
actually, I landed in Green Airport in Providence, Rhode Island.
TS:
00:17:32
And where did you... So before that you lived in Phnom Penh for-
SS:
00:17:37
I lived in Phnom Penh.
TS:
00:17:37
For how many years?
SS:
00:17:37
I lived in Phnom Penh from age 15 to 18. So about three years.
TS:
00:17:40
So three years. Okay. And your city of arrival again. Where did
you-
SS:
00:17:44
Fall River.
TS:
00:17:45
Fall River? And you stayed there for five years?
SS:
00:17:47
Yes.
TS:
00:17:48
All Right. Did you have relatives to stay with or did you?
SS:
00:17:50
Extended.
TS:
00:17:51
Extended family. So no one you knew.
SS:
00:17:54
Actually it's not even my blood relative. It was my mother first
husband's niece basically. So it's not blood relative, yeah.
TS:
00:18:02
Okay. Now just a bit about your refugee experience. So you stated
that you... So you were born after the Khmer Rouge and it was-
SS:
00:18:13
Yeah. It's not totally after, but when it's about... So during the
breakout I wonder. So when I was born during... When the
Vietnamese army invaded and a number that was during the
shooting. So I was born on the mountain basically while my
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
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mother was escaping. So I'm kind of lucky to survive basically.
But no midwife, no nothing andTS:
00:18:36
Yeah. That is crazy. And so I know you were living in Phnom
Penh and then you moved here because not on your own will.
Because you were forced to basically. What were the
circumstances of the rest of your family? Like your parents, your
siblings?
SS:
00:18:58
They are... So my... At that time, all of my parents have they was
doing farming. And two of my siblings, they did their business in
the village. Like buying products and selling that whatever they do
there. And they all live in my own town.
TS:
00:19:21
Okay.
SS:
00:19:21
Yeah.
TS:
00:19:22
And they all just lived there and grew up there?
SS:
00:19:25
Grew up there and they all still there now.
TS:
00:19:27
Yeah. Okay. So just a bit more about your arrival to the States.
How did you feel overall just first arriving over here?
SS:
00:19:38
Lost. Confused. Scared. Everything smell... The smell. I remember
the smell was kind of strange. I smell the American food. I felt so
sick for like a week. I couldn't eat anything. I miss my mother
terribly. I mean, I was away from her in Cambodia but in the same
country. But coming here is a huge difference.
TS:
00:20:06
Yeah. It's huge. So big. And how was your relationship with the
extended-extended family?
SS:
00:20:14
To me grow up during the war and also the culture, I know how to
survive. So I basically, I do anything to please them, to make them
happy. Even sometime if they still not happy, but it doesn't matter.
I still just keep my mouth quiet and do everything I had to do in
the house. Cooking, cleaning. Again, I do everything I have to just
to make sure that I can live with them safely and okay and survive
each day.
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TS:
00:20:41
And about how many years did that last?
SS:
00:20:45
I lived with the family for about a year. Yeah, about a year.
Because I got arrange married to my first husband. Who I rejected
when I was in Cambodia. I didn't... Yeah. But anyhow. So yeah, I
lived with that family for a year. And then I got married and I
moved out. I kind of move. Not move. I move downstairs to their...
They have like a three family house.... So I rented the apartment
downstairs.
TS:
00:21:13
And with your husband?
SS:
00:21:14
With my husband at the time. Yeah.
TS:
00:21:16
Okay. And what were some of your biggest struggles coming here?
SS:
00:21:21
Everything. Biggest struggle, the language, culture. Food I kind of
adapt to pretty quick. Language, culture. I don't know. Just being
alone. It just like... And also the fear is that because I came here,
the money that everybody put together to send me here, I didn't
even know until I got here. And when I landed, I was told that you
have to come up with $11,000 to pay back the people who put the
money for me.
SS:
00:21:52
So, and at that time, that also one of the biggest fear. Even though
the language and your culture was a culture shock for me and
everything. But I was focused on how am I going to earn the
money to pay them back. And at that time I was 18 and I had...
And then the working in the factory and I was not legal go to work.
People just send me and I just go work with them. And I made $4
an hour. And I had to pay to the rent with the woman who I live
with. I had to pay rent, I had to pay food. I had to save and send the
money back.
SS:
00:22:25
So basically for the first five year in fall River I never buy... I
wouldn't say, "No." But I almost never buy any new clothes or
shoes. So I would get stuff from the church to survive on. And in
order for me to pay off the debt, that I had without asking for. So,
yes. So that was my biggest fear. But then also the culture shock. It
was very big for me too. And I was at the age, but I was kind of
forced to grow up in a way. So I did not have the early teenager's
life. So I grew up very, very different. A lot of responsibilities.
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SS:
00:23:06
And it’s shocking too because I became married to somebody who
I never met in my life. But somewhat, I had no choice. I was told
either I'm married to the person or I'm going to be sent back. And I
say, "I can't go back without having enough money to pay them."
If I go back when I work in Cambodia in a garment factory work,
as a garment factory worker, I made $35 a month. How can I come
up with $11,000 to pay the debt I own? So I'm kind of like, "Yes, I
have the willing to married somebody who I didn't even know."
And right away I became a mother.
SS:
00:23:40
So that's another fear. Each more fear coming along. And it's like
one after another.
TS:
00:23:44
A lot of burden and responsibility.
SS:
00:23:44
And a lot of burden, right? And then I had to learn the language.
So, yeah. It's a lot.
TS:
00:23:45
Yeah. So just everything piling on top of each other.
SS:
00:23:53
Everything piling on each other. And you living with somebody
who you don't know, the personality, the needs, the interest. And it
just very complicated. And that's the reason why I asked him to
divorce after five years marriage. Because of that's all of the factor
that kind of like something I did not ask for. I did not ask to be a
wife, I did not ask to be a mother. But everything just came along
the way.
TS:
00:24:20
Okay. Moving on a bit. So what kind of support systems or...
Yeah. What kind of support did you have other than that family?
SS:
00:24:29
Honestly, I did not have the support. Even that family, they weren't
supportive of me. They was emotionally abuse me pretty bad. But I
guess I'm a hard headed person. So I never considered myself to be
a victim. I'm a fighter. But I fight silent. My way of fighting is to
work hard and improve myself. And I will not accept any
negativity. When they call me names, I just stay quiet. But I tell
myself, "That is not me. They can call all they want."
SS:
00:24:56
For some reason, I have a very strong foundation. Because I think
the love my mother gave me... Even though it was postwar, but the
love that she gave me a strong enough for me to shield all the
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Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
negativity around me. But yes. And to answer your question, if I
have any support system -- no I don't.
TS:
00:25:12
So, nothing.
SS:
00:25:13
I did not. Yeah.
TS:
00:25:14
Yeah.
SS:
00:25:15
I mean I have to say I have the church, the priest. He put me into
school. That was a huge support. But then after that I was on my
own. Because, why? My husband did not support me to go to
school. The family who I stayed with told me not to go to school.
They told me as a Cambodian expression, "You as a woman, you
cannot turn around a kitchen. Why you have to go to school for?
You’re supposed to be a wife. Supposed to be a mother. You
should be a mother and a wife. You should not go to school." But I
did not listen to any of them.
TS:
00:25:47
Yeah. So you went to school full time and you didn't work at the
same time or-
SS:
00:25:50
So before I got pregnant, after... I've been going to school. So I
arrive in July. I started school in November the same year. And
then I got married the following June, July. I think the following
June of next the 1998. So anyhow, so yeah. I've been going to
school before I got married. I was going to school in the morning
and I work in the evening at a perfume factory. And the same thing
after I got married I did the same thing. I go to school the morning
and I work in the evening.
SS:
00:26:27
And then up until my pregnancy about two month before I due
when I stop working, I just continue go to school until I give birth
to my twins. And then I stay home for a couple of months. They
sent the teacher to teach me at home and do test everything at
home. So I was still in school. And then when my twins turned, I
think six months old, I went back to work. So I go to school in the
morning, put them in a daycare, come back home. My husband at
that time stay home with them when I go to work in the evening.
So I've been schooling working the whole time.
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TS:
00:27:03
Yeah. Yeah. A sort of no time for yourself basically. Did your
husband have a job as well?
SS:
00:27:09
He did. He did. But because he's not really educated, so his job
was pretty much a factory worker. Make pretty much minimum
wage.
TS:
00:27:19
And you said you worked at a... Was it a perfume factory?
SS:
00:27:22
Perfume factory. Yeah. That's my... I worked at that place for quite
some time.
TS:
00:27:26
Okay. So that was the whole time you were in Fall River and
basically.
SS:
00:27:29
I work elsewhere too. But it's not my reg. So my regular job was at
the perfume factory. But then I also work at the cranberry farm in
Watertown on the weekend. I remember... Oh yeah. I remember on
the winter. I remember in November, around November time, it
was cold freezing outside. I went and worked in a cranberry farm.
Pull out the maple leave tree. Little tree in the farm. It was very
cold. So I do it on the weekends. So I literally took any job open
and available, I worked seven days a week.
SS:
00:28:04
And I remember one summer 2000, I think eight, 1998 I think I
was I work seven days a week because a school vacation. So I
work seven days a week in double shift every day. So I remember
one day I almost fainted at the clothing factory in Brockton. So I
remember I was overworked and my body kind of like exhausted.
TS:
00:28:28
Yeah, yeah. It's too much.
SS:
00:28:29
Yeah. So I fainted once. But yeah. I've been working a lot.
TS:
00:28:33
Yeah. A lot of jobs. Okay. And now just a few questions about
having children whilst over here. So you said you had... How many
children do you have right now?
SS:
00:28:45
I have two.
TS:
00:28:45
You have two children?
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SS:
00:28:45
There's only two.
TS:
00:28:47
Only two?
SS:
00:28:47
Mm-hmm (affirmative). They twins.
TS:
00:28:49
Twins. And you had them a year or two after... Was it two years
after arriving to America?
SS:
00:28:57
So I arrive in 1997, July 19. And I had them two years about...
After two years. I had them March of 1999.
TS:
00:29:11
Okay so how was it... I guess, parenting while you had all these
other burdens on you?
SS:
00:29:20
On my own.
TS:
00:29:20
Yeah. On your own.
SS:
00:29:20
Yeah, on my own. My husband was pretty... I would it call it old
school. He had no parenting skill. And so myself I did not have
any parenting skill. But one thing I know for sure that I had the
love for my kids. And I always make sure they clean. Make sure
they well fed. Make sure they’re loved. And I remember that... No
one had taught me because again, I'm very privileged in a way that
I had my mother. Because she well educated before the war.
SS:
00:29:52
So even though the post war, there is no book, nothing. We live in
a jungle in a way and there's no book. But then my mom always
tell me story every night. She's always had different story to tell
me. So it’s kind of routine. So when I had my kids, I think my
routine with them is every night with my broken English, I read
them a book. And later on I remember when they knew English
better, they kind of corrected me. And the same because before
they get like they're listening and they didn't even understand
anything. They were so small.
SS:
00:30:21
So, yeah. So, parenting wise, I just went along and did what I think
is right for myself. No one had taught me anything here.
TS:
00:30:30
And sending them to school. Was that any trouble just navigating
the public school system?
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SS:
00:30:36
No, I did not. So, I'm the type of person who tries it. Because I
knew I'd been working. So the job that I had been doing helped me
a lot. So I work with domestic violence with parents and children.
Obviously you’re going to be involved with a family involved with
everything. So I kind of get familiar with the school system. And I
know how to advocate for myself, my kids along the way. Because
the job that I had been, I got trained to know how to help them.
SS:
00:31:07
And I have to say I don't have any issues. Because everything
come along, I always request for meeting with teacher. I always
ask question. I always attend parenting meeting and all of those
things. So as a single mom, because I divorce when my kids were
three years old. So I raise them basically by myself. But I didn't
have any problem. Again by the time my kid started school, I have
enough ability in English skill to support them and navigate myself
along the way.
TS:
00:31:40
Yeah. And just another question about language. So when you
didn't know any English at all, how did you go about just
navigating everything?
SS:
00:31:50
It’s hard. It’s hard. I remember in high school everything was ESL
classes. And the first month I remember clearly the first one month
mark I gave up for a week. Because I sat in a classroom. I had no
idea what the teacher was saying. I mean, I know yes, no. Okay.
And when she's not happy, her face expression I know. Like
yelling or whatever. But I don't know the whole context of the
conversation. So I got... And I feel very bad. Because I cannot
read, I cannot follow the reading with other peers. Even other peer
they younger.
SS:
00:32:26
And they had some... Even they also may immigrant from a
different country, but because they younger they ask. Some of
them, most of them have some previous English from their home.
From their country. Whereas I'm a pure garment worker, factory
worker from Phnom Penh and a complete a different story. So
anyway, I felt so bad, I cried almost every day. And after a month I
quit at school. And I went to work double shift at the perfume
factory. And then one incident, something went wrong.
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SS:
00:32:59
I think I misplace the bottle. Because you work on the line. When
you placed it when the line ran too fast, you only can do so much,
right?
TS:
00:33:07
Yeah.
SS:
00:33:08
I miss a bottle and then the perfume was spilled out and the I got
yelled at by the leader who controlled the line. And she like
screaming out of her lung at me. And her eyebrows almost popped
out. And I want to explain to her that you put the line too fast and
I'm not a machine. I'm a human being. But I cannot explain that to
her. It make me so mad and frustrated. And I say to myself on that
day, I said, "I'm going to go back to school. I'm not going to quit
anymore." So I should thank to her about the way she treated me
and pushed me like, "I have to learn. I have to be able to
communicate with them. I cannot live like this anymore."
SS:
00:33:43
And then I went back to school and from then on I stick in school
until I graduated.
TS:
00:33:49
So all four years?
SS:
00:33:50
All four years I study whenever opportunity I have. I read. I try to
open dictionary. I put word together. I try to listen to... Oh, and by
the way the family who I stayed with, she have a... At that time she
has seven year old girl. She kind of like taught me. I try to speak
with her a lot and she taught me English along the way.
TS:
00:34:12
Okay. Just asking a bit about naturalization and citizenship. So at
the moment, what is your citizenship status?
SS:
00:34:21
I am a citizen.
TS:
00:34:22
Okay. When did you get naturalized?
SS:
00:34:25
In 2004.
TS:
00:34:27
2004? How did it?
SS:
00:34:29
I did it on my own too. Again because I am... So at the privilege I
got when I live in Fall River, I have to say I'm one of the
Cambodian that can speak and write both English and Khmer. So I
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UML 17
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got a really good job working with... They're called Catholic Social
Services in Fall River as a... My first job was I worked in a
headstart for a year but then I move on to domestic violence work
where I work for the Catholic Social Services. Where I got trained
and everything. So I'm sorry, I missed your question, right?
TS:
00:35:05
No, I was just wondering how you got naturalized.
SS:
00:35:08
Oh yeah, that's right. So when I do that job, I got to work with an
emigrant attorney in the same office. And I ask her. I said, "I've
been here for a certain amount of years now. I want to apply for
the citizenship." Because I wanted to sponsor my mother. At that
time she was still alive. Anyhow so I did it. So that particular
colleague attorney work in the same organization and help me
through. So I applied for it and I got an interview and I passed it.
TS:
00:35:38
Okay. How was the process overall?
SS:
00:35:40
It was not hard at all. Because again because I knew enough
English at that time. And also I did at that time beside I did
domestic violence work, I also work for a Cambodian Mutual
Assistance in Fall River. My job as a part-time, at that time I
helped older people. So it's called Woman Group. So I help a lot of
older people to get naturalized. So I often took them to Boston and
I get familiar with the system, the questions and everything. So
when is was my turn it was very simple and just quick and easy.
TS:
00:36:12
Yeah. So that helped a lot?
SS:
00:36:13
Yeah, yeah.
TS:
00:36:15
So was there a significant community in Fall River?
SS:
00:36:19
Yeah, it's a good amount of Cambodian. It's not as big as Lowell.
But it's, yeah, I'm not sure how many. About four or 5,000 maybe.
TS:
00:36:25
Okay.
SS:
00:36:26
Yeah.
TS:
00:36:26
Oh wow. That is a decent amount.
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Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
SS:
00:36:28
I hope that's a true number. I'm just make it up. But I'm not
assuming that. They do have temple there. They have stores.
Couple of stores there. So it's a good amount of people.
TS:
00:36:36
Yeah. Enough to be established. To see-
SS:
00:36:38
Yeah. Yeah.
TS:
00:36:39
... them around. So did you go to temple or church first off,
growing up and then afterwards?
SS:
00:36:46
Yeah. I went to both. When I was living there. I go to church
because again, the priest who helped me put me in school that one
day that he made decision to help me it change my life. So for the
matter of fact, I went and saw him last weekend to say “Hi.” He's
older now. He's in his 80s now. But anyhow. So yeah, I went to
church. But then during the Khmer traditional ceremony like
Pchum Ben or Khmer New Years, I go to the temple. It’s just to
carry my tradition. But when I go to church, it’s more like I pay
respect to the priests who helped me.
TS:
00:37:22
Okay. And growing up, did you go to temple while you were in
Cambodia?
SS:
00:37:28
Yeah.
TS:
00:37:28
Okay. How often?
SS:
00:37:31
Only the special occasion like Pchum Ben and New Year. Because
again during my time growing up there, the country was very
undeveloped. And things was pretty behind. And is a lot different
compared to now.
TS:
00:37:48
Okay. So I guess even though you went to church, would you say
you followed the beliefs of Christianity or did you go mostly just
because of the help the priest gave you?
SS:
00:38:01
Yeah, I honestly until today, I grew up in a religious and a
Buddhism families and tradition. But to me, God or Buddha's I
think it's in my heart. I think when I'm a kind and good to other
people, it doesn't matter. I'm Buddhist or Christian. I don't really
define myself which one is for real but I respect both. I think both
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Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
have a good... I think they teach people in a good manner. If we
are... I think to me, I believe is a matter how you adapt to it. How
you interpret the theory of their beliefs.
TS:
00:38:37
Yeah. And moving on. So I knew you didn't have very much time
at all with I guess just growing up in the States. But after the first
five or so years when you had a little bit more time. Even though
you're still a parent, which is still a full time job. What were you
able to do for recreation or just time on your own? Was there
anything that you enjoyed?
SS:
00:39:05
I did not feel or do any enjoyment until my kids were... until I
move to Andover. Until I move out from Fall River to Andover.
Because after I... First I first got divorce I still work two jobs. I've
been working two jobs all my life I think in America more or less.
I started to enjoy my life more around 2006 to seven. I think
around 2007 when I started to drive take my kid on for a ride.
Sometime I love to explore. So the three of us just pack and then
we just go off.
SS:
00:39:48
And sometime I drove start from Mass and turn around to New
Hampshire. Start from 93 came back 95. I just drive around.
TS:
00:39:55
Oh, okay.
SS:
00:39:56
So I don't have fear. One thing about me that I do not fear I just...
Driving is like therapeutic for me. And that's why I talk about the
driving. And I start to go hiking with friends and stuff. One of
them I know from school and from work. Yeah. So my recreation
started around 2007 and on. But prior to that I didn't... I remember
one of my colleague he was an intern. Like our psychologist who
assigned to work with me.
SS:
00:40:22
He work with me every day. He noticed that I didn't do anything
for fun. He'd go like... I remember he bought me a thick guide
book. And he said to me, "We need to take time off and go far to
have fun." And I still have the book until today and I never done it.
And I remember like a couple of months later he call. "Did you do
anything?" I said, "No." He said, "I bought that book for you to go
and have fun." And I say, "I don't have time." So, yeah. I didn't do
anything until 2007. So literally between 1997 to 2007, I was
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ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
focused in working full time. Two jobs, mom and everything.
Yeah. Student.
TS:
00:40:58
Yeah. Okay. So when you explored, you mostly just drove. And
did you like any places in particular like cities or nature?
SS:
00:41:06
I love nature because I grew up in nature. I love to go hiking. I
love to drive in the mountain. That's why I like to go to New
Hampshire a lot. Even in Mass, I like to drive anywhere that's have
a lot of trees. Because I feel peace and I feel within myself when
I'm around those area. When I go to city I only enjoy for a short
period of time. And normally I just go to city when I go to once in
a blue moon. One of my friend she's grew up here. She try to get
me adapt to go to club. I've been too there I feel like going to puke
there because it's not my environment. I like the city but not... I
would not live there. I will not enjoy. I would enjoy for a
temporary.
TS:
00:41:45
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And just going way back. So what was your
feeling about the U.S. before you actually moved here? What were
your impressions?
SS:
00:41:54
No clue.
TS:
00:41:55
You didn't know anything about it?
SS:
00:41:57
No clue. The first time I learn about the U.S. when the lady told
me, "You need to go there because you can make a lot of money."
And I have no idea what does it mean. I was expecting when she
told me to come here, I thought I would come here and make good
money and stuff. I thought is... I never knew anything about law. I
have no idea. No clue.
TS:
00:42:13
Okay. Did you know anything much about other countries other
than the U.S.?
SS:
00:42:20
Nope. I only... The only country I've been to is Vietnam. This a
border that I went with the lady who are living in Phnom Penh she
went for a treatment. And she took me with her one time just to
help her because she was sick. But that was about it.
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TS:
00:42:36
Okay. So now I'm just going to ask a bit about like comparisons
comparing the United States with Cambodia. So first off, how
would you compare the healthcare system of the United States
compared to Cambodia?
SS:
00:42:48
Day and night. It's uncomparable.
TS:
00:42:51
Describe a bit about-
SS:
00:42:52
So the healthcare in Cambodia growing up, I never seen a doctor.
When I got sick is all home remedy. Home remedy that my mom
made it for me. I remember when I had chicken pox, she soak it.
Fermented some sort of leaves for a few days and I have to take a
shower. Use that water that she fermented that particularly to wash
my body smell horrible. Yeah, it was completely... It can't even
compare, right? So basically if I compare my personal experience,
the time I lived there there's no end.
SS:
00:43:33
Like I say, I've never seen a doc. Or I only see a doctor when I
went to get a medical checkup before I came to America. And I
didn't have any recollection because I was set up to go and tell me
how to answer questions. So it was not for myself. So I don't
remember any... But I know that I was sent to see a doctor and that
was it and I came here. But then prior to that, I never seen a doctor
for any sickness.
TS:
00:43:57
And were there any village doctors in your area or?
SS:
00:44:02
It's only like a magic spell.
TS:
00:44:03
Like shaman?
SS:
00:44:07
Shaman, I don't know how to say it in English.
TS:
00:44:08
Yeah, I think that what it called.
SS:
00:44:09
I remember when I was in middle school, I liked to play like a boy.
I'm very aggressive. I play like a boy game. Like I used a stick to
pick in whatever. And most of my friends are boys too. Because I
can't play with girl. I'm too aggressive for girl. They don't like to
play with me. So, I'm we'll play with the particular stick. And we
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call herng right? So the stick went in through my... I think either
my left or my right eye. So I was I'm lucky that I can have my eye.
SS:
00:44:34
So I was blind for a few months. So when I remember the only
doctor I saw was this old man in my village. And he use his magic
then blow in the water or whatever. He blow in my eye. And I had
to see him twice a day. And I don't know, if his strategy worked or
just it healed itself. But apparently the stick that poked in my eye,
is about bigger than my finger.
TS:
00:45:00
Oh, my God.
SS:
00:45:01
Can you imagine?
TS:
00:45:01
Yeah, yeah. I can.
SS:
00:45:02
Like I said, I couldn't see anything for a few months I was blind.
But it healed. Right? So if I don't believe I have to believe because
it worked for me. There's no doubt doctor have done any operation
in my eye.
TS:
00:45:13
That's crazy.
SS:
00:45:15
But then came here, it completely different. You know how this...
But then it's hard for me when I went even to see a doctor. When
the doctor ask question, I did not know how to answer properly
because I was in my... First all the language, I didn't understand.
When a doctor question you, he want to hear something you don't
know.
SS:
00:45:36
You just through translation from other just really messed up. It
was a really not a good experience despite the healthcare system
with better. But because the language is make it lost in midway.
You know what I mean? So the treatment worked. But at the I...
Because I never have any medical issues so I don't have a lot to say
about that. Besides just regular medical checkup and pregnant.
And other than that, I don't have any problems that I can share a
lot.
TS:
00:46:05
And how about with your kids? Was it useful, helpful with your
kids? Do they have any big problems?
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SS:
00:46:11
Oh yeah. Actually my son growing up as a baby -- my daughter
was pretty healthy as a baby. And my son was constantly having
fever and he cried a lot. And he also had an ear infection. He was
not a healthy baby. To me every so I knew how to like... If the time
so I have I only have the thermometer with me if the temperature
go up high I always call the doctor. And he always gets seen. So
that is convenient. Excuse me. So that is convenient that I don't...
That's one thing that assure me that I'm not worried if something
goes wrong. I can rely on a doctor.
TS:
00:46:49
Yeah, yeah. And were they helpful during that process?
SS:
00:46:51
Yeah, it was helpful. Even though I'm... At that one day when my
kid was a baby I know a little English already. So I did not need
any more translation. But sometime I need to ask the doctor repeat
things twice or have to explains thing very slowly to him. But
yeah. I didn't experience any much difficulty.
TS:
00:47:12
Okay, okay. That's good. And so I guess your overall impression
of the healthcare system in the States is better?
SS:
00:47:19
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
TS:
00:47:20
A lot, lot better?
SS:
00:47:21
Yeah.
TS:
00:47:22
Okay. And now just asking about comparisons with education.
What do you think the biggest differences are between?
SS:
00:47:30
The differences are over here, if I only look into a narrow two
places over here is a lot like... Again is uncomparable. In
Cambodia the teacher was... Because the teacher in Cambodia was
not well trained first of all. Especially in my time. Most of my
teacher all war survivor. Right? They not were trained
professionally. And there's no professional trainer in Cambodia. So
the teacher taught whatever they knew.
SS:
00:48:00
There's a curriculum that put you know... Put it this way. Their
country, the leader of the country didn't even have education. So
what can you expect, right? So I remember a lot abusive. I've had a
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few of my friend who had to quit school when they're like 12, 10
years old. Because of a lot of physically abused.
TS:
00:48:25
Was it the teachers-
SS:
00:48:25
The teacher. Yeah. If you don't have.... Basically everything
learned through rehearsal. It's not learned through critical thinking.
If you can rehearse it, you good. If you cannot rehearse it, you bad.
There's no mental health involved. There's no diagnosing. If you
slow, you dumb, you stupid, right? If you can catch up, you're
good, you're smart, you are in. And you not smart, you out. That
just how the students were treated then. It was just, yeah. It was
pretty, pretty bad.
SS:
00:49:01
And I feel so bad. I've been back, I met a few friend of mine who
went to middle school. Or I think it was an elementary school, that
they quitted and then they became illiterate themselves. And that
kind of pass on to their younger kid. Because they don't understand
the value education. So that make me so sad in my heart when I
went back and see them that they are still struggling. Now 2000. At
the time was 15. They still live in a lifestyle like they're in 1990.
That's sad for me to see.
SS:
00:49:31
The education has oppressed them. And here obviously, I did not
have a good experience in high school. Because a lot of my
teachers are Portuguese. I got actually put down a lot by my...
That's another thing too. Anyone put me down, I fight back. So one
of my teacher actually in high school here in Fall River. One day I
remember I supposed to read... we all supposed to read the story
about the Oedipus. About the Greeks and pathology.
TS:
00:49:57
Oedipus Rex.
SS:
00:49:58
Yeah. And I remember that time my twin were having a cold. It
was around winter around November, December, I forgot. But it's
a winter time. But despite, I didn't do the homework, I still show
up in class. And then I remember that when she ask, did anyone
read... For those who read the story, the homework that I assigned
raise your hand. Everyone in my class raised them except me. And
she said to me, "You. Why didn't you do your homework?" And I
said, "Because my baby was sick and I did not have time. They
were crying all along."
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SS:
00:50:33
And she said to me, "This is a place to learn. If you want to have a
baby, you stay home. This place if you learn you come here. You
don't then you stay home." And she sent me out the class the whole
time. I'm not allowed to be participate in this discussion of the
topic. And that was hurt I feel like I wanted to learn, but my
circumstance I don't have the lifestyle like these kid have. But I've
push myself to be here. But she did not see it. And then it was
hard. It still affects me until today.
SS:
00:51:02
But anyhow, I want to prove her wrong that I'm not going to give
up. I keep going show up myself in her class until I graduate. So
yeah. But at the same time not all teachers are bad. There're some
are good teacher who has supported me along the way too.
TS:
00:51:17
But it's rough when a teacher like that isn't understanding and just
kicks you out of the class when you just want to learn.
SS:
00:51:26
You know the social justice is an unfair everywhere. The peer it
depending on who you are dealing with. Right? And that's why
when I take sociology, I've learned about it and make me think
about all those. That's why I'm very passionate and have worked in
the society and helping all that. Because I know how people take
advantage of other when you don't have the ability and knowledge
to support and to advocate for yourself.
TS:
00:51:52
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And just moving on. So well actually just a bit
more about the education I was wondering what was the
demographic of the kids in your class? Like what race or ethnicity
were they mostly?
SS:
00:52:09
You mean in America?
TS:
00:52:10
In high school first of all.
SS:
00:52:11
In high school in America? Yes. So I went to school in Fall River.
Most of them are Portuguese. Especially in my time because I was
a ESL student. So all of my... We in high school, but they have a
different program. They have like you guys know who born here,
you under different program. You're on typical program. But then
for us as an immigrant or refugee kids, we are in the ESL class.
And I would say 95 are Portuguese.
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TS:
00:52:43
Yeah, wow.
SS:
00:52:44
Maybe I may lie. Maybe some Spanish too. But most of student I
was with mostly Portuguese. They all spoke Portuguese.
TS:
00:52:50
Yeah. And that was your community as well? Was there a lot of
Portuguese in Fall River?
SS:
00:52:59
Yeah. In Fall River is like Portuguese town. Yeah, it's a lot of
Portuguese. I learned a few words when I was there. All of my
teachers are Portuguese. I would take 90%, 99% of my teacher at
that times are Portuguese.
TS:
00:53:10
That's crazy.
SS:
00:53:11
That's like their town.
TS:
00:53:11
Yeah, I didn't know that.
SS:
00:53:12
They different generations of them living there. So yeah.
TS:
00:53:16
Yeah. And how about your other areas where you lived? What
were they like races mostly?
SS:
00:53:19
When I live in Andover I was in mix. A lot Indian, Chinese and
Caucasian, white.
TS:
00:53:30
Did you live in the suburbs or in the city more? In Andover.
SS:
00:53:34
I lived in a near that in the town. Like near the libraries so near the
school where my kid went to so they can walk. So what I try to do
is that as single mom I always work two jobs to support us. And
also, you know. And again kind of to answer maybe not your
question. But to share that my experience that I'm here not just
trying to support myself and my kids. But at the same time I
support my elder father who and living in... And also my younger
sister. I supported through out since my mum pass away in 2005.
SS:
00:54:12
I supported my younger sister from high school and throughout her
college year there. I paid literally 100%. Her living expense
everything and school tuition and also my dad. So I have literally
four people to take care of. So I always work two jobs. And to live
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in Andover, I have to live near the school so my kid can walk to
school and walk back home while I'm busy at work.
SS:
00:54:36
Because I cannot afford daycare and you know. I'm in the day at
that time in middle school. But yeah. So I live by in downtown.
Near like downtown. Its like a town. Maybe a small town.
TS:
00:54:49
Yeah. It's not that big. So after Andover, where did you go?
SS:
00:54:53
We moved to Cambodia.
TS:
00:54:55
Cambodia for how long?
SS:
00:54:56
So because I got remarried. So my husband worked for UNHCR.
And he moved there first. And then I wanted to bring my children
to learn the culture. And part of me, I work here and I wanted them
to know where the root of them. Right? So when they learn the
culture, right? And also to get to know the family. Because here
I'm just me and them. I don't have any family member here.
SS:
00:55:24
So they lived there about a good two and a half years.
TS:
00:55:27
Wow. That's a long time.
SS:
00:55:28
So I took my twins after they graduate from middle school here,
they started high school there. And then they finished their 10
grade and then we came back.
TS:
00:55:39
Okay. And was it a school that taught English as well?
SS:
00:55:42
Yeah, it's an international school.
TS:
00:55:44
International school.
SS:
00:55:45
Yeah. And I worked there as well. So I worked for USAID project.
TS:
00:55:48
Okay. How do you describe the education system in the
international school?
SS:
00:55:55
International school, the system is not bad at all. They have a really
awesome... We love the curriculum that they have. But the
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problem was that because the school is in the third world country,
the teacher often change every six to nine months or a year.
TS:
00:56:09
Oh, yeah.
SS:
00:56:09
Because people would go there from America, from England or
from Australia or from other parts of the European country. They
went there just to explore. So they live while they live they get a
job to teach. And then when they feel like they've done enough
enjoying the country, they return. And then there's a new teacher
come. And that's something is not good for our kids.
TS:
00:56:29
So you're missing that connection. The longterm connection.
SS:
00:56:31
Right. Right. But they learn. We did not regret any bit of piece of
it. Because it taught my kids a lot about the lifestyle here and
lifestyle there. So that they are understanding that they don't take
anything for granted. They've seen what was happening to people
there.
TS:
00:56:52
Yeah. Did they live in the country or in Phnom Penh?
SS:
00:56:55
While they go to school, we lived in Phnom Penh. But often I take
them to the country where my hometown is. So they spend time
with their cousins there.
TS:
00:57:04
Okay, okay. And I guess going back to high school in America,
was it difficult to adjust or was it-
SS:
00:57:14
Oh my God, yes.
TS:
00:57:15
It was?
SS:
00:57:17
A few time. I came from a culture that girl not supposed to talk to
boy. Walking around high school and see all the Asian. Especially
when I see other white people, I don't know why but my mentality.
When I see other white people, kids kiss each other, hug each other
on the hallway, it doesn't bother me. But every time I see a Khmer
kid standing and kissing with other... Their boyfriend or whatever,
I'm just, "Oh my God. I'm going to have a heart attack." It's like I
don't know why it's in my mentality is it make me feel that's not
okay.
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SS:
00:57:46
But it's kind of like other... Again, I was older student. Like my
when I start I was supposed to be finished already, right? So it's
hard. I didn't have... I only have like two friends. And those two
friends because they Khmer kid and because they wanted to learn
Khmer from me. They still connecting with me nowadays. Because
they want me to teach them Khmer. Which is good that they've
reach out to me. So they help to take care of my baby while I teach
them Khmer. So those, they were my friends.
TS:
00:58:14
Okay. Now I guess moving on. For your work and career. So I
know you had a lot of difficulties adjusting in general. About how
long did it take you until you really got used to the language then
really found you could do well at work and find a career?
SS:
00:58:34
I would say three years later.
TS:
00:58:36
Three years.
SS:
00:58:38
The first year, I got my professional job right away. And I
remember all the job when I stared and when I leave. Because I got
my first job. So I graduated high school June 10 in 2001. And July
10, the same year a month later, I got a job offer at a headstart in
Fall River. So I work in the office, try do translation or like a
school handout and a school handbook and all those to translate
from English to Khmer.
SS:
00:59:06
And then I work there for a year. It was so much mentally abuse. I
would say call and work. It's kind of discrimination because of my
accent because of my grammar is not good. I spoke like backward
and messed up. And instead of helping me, they laughed at me.
And then they treat me like I'm not equal at all.
TS:
00:59:25
Yeah, yeah.
SS:
00:59:26
So it was really mentally-
TS:
00:59:29
Abusive.
SS:
00:59:30
Yeah. Pretty bad. But then I left and then after that I left to the
domestic violence job. Where I had most amazing boss who I still
connect with her until today. Yeah.
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TS:
00:59:42
And after that... So would you say that was your first real career?
SS:
00:59:47
Yes, that was real career at the head start. And then at the domestic
violence that my second year I started it. I worked exactly a year at
the head start. And then the following year I start at domestic
violence as a domestic one coordinator. Again, that was the most
difficult job for me ever. Because it going from working as a
translator, you really don't use your brain too much. You just
translating two languages. Right?
TS:
01:00:10
Yeah. Yeah.
SS:
01:00:10
But then you become like because I speak the language, the Khmer
and English, so they put me to become a program coordinator. And
I have to lead about six volunteers. Not just for Khmer but like
Portuguese, Spanish and Creole and all those people work under
me. And I'm like... So I have to pull myself to be mature. But
sometime I find myself very struggle because some of the
volunteers who are spoke perfect English, while myself have
broken English.
SS:
01:00:39
But then again, I got a lot of support from my supervisor at the
time. And she pushed me and make me move when she sees
something in me and she gave me the opportunity to do it. So I did
it. So after that job, the funding, we ran out of the funding. But
then after that I became more confident more... My thinking
become bigger and I can manage things better. So yeah. But it was
not easy early on. It was a very, very difficult. But again, I'm hard
headed. Things that bothers me is only bothers me for a short
period of time
TS:
01:01:16
Yeah.
SS:
01:01:17
Yeah.
TS:
01:01:18
And how would you say the career path in the United States differs
from Cambodia as well? What would be the traditional thing for
men and women in Cambodia?
SS:
01:01:31
From my personal experience is hard. I mean for man and woman,
I don't... In Cambodia if you talk about my time, I did not
experience or see any... I didn't see a lot of professional work.
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Beside I grew up in a farm. And I saw if people work for the
government, like my brother-in-law, work in army, office and no
female. I didn't see any female work besides teacher.
SS:
01:01:57
I saw a lot of teacher, female teacher, but not male. I mean, but not
any other job. All right. The judge, I know mostly men. That's
what I know. And here obviously I've seen both men and women
working here. But I also aware that's a deep level they are
discrimination. I mean inequality in terms you know?
TS:
01:02:18
Sexism.
SS:
01:02:20
Right. Sexism. That's in a deep level that I become more educated,
more of the work I do. I recognize that too. But to talk about
comparison between here, Cambodia, Cambodia cannot compare
to here with all this.
TS:
01:02:29
Yeah. Yeah. And about your family life? Or just family life in
general. Comparing United States and Cambodia.
SS:
01:02:41
Family like Cambodia, we are close knit. My mother she done an
amazing job as a mother and as a stepmother. All of my stepsibling from my dad side respected my mother. So we are really
we one family. Because sometime I see other family when they
have stepmother and stepfather, they don't get along. But my
family we very close and we support each other. But everyone they
got married, they live on their own home. They have their own
family, they have their own... They support themself.
SS:
01:03:13
And talk about now, things have change. So they do well
financially and educational. And my niece and nephew are well
educated. Some of them got to study oversea and they got
scholarships and stuff like that. So they more like westernize and
more like... They become like a normal, like us here now. Because
of they know English and they spoke English very well. They
written and writing and now the different. But then back home the
parents are staying like...
SS:
01:03:42
Like one of my brother, he bought a house in a couple of city just
to have all of his four children live while they go to school. And
then him and his wife live at home and do the business at home. So
I have three nephew. So in the capital city right now, I have from
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one of my brother, he have four kids. All of them are now in
college. One that the oldest two have graduated already. The two
are still in college and then I have two other nieces both are in
college.
SS:
01:04:10
So, yeah. And the other two nieces they already graduate from
accountant and they went back and got married. They have their
own job and whatever. So a lot of my family, younger generation,
my niece and nephew, they all get college graduate. They all
college graduates in Cambodia.
TS:
01:04:26
So they're beginning to value the education in general?
SS:
01:04:29
They do. They do because they're time is growing up they have
more resources and things have change compare to my time.
TS:
01:04:36
Yeah. Yeah. And how does the family life differ would you say
compared to the United States?
SS:
01:04:45
Before it differ because my brother and my sister, they'd raise the
kid more very controlling way. Like demanding. But because of
my influence, I have to say it because I went there almost every
year. Took my kids there before with prior before I went to live
there. I always go, I went every year to visit. But then I always
influenced them by like... I embrace. I kind of brought the
American ideas of raising kids to them so that they will not put
pressure on their kids. And so when they raise the kid and let them
allow them the room develop and free.
SS:
01:05:21
So the lifestyle between my family and here are not much
different. Like I said, because they adapt. They are willing to adapt
a new culture.
TS:
01:05:31
That's good.
SS:
01:05:32
Yeah.
TS:
01:05:33
And comparing law enforcement United States against Cambodia.
SS:
01:05:39
I get a lot to say. Well everywhere is... Let's talk about the
inequality, right? It's everywhere. Corruption is big time in
Cambodia. In America, I experience inequality. Why? Let me
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share about the America and Cambodia I can share after. So in
2002 I remember I worked in the domestic violence field. One of
my clients, she called me and that she got beat up by her partner.
And I took her right away to the police station. And at that time my
English was still accent. But I still I knew what I was doing.
SS:
01:06:22
So I took her to the police station and try to file a report. And I
asked him. I say, "The apartment belongs to her. He is just a
boyfriend. He come to stay. But then because he had more power
over her, he beat her up and kicked her out of her own apartment
and he stays." So basically I said, ""Sir, I need your help." This
woman she came with a black and blue eye. I mean you don't have
to explain. You can see it. I said, "He is there." I gave him the
information. I said, "This is his name. This is what he looks like.
This is his picture. She has it all."
SS:
01:06:51
And the police said to me, "Well, I'm not sure what I can do." And
then at that time I can tell that he doesn't think that I would fight.
That I would stand my ground. He said, "I see what it can do." I
said, "Sir, I don't accept that answer from you." I said, "I need you
to help my client. She needs to go back home." I just took her back
from the hospital to get a checkup because he beat her so bad.
SS:
01:07:17
And then he said, "Well, I can't speak to him." I said, "Sir, I don't
care if you can speak to him or not. But it's your duty to keep
people safe. And she is the victim of domestic violence. It’s your
job. I don't care what you do. But your job to keep him away from
her. If something happen to her again and violence happen," I say,
"I'm right." And I said, "So just you know I'm writing your badge
number." Then he looks at me like, "Who the hell are you?"
Because I think a lot of police officers sometime they do the work
so well. And sometimes they pick and choose if they want to work
or not.
SS:
01:07:49
So I think my point is that I did experience discrimination because
of my skin color, because of my language, because of my accent. I
did not get treated the way I supposed to get treated. My people did
not get treated they supposed to get treated. They didn't get the
proper protection. If I did not stand up and speak up for her. If I
did not threaten to them, "I got your badge number and if
somethings happen to my client, I'm going to go after you." And
right away he said, "Oh well, I'm sending the guy there now."
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SS:
01:08:18
That's all you need to tell me. You don't have tell, "Oh well, I see
what I can do." Is not the answer, right? And so, yeah. So that is
something I can… that's one example. I don't have to go through
all. But yes, I did. I have experienced discrimination here. Myself
or my client. Because I work a lot. Doing domestic violence work I
dealt with a lot of law enforcement. And myself too I've been
sometime I got... Like one time I get over speeded. I got mistreated
really bad.
SS:
01:08:48
Because I did not know how to explain myself well to him. I did
not know how to communicate to him well. He wanted to arrested
me because I cannot explain why. But anyhow but I never allow
that to be an obstacle. I always stand my ground and fight back.
And if I can't do it myself and I... The good thing too I work in the
field. I have a lot of resources. I knew a lot of lawyers who I can
talk to and can help me out and things like that. But that is what
my point of view. And can you imagine for my client who don't
know the language, who cannot communicate it, cannot support
themself and I can see a lot of struggle. A lot of inequality here for
that.
SS:
01:09:26
Back to Cambodia, there's no law. The law is in the book. I mean
regardless during when I was younger or when I've been back.
Because when I was younger like I said, I always fear for my
safety. Because there's just a lot of raped. So that's why I act tough.
Then as a young age because I'll be show that I'm tough. I don't
want to be afraid of men. Because if you weak and men tend to
take advantage of you.
SS:
01:09:56
And then if you get rape, if you get whatever no one can defend
you. You're on your own. You got pregnant, you on your own.
Become disown by the community. Because there are the girl who
got raped and got pregnant and the community did not accept
them. Because they have a baby before they married but they didn't
ask for it, right? So though there's no law to protect them that
matters. And people beat up each other, people kill each other.
There's no one protecting them during my time and I experienced
that.
SS:
01:10:22
But then until back in 2000. I live there from 2013 till the end of
2015. I work with the government. And I've dealt with them. It's
completely hard for me because I get you to this country when I
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
fight for my right, I know my right. I fought for it. I got my....
What's it called. I got my justice. I got the justice that I asked for.
As long as I know how to right fight for it. Over there, it took the
smarter you are, you are become their predator. They become your
predator because they don't like you’re smart. They don't like... If
you speak your truth to them, they don't like you. They hate you,
you become the target.
SS:
01:11:06
So it's like you have to act stupid to be safe. If you speak up, you're
not safe. That simple as it is.
TS:
01:11:14
Yeah. Yeah. So just telling you it's 4:30 right now. Yeah. About 15
more minutes left. There are only a few more questions left. So I'll
just ask the biggest ones. So about your reflection. Looking back
on your experiences, how do you feel about your life now in the
U.S. in relation to your history? Like your past and your life before
coming to U.S.?
SS:
01:11:44
I feel like I'm... I feel strong. I feel powerful. I feel smarter. I think
all the experiences that I've gone through, it had taught me a lot. It
helps me shape me to be a person who I am. That I feel like I'm not
rich in any form of wealth of materialistic. But I'm rich in my
heart, I'm rich in my head that I am not afraid to do anything or to
go anywhere. And I feel very confident in that sense.
TS:
01:12:17
And how do you feel about the new culture now? Having adapted
to it?
SS:
01:12:21
My call, right now I can adapt to it. I accept it. I mean nothing is
perfect. But I know how to work around and live around it and I'm
happy with it.
TS:
01:12:32
What do you like most about the U.S.?
SS:
01:12:35
I like the fact that it provide the freedom. It provide the
opportunity. So it is your choice to grab it or to let it go. So that's
what I like. The opportunity’s there. If you fight or you work hard
enough, it's still yours. But if you don't work hard enough, it's
going to slip be someone else.
TS:
01:12:53
Yeah, yeah. And what do you like the least about the U.S.?
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
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ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
SS:
01:12:57
I like the least is the... I didn't prepare for this. What I like the least
about the U.S. I think there sometime the politics will... I looks so
perfect. But yet it's so imperfect.
TS:
01:13:14
Yeah, yeah.
SS:
01:13:16
Everything look so great, but when you really in it, it has so many
flaw. Does that make any sense to you?
TS:
01:13:21
Yeah, yeah. It makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. And so what
do you miss most about Cambodia?
SS:
01:13:30
I miss most. I used to. Well I miss my... I can't say I love my
family. But that's not most because I barely grew up with them. I
have been scattered all over the place. I miss the farm that I used to
spend time with my mother there. The organic food that we grow
on our own that we ate. All those thing. The peacefulness in the
forest that we spend together. We grew up with vegetable and I can
climb up all kind of trees I want to.
SS:
01:14:01
Those kind of peaceful. I felt like when there's no shooting, life is
perfect. I don't have to compete with anyone. I just live peacefully.
My mom loves me as who I am. And she provide with the
unconditional love that I couldn't ask for more. That's what I miss
most. I miss to be around my mother and in our hometown. But
just not the same anymore.
TS:
01:14:25
So just about... We're almost done. Just some final thoughts. Is
there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to talk
about?
SS:
01:14:35
I know I can talk a lot. But I'm sure there's a lot to talk to that still
haven't covered. I feel it cross about me specifically. I don't know.
I feel like I share a lot. But I feel, I like to share that my mission is
not complete. I wanted to give back to the community. I wanted to
do more to help empower the woman to be strong and to be
independent and to... I guess because I work with so many women
from different cultures and background, not just Cambodian.
SS:
01:15:14
A lot of them are like... They don't feel their own value. And
especially in the Cambodian community I wanted to help them to
understand their culture. And I feel like when you don't know your
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Sivaing Suos, Oral History #19.05
culture, you don't know who you are. And that's what I mean about
they did not present themselves. And why I say that because when
I work with women domestic violence, a lot of women try to
please men. And they try to change themselves to a certain way
that is not who they are.
SS:
01:15:47
Like try to make themselves inject the lip or their chest or their
bottom or whatever it is. And then their hair color. I mean it's fine.
You do it for fun. But a lot of people that I experienced and work
with did it because of the need of the society. Because they wanted
to follow, to be fit in. But then they forgot about who they are,
where they come from. What is their food? What is their culture?
What is the language?
SS:
01:16:11
And I think that's something that I... It bothers me. It bothers me
my kid don't speak my language. They spoke, they understand a
little but it's not enough. I want to see them do... I mean it's not just
my kid. A lot of kid. But that's something that I wanted to myself
that I wanted to see improving. I want to see that in Lowell that we
have a Cambodian Khmer. Not Cambodia but Khmer language
being taught solidly. That people can learn thoroughly know how
to spell, know how to read, know how to write their language.
Because I think to preserve our culture is very, very important.
SS:
01:16:54
And that's something I really... I like to share that I really wanted
to work on and helping other. But at the same time, I have to help
myself too.
TS:
01:17:03
Yeah. Just one last question. So what would be your final words or
advice to future generations?
SS:
01:17:15
To try to understand about their parents. Where they come from.
Try to understand what they've gone through. How they get here.
And at the same time ask elder for your root. Where you come
from. I always like... One thing I really, really mean to my kids
that I push them in a way when they don't do a... I kind of like, it's
a shame on you when they ask you who are you and say you
Cambodian. And when they speak, you speak in Khmer. You say
you don't -- think that's very shame. But you don't grow up Khmer,
you didn't speak Khmer. You are Khmer, you don't your Khmer
culture. I think that's a shame on you.
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
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SS:
01:17:51
I try to... That's a mean thing I tell them in a way not to put them
down. But to make them feel anger so they can learn. But anyhow
but overall, I wanted the Khmer generation to... I don't know, to
have some eager to learn about their language. About their culture.
It's rich. We have rich culture. We have a lot of valuable
information that they should know.
SS:
01:18:17
Look at our country. We have the most amazing Angkor Wat that
known in the world. And on those wall, they have all the Khmer
history in there. Go learn and try to understand where we come
from. How we get here.
TS:
01:18:33
Yeah. Alright. Thank you so much-
SS:
01:18:36
Thank you.
TS:
01:18:36
... for spending your time. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Interview ends
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�
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Title
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Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing
Relation
A related resource
<span>The collection draft finding aid, </span><a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17</a><span>.</span>
The oral history project page, <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a>.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is currently in progress and information will be updated as it becomes available. <br /><br />Read more about the project: <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a><br /><br />Part of the collection is accessible on this site. <br /><br />Oral history interviews include: <br /><br /><strong>Maryellen Cuthbert, April 2019, Oral History #19.01</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Maryellen Cuthbert and interviewer Sue J. Kim. Since the mid-1980s, Cuthbert has been a private defense attorney working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area. In this oral history, Cuthbert shares information about her training as a lawyer and reflects on various cases she’s worked with related to Southeast Asian communities. <strong>Content warning: Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and violent situations.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Thel Sar, April 2019, Oral History #19.02</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Thel Sar and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Sar talks about his early life: living through the Khmer Rouge, resettling in the United States, and his education; his career trajectory: working at the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, working at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, and becoming one of the earliest probation officers of Cambodian descent at Lowell District Court; his other community activities; and his family. <br /><br /><strong>Sivaing Suos, August 2019, Oral History #19.05</strong><br />An oral history <span>interview with Sivaing Suos and interviewer Tyler Sar. In this oral history, Suos talks about her early life in Cambodia and immigrating to the U.S., her experiences pursuing education and holding various jobs, including working in the mental health field and with families experiencing domestic violence, and her family.<br /><br /><strong>Niem Nay-kret, September 2019, Oral History #19.06</strong><br />An oral history interview with Niem Nay-kret and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Nay-kret talks about her early life in Cambodia and during the Khmer Rouge and her experiences holding various jobs in the U.S. related to healthcare, including prenatal care, mental health, and more.</span><br /><br />-------------------------- <br />SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Chornai Pech and Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing. UML 17. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Subject
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Oral history
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Sivaing Suos oral history transcript, 2019
Subject
The topic of the resource
Social workers
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of an oral history interview with Sivaing Suos and interviewer Tyler Sar. In this oral history, Suos talks about her early life in Cambodia and immigrating to the U.S., her experiences pursuing education and holding various jobs, including working in the mental health field and with families experiencing domestic violence, and her family and raising her children.
Creator
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Suos, Sivaing
Sar, Tyler
Source
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Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
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2019-08-19
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
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application/pdf; 41 p.
Language
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English
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uml17_19.05_002
Coverage
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Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodians
Documents
Middlesex Community College
University of Massachusetts Lowell
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/37070/archive/files/bb64437d753ee31c57c7ead541277e52.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=UjNTWo5L7sAxhxQxd5Y72901FK2lb-2d8Hd8FMOyz2CAmCkeYhrOHxLO7TRiG55K7ZHcHTbdvp61EfreW8uBpvrBm6nak326tAZI8Qs4vqdk6sYGrQDpKwLMQ-nIV0Ymfh2LCxSt70cDJukFuPnlvPuez1%7EFLxl4lj6AYdyG%7E7f0pKPmPkSnq2StVpfTjYF3uBR%7EMqFEzao%7EA1SU-VaRn4hyPsSG1vbmlbNj3s3b9vsUSItWm4tvnkegJWf3jyN6D9crZsLGuywWAjfkOVz2AhWE-FE4gUr1EUWt3ZfHYwW2A8DKAw%7EeBY4zXikn43iq98FcyOcf7IkmDlv5M0W5AA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
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PDF Text
Text
UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Thel Sar, Oral History #19.02
INFORMANT/NARRATOR: THEL SAR (TS)
INTERVIEWER: SUE J. KIM (SK)
DATE: APRIL 18, 2019
SPEAKER
DETAILS
TS:
I had involved a lot of work... in the past.
SK:
Oh, okay. Great. Okay. All right. So, this is Sue Kim, and I am codirector for the Center for Asian American Studies, and Project
Director for the Southeast Asia Digital Archive. Today is
Thursday, April 18th, 2019, and I am here with Mr. Thel Sar, at
UMass Lowell. We're in the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and
Social Sciences, 820 Broadway Street in Lowell, Massachusetts.
So, thank you so much for agreeing to share your experiences with
us.
TS:
Thank you for letting me being part of it.
SK:
So, I thought we would just start... could you tell us about where
you were born, and where you grew up? We can start there.
TS:
Yeah, I can be briefed with that. So I was born in Cambodia.
SK:
What year?
TS:
In the late 1960s, and I lived in Cambodia through the Holocaust,
Khmer Rouge. And then I, you know, when the Vietnam invaded
Cambodian, I was left Cambodia to come to America. So, I lived
through, and I was one of the few survivors in my family. And on
October 1981, my aunt brought me to America, uh, my
grandmother. And so I had lived with my grandmother. First place
I lived was in Jacksonville, Florida. Yeah, I lived there briefly.
And then I went to Virginia; Arlington, Virginia. Went to high
school there. And after high school, I went to college in
Swannanoa, North Carolina.
SK:
Where did you go into... where did you go in North Carolina?
TS:
I went to a college called Warren Wilson College, which is located
near Asheville, North Carolina.
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SK:
What did you major in?
TS:
My major was in the General Education, specializing in helping
Southeast Asian, mainly the Cambodians.
SK:
Oh, that's fantastic!
TS:
Yeah. So when I graduated from college, I went back to Virginia.
In those times, in Lowell there was influx of Southeast Asians,
mainly the Cambodian immigrants came to Lowell, Ma. And with
the influx, there's a lot of crime. There's shortage of a
professionals. So I was pretty much recruited to come up here, and
to work with Southeast Asian youths.
SK:
So you... where were you at the time? Well-
TS:
After I graduated from Warren Wilson College, I went back to
Arlington, Virginia. And lived there... Stayed there very briefly
then in September, 1991 I came up here to Lowell, MA.
SK:
From Arlington?
TS:
Yeah, from Arlington, Virginia. I was interviewed for a job with
the CMAA of Greater Lowell as a youth counselor. My job
mainly, trying to create activities for youths because back in those
days we didn't have much activities for Southeast Asian youths, so
they mainly hung out with groups, and were alleged to been called
gangs. So the DA... there's a lot of murders, a lot of violence. So
they wanted to create some fun activities for the kid. So my job
was to bring them together, and come up with some activities...
SK:
Oh, I see. I didn't know that you were youth counselor at CMAA.
So, that was from about-
TS:
September 1991 until July 1992, when I went on to work for the
Department of Youth Services for the State of Massachusetts. I
worked there for about nine months.
SK:
Where does... for the record, in the '90s, where did the Department
of Youth Services, where did it fit? Was it related to DSS or-
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ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
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Thel Sar, Oral History #19.02
TS:
No, the department has its own separate department. It's a
department of corrections, pretty much. It's a Social... Department
of Correction for kids under the age of Eighteen, when they...
committed crimes, they'd go to the DYS instead of the adult
facilities.
SK:
And how did you get recruited into-
TS:
So I... so we... there was shortage of professionals, and [crosstalk
00:04:49] and so, when I was working for CMAA, I went to court
lot to watch trial at the courthouse, and with my degree, the
department of DYS wanted me. In addition, because of my
language skills, I speak Khmer, and I can write and read... fluently.
So I was a good candidate for the job.
SK:
And who's... before you started working for DYS, when you were
still with CMAA, whose trials generally? Was it the kids you were
working with? The family members?
TS:
Yes, it's... kids that I had worked with in the past. And then some
of the... so they needed some kinds of representation from the
community at the courthouse. And I was sent there to be a liaison,
so if people showed up at the trial, they could get me helped
them... translated to them so they could understand the processes.
So my job is to make sure that people who... well, the victims, the
friends, and families, they have good knowledge of what went on.
SK:
So, since you were involved with that, then you started working
with Department of Youth Services, and so what were your duties?
Or what was your position?
TS:
Well, a couple of times when I was with CMAA, when they ran
into problems with language, they asked me to help. So I would go
to juvenile detentions and helped in translation. So that was... they
said, "Look, we really needed you to..." so that's how I started, the
interview, and got position.
SK:
So, the position then was-
TS:
A caseworker.
SK:
Caseworker? Right. I see. And so, what was your job like then?
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
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Thel Sar, Oral History #19.02
TS:
Well it's... I'm from very conservative family. I was like, my job
was to... So I mainly worked with the Cambodian youths and the
parents. When youths committed crimes, they adjudicated them.
And then they sent by the court to the Department of Youth
Services; my job was to investigate their backgrounds, and also
looking into ways to help them... you can't lock them up for life, so
you tried to help them to assimilate back to the community when
they finished their sentences. And so my job was to make sure that
they... when they lived in the community, they followed the
conditions sat by court and the department.
SK:
So this is... so were you a probation officer at this point?
TS:
No, not yet. Not yet. My probation officer job..when I was still
working DYS, you also had to go to court as well. Because when
kids were arrested for serious crime and appeared in court they
would be sent to DYS detentions; I went court to get information
of their background and to report to the department. Sometimes,
court ordered treatments. And some time just to be there to write
down of new court dates or new status of the cases. So I was there
as a liaison from DYS, and that's how I was at the courthouse. The
court was also did not have Southeast Asian worker as well. I was
recruited to go into the position as well.
SK:
In the '90s, what were the biggest problems or issues that you saw
coming up, either on the side of the law enforcement or, or on the
side of the families, or the community members?
TS:
I think; it was discrimination. This community was not prepared to
receive such large group of people. And this community had a long
history of discrimination. People in the community did not treat the
new comes with welcome but hostile. There was lack of services.
There was very little help, and those newcomers knew nothing. So
we had to work hard to help them understanding the systems. We
had to confront many wrong doers that it was not right for them to
treat people unlawfully.
TS:
There was lack of facilities such as schools and playgrounds.
Everything they did was against the law. Until a group of people
say to them, "Look, we are not stupid. We're not dumb. We know
that this is illegal, so you have to treat us right do the right things".
And the leaders in the community started to do more to help the
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Thel Sar, Oral History #19.02
newcomers. In one situation, we had to take the city to court in
order to force them to integrated kids in schools and build more
schools. They agreed to build new facilities to accommodate new
students and hired people to represent the population.
TS:
And the kids, they had a lot of free times in their hands. Schools
did not provide good services. Many kids skipped schools and
hung out on the streets. They started label those kids as gangs and
criminals. And I refused to label them... I've been working here for
so many years. I refused to recognize that they're gangs and all
that.
SK:
So court cases goals were to fight racism and discrimination.
TS:
Yeah.
SK:
What were some of those instances?
TS:
Southeast Asian kids were called by bad names and they pushed
them around for no good reasons-
SK:
By other students or?
TS:
By white kids and Hispanic kids. These Southeast Asian kids took
pride in their cultures; they took pride in themselves they were
tough kid too because they had gone through so much in their
lives, in the camp (prison like). So their mentality is like, "No, I'm
not going to take this, and I'm going fight back". And the police
was not helpful, the kids "I'm going to take control of this place,
not you", and then that's how gang started.
SK:
That's a good. How would you describe the relationship between
the police and particularly the youth, Cambodian youth at this
time? In the '90s.
TS:
I think, again, the police didn't have good relationship with
Southeast Asian youths. The police said, "I'm going to step on you,
I know you", and they did it as far as they could to violate those
kids right. There was no hope; “If I did these things, maybe I can
suppress this people, and there's nothing going to happen". I did
not think this was right ways to treatment our youths. I'm getting
very emotional because I think thatPage 5 of 23
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
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Thel Sar, Oral History #19.02
SK:
Let me get some…
TS:
It's okay.
SK:
Very good.
TS:
So we came here to live. We were survivors from Cambodia. We
were legal immigrants. We did not buy our way here. The ways
they treated us was not fair. We knew that. We refused to take
abuse. We came together and said, "Look, we're not going to take
this". But we do this systematically and legally. We had enough
educated people to work with. We needed to change from inside,
outside, and all around. We needed to be humble enough to make
changes. So, my role with the DYS and all, I pulled kids in and
say, "Look, to give respect and get respect, you got to do
something to make sure that they don't... you don't want them to
look down at you, you'll need to do something meaningful".
SK:
Yes. Did you work as... When you were with the DYS
caseworkers, did you work a lot with the attorneys?
TS:
Not as many, but I worked with a lot of therapists and [crosstalk
00:14:29] but again, I wore many hats. So I was always very
active, even though I worked with DYS, I opened Khmer Sunday
School; I coached soccer, and did a lot of other stuffs. We knew it
was a struggle.
SK:
You mentioned Khmer Sunday school. What, what-
TS:
So when first I came here, a lot of kids did not grown up in
Cambodia. However, they wanted to learn Khmer language and
culture. So I started Khmer Sunday School Program by myself.
Even though I wasn't a Khmer teacher, I was able to teach them,
and then recruited teachers. We became a big program, hundreds
of kids attended.
SK:
Where was this building?
TS:
We had to use the old temple in North Chelmsford. We had many
volunteers, and we became very successful.
SK:
How long was that school?
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Thel Sar, Oral History #19.02
TS:
10 years.
SK:
And also you were... because you were coaching, what-
TS:
I had coached for a few years. I coached soccer and basketball.
SK:
Was it through an organization or, just…?
TS:
Lowell Youth Soccer and highlander youth basketball.
SK:
So, this... you were a caseworker in maybe '92 to '93 or something?
TS:
Yeah. '92 to '93.
SK:
And then in ‘93 became a [crosstalk 00:16:48]
TS:
Probation officer. March 1st, 1993.
SK:
So how did that happen? I mean, [crosstalk 00:16:54]
TS:
I'd been working with a lot of people, and one day someone in the
Probation Department approached me and asked me if I wanted to
work for the court, "Look, we need someone like you". And so he
encouraged me to apply, "There's a job posting, why don't you
apply?" So I applied. I was interviewed by 3 judges and was hired
two weeks later: 3/1/1993.
SK:
How did your duties change? Where... Were you doing things that
are very similar? Or did it change what you were doing?
TS:
It's almost about the same, but I didn't have to travel much. I was
in the courthouse.
SK:
Lowell District Court?
TS:
Yeah, Lowell District Court. But again like I said to you, I always
wore many hats.
SK:
So what were some other ways that you did that? Was it
individual... conversation?
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TS:
I interviewed people and helped with translation. I directed people
to the right places to get help. I helped recruit new workers. I
spoke to community.
SK:
So, when you mean by kids, you mean... Because you talked about
that you work with both; the defendants… and the victims…
TS:
Yes, I worked with defendants and victims to make sure they
understood their rights.
SK:
You're like an advocate, and a navigator for them in the
courthouse.
TS:
Yes.
SK:
One hat.
TS:
Yes, one hat.
SK:
I've spoken to some attorneys, like defense attorneys, and they
talked about like, who are not Khmer. And they've talked about
how difficult it was to communicate to sometimes the families,
right? The defendants, but also the families, but also the victims, if
there was a language issue. So, did you participate in those
process? I think the legal processes are so complicated already,
right? And so I can't imagine trying to explain all of this sort of
complicated legal stuff in two-year-old court languages.
TS:
So, my goals are to make sure every one walked out the court
house knew that they were served well.
Unknown Speaker:
Open up.
SK:
Oh, hey?
Unknown Speaker:
I just wanted you to say goodbye.
SK:
Okay.
Unknown Speaker:
I'm last one here. Hello?
TS:
Hi.
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Unknown Speaker:
I didn't want to go into...
SK:
Okay, bye!
TS:
So I think that a lot of times, a lot of attorneys did not give enough
times to Southeast Asian clients. They made up excuses because of
languages. There's always a way that they could work with people.
SK:
So, specifically working with probation, is that after a sentence has
been…
TS:
So, individual was arrested, the police job is almost done. They
documented their reports. The next morning, or the next day they
brought the individual to court, and probation took over. Probation
officers interviewed the individual and reported to judges. Cases
decided and found guilty. The individual placed on probation.
Probation Officer assigned to supervise individual. There are many
types of conditions: drug testing, GPS, and Scram and much more.
SK:
What's Scram?
TS:
Scram is a machine... breathing... alcohol testing machine. So we
can monitor it from anywhere. And GPS, just like the car, you can
see the people walking around. So that's... our job is to make sure
that... so we do all that
SK:
And when you monitor them, afterwards, is it sort of regular
checking or...
TS:
So it's different levels. Some are more severe, and some are less
severe. A couple scenarios, like assault and battery on somebody...
they probably get a split sentence. They get two years house of
correction; one year to serve, one year suspended. And the
suspended sentence is the one that they are on probation. Typical
order of probation conditions: drugs counseling, mental health
counseling and many others. And so we make sure that they do all
those things. If they failed to comply with the order then the judge,
their probation would be revoked and sent them to jail.
SK:
So you really are caseworker from the moment that they're arrested
[crosstalk 00:27:13] all the way through to the end of the
probation?
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TS:
And then we prose... at the same time if they violate the probation,
we prosecuted them. So we acting like a prosecutor as well. And
we also do a home visit. Make sure that they... yeah.
SK:
What were the... What was the... Who are the people that you were
working with most in the '90s right? It wasn't like...
TS:
I'm specializing in Southeast Asian probationers because the judge
could impose 20 different conditions, and if they did not
understand then they could not do the right things, then they could
go to jail. So I was assigned to work with them. I was successful in
helping them.
SK:
It was mostly young... Was it youth or all ages or...
TS:
So, back then it was older people.
SK:
Like, thirties, forties?
TS:
No, 20 to about 40, 50.
SK:
And what were some of the...
TS:
A lot of domestic. Gambling... not nearly enough number of drugs.
SK:
What kind of gambling? Actually, I just came out from another
interview, but the attorney…
SK:
Then how did things change like the late '90s to the 2000?
TS:
There's a lot more changes now a day. So there is less Southeast
Asian now. Now this has a lot with... still domestic. There's a good
number of domestic violence, and then it's also not as much
gambling, but not as much drugs either... it's OUI; driving under
influence, a lot of that.
SK:
So, what other kind of things sort of... like your experience, or
your working... your experiences with working with the
community, did things change? As we moved into the late '90s and
the 2000s?
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TS:
Yeah. There's... There are families who were struggling to
assimilate in the US.
SK:
What do you mean?
TS:
You had a lot people from countryside in Cambodia who were not
educated because of the service was not good... those kids dropped
out of school and committed crimes, generation after generation.
SK:
Are struggling.
TS:
Struggling and still of course. They had a lot of kids in troubles,
and their kids trouble.
SK:
So there's... there's the generation-
TS:
Generation.
SK:
I see.
TS:
And then... my son, he is doing research, so his finding is that...
over the summer, did on gang-
SK:
What is he? A student or... here, where?
TS:
He's a student at Wake Forest University.
SK:
Oh, Wake Forest? Your sweatshirt. So is he... what's his major?
TS:
He majored in psychology.
SK:
He did research?
TS:
Research on gang.
SK:
In...
TS:
Southeast Asian Gang. So he interviewed a bunch of gang
members
SK:
Around here?
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TS:
Yeah. And he interviewed with different ages.
SK:
That's fantastic!
TS:
He is the senior, and he going onto Columbia University for his
graduate school.
SK:
For graduate school?
TS:
Yeah.
SK:
Congratulations! That's wonderful. That's great. We need more
researchers on Southeast Asian American studies, but also
researchers who are Southeast Asian American for-
TS:
He's going to be... he's doing clinical psychology.
SK:
That's great. That's wonderful. What kind of things did he find?
TS:
So he saw... he found out that a lot of these kid parents were not
around. Parents disconnected with schools, and no mentor... lack of
mentoring. So those components leaded kids to struggle on theirs
owns.
SK:
Have you seen an impact of a lot of the youth services that have
arisen in Lowell in the last few decades? Like Teen BLOCK, or
UTEC, or Boys & Girls Club?
TS:
They do, they do. I think that the... I have to give them a lot of
credits, and I think they make a lot of efforts. But at the same time,
I think they are not very organized and appeared to be isolated
from each other. I have a task to do, and I'm just doing this on my
own. There is so much need. And I think... and I... So, this is
something that I see. Even UMass Lowell hasn't put a lot of effort
into it. Because I think they feel that we are incapable of doing the
job to maintain our own greater goods. So they don't give a hand.
And when you go and don’t give them a hand, they make it very...
Let me give you an example. So the changes took place in the '90.
So the leaders who were representing the community... two
decades later, 2000, this 20 years, they fired every one of those
guys. They made it a point you have to pass this process or that
process in order for you to stay employed.
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SK:
They fired, sorry, who-
TS:
Teachers. Back in the day they hired Khmer teachers to teach.
Then a lot of those teachers were fired.
And then now a day 97% of teachers and staffs in Lowell Public
School are Caucasian. I think the last time I heard them saying was
that they went to recruit diversity teachers were South Carolina;
Columbia, South Carolina… completely make nonsense.
TS:
And that's why I help find a Community Public Charter School in
Lowell, MA. I was part of that. I was a board member and
chairman for ten years. And the city was not happy with that.
SK:
What were the characteristics or what did you feel like you could
do with the Charter School that you couldn't do otherwise?
TS:
So, we brought in people representing the populations in the city,
so they understood the needs, and they made effort to meet those
needs, and they knew how to motivate, not just kids in school, but
they motivate parents to get involved in school. They don't just
stop saying, "Hey, I saw your kid here". They go to houses and
say, "Hey, your kid is doing well." They make the people feel like
one family.
SK:
And because the Lowell public schools were not meeting the needs
of the community, you had to work elsewhere?
TS:
I can talk about my family, about what I did with us, all that. While
I was at the probation department, I went to school here, got my
Master at UMass Lowell in Community Social Psychology. I was
working with Doctor Joyce Gibson, and since they move on, Linda
Silka… I don't know where she is right now, but-
SK:
She's retired. I know that she's still around.
TS:
So she... they were very supportive.
SK:
Did you know Robin too? Robin’s still here.
TS:
Robins and I were in same class. Yeah. She's really nice. So I got
involved, and from the data they collected, I saw that the data was
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useless to the school, because I know that they will not... I mean
they make some attempts, because they got extra money... to use
that money, but they didn't do a good job and tell them... So I...
from that data, I work on my own family in many ways, and I told
you I (unclear) school with CMAA. So they... in community
there's infighting …
SK:
African-American. So believe me I know…
TS:
Politic all over the community too, but I tried to stay out with it,
and focus on what's most affective... So for my role as probation
officer is to make sure that the kid who wanted to go into law
enforcement, making sure that if they wanted to do intern at the
courthouses, they could do it. In terms of kids who wanted to
become police officers I asked currently police officers to help
mentoring them.
SK:
That is fantastic.
TS:
So we have good relations with them. And also attorney and
anyone who is different, I want them to feel welcomed, and I fight
hard for that.
SK:
It sounds like you've done a lot of work, to help change the law
enforcement... the makeup of the law enforcement. Like you're
saying, the schools have to change. [crosstalk 00:37:48] Have you
seen any progress in trying to get the law enforcement to make that
systemic change?
TS:
So, from my conclusion, they know where to feed the hungry
mouth.
SK:
They know where to feed the hungry.
TS:
And a lot of times when people who got fed they were happy. They
stopped caring about anyone else. Then they stopped helping.
SK:
I saw something in the news, online news in 2017, there was a
People of Color Criminal Justice Conference that you spoke at.
Can you talk about what that was, and what the goals of that was,
and what you did there.
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TS:
So I don't know how they got me to talk about… that, but I was
very straightforward with them. I said... I didn't... I think it's very
challenging, the way... I wouldn't call it conspiracy, but I think it's
the culture that kind of lay these ground that... you got to prove
more, you got to prove more. And so-
SK:
You mean Southeast Asians have to prove more? [unclear] in order
to be better… in order to get the same treatment.
TS:
So I spoke... the other day, I spoke at the Lawrence Academy in
Groton, MA, and my prediction is in the next 20 years, most of
these prestigious boarding schools, there's going to be like 60% of
Southeast Asian in the school, because we got money, and then
we're going to send them to the best schools. Because I saw South
Korea, I saw Japan, China. A lot of times, they do not think you
are qualified to be where you are. So they make it hard for you to
move forward.
TS:
You've got to do the work. Show them how hard you work and
then they will respect you, because if we don't do that, that's not
going to help us. I suggested that
TS:
And then the people who I work with, will come back and say,
"You saved my life.”
I knew an Indian American lawyer. And before she became a
judge, she was a lawyer, and she did not know this court well. And
I used to ask her and say, hey, and I told her you go in front of this
judge, this is how you should do this and that.
TS:
And so when she became a judge, and she is like, Wow! And then
when she learned about my family, myself, and how I was... I'm
not important to these people’s eyes, but I do important things for
my kid and myself, so I only can do these things because I learned
and worked hard. I grew.
SK:
When you were working... when you started working the '90s in
Lowell District Court, were you the first Khmer… probation
officer?
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TS:
I was told I was the second probation officer, the other person, he
only lasted there briefly. He left, but I didn't even know that he
was...
SK:
What about now? How would you say-
TS:
So now there are more of us. There are more Probation Officers. I
recruited more.
SK:
Do you think that we have, in terms of both the police department,
but also probation officers and attorneys... I don't know. Enough is
not the right word. But-
TS:
Are well represented?
SK:
Yeah. Are we well represented?
TS:
We are not. We are not. I don't know whether in 20 years or 100
more years, no. I think, like I said to you, there's plenty of people
here that can do the job, but they don't give them a chance. Not a
chance. Not even a chance. They feel that...
SK:
Like the... there's a parallel between like the schools and like law
enforcement agencies about that there are people out there who can
do the job, but there are not-
TS:
They did not. I gave you the example. I used to coach, and winning
is not just something in my blood, but it's just something that I
work so hard at, you know, and in coaching, they'd rather give it to
somebody else than... But I say to them, I say, I said, "There's no
roadblock that can keep me from going forward", because I will go
forward, and I will make my way far and beyond.
SK:
What else has changed, and what hasn't changed? In the instance
from the 1990s to now? So you're saying that there are some more
probation officers, but we still need more?
TS:
The leadership. So we are lack of leaders of everywhere.
Everywhere.
SK:
You mean... within the community or everywhere?
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TS:
A leader, it's not the people in front of you that you know, and you
see that, that you think is a leader. Leader who’s done well, who
established and accomplished who have visions, and I don't think
they call on them to help with the community. So, they don't call
on those guys. They call on somebody who will say, "Don't worry.
I will say you've done a good job. Keep doing what you do". And I
think that's where things... I give you an example. I don't know
how many times this gentleman screw up. I rather not mention
name. He had violated every ethic rules, he has his hands in every
politic meeting, and he's the best, I guess to the city. You ask me, I
always say... When you want somebody to lead you, let's... you
know, you gave him one time to make mistakes, but if he keeps
making mistakes, I don't think it's a good idea to have that
individual keep leading. That's just an example, and I think this
community, put a blind eye on a lot of... these are so many... I've
known so many people done well, but they are not going to
exhaust all energy to catch fire ... So there are a lot of times we
step back.
SK:
What about in relation to the Lowell District Courts and stuff like
that. How would you describe in terms of community members’
relationships to the court system? Has it improved?
TS:
Excuse me one sec. Let me text my wife a sec.
SK:
Oh, yeah.
TS:
Because I put an alarm at home, so I want to make sure that...
TS:
Sorry about that.
TS:
She's working DCF.. was known as the department of Social
Services before.
SK:
So you are very civic family?
TS:
I think so.
SK:
So do you and your wife and your... you said you have a son. Do
you have any other-
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TS:
Two sons. I have two sons. One's working in Boston. He's working
in a financial investment company.
SK:
Do you think that the understanding of the Lowell district courts of
say then the complexities of community members has improved?
TS:
I play a good part of it, because it's... We haven't gotten any
complaint from people. So, I think we have good relationship, and
I think they know how effective I am working with people. So I
think they allow me facilitate, and I don't think we have a lot of
problems with Southeast Asians.
SK:
Have you had any experience with people with orders of
deportation?
TS:
Oh, yeah. I've done... I do, I do. Over the year, so I knew a lot of
them. But I have also been telling them that they would be
deported if they stopped appealing. And I think some of them
stopped appealing, so they get deported.
SK:
And also just because the ground changed under…
TS:
Yeah, the ground changed. It's...
SK:
Because there was no repatriation agreement in the ‘90s.
TS:
I have a good knowledge of all these things, but again, you can
only do so much. And the one who approached me, who asking me
to advocate for them, I was very successful in stopping that
process.
SK:
So, what are some... As we were sort of going towards the end,
what are some other... because you that there are other challenges
that still face the community in relation particularly to the law
enforcement, but maybe just overall. You've mentioned like
leadership issues...
TS:
I think a lot of... I think we as community, I think we still...
because a lot of the infighting, because of lack of transparency...
There's a lot of thing happening, but I don't think it connected well.
And, with that, I think we become more suspicious of each other. I
think it just because of this community. I think that's a challenge.
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And I think not enough kids are going to colleges. I think UMass
hasn't done much to help. I think my son, the last time, I think his
finding it was like I think with 15 to 20% of the kids that finish
college in four years, and they might go back, but I doubt it. And I
think if you want to make a difference, I think they would... their
respond with, "You go and do it". I think their resource they waste
it on keeping people going further in life.
SK:
What do you mean?
TS:
So I... Let me see. My kids went to school, in Lowell, and then I
found the data with UMass Lowell, they're not doing a good job,
lack of parent participations. And I think the kids... They think that
the kids will never get as smart as them. Only a few can get
smarter. And so I said to them, “Getting involved with these things
give you so much more knowledge.” So my children were
exceptional because I told them... I learned from different people
that high school in Lowell, MA is not a good place to have
foundation for colleges. So I made sure my kid didn't go to high
school in Lowell.
SK:
Where did they go to high school?
TS:
My younger one went to Groton School, in Groton, MA and my
older one went to Central Catholic for two years. Sport, academic,
and family were the keys thing. And at Central Catholic, he was
recruited to play soccer at Lawrence Academy in Groton, MA.
The younger one who went to Groton school traveled the world.
He's fluent in Khmer and Spanish. He's a good writer. You can
read his blog color… “Khmer Odyssey.”
SK:
That's great!
TS:
You can learn a lot about family, and he's a... Both of them are
exceptional soccer player, and both of them are... the one... This
younger one is also a musician. He can play 10 instruments. But he
all... Both of them are grounded. At home, they clean, cook, and
help out. And the older one... so when he went to... The younger
who went to Groton schools and Wake Forest University, so he
went to India, France, Italy, Peru, and Spain, and Cambodia. So it's
all funded by the schools. The older ones graduated from
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Lawrence Academy got recruited to play soccer in Kenyon
College, Gambia, Ohio.
SK:
That was a very good school.
TS:
So both of them... and then the... So after Kenyon, he got a job,
two days before graduated. A job, an investment company. And
from there... and so he is there now for over a year. And I told my
kids, because... so my kid always... I keep telling them, say, "I'm
not paranoid, kid" they say, "Why, Dad?" Because you seem like
you (unclear) they discriminate, they racist against... I'm not, I'm
not. They say, "Well, how come?" I say, "Look, if people look at
you again and again and again and, do some facial. So any time
you know they are thinking of you the wrong way about you.
TS:
And then sometime you even overheard conversations or jokes.
And so my kid keeps saying, "That's not true". I say, "When you
get older, you'll know". So both of them run into discrimination.
So now they were like, "Dad, you were right." So I say to them, I
say, "So how are we going to overcome that?" They said, "Well,
work hard. Work hard". My older one is... he's doing well. So he
does that. And on the weekend he fixes houses. He has a girlfriend
whose family owns has some apartments. Very ambitious…
TS:
And the little guy, he goes to Columbia University for his Master.
And then he's going to seek a PHD. And I told them. Look, we
can't change the way people think, but if you have all the answers,
and how hard you work they will ask you. They will ask you. And
that is when they start asking you, and they will impress of how
hard you work, and how much you know. And so those are the...
And we remain humble. In the summer, when the kids are home, I
always make sure that they serve the community. Make sure they
get involved, make sure that they give back.
SK:
Have you ever spoken at the UMass Lowell... That we have a
School of Criminal Justice and Criminology?
TS:
No.
SK:
I think they would be interested to talk [crosstalk 00:58:29]
because you work with this particular... specifically as a case
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worker, Cambodian and [crosstalk 00:58:33] these Asian
American.
TS:
I have a lot of students who... who's interned at courthouse. So I
taught a lot, mentoring them. And recently, I've been speaking to
the kids at the Lawrence Academy and Groton school.
SK:
I think I just... I saw on the paper that Lowell Police Department,
they just had a swearing yesterday or a couple of days ago, with
four new police officers who were all people of color. So there's
slow change.
TS:
Now they need leaders. Someone who are in the circle. Because I
think they... From what I've seen from the outside-
SK:
Lowell Police Department?
TS:
Yeah. UMass and all, they need somebody to sit in, who can
effectively give them a good sense of the community itself.
SK:
They need more people from the community in those leadership
positions?
TS:
Yeah. They, shouldn't just... Like I said, use the same person to
advise them. I have families that I know who sent their kids to
Stanford, Harvard, and many other good schools. They did some
things right. And I think they can say, "Hey, what did you do?
How did you do it?" And I think get back to where I am, I think a
few years ago, they keep saying, "Do you really know what you
are doing?" I think nowadays they start asking me, "Can you teach
me how to do it?" With what I had learned from what I did with
my kids, I told them, I say it wasn't as easy as walking in the park.
We worked hard, and I think I learned something to get them to
there.
SK:
It only took 20 years for people to recognize.
TS:
But end of the day, I remain humble about that. I think the only
thing I can show them is the hard work.
SK:
So is there anything that we haven't talked about that you want to
make sure that... From your experiences?
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�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Thel Sar, Oral History #19.02
TS:
I think in your role, you can do a lot too. Do a lot of integral... We
have all these things. How can we let the kids know in this school?
Reaching out to them, and become their mentor. I think over the
years, the most effective thing that I think that helped a lot of this
kids was by-
SK:
Mentoring.
TS:
Mentoring. And I think if you're like Head of Department... I think
by allowing kids to have access to you. To see that, "Wow, look! I
got a chance to get into this place and I can be there". And I think
that would... The access to all the... It's the lack of access, is how a
lot of kids they... I think this is enough. There's so much more that
they can... And they have potential. They had the same abilities as
anybody else. But I think by advocating them, allowing them to
know about this normal potential, can allow them to go anywhere
... Sky is limit.
SK:
So, that's great. I actually had one more question just in terms of...
For your caseload in the ‘90s, did you... was it mostly from
Southeast Asian Americans? Was it mostly Cambodians, or did
you also have like Laos, Vietnamese.
TS:
I helped everybody. But I think most of them-
SK:
Most of them are Cambodians.
TS:
Yeah.
SK:
What about today, in the 20 teens, right? From 2010 to today,
would you say the number of your Southeast Asian American
cases has changed?
TS:
Yeah, yeah.
SK:
Is it less?
TS:
Yes, a lot less than before. [crosstalk 01:03:05]
SK:
Now you work with just sort of all different-
TS:
Yeah, yeah, all different races.
Page 22 of 23
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT, 2019-ONGOING
UML 17
Thel Sar, Oral History #19.02
SK:
So it's interesting.
TS:
You see the changes.
SK:O
kay, great. Thank you very much.
TS:
I want to show you just a few things.
Interview ends
Page 23 of 23
�
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Title
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Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing
Relation
A related resource
<span>The collection draft finding aid, </span><a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml17</a><span>.</span>
The oral history project page, <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a>.
Description
An account of the resource
This collection is currently in progress and information will be updated as it becomes available. <br /><br />Read more about the project: <a href="https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.uml.edu/Research/SEA-digital-archive/oral-histories.aspx</a><br /><br />Part of the collection is accessible on this site. <br /><br />Oral history interviews include: <br /><br /><strong>Maryellen Cuthbert, April 2019, Oral History #19.01</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Maryellen Cuthbert and interviewer Sue J. Kim. Since the mid-1980s, Cuthbert has been a private defense attorney working in the Lowell, Massachusetts, area. In this oral history, Cuthbert shares information about her training as a lawyer and reflects on various cases she’s worked with related to Southeast Asian communities. <strong>Content warning: Mentions of weapons, abuse, assaults, and violent situations.</strong> <br /><br /><strong>Thel Sar, April 2019, Oral History #19.02</strong> <br />An oral history interview with Thel Sar and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Sar talks about his early life: living through the Khmer Rouge, resettling in the United States, and his education; his career trajectory: working at the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, working at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, and becoming one of the earliest probation officers of Cambodian descent at Lowell District Court; his other community activities; and his family. <br /><br /><strong>Sivaing Suos, August 2019, Oral History #19.05</strong><br />An oral history <span>interview with Sivaing Suos and interviewer Tyler Sar. In this oral history, Suos talks about her early life in Cambodia and immigrating to the U.S., her experiences pursuing education and holding various jobs, including working in the mental health field and with families experiencing domestic violence, and her family.<br /><br /><strong>Niem Nay-kret, September 2019, Oral History #19.06</strong><br />An oral history interview with Niem Nay-kret and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Nay-kret talks about her early life in Cambodia and during the Khmer Rouge and her experiences holding various jobs in the U.S. related to healthcare, including prenatal care, mental health, and more.</span><br /><br />-------------------------- <br />SEADA would like to thank the following individuals for their work in making this collection available online: Chornai Pech and Monita Chea.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project, 2019-Ongoing. UML 17. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral history
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Thel Sar oral history transcript, 2019
Subject
The topic of the resource
Probation officers
Lowell (Mass.)
Oral history
Description
An account of the resource
The transcript of an oral history interview with Thel Sar and interviewer Sue J. Kim. In this oral history, Sar talks about his early life: living through the Khmer Rouge, resettling in the United States, and his education; his career trajectory: working at the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association, working at the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, and becoming one of the earliest probation officers of Cambodian descent at Lowell District Court; his other community activities; and his family.
Creator
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Sar, Thel
Kim, Sue J.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Southeast Asian Digital Archive Oral History Project
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-04-18
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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application/pdf; 23 p.
Language
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English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Identifier
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uml17_19.02_003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
2010-2019
Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association
Cambodians
Documents
Lowell Community Charter Public School
Lowell District Court
Massachusetts Department of Youth Services
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c73324ee84fa6e7c26c32e373a8bec0e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Tith, Vera T. and William A. Oral History Interview, 1993
Description
An account of the resource
The Vera T. and William A. Tith oral history interview collection consists of one audiocassette tape, 1 audio CD, a complete transcript, and a partial transcript of an oral history interview conducted by Sheila L. Kirschbaum with Vera Thong Tith and William An Tith on February 13, 1993. Topics covered include but are not limited to Vera and William’s children, their lives in Cambodia before they left, living and working in a Thailand refugee camp, resettling in the United States, and their lives now in Lowell, Massachusetts. <br /><br />The collection is accessible on this site.<br /><br /><strong><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0">Content warning:</span></span></strong><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0"><strong> </strong>Mentions of war, death, and other situations read</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0">ers and listeners may find<span> </span></span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0">distressing.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW158174635 BCX0"> </span><br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16</a>.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Tith, Vera T. and William A. Oral History Interview, 1993. UML 16. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vera Thong Tith and William An Tith oral history audio recording, 1993
Subject
The topic of the resource
Cambodian Americans
Electricians
Elementary school teachers
Genocide--Cambodia
Lowell (Mass.)
Oral history
Refugees--Cambodia
Description
An account of the resource
The audio recording of an oral history interview conducted by Sheila L. Kirschbaum with Vera Thong Tith and William An Tith. Topics covered include but are not limited to Vera and William's children, their lives in Cambodia before they left, living and working in a Thailand refugee camp, resettling in the United States, and their lives now in Lowell, Massachusetts. <br /><br />The recording is in two parts.<br /><br /><strong>Content warning:</strong> Mentions of war, death, and other situations readers and listeners may find distressing.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Tith, Vera T.
Tith, William A.
Kirschbaum, Sheila L.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Tith, Vera T. and William A. Oral History Interview, 1993
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993-02-13
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
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2 audio recordings; 00:48:43 and 00:46:48
Language
A language of the resource
English
Khmer
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
uml16_93.7_i002
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
1990-1999
Cambodians
Demonstration School
Sound recordings
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PDF Text
Text
Oral History
Partial transcript of interview with Vera Thong Tith and her husband
William An Tith of Lowell, MA. Interview was chiefly with Vera, and
unless noted otherwise, all quoted words are hers.
Conducted by Sheila Kirschbaum, TIHC, February 13, 1993
Both born in Cambodia (Win 1950, Vin 1952)
1979: Son born in Cambodia after Khmer Rouge left, after Communists left
Were married [8/25/74] before Communist rule
Held off from having children during "hard" Communist-ruled
"generation."
Named son born after Communist rule "Samnang," meaning "lucky"--they
mean this as "very lucky."
"Not enough food to eat, work very hard," during Communist era.
People in camp waited long for agency "call them to the United States."
Daughter born 1983 at Lowell General Hospital. Nurses gave Vera a book to
choose name from. Husband suggested Dy (pron. "Dee," Vera's given
Cambodian name); they named her Deanna.
When V. and W. became citizens, they changed names from Dy to Vera,
from Savoeun to William ("Savoeun" was "hard to call"; Dy would be
pronounced "Die"). William explains that "somebody [at work] tried to
ignore [his Cambodian] name." No bad feelings about changing names.
Vera wants names to be "easy" for others. Says," My eyes still the same;
my skin still the same .... It's no matter. "
Taught in Cambodia 2 years. After escape to Thailand, taught there almost
2 years (taught young children). In Cambodia, taught math, French in
secondary school--"like a private school."
Some language difficulty once in US, but not much, because Cambodians
studied English in school for one hour a week in secondary school; every
other subject was taught in French. Did less and less in Cambodian and
more and more in French as they went on in school. French knowledge
helped with English learning.
Vera completed college*, but had "no proof." Left Cambodia with "empty
hand." "They destroy everything when Communists come through,"
explains William. People were moved from in town to outside the town, to
fields.
*[William completed college, too--technology, Phnom Penh.]
Q: Were you considered dangerous (due to education)?
A. They (V. & W.) knew they had to "keep eye on ... what was going on.
We were quiet."
�2
Wore only black, could only dye clothes black. Boiled bark of tree to make
black dye to dye clothes. Wore black like a uniform, to suggest conformity
(compliance) with Communist rulers. Vera: "Your mind not follow them"
if you don't change to one color. One color, "one spoon of rice every day."
(For this interview Vera happens to be wearing a bright gold sweater,
William a bright red one.)
·
The rule still Communist. Vietnamese invade, "have something in their
mind, too." Not just there to free people from the Khmer Rouge. Vera says,
"I don't like politic[s] at all." One comes, the other leaves; one leaves, the
other comes. "Poor Cambodian in the middle" (V.). "Like a game," adds
William.
No respect there now for UN. They will kill anyone. Would even fire on a
Red Cross truck.
Hard to tell who ~ vs. who orders killing. Khmer Rouge? Vietnamese?
(Vera uses A, B, C to show who kills whom--A may hire B to kill C, for ex.)
"War still around ... very, very sad."
William: "Vietnamese don't want to get out of my country. I saw by my
eyes, they took every single thing from my country to their country."
Machines, gold, rice concealed in a military truck by a Vietnamese who
claimed the truck contained only the body of a dead soldier.
William was an electrician in 1979 when the Vietnamese invaded
Cambodia. Vera saw on the news that Vietnam had invaded.
Vietnamese soldiers changed clothes to look "regular," not like soldiers,
instead of leaving as they were supposed to have done. They took pains to
look like Cambodians. Only their speech gave them away as Vietnamese.
They would even speak Cambodian to each other. Real Cambodians weren't
fooled.
Vera: "The bottom line: We have to understand each other," all people of
all countries. Have to avoid urge to be "more powerful," to have "more
money." Vera and her family visited Cambodia during the summer of
1992. Vera says: "My tear cry all the time," explaining how she felt while
there. She kept asking herself, "What should I do now?"
Vera then says if there were more Demonstration Schools and no war,
people would understand each other (The Demo is a trilingual, tricultural
Lowell elementary school where she teaches preschool children).
"United States very good country, seem like control very good.... We want
- to share, too. We don't say we want only Cambodian people in Cambodia.
�3
Any country can join together, but don't make problem." Vera wonders
"what should we do" to promote understanding, togetherness.
William: People who get citizenship love the land (US). Cambodian people
are like a closed flower (hiding patriotism inside). Ho Chi Minh's book
influenced people to take over Cambodia. When John Kerry went to
Vietnam, he was shown, by Vietnamese, an unreal scene. ("They so
smart," Wm. says of the Vietnamese.)
Q.: Would you ever go back to Cambodia to live?
A.: (Vera) It is "my dream" to go back to Cambodia to live.
(William) "I don't know" if I would. I would go, "in peace."
Vera explains that before 1975, Cambodia was a wonderful, peaceful place.
From 1975 to 1979 "everything [was] destroyed" and there is "still not
peace."
"Very, very scary" now: accidents, thefts. Hometown is far from capital.
Six-hour drive before, eight-to-twelve-hour drive now: holes, road is
"broken," bridges unrepaired.
THE TRIP OUT
William: "tough time." Vietnamese inside border, in forests near Thailand
border. Had to crawl, watch for mines. Lots of mud. Vietnamese didn't
want Cambodians to cross to Thailand.
IN THAILAND CAMP
In 1981, five people (in Vera's family) "have name" to come to US: William,
Vera, son, mother-in-law, niece. Mother-in-law, when name called,
decided to stay. Wanted to die in Cambodia. But two years later (1983),
conditions in camp (theft, little food) caused her to change mind. Two men
took sixteen-year-old niece away from her, perhaps "for money." Took her
to Cambodian camp. Mother-in-law came to US in 1983 (when
granddaughter Deanna was three months old).
William: asked someone to help them see niece last summer--had to pay
$100.00 each way--long, overnight trip. Cannot get niece to US now; she's
not a close relative (according to Kathy Flynn, who works with refugees).
They just learned they may now be able to sponsor. Vera has one brother,
two sisters, one niece, and one nephew still in Cambodia.
•
[At this point Vera brings out photographs of her uncle, niece, and other
relatives they saw in Cambodia last summer. Says, "Sad story, Sheila."]
Had celebration. "Very quick one month"--hard to leave and time passed
quickly. Relatives touched them, said, "Oh, people from United States," felt
their skin. Vera's sister got married shortly after they left. People at
airport in Cambodia asked V. and Wm. if they'd seen any of their relatives
�in US. "Did you hear this name, that name?" they would ask.
4
William is no longer employed as an electrician--was laid off from Wang
after ten years. "Company, you know, keep like a trick on us, and we get
laid off," Vera explains. Vera advised William to go to -=tchool in the
intirim, saying, "No one can steal education."
·
Vera became the first Cambodian teacher in Lowell when she started
teaching in 1985. At first she took eight to ten college courses a year; now
takes one to three courses a semester (aim=120 credits for a Bachelor's
degree). Needs two more courses for degree, then certification.
William shows picture of himself teaching sports at Thai camp. "Skinny"
at camp (lack of food). V. and Wm. were paid ten "baht" (sp?) a day in
Thailand currency (both were teaching).
Were in Thailand from 1979-1981 before "name called" to come to US (other
countries offered as choices as well). They'd filled out forms. American
agency came to camp, interviewed them. Hospital wanted to hire Vera as a
nurse; she'd been a midwife in Cambodia. William, an electrician, does
electrical work around the house now, and Vera values his skills.
Q.: Why come to Lowell?
Vera: First, came to NY, arriving in Brooklyn on Feb. 18, 1981. Lived there
nearly one year. Son often sick, had to take subway to clinic. No welfare;
food stamps provided, though. Husband got job in fifteen days. Worked for
about $3.00 an hour, traveled by subway a long distance to work. One day, a
male friend living in Lowell called. Knew of Vera's background and
education; said, "Come here!" In Lowell, he pointed out, are educational
institutions, hospitals, an easier life.
January 5, 1982: Tiths came to Lowell--no welfare, no food stamps. Hard to
find jobs at that time. Vera decided to go to work at Comet Products
[makers of plastic utensils], then worked at Prince pasta factory in Lowell.
1985: Son late for school, bus didn't pick him up for some reason.
Vera called school (Greenhalge), brought son to school. She was
asked that day to translate :for another Khmer-speaking parent. Teacher
talked to Mr. Gallagher (principal) and Ann O'Donnell (director of
Bilingual Department) on Friday. Gave up well-paying job to start teaching
at Greenhalge the following Monday. She has written down (in resume
form) these facts, so her children can see the sequence of events.
•
Vera explains that now, when they have free time, she and her husband lie
down and "think about how we are now"; they feel amazed: "We supposed
to be killed, that generation.... We [were] so skinny.... He [William] is
still hurt--a lot of things he hold [inside] .... You cannot say no; if they say
�5
you have to do, you have to do .... But we so lucky! Working so hard ....
Very, very lucky."
Vera loves studying. Says her father "worked hard" for her, telling her,
"No one can steal your education." Family was middle-class. In
Cambodia, generally, "if you [are] a girl, you cannot get high education.
Most [women] have to ... stay home." Vera was lucky to finish school,
then finish university at capital (Phnom Penh).
END OF SIDE A
SIDEB:
The Communists divided people. They gave different groups different food
to eat. "New 17 March People" and "Old People, 18 March" were the two
groups. The Old 18 People controlled the town. They wore black, too, but
controlled, and might kill, the "17 people." Came in on Mar. 17 to control
whole country. The 18 were like "the boss," and the 17 "the employees."
[The Tiths mean APRIL. The Communists invaded on 4/17/75.]
Hometown far from capital, close to "state": Battambang. William
explains that primary school, high school, college were in "state," then
university in Phnom Penh, capital.
William and Vera met at college one year before Communists came in.
Not in class together. V. never saw him; he saw her. He told his mother
he had noticed Vera. His parents went to Vera's home. Cambodian girls
don't talk "in public or in private" to µoys. The elementary schools are
either all-boy or all-girl. There was some mixing in college. In classroom:
one side girls, one side boys. Each "discusses" with own gender.
(In US, Vera says, there are many problems with pregnancy [among
teens]. Boys and girls in Cambodia don't have much chance to talk. Girls
"shy" with boys. "That is the culture." In US, boys and girls "close.")
--above story, cont.: Vera avoided looking at Wm's face (as was the custom).
He'd seen her riding a motorcycle. Parents said for them to marry. In the
work camp they, like most husbands and wives, were separated up for one,
sometimes two weeks. Vera cooked for a thousand people. Some families
did not get together at all. Some people's loved ones were killed.
Now the Tiths are thankful to be together, despite hard times. They try to
save money, have no desire to be rich, are happy to survive. They rent out
their upstairs to meet the costs of a high mortgage. At first all five in the
family lived together (William's mother and the four Tiths). Vera stresses
the importance of William's going to school (He's currently taking business
courses.).
�6
Lots of schools want Vera to work there next year. She loves Demo., Demo.
program--children are together [integrated]. At Greenhalge, she heard an
American child say, "Don't play with this Cambodian kid." Demo. kids,
she says, disregard differences.
On culture and language:
Vera notes the value of language study. Knows French, used it in Montreal
after car accident they were in. Writes in journal. William tells how they
teach their kids Khmer for one hour a day. Kids are mainstreamed, but
Vera says she doesn't want kids to "miss our [Cambodian] culture." Her
son writes in Khmer to his aunt, and learns French and Spanish from
Vera. AIM: to understand each other. English-only movement is like
being "in your own pond." In Montreal, knowledge of other language
proved very helpful.
Demonstration School: Demo kids use Khmer words naturally. Teaching
opportunities could exist for Vera at the Greenhalge, Demonstration,
Washington, and Lincoln Schools. Tells of when one Demo. faculty
member left and kids cried. Cambodian proverb: People come in very
happy--very, very sad to get out. Demo. plan is to rotate teachers out after
two years. Vera has stayed extra year already and will stay at least one
more year (by request). Notes importance of child readiness, importance of
mutual understanding. Tries various ways to help kids learn vocabulary.
Celebrations: Soul Day--big celebration. Parents or family members pass
away; life cycle is to come back, to be reborn. Soul "hang[s] around
somewhere, looking to get a new life,_" may be hungry. 'We are alive"--we
make food, bring to temple. Monks pray for the deceased. William tells of
how his mother's difficulties in life (childbearing and childrearing) mean
"we have to do something special for her." Had monk pray for her during
celebration. Cambodian custom is to cremate, but, he explains, "I miss[ed]
her so much I cannot cremate her," and therefore buried her. He says he
wanted "to leave her in one place," bought her a bi1' plot (didn't want to step
on any surrounding graves in placing flowers).
Monks use candles, incense in praying for deceased. Soul Day is on October
30th, near Halloween, Vera points out. Every Cambodian has to "do that."
All souls looking for seventh temple, and if relatives don't "see you make
anything and pray to them, ... they cry. You won't be blessed. Two
temples now, in Greater Lowell. He then shows a picture of a tray on
which are Vera's father's leg bones, dug up and reburied in US in 1992.
(He died in 1979.) William points out that the bones were "still good." Vera
explains, "We do good things, we receive good things."
Vera's father died during "Communist generation." Not killed outright,
but suffered due to lack of food during hard times (probably starved to
- death). Shows picture of family members, including five children with no
parents, no "old people" to take care of them. [Two are Vera's sister's
�7
children; three are Vera's siblings. Vera's sister died of starvation.]
Vera's mother also may have died from starvation (indirect killing).
Others killed by sticks or long knives; some were shot.
The Tiths collect pictures, stories, share accounts of Cambodian heroes.
Vera considers herself a hero for surviving. Vera and Demo teachers
talked with preschool and kindergarden students about heroes; Vera tells
me my daughter Julie told of what she would do if she were a hero.
Vera and Wm. show picture in National Geographic of Cambodian mass
grave, skulls. People were lined up and killed "like animals," hit with
something like a bat. Maybe three million people killed. V. and Wm. teach
their children about personal and national (Cambodian) history. Vera: "I
pray every day that peace will [come] soon."
William: "If the Vietnamese don't want my country, ... leave my country
alone." He says China wants Cambodia too.
Picture of cars in a heap--they (Vietnamese) took tires to make sandals.
Picture of a stripped Mercedes. Took ?(some car part) to make a spoon.
("No education.")
Vera says their son Samnang wanted to go to Angkor Wat, but couldn't go-not safe. Vera went there once as a child. Belief that people who go are
lucky. Thais, some think, want Angkor Wat. (Displayed in the Tiths'
living room are 2 large pictures--one of wood?--of Angkor Wat.)
They show me a special beaded piece made by Vera's mother over long
period of time. Desire to familiarize their kids with Camb. culture, through
collected, displayed objects.
Show picture of son Samnang, who, at age nine, became a Buddhist monk.
As a monk, he'd use a beaded piece, and eat only twice a day (morning and
afternoon). Head shaved, beautiful white lace shawl over one shoulder.
1987: William was a CMAA leader, after Narin Sao.
Son was monk for 10 weeks; Few Cambodian boys do this. Having a son
like that means luck for parents. William had become a monk for his
mother, to "open way for her," in accordance with "Buddha Bible." Wm's
mom passed away peacefully at St. Joseph's Hospital in Lowell. Wm. tells
story of guy with many children, many sons, but none who "opened way."
Vera adds that man found it "hard to pass away." William says he tried to
determine why the man suffered so, and learned he'd been a jail guard and
pehraps had beaten people and was now getting his payback.
�8
FIRST IMPRESSION OF US (New York):
William: "My feet were like the people [walking on] the moon." Big
country. At market, "everything new in the refrigerator! Everything
fresh!"
Vera: "For me, it was scary."
William: Wrote home about NY ("Words coming out from my heart") to
mother, brother, sister-in-law in Cambodia.
Vera tells of first time seeing snow, Feb. 18, day of arrival. She was
wearing sandals. "What happened?" she asked a tall man who was
picking them up. Said to herself, "New life. What should I do?"
The Tiths were given $45.00 ($15 for each of the three of them). The man
transporting them went to look for William's name, found it, brought them
to hotel. William bought some food at grocery store. Vera couldn't sleep;
snow coming down. "This is the new country. What should I do? They
have rice to eat or not?" No training at Thailand camp. Others were
trained in Philippines and Malaysia; they weren't. Went directly to US.
William tells that his application was, he thought, worded such that he'd
indicated his life was in danger due to Communists. Lots of countries
listed for them to pick from. They'd picked US, because he had studied
English. Said no to French option. (French called first.)
Vera explains she had friends in Switzerland who had purchased tickets
for her to go there. Chose US instead; feels "lucky" to be here.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Interview ended as tape ran out. Missed answer to question: Is
there anything you don't like about the United States?
ANS.: an unequivocal "Nothing!" The Tiths consider themselves very
lucky to be in the US. They are effusive in their gratitude. They wanted
very much for their parting remarks to be recorded, and I promised to
record them on paper. They would not complain about anything about life
in the US. In closing they reiterated their gratitude.
SEE "FULL TRANSCRIPT"
�9
Full Transcript
of that part of the conversation with Vera and William Tith that
appears on the Master Tape but not on copies of that tape:
Q: Were there things you decided you didn't like about the United States?
(Silence) Or have you decided that there are things that you don't like ...
Vera: In the United States?
William: They have many countries, they have application, like France,
Belzig [Belgium?], Australia, and etc.
V.: Japanese, too. A lot of country, you know.
Q: You could pick a country?
Wm.: And then I pick United States because at that time when I was at the
college and university I study English, and I decided, "Oh, maybe I come to
United States, because I already know some English, and then I already
study," and we decide to come to United States, and I found ...
V.: We put application in ...
Wm.: ... United States call. The French call first and we decide we don't
want to go there.
Q.: The French called first?
Wm.: Yes. We just, we didn't decide to go France. We decided wait to the
United States only. And special my wife have friend in Switzerland.
V.: Usually they want, before Communists, they wanted me to go to Swiss,
too, but on that time, you know, seem like a balancing: Which way I go?
Which way I go? When I go, I miss my family, you know, so that's why I
stuck with the Communist ...
Wm.: You remember when they give you cowida [words unclear]* ... (See
page 10.)
V.: They wanted me to take to the Swiss ...
Wm.: They remember, one Swiss lady, she [Vera] work at the hospital ...
V.: They already gave everything, you know, buy airline, air ticket, for me,
- but I cannot go. That's why we lucky we came to the United States. We
very lucky . . .
END OF TAPE
�10
*When I inquired about this word, Vera told me that the "Swiss lady gave
[her] clothes already cut for {her] size and a necklace timer."
�
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Title
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Tith, Vera T. and William A. Oral History Interview, 1993
Description
An account of the resource
The Vera T. and William A. Tith oral history interview collection consists of one audiocassette tape, 1 audio CD, a complete transcript, and a partial transcript of an oral history interview conducted by Sheila L. Kirschbaum with Vera Thong Tith and William An Tith on February 13, 1993. Topics covered include but are not limited to Vera and William’s children, their lives in Cambodia before they left, living and working in a Thailand refugee camp, resettling in the United States, and their lives now in Lowell, Massachusetts. <br /><br />The collection is accessible on this site.<br /><br /><strong><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0">Content warning:</span></span></strong><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0"><strong> </strong>Mentions of war, death, and other situations read</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0">ers and listeners may find<span> </span></span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0">distressing.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW158174635 BCX0"> </span><br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16</a>.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Tith, Vera T. and William A. Oral History Interview, 1993. UML 16. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
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The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16</a>.
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Vera Thong Tith and William An Tith oral history interview (partial) transcript, 1993
Subject
The topic of the resource
Cambodian Americans
Electricians
Elementary school teachers
Genocide--Cambodia
Lowell (Mass.)
Oral history
Refugees--Cambodia
Description
An account of the resource
The partial transcript of an oral history interview conducted by Sheila L. Kirschbaum with Vera Thong Tith and William An Tith. Topics covered include but are not limited to Vera and William's children, their lives in Cambodia before they left, living and working in a Thailand refugee camp, resettling in the United States, and their lives now in Lowell, Massachusetts.
A full and complete transcript is also available.
Creator
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Tith, Vera T.
Tith, William A.
Kirschbaum, Sheila L.
Source
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Tith, Vera T. and Tith, William A. Oral History Interview, 1993
Publisher
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University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
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1993-02-13
Rights
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UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
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10 p.; 21.6 x 28
Language
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English
Khmer
Type
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Text
Identifier
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uml16_93.7_i001
Coverage
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Lowell, Massachusetts
1990-1999
Cambodians
Demonstration School
Documents
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UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
CONTENT WARNING:
Mentions of war, death, and other situations readers and
listeners may find distressing.
INFORMANTS/
NARRATORS:
VERA T. TITH (VT)
WILLIAM A. TITH (WT)
INTERVIEWER:
DATE:
SHEILA L. KIRSCHBAUM (SK)
FEBRUARY 13, 1993
SPEAKER
DETAILS
(TIME)
SK (00:07):
This is Sheila Kirschbaum and I'm interviewing Vera Tith and her husband William Tith at their
home on February 13th, 1993. I'd like to start with some basic information about where you were
born. You were both born in Cambodia, were you?
VT (00:37):
Yeah.
SK (00:40):
And, were your children born there?
WT (00:40):
Yeah.
VT (00:41):
My children... My son born there in 1979. There’s the Khmer Rouge, you know, left from the
communist, that is the time that the communist leave.
SK (01:00):
And, was your daughter born here?
VT (01:02):
Yeah.
SK (01:07):
Page 1 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
You have two children?
VT (01:07):
Yes.
SK (01:11):
When you say he was born in '79 after the communists leave, what did that mean for you? How
did your life change after the communists left?
VT (01:23):
For me, because since communists occupy in 1975, so that's why my son named Samnang which
means lucky. In English, it means lucky because he's very lucky. Because we both marry before
communists began. We both married, and after that, the communists start, in 1975. And we didn't
have my son on that generation that's very hard. We don't have enough food to eat, we worked
very hard. So, we don't have my son yet. When the communists tried to leave, that's my son was
born. That's why we put my son's name Samnang, which means lucky.
SK (02:14):
Is Samnang a common name for the children that were born after the communists left? I know
There's a child in Julie's class.
VT (02:20):
No. Samnang, which means lucky, that mean very lucky. That mean like that. Yeah.
WT (02:25):
It's just some parent that we believe in some... We just put it. Just give the name away. That we
are just thinking about we are just left from communists.
SK (02:44):
It meant something special.
WT (02:47):
Yeah.
VT (02:47):
Yes, sometime lucky in different way. Like my son's name Samnang. It's lucky because he not
born on that communist. You know?
Page 2 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (02:58):
Hard time.
VT (02:58):
On that hard time. Because, when we saw on that time, if we have children on that time, very
very hard. You know? Not enough food to eat. Was very hard. That's why we put name. And
some other Cambodian child name Samnang in different way because maybe in that family they
have something very very hard, and on that time, they have their child, they put that Samnang
because they left from you know the hard thing which mean that...
WT (03:29):
Like people, they live in the camp. They waiting immigration to call into the United States. But
on that time, they wait and wait. They don't have no name to come to the United States. And then
his wife become pregnant. Okay? They still no name to come to the United States yet. They wait
and wait and wait. So, after that child born one day, they put born and then they have the name,
come.
VT (04:12):
Come to the United States.
WT (04:12):
And then they give the name, Lucky.
VT (04:12):
Samnang. Samnang. Yeah. Which means that.
SK (04:13):
Lucky.
WT (04:13):
Yeah.
SK (04:13):
Wow.
VT (04:13):
Yeah. That's very good, it's important.
Page 3 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (04:13):
Different, different way to give the Samnang or Lucky name.
VT (04:18):
Like Samnang, which mean lucky.
SK (04:27):
Yeah, I can see why.
VT (04:28):
Yeah.
SK (04:29):
Does your daughter have a special name that means anything?
VT (04:34):
My daughter, when she was born in 1983, at Lowell General Hospital, they gave me the book
you know to choose the name, but my husband combined my name. So that's come out Deanna.
So Deanna, before my name is Dee, so he put it down combined together. Deanna, we saw on the
booklet, Deanna, so we took that name. So I thought all night, "That's very good." Meaningful,
too, for Deanna. I see on the book.
SK (05:08):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So her name is Deanna?
VT (05:11):
Yes, Deanna.
SK (05:17):
It's very pretty.
WT (05:17):
D-E-A-N-N-A
SK (05:19):
D-A...
VT (05:19):
Page 4 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
D-E-A-N-N-A
SK (05:20):
Oh.
VT (05:22):
Which mean very firm love, with you know my name, too.
SK (05:28):
Because your other name is?
VT (05:31):
Yes, Dee. D-Y.
WT (05:32):
D-E-E
VT (05:35):
No. Before we changed. D-Y. D-Y is called... You too, if you see D-Y, you not call Dee, you
called Di. Right? See? You say Di. When I became citizen, my husband say that's a good time to
change. So that's why I choose Vera. I don't know Vera, which means, which... I say "Oh, that's
good time." Because I go anyway, and I spelled D-Y, they called me Di. So that's a good time to
change, too. That's why I changed my name to Vera.
SK (06:06):
Oh, that's interesting. So you chose that the day you became citizens?
VT (06:06):
Yeah.
SK (06:11):
And did you choose William when you became citizens?
WT (06:16):
Yeah.
SK (06:17):
Is A-N your original name, then? Your Cambodian name? Wasn't it An?
Page 5 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (06:23):
Oh. Yeah.
SK (06:26):
What was your name before you chose William?
WT (06:28):
They have to call me, that's why I change.
VT (06:30):
They have to callWT (06:30):
Savoeun.
VT (06:30):
S-A-V-O-E-U-N. Savoeun. That's hard to call. You know?
SK (06:30):
S-A-V-O-E-U-N?
VT (06:31):
Yeah.
WT (06:31):
When I was at work, somebody tried to ignore my name.
VT (06:31):
They had to call, "Hey, you!". But that's what I call the easy name. You know? Let them call
easier. That's why he choose William.
SK (07:02):
How does it make you feel, though, to give up your Cambodian name and take an American
name?
VT (07:09):
For me, that seems like okay, because it seems like in here, it's easy for them to call. Like just I
mentioned, my husband, when he go to work, some people have to call, too. So that's a good
Page 6 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
time to say, "Oh, maybe put that name." But, we don't mean like, "Oh, we change names."
Because my eyes still the same, my nose still the same. [inaudible] then my body's still the same.
So, just change name. Easy, the two way. Easy for the people in here, and easy when go to work,
too. So it's no matter. It's not a, "Oh, why we change name in here?" Seems like I think, from my
understand, I think they're very good too. Because easy for them, and easy for us.
SK (07:59):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
VT (08:01):
Yeah.
SK (08:01):
One of my fathers, I think it was his great grandmother, changed the name, for the same reason.
Just to make it easier. They changed the last name. Well, I know Vera, you're a teacher. Have
you been a teacher ever since you've been here, or were you in Cambodia?
VT (08:19):
Yes. I teach at Cambodia for two years. And when I escape to Thailand, I teach like... Thailand,
almost two years too, in Thailand camp, because I stay there and...
SK (08:36):
What did you teach?
VT (08:36):
Teach young children in Thailand, and I teach...
WT (08:38):
French.
VT (08:42):
Secondary school. You know? Like [inaudible]. Because in Cambodia they have vacation too.
Seem like a [inaudible] in [inaudible]. I teach that. Yes. I have background in that. Yeah.
SK (08:55):
You taught French too?
VT (08:55):
Page 7 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
Yeah.
SK (08:55):
Wow.
VT (08:57):
Because in Cambodia, learn French. So that's why move them in English. That's why I came
United States. The first time, I don't know English you know very well, but I know a lot
vocabulary in French, then just pronunciation little different. That's why, because I understand.
When I heard the word, I can like, "Oh, that is mean like that." Because it look similar to the
French word. It looks similar. Just pronunciation.
SK (09:21):
That's [inaudible]. People will ask me how to say something in Khmer. I'll say I cannot do that.
But I can say it in French.
VT (09:21):
Yeah. Oh. You look at like, demonstration. In French, “démonstration.” The same exactly
spelling. But just the same pronunciation. See?
WT (09:48):
Different.
VT (09:48):
Different pronunciation.
SK (09:49):
The English language has a lot of words from French.
VT (09:55):
That's right. So might be having easy to...
SK (09:57):
Yeah. And then French and Spanish are a lot alike. I think that's why [inaudible].
VT (09:57):
Yeah, that's right.
Page 8 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
SK (10:04):
So did you have difficulty speaking when you first got here?
WT (10:15):
Yeah, we learn [inaudible] in Cambodia.
VT (10:15):
Then secondary school. At a secondary school that's why I know some English make me easier
come to United States. Because I know the word too.
WT (10:26):
...from high school, and college.
VT (10:28):
When I was away.
SK (10:29):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). [inaudible].
VT (10:30):
Yes. Everyone did when you go up to high school. They have one that was one hours a day. But
everything, every subject is in French. So I took one hours a day in English.
WT (10:43):
When we get upgrade, we learn more French and can go [inaudible]. When we beginning from to
upgrade, Cambodian more, learn French [inaudible] until we finish school 100% with all
subjects, French. All subjects, 100%.
SK (10:43):
Did you go to college in Cambodia, then? And did that make youVT (11:22):
I complete in there, but unfortunate I come here, no proof. That's why I study really hard.
WT (11:30):
They destroy everything when the communist control.
VT (11:31):
Page 9 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
Empty hand.
WT (11:42):
How they move-VT (11:43):
Don't have anything.
WT (11:43):
They move all the population out from town to outside. To the farms. You know? Two to three
hours.
SK (11:48):
And did they consider you dangerous because you were educated?
VT (11:51):
That's why the point that I want to share too.
WT (11:55):
They [inaudible], because we saw keep eye on [inaudible] we moved before the communist
control [inaudible], and we saw what's going on [inaudible].
VT (12:09):
Only black, that we can wear. Only black.
WT (12:12):
A dressVT (12:12):
Wear black clothes, black pants, black shirt. Only black. You don't have any color.
WT (12:18):
Black shoe.
VT (12:19):
If you have color, have to be like a... You know? What it's called? Like, the [inaudible] of the
tree to make your clothes black. You cannot wear color. No way.
Page 10 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (12:37):
Oh. You mean like, if they don't provide black clothes enough, and then we have color clothes,
they can boiling the peel tree.
SK (12:41):
Bark of the tree.
VT (12:41):
The bark. Yeah. That.
WT (12:41):
Yeah. Yeah. And we put it inside. Then after that, we put in the [inaudible], to make it black.
SK (12:42):
If you had color clothes, they thought you knew how to make dye?
WT (13:10):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
SK (13:10):
To cover your clothes with?
WT (13:11):
When they just said like this, then when we go change to black color, you still...
VT (13:19):
Your mind not follow them.
WT (13:21):
You mind still [inaudible] something, which you're going to [inaudible] one thing. And one
spoon of rice.
SK (13:37):
So now, do you like to wear colors? You have [inaudible].
VT (13:41):
Yeah. Usually.
Page 11 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (13:42):
It seem like that is still communist never change. They change the idea because the Vietnamese
control. And then they know the idea that Cambodian people don't like the [inaudible]. They just
make freedom about wearing [inaudible], and something. But the rule still communist.
SK (14:16):
So, when the Vietnamese army invaded, that made things better for you eventually. Right?
VT (14:16):
From my understand, it just Vietnamese invade in Cambodia, but on that generation, seem like
Vietnamese have something in their mind too. It's not just come for help us to on that time,
Khmer Rouge. Because that time, Vietnamese want to be occupied from, I understand history,
that... You know? That's hard. It's not just on that time, I say, "Oh, Vietnamese come, and Khmer
Rouge are gone." I don't know, because I don't like politics at all. That's why I don't care about.
But they say Vietnam come, and we are free from communist on that time. But I'm not sure
about that politics. You know? The politics changed somewhere else. But I don't know. But I still
heard on the news and on the tape, I saw on the movie last time, tourist say when Vietnamese
came and Khmer Rouge are gone, those two seem like together. Khmer Rouge come,
Vietnamese out, Vietnamese come, Khmer Rouge out. Seem like politics to each other.
VT (15:28):
That's why my husband and me, keep thinking about it. How we get free too. You know? When
this come, the other out, when the other come, the other out. So that's why free never come to
Cambodia. Poor Cambodians in the middle. You know? The play around, it seems likeWT (15:47):
A game.
VT (15:48):
Like a game. That's what I saw. You know?
WT (15:50):
And I feel bad for the UN. When they are to help Cambodia out. But I heard on the news, some
UN was killed by...
SK (16:10):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Page 12 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (16:10):
They don't find out. They didn't find out who kill them. But I just feel so sorry. You know?
What's crazy, they don't put UN, they don't respect UN, they just kill. I couldn't believe it.
Because UN just come and help every country. They should understand like a Red Cross. When I
study in the war, when they saw the Red Cross truck, they cannot shoot, but they shoot. They
don't care.
VT (16:48):
That's hard to believe, Sheila. That's my opinion. That's hard to believe. Who do what, and who
killing. And sometimes, when we saw the news, seem like I don't blame. Like, all news is
perfect. Right? Sometimes, sometimes wrong too. You know? Seem like the killing. We don't
know, Khmer Rouge kill, or who kill, or Vietnamese kill. Like, United Nation go to help. We
don't know. Sometime, in mind for instance, like two people, A and B. A want to kill C, but A
don't dot it by himself, because A want to be like that. A give money to B. "B, you kill C." So the
point is, C is to get money. But the main idea come from A. Did you agree that?
WT (17:44):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
VT (17:45):
That's what I keep in mind. That's hard to see who kill who. That's why the wars still around and
no peaceful.
SK (17:55):
Feel like you can't trust anybody.
VT (17:57):
That's hard. You know? Hard to be trust. That's why I look at Cambodia, and it's very, very sad.
Look at all the pictures. I went there, and very sad.
WT (18:08):
To me I believe they don't even like it, how it was [inaudible]. They don't want to know. And
see, we are outside here and [inaudible] when the Vietnamese out, because we chase them to the
[inaudible]. They took everything they saw [inaudible]. They took every single thing from my
country to their country. But first, they took the gold within the [inaudible], and when are ask
them to change, they said no. That's a soldier died [inaudible]. But we know they took it.
Everything. Machine, rice, gold.
SK (19:01):
Page 13 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
Did you have a job where you did check vehicles then?
WT (19:04):
Yeah. We had it, but they don't make, because they more power than us.
SK (19:05):
Right, right.
WT (19:05):
Yeah.
SK (19:12):
So, what was your job at that time, in Cambodia? What were you doing for a job?
WT (19:27):
Oh, me? Electrician.
SK (19:27):
Electrician?
WT (19:27):
Yeah.
SK (19:27):
Uh-huh (affirmative).
WT (19:27):
On the...
VT (19:27):
That's '79.
SK (19:27):
Pardon me?
VT (19:27):
In '79. 1979.
Page 14 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
SK (19:27):
'79.
WT (19:27):
Yeah.
VT (19:27):
When the Vietnamese come, that's '79 that they come. That is why I saw on news they invade
Cambodia. But they take a lot of things from Cambodia. That the point, that's what we see.
WT (19:42):
And one more thing I would like to tell you too. When I was there in last summer, with my
family, and I just heard [inaudible], they say that they wanted the Vietnamese soldier out of
Cambodia. They say, yes. And then they change the clothes from soldier to regular. They still
more Vietnamese in there. And the Cambodia soldier said, all these soldier. But just they change
the clothes.
VT (20:22):
Change the clothes. No soldier, now regular people.
WT (20:25):
Yeah. See? And right now, if you not Cambodian, Cambodian still know which one is
Vietnamese. If you went there, you don't know which one, because they...
VT (20:36):
The same skin.
WT (20:36):
... they are the same color right now. Before they put the hat, we can ID. Now they don't wear the
hat. They make similar to Cambodia until listen to them and listen the action. They speak
similar. Especially, they talk to Vietnamese and to Vietnamese, usually they spoke their
language. Now they don't speak. They speak Cambodian to themselves.
SK (21:06):
Oh.
WT (21:06):
Yeah.
Page 15 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
SK (21:15):
They want to stay.
WT (21:15):
Yeah. They going to stay there.
VT (21:18):
The bottom line, we have to understand each other. No matter what Vietnamese, no matter what
Cambodian. Every country understand to each other. You know? Don't want to be more
powerful, more money, more rich. That's why I keep still in my mind. I say, "What they want to
do?" But all those, they want to be more powerful, more money, take all things. That's why the
war start. What they need for? I don't believe in those things. Like everybody, I don't believe that
way. Why they need war. And look there. It's not peace. I went there, and my tear cry all the
time. I cry, say, "What should I do now?" You know? Because I think that way. If all the people
think that way too, maybe no war, and we all together. That's why I love Demonstration School
very much. That's why I [inaudible] the children grow more and more. A lot of people like the
Demonstration School. I think it's no war at all, because they seem like they love, they joy, they
understand each other.
VT (22:33):
Look at this. Hard to [inaudible] to someone, but like we came in United State. Very good
country. You know? They seem like control, very good. But over there, we want to share too.
We don't want only Cambodian in Cambodia. Not only Cambodian people. Any country can join
together. But don't make the problem. Right? You know? Maybe we do together, loving
together. That's why the way that we are joined together. Like in here a lot. Look at in here.
Seems like a lot of things going up on the news. You know? Killing, shooting, that's why other
guys, they say, "What should we do for people?" That's the main point.
WT (23:22):
Vietnamese people, when they going to do in their country and, when the government
[inaudible], I see in Cambodia too. But after that is gone now, they said like a flower, it bloom.
They come in, get the citizen. But they get the politics from their country. When the war, they
just fight from outside and inside, like a flower. See? That's why. Not like in here, a lot of
different people, they get the citizen, they love the name. They love the United States. They,
"This is my country." Everyone said that. But Vietnamese, they just want my country. Because
they follow the leader, namedVT (24:16):
Pu Ching [spelling?].
Page 16 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (24:18):
Pu Ching [spelling?]. Wrote the book.
VT (24:19):
We know the story.
WT (24:21):
After he die, he wrote a book. "You have to take Cambodia, control Cambodia." He want to
[inaudible] the power.
SK (24:39):
So he still has that influence? He influences people through his writings still?
VT (24:41):
Because they have on the writing, from the [inaudible], we should be [inaudible]. But seem like
that from we they know that. This summer, I went. You know?
WT (24:52):
Didn't you see Kerry?
VT (24:53):
Yeah. John Kerry?
WT (24:55):
Yeah. You see that they went to Vietnam?
SK (24:58):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WT (25:00):
They so smart and they do it quick, that they... They do like this. Vietnamese politics like this.
Dirty. They so twist, very fast. In the United States, [inaudible] I trust them maybe, I don't know
for future. Because they change so fast so fast. You know? When they go there, John Kerry went
there, they smart, they show the government, they show the American guy, the soviet guy, they
show the [inaudible]. Just drinking. Yeah.
VT (25:38):
That's why I give example for you like A, B, and C.
Page 17 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (25:42):
[Inaudible] just looking at the last time, how many hundreds that American soldiers die in
Vietnam. Right now, I still look at cartoon or movie. You know? I still miss a little bit, people.
Vietnamese play game so much.
SK (26:03):
Would you ever go back to Cambodia to live?
WT (26:04):
I don't know.
VT (26:07):
For my dream, yes I do.
WT (26:12):
[inaudible].
VT (26:12):
Because I really in peace, that's why we waiting. That's why last summer, I brought my son, my
daughter. All, we went there. We want to show how Cambodia is. Seem like, look really small.
It's not like just before 1975. Before that, very peaceful, and very, very good. You know? That's
very wonderful place. But after 1975, up to '79, everything destroy. From '79, it seems like now I
went there, still not peace also. It's not the same before. But my dream, I say because we hope
that the more we try, sometime, it might be good. We don't know. But my dream, I want to go
back to.
SK (27:07):
Was it dangerous for you to be there when you went last summer? Or is it safe for you to travel
there?
VT (27:13):
I saw by my eye, very scary. Was lucky, that's why we came back here. We keep say we are
lucky. How many people went there? almost 60, yeah? Some got accident, some got stole.
Different kinds. You know? But for me, we went from capital... Because my hometown is far
from capital. How long we drive? How many hours? 12? Or eight hours? We drive...
WT (27:49):
Page 18 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
No, that depends. Before, we drove about six hours, because the roads is good, the highways are
good. But now, it's very bad.
VT (27:54):
You know? It seemed like a [inaudible].
WT (27:54):
A lot of hole. You know? Because the...
VT (28:04):
Broken road, or broken [inaudible].
WT (28:05):
Because Khmer Rouge broke the bridge. And the roads broken. They don't build. And took so
long to go there. But it's not too good. Not safe at all. When see a [inaudible], my family come
back. She said, "Oh, you guys so lucky."
VT (28:29):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It's very hard.
WT (28:31):
Because she went there before me. Not safe at all.
VT (28:33):
It's scary.
SK (28:36):
How did you get out of Cambodia?
WT (28:40):
When? Before...
SK (28:40):
When you first left. Yeah.
WT (28:42):
There's a path turn through. Vietnamese control the border. Many lane. Inside border, and plus,
they live in the forest close to the Thailand border. We had to [inaudible].
Page 19 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
VT (29:02):
Crawl. Mine. They put mine. They don't want Cambodia cross to Thailand. Vietnamese put
mine.
SK (29:09):
Vietnamese didn't want?
WT (29:09):
Of course not.
VT (29:11):
Yep. Oh, look at my mother. My mother-in-law cross the mud like this, Sheila. Mud. And very,
very sad. You know? That's why I have one niece, they have two children, now three children
still there. We have five people to come United States. We have name. But my mother, she says
she misses... You know? She don't want to leave. She wants to go back to Cambodia. That's why
she came after me in 1983. '83, that my daughter born. Three months, then she came. And my
niece still there.
SK (29:47):
That'sVT (29:49):
That's my mother-in-law.
SK (29:51):
Your mother-in-law? Uh-huh (affirmative).
VT (29:51):
Yeah. She died by the time that I go work at the Demonstration School.
SK (29:56):
Oh.
VT (29:56):
Yeah.
SK (29:56):
She was here?
Page 20 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (29:58):
Yeah.
VT (29:59):
She's here.
WT (29:59):
She came in '83.
VT (30:00):
But she came after me. I came '81.
WT (30:04):
[inaudible].
VT (30:09):
Yeah.
SK (30:10):
So, you and you, and and your son...
VT (30:14):
And my son.
SK (30:14):
... came in '81?
WT (30:15):
Yeah.
VT (30:17):
Yes, '81.
SK (30:17):
Together?
VT (30:17):
Page 21 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
Yeah.
SK (30:17):
And then your mother came in '83?
VT (30:18):
Came after.
WT (30:20):
When we was at the camp, we have [inaudible]. That's why [inaudible]. And when we have
name, she don't want to come. She wake me up. She want to go back to country.
VT (30:44):
[inaudible].
WT (30:45):
She said she want to die in Cambodia.
SK (30:46):
Your mother did?
WT (30:46):
Yeah.
VT (30:46):
Yeah.
SK (30:50):
But she changed her mind, and sheWT (30:51):
Yeah. When I come here two years, and then they have a lot of problem in the camp, [inaudible].
You know? The people for [inaudible].
VT (30:56):
[inaudible]. That's hard to leave. With my niece we decide very hard...
Page 22 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (31:15):
And when my mother come, [inaudible] to come to the United Sates, two men took my niece
away from her. Seemed like that they steal her, but over here they call...
SK (31:29):
Kidnapping?
WT (31:36):
No, not that. [inaudible].
VT (31:36):
Take away. They took it out. Because my niece... how old she is? It's 11 or 12. Yeah?
WT (31:46):
[inaudible] they come down here, 16.
VT (31:53):
Yeah, they took it out. So that's why she came alone. She came United States.
SK (31:57):
Who? Your niece?
VT (31:59):
No. Now my niece still in the camp now.
WT (32:03):
My niece [inaudible]. Because the two guys took from my mother. They don't want my niece
come.
SK (32:10):
In Thailand? So she [inaudible].
WT (32:12):
Yeah, they took from the Thailand camp to the Cambodian camp.
SK (32:17):
They took her back to Cambodia?
Page 23 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
VT (32:20):
Because, seems like they want money. Something like that. But they took it out, and my mom
still alone. So that's hard. You know? That's not easy get there, and we went to pick her at the
airport.
WT (32:34):
But when I was there last summer. I asked one person to go from Cambodia to get my niece to
me. They spend $100 go there, and $100 go back to [inaudible].
VT (32:53):
That too far. You know? Too far from the Thailand camp and from my house that I live. That's
why they go to [inaudible], they want to see.
SK (33:04):
So, you didn't see her when you were in Cambodia?
WT (33:06):
Yeah.
SK (33:08):
Oh, you did see her?
VT (33:08):
Yes, that's right. WeSK (33:09):
But you had to pay $200.
WT (33:09):
Yes.
VT (33:09):
Yes. $200.
WT (33:10):
[inaudible] had a long [inaudible]. Plus, people that [inaudible]. They had to sleep one night from
[inaudible] to for my niece to see me.
Page 24 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
SK (33:29):
So she's not free to leave the country there? They're still holding her?
VT (33:33):
Yeah. NowWT (33:34):
See, I went to a international before my mother dead. Before my mother pass away. And Captain
Flynn. Yeah. Captain Flynn.
VT (33:51):
Yeah, Captain Flynn.
WT (33:54):
She work for the [inaudible]. She said I cannot leave my [inaudible], because [inaudible].
SK (33:54):
Oh.
WT (33:55):
They just want mother...
VT (33:57):
The rule change.
WT (33:57):
... or father, or brother, or sister.
SK (33:57):
Immediate family.
WT (33:57):
Yeah.
VT (33:57):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's why we wait, and wait, and wait. So we cannot get [inaudible].
WT (34:06):
Page 25 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
But right now, I heard we can sponsor from Cambodia to United States. I just talked to my wife
this morning, and she's still have one brother, two sister, and two....
VT (34:29):
One niece, one nephew.
WT (34:34):
Yeah. To her [inaudible].
VT (34:35):
That you already [inaudible].
WT (34:36):
We have picture. We have picture [inaudible].
VT (34:49):
Sad story, Sheila.
SK (34:50):
Yeah. Yeah.
VT (34:50):
That's whySK (34:50):
It's hard to imagine.
VT (34:56):
Now we leave all [inaudible]. This all that we can show.
WT (35:04):
Let’s see.
VT (35:04):
We [inaudible] a lot together. This is my sister, here.
WT (35:11):
Page 26 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
Yes. [inaudible].
VT (35:12):
Now she's teacher too, over in Cambodia.
WT (35:13):
[inaudible] when I went there. And she told me her [inaudible] is in college.
VT (35:13):
In Cambodia.
WT (35:13):
[inaudible].
VT (35:13):
Yeah. In Cambodia.
WT (35:23):
[inaudible].
VT (35:26):
Oh. My uncle. He is very tall. [inaudible].
WT (35:31):
This the college.
VT (35:35):
[inaudible].
WT (35:40):
[inaudible].
VT (35:41):
[inaudible].
SK (35:47):
It must have been hard to say goodbye to her, to come back here.
Page 27 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
WT (35:49):
[inaudible].
VT (35:49):
Oh, Sheila. All day cry. Especially my daughter, my son.
WT (35:53):
See this? All these people, uh when I went there we uh make celebration. Yeah. With all theVT (36:01):
They so happy...
SK (36:02):
Why?
VT (36:02):
... to see us [inaudible].
SK (36:03):
[inaudible].
WT (36:03):
Yeah.
VT (36:03):
One month very quick. Very quick one month.
SK (36:07):
Yeah. They [inaudible].
WT (36:09):
[inaudible] cook, chef.
SK (36:09):
Wow.
WT (36:20):
Page 28 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
They so happy to see us, and we come close. "Oh, they are people from United States. Oh. Look
[inaudible]." They used to say that. These are people in front of the airport. When I went to come
back to the United States, and I took a picture. See.
SK (36:42):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). All friends and relatives of yours?
WT (36:45):
Yeah.
VT (36:45):
No.
WT (36:46):
No, it's justVT (36:47):
It's not all mine. Different people. You know? They come to wait, to see. They have their
brother, sister, [inaudible]. You know? Sometime go to ask "Did you heard this name, that
name?" Because they miss to... very, veryWT (37:01):
See? These are my wife’s sisters too.
VT (37:03):
Just married.
WT (37:07):
Just married after we come back. We cannot wait, because we just have one month vacation.
VT (37:14):
[inaudible].
SK (37:35):
Wow.
WT (37:36):
And then we cannot wait.
Page 29 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
SK (37:36):
Oh. But she sent a picture?
VT (37:36):
Yeah.
WT (37:36):
Yeah. She sent these two pictures.
VT (37:36):
This my uncle, this my aunt.
SK (37:36):
[inaudible].
VT (37:36):
There is my brother. [inaudible].
SK (37:36):
Oh.
VT (37:36):
Where? [inaudible]
SK (37:43):
Are you still an electrician here in the United States?
WT (37:46):
No.
SK (37:46):
Doing something else now?
WT (37:47):
Yeah.
SK (37:50):
Page 30 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
I think you might have told me [inaudible], but I forget. Are you starting your own business?
VT (37:50):
Yeah.
SK (37:57):
Or, were you trying to start your own business?
WT (37:57):
Yeah.
VT (37:57):
Because now, Sheila, my husband will get... almost 12 years, right?
WT (38:03):
No, 10.
VT (38:03):
10 year. And got laid off, now we know. I keep telling him. "Go to school." You know? No one
can steal education. [inaudible] you know keep like a trick on us. And he got laid off. See? That's
very...
WT (38:18):
The one that I'm talking about. That's [inaudible] with my mother and sister to come.
SK (38:18):
Yeah.
WT (38:18):
And then...
SK (38:40):
So did you have to start from the beginning with your education?
VT (38:44):
Yes. I became the first Cambodian teacher in Lowell, in 1985. So I study courses you know
every semester. So now, it seem like 120 credit a lot too. But I keep take every semester. One,
two, or three. But last year, the year before, I took a lot. Like, complete 10 courses, eight courses.
Page 31 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
But now, Dr. Pearson told me, just two more. That's it. So when I have a degree, I can go to get
certified too. Because before you get certified, you have degree first. But they cannot give,
because I don't have any proof. And they invite other experts, come. You know?
WT (39:35):
Most of the camp...
SK (39:35):
Hold old were you?
VT (39:39):
Very skinny.
WT (39:41):
Skinny. [inaudible].
SK (39:42):
That's still in Thailand?
WT (39:47):
Yeah.
VT (39:47):
Yeah.
SK (39:48):
While working here?
WT (39:48):
That's one teacher.
VT (39:51):
My husband. Yeah. And I teach young children that come. You know? We have ฿10. For one
day. Right? ฿10. Thailand money. ฿10. They call it, ฿10. So my husband get ฿10, I get ฿10
every day. You know? That's why. To survive, at that camp.
SK (40:11):
What year did you leave Cambodia and get into the camp?
Page 32 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
VT (40:16):
'79. '79.
SK (40:19):
So you spent two yearsVT (40:20):
Spent two years, yeah. So I start teach over there almost two year until the name call, that's why I
left to United States.
SK (40:30):
And some groups sponsored your coming here?
VT (40:34):
We pick, from I heard, I fill out the form, because a lot of American people went to the camp.
They ask more information. They ask me to want to be like one more they understand French a
lot. Or English, some. So I work with a agency, Like, a hospital, a lot over there, they need me
too. But lucky when I go to interview with the school, they say they want to take me to teacher,
and the other one want me to be a nurse over there, because I know I was a midwife in Cambodia
also. So seems like one want me, they want me but... finally I teach, because my husband sport
teacher, and say, "Oh, teach." And I had my son too on that time. So we both went the same. You
know? Teaching. And we get money from that.
SK (41:25):
So your husband taught sports?
VT (41:25):
Yes.
SK (41:26):
And he was an electrician, too?
VT (41:34):
No, in Thailand no electrician. He electrician in Cambodia.
SK (41:38):
Cambodia. Yeah.
Page 33 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
VT (41:40):
Yeah. He get a good job. Like, in here too. Everything, he can do it. That's very good.
SK (41:45):
That's good..
VT (41:45):
Yeah. Have a lot too. You know? If you car really expensive. Seem like little thing he can by
himself. So that's very good.
SK (41:56):
Now, did you have any choice about coming to Lowell or...?
VT (42:00):
Oh. The point is, I came the first time, I came to New York.
SK (42:06):
Oh.
VT (42:06):
Yes. The first arrive at New York, February 18th. I remember. I never forget. '81. And I came
New York almost one year before. Very hard at New York. I live at Brooklyn. My son often
sick, sick, sick. And I took subway. My husband came early. Two weeks he had go to work,
because they don't provide welfare or food stamp. So he go to work, because say, "I have only
one son." So that's why he go to work very far. You know? Take subway, and 15 day in United
States. $3, something he work there.
VT (42:50):
And after that, friend in mine live in Lowell. He call and say... because he know my background.
Because usually, I learn in Cambodia. Have a lot education. And he say, "Come here." Because
hear everything I told, because I have a hard time. Take subway, bring my son, go to the clinic
that's very far, change different train. You know? Almost very, very hard. And he call, and I told
about life in New York. And he say, "Come here, because in here, they have education, easy to
go to hospital, easy you know to go everywhere."
VT (43:28):
So we decide. Say, "Oh, maybe we can." And after that, is why we came in Lowell in 1982.
January fifth. Yeah? January fifth, I came in Lowell. So, came in Lowell, that's why I say, "We
Page 34 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
cannot survive, because we don't have any welfare and food stamp." I decide to go to work, too.
And on that time, '81, '82. It's very, very hard to get a job. So they took me, interview me
[inaudible] they choose only me to work at company product for glasses. Because I can
understand. Hard to find a job on that time.
VT (44:11):
So after that, I worked at the Prince, because I have Deanna. And my son go to school, and he
missed school. He missed school one day, because the bus didn't pick up. So I make a phone call
at Greenhalge School. So I make a phone call to say... Because the bus didn't pick up, I drop my
son to school. And that time, that's really that I start to be a teacher. And Miss [inaudible], my
son teacher, had problem with the Cambodian kid. They cannot understand what parents say. On
that time I brought my son in there, he said, "But you have to speak Cambodian with the other
parents, because they cannot communicate." So I talk, and I tell English that she say, "Oh, you..."
She asked me about my background, "What do you do?", and say, "Oh, you should apply,
because they have job opening. They want to looking for Cambodian teacher."
VT (45:08):
So she call right away. Because Mr. Gallagher... She spoke with Mr. Gallagher, principal at
Greenhalge. And she called to [inaudible]. And one day I worked over there. I have good salary
too, at Prince. And they call me, interview on Friday, and they let me work on Monday. I get job,
that's why I became a first teacher. And after that, I teach Vietnamese, Laos, Cambodian. At one
class. You know? So they don't understand. I cannot speak much. I know how to count in
Chinese, in Vietnamese, or in Laos. But not much word. You know? My husband know a lot.
Like, different languages. He know a lot. You know? The word to find. You know? That's very
good for him too. That's why I start teacher in 1985.
SK (46:02):
That's great.
VT (46:03):
That's right. Look at that story. I still do my resume on that, because I never forget. So I write
down, because... You know? Who knows? That is for my children to see what happened. You
know? The sequence of life. So I already write down, that's why I took classes. Sometimes they
ask about writing on our lives. Very, very share. And when you see the sequence look at, that's
sometime I have free time, I lay down, and with my husband, and we thought about it. How we
all now. You know? Seem like it's amaze. We don't think we have everything, and we do.
VT (46:51):
Look at our life. We supposed to be killed on that generation. We so skinny. My husband work
very hard. You know? Now he's very hurt, still hurt. A lot of things he hold. Because you cannot
Page 35 of 36
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
say no. If they say you have to do, you have to do. But me, lucky. I'm lucky on my generation.
I'm so lucky too. And that's working so hard. Because, seem like I don't know. That's why I say
my life very, very lucky. When I work with my parents, I'm very lucky too. Because I have my
sister do all the work. And very good, because only one for me is study. I really love study.
That's why I say, I still remember my parents. Especially my father. Because he say, "No one can
steal your education." He worked very hard for me. You know?
VT (47:48):
Because, in Cambodia, because my family is not rich, but it's not very poor. In the middle class.
But Cambodian people, if you a girl, you cannot get high education. Most have to be stay home.
Some that have high education, very rich. You know? Seems like. Or lucky. For me, very lucky.
You know? Seem like I finish school in my country, and I go to capital, I finish study. And I
have name. Some people support me to go to more education. That's why I finish my education
very high in Cambodia. And lucky, and all the communist generation very lucky too. And I
never lie on that time. I always tell the truth, because he say...
End of tape 1 of 1, side 1 of 2.
Page 36 of 36
�
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UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
CONTENT WARNING:
Mentions of war, death, and other situations readers and
listeners may find distressing.
INFORMANTS/
NARRATORS:
VERA T. TITH (VT)
WILLIAM A. TITH (WT)
INTERVIEWER:
DATE:
SHEILA L. KIRSCHBAUM (SK)
FEBRUARY 13, 1993
SPEAKER (TIME)
DETAILS
SK (00:03):
In the camp you mean..
VT (00:03):
No, in the communist generation, people are starvation. When I call, I say because maybe why,
maybe why people like no generation because people 17 the old people they divide separately.
They eat differently because what is called crime open borders or Khmer Rouge right, what's
called... And our people because people 17. So you cannot eat really well.
WT (00:44):
When the revolution on the March 18 that their people, they were in the town because 17th of
March and they put because my people in the town become the new 17 March. And there are
people that they work together to control the town because they hold people 18 March.
VT (01:32):
Yeah 18, 17, 19 maybe, why? But they wear black too, black clothesWT (01:39):
Some they do...
VT (01:40):
But they control no people. That's why, you cannot move.
WT (01:47):
That's why they killed 17 people. This [inaudible] my people.
Page 1 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
VT (01:50):
If you not work like they say, "They say you not very good." So itWT (01:54):
17 March come in to control the whole country. That's why we call the people in the town
because 17 March they control [inaudible].
SK (02:12):
And the all 18 March were the communist?
WT (02:13):
Yeah.
VT (02:14):
Yeah, they all... They say they are all. So they control.
WT(02:19):
They mean they are live outside of the town. That means the group, the Khmer Rouge
themselves, they put their name 18.
VT (02:31):
18.
WT(02:32):
All 18 people. That means the all 18, that mean the all person just that every people like eight,
and you and me they work together in outside the forest. When they get in they control the all
people.
SK (02:50):
And so you were the new people?
VT (02:53):
Yeah. New 17 and you have to work what they say. If they say like “do this,” you had to do this.
If you not do...
WT (03:03):
Like the 18 the boss, the leader. The 17 [inaudible].
Page 2 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
VT (03:11):
Employee.
SK (03:13):
Now you said you've lived far away from the capital, your hometown was far away from the
capital?
VT (03:18):
Yeah.
SK (03:19):
Is that right?
WT (03:20):
But close to the program. Close to the...
VT (03:25):
The stadium, the state.
WT(03:27):
See lived close to the state. The name of the state is called Battambang, B-A-T-T-A-M-B-A-NG. Battambang.
VT (03:41):
Capital in Phnom Penh. When you have higher education you have go to Phnom Penh. Like in
here like you want to continue around college here but if you pass college, you hold like a
Harvard something like that. You go over there and live. But this lies in my near mine is very far
away, fly to the...
WT(04:03):
Over there, the college if he needs so that we have primary school. We finished primary school,
we had to go to the high school. Still have in the state and then they have the college in the state
too. After we finish college we had to go to the university in Phnom Penh, the capital. On the
university we have the communist.
SK (04:37):
Did you meet at college then, or?
Page 3 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
WT(04:38):
Yeah. We meet at the college and we marry before the communist [inaudible]
VT (04:45):
At the time that’s lucky you know.
SK (04:45):
One year before the communist came in?
VT (04:45):
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
SK (04:54):
Is there a special story to the time that you met each other? Were you were in class together?
WT(05:01):
No.
VT (05:02):
We just see to each other by that time. I didn't see him very much, but we know that he told his
mother because Cambodia it's different. It's not just, he seemed like he had the other school and
the school and when they arrange that his parent go to my parent, that's why we marry that way.
It's not like we met in the same school or never talk. I never see him too before, but he saw me.
But I never see him that Cambodian culture arrange.
SK (05:36):
And arrange?
VT (05:37):
Yeah, arranged marriage.
SK (05:40):
And the way that works, did you have any choice in the matter or did your parents pick?
WT (05:45):
No we had to... Like me I had to tell my parents and my parents has to talk to her parent.
SK (05:53):
Page 4 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
You did notice her first?
VT (05:53):
Yeah.
WT(05:55):
But we don't talk to each other.
SK (05:56):
You didn't talk to her. But you saw her? And you told your parents...
WT(05:57):
Yeah.
SK (05:58):
And then you talked...
VT (05:58):
Yeah, but I never see because usually Cambodian girl not much, you know, not talk in private,
no. Or in public also because when you a girl it's different from here that very different. When I
go to school seem like we have... When I have the elementary school they are Cambodia girls
school, boys school from my stand.
VT (06:25):
When we go to college we mix not much talking in here, share, no. If you are a girl you sit with
girl. But always seem like separate, not much...
WT(06:36):
One classroom.
VT (06:37):
Yeah, one side girl, one side boy. Not much discussing, no. If you want discuss I always discuss
with girl and boy discuss with the boy. So sometime they never see it's not sure. That's why I
sing in here. When I go to psychology courses I see now a lot pregnancy, a lot problem with that.
VT (07:02):
But we have that too over in Cambodia. Not might happen like that. Why? Because girl and boy
not talking so much to each other. Even I learned at university too. We don't have chance too
Page 5 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
much to talk with the boy because that is the culture. When I want the way that the boy or
whatever and I want, you seem like a shaking. We shy with the boy, but that is hard that is the
culture too.
VT (07:33):
Now when the kid born in here, seem like very close. You see you don't the boy, they never
married and here that from I know most Cambodian girl, Cambodian boy, they know before not
like me. I never know where but when married, one year I never look at his face very... But that's
very hard to look his face very in front. He keep talking, he saw me. The motorcycle, he saw me
that way.
VT (08:04):
But I never see and married because we follow parents. Parents say marry and that time we
married and we tried. And from now on and at the communist generation too it seem like
husband and wife not work together. Husband work far away and I cooking you know in the big
building they want me to... They have like 10 or 15 girl cook to survive. Maybe thousand people.
When they come from work food had to be ready for them.
VT (08:43):
So that way sometime one week or two week, my husband you know come to see me. Yes, they
let to come to see me. [inaudible] not very much but lucky with me and my husband seemed like
we meet each other often time. But some family, no. Sometimes they kill husband, why still
[inaudible]. That's very strange unless when some time we have spare time we go back sit on by
seem like scary.
VT (09:17):
So that's why I told my husband he got laid off it seem like we sit down, you know we do how
much we can save. Now we take care of my children bring them go to school, we care them first
because seem like very scary. Maybe I mentioned to you or I mentioned to our team teaching
over there too.
VT (09:37):
We sit down and say usually when we work together my husband will usually go Friday for
lunch, but now we cut it down we save money that way and seemed like he knows a lot like car
fixing or fixed somehow in here and electrician he excellent. He can fix everything. So we save
that money too.
VT (09:58):
So now, seem like if I have job, seem like support that's my one and only [inaudible]. I want to
be rich. That is my middle way. Now I seem like I have survived as good pay my mortgage
Page 6 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
before I didn't rent. Now I rent one family to save because my husband got laid off. I get to share
with me because my mortgage is very high too. That's why I’m stay. So my family all before my
mother passed [inaudible]. So my husband keep [inaudible]. So now he goes to school, get more.
SK (10:45):
He goes to school now?
VT (10:47):
He go to school too and takes some college course about business. He want to do something a
little bit because seem like no work is a very tight, have a single to school and we do a lot of
work too now. So maybe sometimes we can do a little bit now.
SK (11:09):
Are you going to [inaudible] next year?
VT (11:09):
Now we discuss... You miss on advisory meeting. See advisory meeting on Thursday, last
Thursday, yes we do that and a lot on that day uh early childhood. They have a lot of push and
and it’s [inaudible]. You a lot of push and we know a lot and a lot of school asking when you
there.
VT (11:32):
And Greenhalge school, Mr. Gallagher, why he married his wife was there. He married with
Helen and Helen know me and Greenhalge School. We have to go back and after that everyone
when we go back and I say, because we don't know. We say we had to work it out and
[inaudible]. And then on that day he mentioned don’t be apply anywhere else because maybe he
want me to try to have one more year. But not very sure yet.
VT (12:02):
But for me, they're asking me, they test me, ask question, how will you feel on working and then
I say I love very much, Sheila. I think that program is excellent. It's not even looking at they
together. And you see it, look it, we have some time problem. But you know what because
people like that there even when I say thinking of this program is excellent as far as I know.
They shared it.
VT (12:32):
They didn't know you are when I worked at Greenhalge. Somehow [inaudible] with this
Cambodian kid like that. I heard, but in here seem like they don't know Cambodian or Spanish.
Page 7 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
They really enjoyed together, the three year over there. That's why I like that way. They keep
asking me like that and a lot of same, I try. They learn very good too.
VT (12:57):
Even understand or repeat but they try very hard. Even when you know that's why I saying, the
more language you have, that's easy to live on that I have my experience. I know friend, and I
have vacation and I went to [inaudible] last few years but my mom was alive. Even then my
husband's friend, we go two car and he got big accident, they get hit from the other car because
[inaudible] drive very fast. Did you went there? Very fast drive and hit him really badly. And he
cannot speak French.
VT (13:37):
And over then they taught you English too and ask for help with English and they asked, "Can
you speak French?" I said yes. I asked called report police ambulance come right away and car
got hit on one spot. We had to go to hospital, hospital speak French too. So if my husband and
me cannot speak what should we do?
VT (13:59):
That's why I still write in [inaudible] for my children. That's why my children enjoy learning
language. So my husband keep my son, my daughter learn Khmer everyday one hour, because it
or now when they know more they put them in the regular class before my children belong
bilingual. They know you know.
VT (14:22):
So now they say you understand we have mainstream, they go regular. So we don't want to miss
our culture because now he write the letter to his aunt, he write in Khmer too. So that's why he
wanted. So I say that school time. He has time teach them and he learned more French from me
if I have time. If I have time in Spanish too.
SK (14:49):
Yes.
VT (14:50):
My son love it because now they cut off at [Bailey/Daley?] school. Before, they have Spanish
lesson, now they cut off. But he knows some, I say don't worry maybe go to high school. Maybe
some more but I want him to get a Spanish because this area you know more Spanish because
French, I will have more later on. Because now look at our society a lot of Spanish everywhere.
So when you get a job, you know English and you know more Spanish and you know about
Khmer. That's easy to find, to understand to each other.
Page 8 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
VT (15:28):
If you don't understand when Spanish say ah we don't know. That's hard, that’s why I know.
That's what I heard one time I will get Greenhalge School they say English only. I say I went to
public hearing at Smith Baker. Unbelievable. English only seemed like I still remember in your
[unknown]. That's good. When you go outside I went to [unknown] something happened. You
cannot do English might be you have hard time. How hard you all imagine it if you cannot speak
the other language.
VT (16:02):
And you just stay in own pond that's good, very well. That's from I understand that's why I really
love the [unknown]. I really give example like that. I think you noticed it's very good. If children
enjoy and look at, few children fluent Spanish, understand, I play card, play song, they remember
you know body part. They go to Cambodian store they say in English, in Khmer [unknown
Khmer]. In there. That's really good.
SK (16:39):
And you're great too you. Everybody will be sad if you leave Demonstration School.
VT (16:43):
I don't know but I like because for me, it's okay, Sheila. I can go find job. Every school now, a
principal and by [inaudible] school want me to go to her class to... And a new school and get
school year they want me there. For me it's okay but feeling that's really impressed me with the
children.
VT (17:07):
We will cry. Professionally I cried because last week Julie left, and we went to see the show at
South Campus. Children cry really hard because Julie left, we saw Julie. So seem like hard to.
That's why we had Cambodian proverb say, "People come in very happy, when get out very,
very sad to get." That the way it is. That's now at school advisory last Thursday they discussed
about that, but we don’t know yet because the plan is to be changed, have to be rotated. That the
point. But we don't know yet, maybe sometime we can change and we can use the two year and I
had to go to the other school this year too, that’s why [inaudible].
VT (18:08):
When you gave Vera too much school. But now I don't know but just he said on that day, not yet
don’t go apply everywhere. He will work it out for me but we don’t know yet. I love very good,
Sheila. I try very hard. Sometimes children not ready to learn or different, but when they ready,
it's very good and then it's excellent. That's why I said this program is really excellent.
VT (18:38):
Page 9 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
If all the world understand each other like a singer song. First we know vocabulary like came
here. I pull out, I recite the vocabulary to be able... My body go to understand. If you don't have
word, how do you understand? First, you had to learn the word. That's why I had to pull out, play
games made something different for them to learn.
VT (19:04):
If you have word in your mind, you combine word together and you can speak out. So you can
get food to eat easily. When you go somewhere you can speak. That's why I said this group is
excellent. This program, did they repeat...
SK (19:22):
Now this question doesn't have to do with the school, but I'm curious to know. The Cambodian
celebrations that you do here now that you're in the United States, but especially in your family. I
know that Cambodian New Year's celebrated.
VT (19:33):
Yeah, we do. The other one and the [unknown Khmer] is very, very important and [unknown
Khmer] is called soul day.
WT (19:40):
Soul day.
VT (19:40):
Soul day. That celebration is very big one. Because in life, we believe that parent or family pass
away. We believe because the lifecycle has to be resize. The had to become by. So when the
people was that from the believe, they still hang around somewhere. We don't know to get the
new life and they are starvation, looking for food to eat and we are alive.
VT (20:10):
So that's right that we believe we make your food, we bring to the temple and the monk pray for
them to come get out even some people with something bad and their life, they cannot find the
place to reborn. So that's why they hang around. We believe that it's why the big celebration.
Everyone never miss.
WT (20:35):
Like my mother passed away and the place that buried her and when we love her so much and
we would like to do something for them. We understand that she have a hard time to carry like a
problem [inaudible] until to the board, and we have to understand how heart she is carry after the
baby born take her to give the food, provide this provide that. Even go somewhere she had to
Page 10 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
carry us. That's why when she passed away we had to do something special for her. This not the
time that passes away. This is a year and a year after I had to invite the monk and some people
some nun to go over there to pray for her and on the place. Use the picture, here. This my
mother’s picture put on the stone on... How do you call this?
SK (22:02):
A tombstone in the cemetery?
WT (22:04):
Yeah.
SK:
This was, where was this?
VT (22:05):
In here. Lowell.
WT (22:08):
I think just first one, right, that we bury. The Cambodian usually do uh burn.
SK (22:12):
Cremation.
VT (22:12):
Cremation.
WT (22:14):
Cremation. But I miss her so much. I cannot cremate her. I had to leave her one place and I
bought a big land and I bought four place for her and it's a big, I don't want to step on somebody
else. I just do around the map and put a flower the summer or I want to do like this just go there
and put [unknown].
VT (22:44):
And now in monk they pray.
WT (22:46):
Pray.
VT (22:46):
Page 11 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
That's we believeWT(22:47):
Do we believe just only the monk? And they have candles and they have incense. That mean
when the incense burn that mean that we can go to... We told the monk pray my mom and then a
time a lot of people.
SK (23:15):
Is there a certain day that is Soul Day?
WT (23:18):
Oh, yeah. Once a year.
VT (23:20):
Yes, once a year in October.
SK (23:22):
October?
VT (23:24):
Yeah.
WT (23:24):
It's close to the Easter.
VT (23:27):
No close to theSK (23:28):
Memorial Day?
VT (23:29):
... Halloween. Halloween, October. Because that's why I still say because they were like different
and know, Halloween seemed like a fun for children. And this really every Cambodian had to be
do that because if you not do that, we have like the thing that say the people that was that, that
relate to our family, they looking for seven temple. That they didn't see you make anything and
pray to them, they will you know...
Page 12 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
WT (24:04):
Cry.
VT (24:05):
They will what it's called cry very hard.
WT (24:08):
Because on that time theVT (24:11):
And it's not blessing for you. They don't want to blessing for you to see the very bad new for
you. They say like you have something bad that we believe that it's a very big celebration. Every
temple and here we have two temple, now because too many people at one. So we just have one
more temple near here and the other one near our school. I think the [inaudible] school very big
place. Very, very big over there.
SK (24:52):
At [inaudible] street?
VT (24:53):
Quinley? What’s it called? Quinley? Quinley Street? Yes, yes. Very big and beautiful.
WT (24:53):
The time we went to Cambodia to her house, my wife’s house. Her father bone buried and we go
there. We ask the monk to take him out and put special thing where we have buildVT (25:12):
Cemetery.
WT (25:12):
... cemetery.
VT (25:12):
Monument. We have monument over there. Put them. Seem like make you luck, that we believe.
But I believe that's very true come out too, Sheila. We do good things, we receive good thing.
That's my believe, that's why we do reallyWT (25:28):
Page 13 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
What's... He pass away in 1979. ‘79, burry.
VT (25:40):
And this all the bone.
WT (25:40):
... very bone. ‘91.
VT (25:40):
‘92.
WT (25:47):
‘92. And the bone still good. We said it's a good bone.
SK (25:51):
But he was killed by the communists?
VT (25:52):
Yeah.
WT (25:54):
Not killed by the communist.
VT (25:59):
In the communist generation.
WT (25:59):
The time that the communist out and he pass away.
VT (26:07):
Yeah, the communist generation. I didn't see him on that time when we go. My husband and me
go there let's see while he was there. We didn't see him while there.
SK (26:15):
So he died natural causes during...
VT (26:16):
Page 14 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
Yeah, natural. No seemed like he really starvation or food. Very skinny. That my brother, sister
told me, which mean seemed like killing by communists also because very sad, very sickness.
That's why he told me.
WT (26:32):
They celebrate for my father-in-law. This is my wife's brother, that the sister come back and
married is the school teacher and this my niece. Nephews.
VT (26:57):
The parent. No parent when they were young, that's very sad. My niece and nephew.
WT (27:08):
These five, these fiveVT (27:10):
They're single.
WT (27:11):
... no parent, single. We just have the old sister over here. And when I went there I couldn't
believe they have taken care by themselves. No old people take care. We saw surprise.
VT (27:29):
They're very, very strong.
WT (27:31):
When we went there we're so proud that they don't have no parents and how they grow like this.
VT (27:38):
They grow themselves.
SK (27:46):
Did your mother die before your father or after your father?
VT (27:49):
Yes. My mother died before.
SK (27:49):
Of natural causes too but during the communist generation?
Page 15 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
VT (27:50):
Yeah. Then from point is very starvation, Sheila. No food to eat, not enough. That's why
sometime they're working hard. But some that my parent die from that way but the other people
die from killing, shooting and very hurt with the stick like here by [inaudible]. Very, very sad.
WT (28:18):
Long knife like very sharp.
VT (28:19):
And like this. And that's why I collect what is called magazine and it's called? No, it's not
magazine. Geography? I have that picture that's why I bring to show that I do on Cambodian
hero, this team and I bring different picture, different story, different book to show them. They
really enjoy to ask this question about. So sometimes they say mine is hero too because I have
lived, stay alive because suppose we tell them about how Cambodian map is that those like
history first.
VT (29:00):
And we learn about Cambodian hero. What is hero mean? So it's come out beautiful even Julie
too do draw beautiful; she want to gain money. To be hero in Cambodia. Some say want to be
building hospital. Look at the idea. I have a lot of things, keep it over there.
WT (29:24):
These the people they kill they took a picture. This is Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge.
VT (29:33):
Black.
SK (29:33):
That's one.
VT (29:41):
A lot of bone look at this is.
SK (29:41):
Which is notVT (29:46):
This is the [inaudible]. It's not like my father was that was sickness.
Page 16 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
WT (29:49):
He kill like I kill animal.
VT (29:50):
This one like animal, Sheila. I shake like this. They go get in line. Get in line and bang, bang,
bang, with a stick like a bat.
SK (30:03):
I heard they killed maybe 3 million people?
VT(30:08):
Yeah. Look at these unbelievable, they had this. How they get all this? That's right. I collect you
know. When I see something I already pull on together.
SK (30:20):
You teach your children about the history?
VT (30:23):
Yeah.
SK (30:23):
To make sure that they know?
VT (30:23):
Yeah. Because first I told them where I born. The place that I born. Introduce them [inaudible]
they know how I escaped. First I live in here, continue education. So everything they know so I
point to them about me.
WT (30:40):
Vietnamese soldier. Vietnamese.
VT(30:47):
Look at... So that's my prayer every day. I want peaceful coming soon.
WT (30:52):
My believing: if the Vietnamese don't want it, just my understand, if they don't want it, they just
take care their country and leave my country alone. I think no problem plus China's too. China
Page 17 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
they want my country too, you see. I don't know. You see in the communist time, all the time
they just took the time to turn for the [inaudible].
VT (31:22):
To make a show to sometimes.
WT (31:22):
And they took the [unknown]. They took the [unknown] to make spoon. You see that?
VT (31:22):
You know what that’s why no education. No son, and [inaudible].
WT (31:22):
No, the leader they have education.
VT (31:22):
My different.
WT (31:31):
The people see that this is the capital before communists.
VT (32:02):
My son-in-law this very much.
WT (2:06):
[inaudible].
VT (32:08):
He loved it. He went to work Cambodia, he want to go to see uncle one. His uncle one, but we
cannot go because not safe at all. You cannot say I miss it.
WT (32:22):
On a high way.
VT (32:23):
I went there one time when I was young.
SK (32:27):
Page 18 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
What time?
VT (32:27):
Only one time and over there they have let me say people that came to see uncle what that means
lucky people even people live around in this place around they cannot go in there. They say thatSK (32:46):
Who is controlling it?
WT (32:47):
This place?
SK (32:47):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
VT (32:49):
Now they say Thai want it and we don't know, Thai that place. And that's hard.
SK (32:57):
Thai? Thailand?
VT (32:58):
Yeah, Thailand. My son want to go. He do research on his paper, on this too. He went to library
and we have somebody's friend research that he say he want to see it. But when I got there I
asked let's cannot say, we cannot go unless there isSK (33:15):
Well I have that beautiful picture that you brought back when we had the interviews. You
handed everyone one that I put it out up on my dining room. Very pretty.
VT (33:28):
That one look at I want to from there. Before we don't have it I bought over there to show my
children $5 when long time.
WT (33:46):
This was very hard to I carry it from the [inaudible].
VT (33:47):
Page 19 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
Oh, my goodness.
WT (33:47):
They don't let you carry it. They take care for me and when I got to Boston, which is [inaudible].
VT (33:51):
That's the one to see, you know. Even my grandchildren later on lucky if they have this thing to
show them. Very simple thing and look like my mother made that. That's really show how
working hard and so my children never forget. So we save a lot of things. She sew very hard.
SK (34:16):
She sewed that with all the beads?
VT (34:17):
Yep. And spend a lot of time. A lot of time, Sheila. She sit down and do that's very, very you
know for culture. That is fun. Usually we do when we go to the temple. That's very important
point and she complete just notWT (34:29):
They cannot be done for regular.
VT (34:29):
Not regular celebration and specialWT (34:35):
When they have child. Not a daughter, just a boy become a monk.
VT (34:45):
We had that really [inaudible].
WT (34:48):
Become on Monk and thenVT (34:49):
That's my son became a monk.
WT (34:51):
Page 20 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
... They put that on the clothe before they get the clothe for the monk. Yellow cloth, clothe. The
parent have to uh... that’s my son.
VT (35:04):
That's special and she completed.
WT (35:08):
My son become a monk when uh... three months' vacation.
VT (35:10):
He was nine years old. Two month and half.
WT (35:19):
My mom want him to be a monk. To pray something for us. And after that the head monk...
VT (35:25):
Unbelievable. 10 week. Nine years old.
WT (35:30):
We can put it on.
VT (35:31):
And eat only two times a day, nothing else. One morning and one afternoon.
WT (35:36):
Morning and lunch.
VT (35:39):
That's all.
WT (35:40):
You know this... [inaudible] He’s the president of the CMAA, too. After him, and then Narin
[unknown] after theVT (35:52):
You know Narin [unknown] because I saw his name.
SK (35:57):
Page 21 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
Yeah, I know him just through the [inaudible].
VT (36:02):
And after Narin, my husband tried to happen the president to help in 1987.
SK (36:29):
Wow.
WT (36:29):
[inaudible].
SK (36:33):
So this is all in Lowell?
VT (36:34):
Yes.
WT (36:35):
And we look so small just [inaudible]. All I think can [inaudible] made this here how to look for
us. That has been very [inaudible].
VT (36:35):
That's right classify look. It's amazing and...
WT (36:38):
And he not hungry in evening and nighttime at all. I don't know that we believe and we put that
on and we have Buddha put inside here.
VT (36:54):
Because my son always if he opened the... [inaudible]. That's why I still wonder my son hungry.
But finally, he said no. 10 weekSK (37:06):
10 week?
VT (37:08):
Yes, vacation. All vacation is spent there and come back, go to school with no hair.
Page 22 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
SK (37:17):
Now, do many boys do that? Many Cambodians? It's a very special.
VT (37:21):
Very special. And seem like if you have son like that which mean we are lucky parent because
he seem like he do the job like my husband was a monk too. He took his vacation and he paid
because we believeWT (37:37):
I do that for my mom.
VT (37:39):
He do for his mother. But it's very, he do that very religiouslyWT (37:43):
Like, like we...
VT (37:44):
Look at that my husband over there.
WT (37:55):
We know her for almost [inaudible] way, right? And we are the son, we kno, we try to open way
for her [inaudible]. We had the son before the parent passed away to become a monk for her,
open the way for her and then see she really enjoy, she really happy. She really peaceful when
she passed away.
VT (38:24):
Peaceful, my mother passed away, that true. I believe that's why I see by my eyes.
WT (38:37):
I prepare my mom and another person that I saw by my eyes in the Lowell. Even Cambodians
[inaudible]. Maybe not only one son like me, have many children.
VT (38:41):
Many son.
WT (38:47):
But he have a [inaudible].
Page 23 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
VT (38:52):
Oh my God. [inaudible] I go to see it when [inaudible]] he passed away. Unbelievable people
pass away.
WT (38:54):
Had the monk come to pray for him. They still not [inaudible].
VT (38:55):
Did you ever see people pass by your eyes? I have two. My mother, no that very carefully is two,
he one that my husband just say the man in Lowell. Oh, Sheila. Had to pass away. But my mom
at Saint Joseph Hospital. My mother in law, it's a very peacefully. Peacefully.
WT (39:27):
You know what? After that I tried to find out what's going on then I know this when people like
young like me are very peaceful for the you know the...
VT (39:27):
God [unknown].
WT (39:27):
[inaudible] then in this let's come to you when the [inaudible]VT (39:27):
I believe.
WT (39:27):
[inaudible] before she died. You will see what happened. And my mom passed away go like a
sleep. Easy and then [inaudible].
VT (40:07):
Unbelievable at Saint Joseph.
WT (40:07):
And one another day I believe [inaudible]. Maybe with time. Talking of [inaudible] with time.
Go the temple or go to the church [inaudible],
VT (40:23):
Page 24 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
So you calm yourself down that the point I think you seem like everywhere want this, want that.
You still want it so your mind is not very put together when you seem like go down. You've seen
the way you go. That's right peaceful maybe. But my mother very peaceful. I keep going and sit
down with my husband, my children was sleep and very peaceful. We sit and sit until she passed
away. Very nicely.
SK (40:58):
One more question I wanted to ask you about when you first arrived in the United States. You
said you went to New York first. What was your first impression of the United States?
VT (41:11):
Oh myWT (41:13):
When I sit like this like people at the moon. Because my country when we live a big country like
[inaudible].
VT (41:18):
Oh my gosh, Sheila.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
When I go to the market I saw everything new in the refrigerator, everything fresh. I so
impressioned.
VT (41:40):
For me, I’m scary.
WT (41:41):
Coming out of my heart and every word that I want to say I wrote a letter to my country, to my
niece, my brother, sister [inaudible].
VT (41:54):
First time I came I still remember on February 18 that the snow coming down. That's my first
time, I never see a snow. I will send the sandal from Cambodian and the guy go pick me up very
tall man. I say what happened. We scare, I scare. My husband not scared but me very scary. I
think because no lie. What should I do? They gave me $45 and that time $45 for three people.
Yes 45, 15 for each. $45 and he goes looking for my husband needs over and finally decide we
come with him. And they brought us to go to the hotel and leave me right there. And that is the
Page 25 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
first time I never meant. I'm so hungry. What we do my husband come down because at hospital
they have a grocery downstairs.
VT (42:54):
My husband come and buy bread and little food over there. I cannot sleep that night. My
husband sleep, my son sleep, but I could not sleep. I made a wonderful job to write down to let
my son. Because I look at the snow is coming down and I was wondering what should I do? This
is the new country for me. What should I do? I keep asking myself. I said what should I do
because usually I don't know. They don't they have rice to eat or I'm not because I came in the
Thailand camp, no raining about United States because usually I heard when they go after the
call to the United States they have training like a six week, six months, six months sometime at
Philippine or somewhere else but me, no. When my name was called boom in one day, United
States right away. Never stopWT (43:53):
Because direct.
VT (43:56):
Direct.
WT (43:56):
We come direct. We not go to the another country like Philippine or Malaysia. Somewhere...
VT (44:06):
Directly to United States.
WT (44:07):
Some friend had to stay. But I don’t know why I come direct. They look at my education
[inaudible] the communist looking for me to kill more or something like that. Maybe [inaudible].
SK (44:50):
Was there a thing you decided that you didn’t like about the United States? Or have you decided
that there are things that you don't like?
VT (44:53):
In United States?
SK (44:54):
Yeah. What would you like [inaudible]Page 26 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
WT (44:56):
And then they have many country. They have applications like France, Belgium, Australia, andVT (45:04):
Japanese too.
WT (45:04):
And thenVT (45:07):
A lot of countries.
SK (45:09):
You could pick from?
WT (45:10):
And then I pick United States because on that time when I was at the college and university. I'm
studying English then I decided oh maybe I come to the United States because I know some
English already and French I already study. And we decided to come to the United States.
VT (45:36):
We put application and [inaudible].
WT (45:38):
Before the United States called, the French call first and then we decide we don't want to go
there.
SK (45:42):
The French call first?
WT (45:45):
Yeah. And just we didn't decide to go to France. We wait to the United States. And especially
my wife have friend in the Switzerland.
VT (46:02):
Usually they want before communist, they want me to go to Swiss too, but on that time seem like
balancing. Which way I go? Which way I go? When I go I miss my family. So that's why I stuck
with the communist.
Page 27 of 28
�UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
SOUTHEAST ASIAN DIGITAL ARCHIVE
TITH, VERA T. AND WILLIAM A. ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW, 1993
UML 16 (Oral History #93.7)
NOTE: This is the transcript for oral history tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
WT (46:16):
You remember thenVT (46:18):
Then they gave me the [inaudible]. Yes.
WT (46:20):
Khao I Dang.
VT (46:22):
Khao I Dang. They want me to take the Swiss.
WT (46:30):
They remember when the Swiss lady she work at the hospital. SheVT (46:35):
They already gave everything, buy airline, air tickets for me. But I cannot go. That's why we
lucky, we came to the United States. Very lucky.
Unknown (46:47): End of tape.
End of tape 1 of 1, side 2 of 2.
Interview ends
Page 28 of 28
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Tith, Vera T. and William A. Oral History Interview, 1993
Description
An account of the resource
The Vera T. and William A. Tith oral history interview collection consists of one audiocassette tape, 1 audio CD, a complete transcript, and a partial transcript of an oral history interview conducted by Sheila L. Kirschbaum with Vera Thong Tith and William An Tith on February 13, 1993. Topics covered include but are not limited to Vera and William’s children, their lives in Cambodia before they left, living and working in a Thailand refugee camp, resettling in the United States, and their lives now in Lowell, Massachusetts. <br /><br />The collection is accessible on this site.<br /><br /><strong><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0">Content warning:</span></span></strong><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0"><strong> </strong>Mentions of war, death, and other situations read</span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0">ers and listeners may find<span> </span></span></span><span class="TextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0" xml:lang="en-us" lang="en-us"><span class="NormalTextRun SCXW158174635 BCX0">distressing.</span></span><span class="EOP SCXW158174635 BCX0"> </span><br /><br />View the collection finding aid for more information, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16</a>.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Tith, Vera T. and William A. Oral History Interview, 1993. UML 16. Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA.
Relation
A related resource
The collection finding aid, <a href="https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://libguides.uml.edu/uml16</a>.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Vera Thong Tith and William An Tith oral history interview transcript, 1993
Subject
The topic of the resource
Cambodian Americans
Electricians
Elementary school teachers
Genocide--Cambodia
Lowell (Mass.)
Oral history
Refugees--Cambodia
Description
An account of the resource
The complete transcript of an oral history interview conducted by Sheila L. Kirschbaum with Vera Thong Tith and William An Tith. Topics covered include but are not limited to Vera and William's children, their lives in Cambodia before they left, living and working in a Thailand refugee camp, resettling in the United States, and their lives now in Lowell, Massachusetts. <br /><br />The transcript is in two parts. <br /><br /><strong>Content warning:</strong> Mentions of war, death, and other situations readers and listeners may find distressing.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Tith, Vera T.
Tith, William A.
Kirschbaum, Sheila L.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Tith, Vera T. and William A. Oral History Interview, 1993
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1993-02-13
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
UMass Lowell Library makes this material available for private, educational, and research use. It is the responsibility of the user to secure any needed permissions from rightsholders, for uses such as commercial reproductions of copyrighted works. Contact host institution for more information.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf; 36 p.
application/pdf; 28 p.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Khmer
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
uml16_93.7_i003
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Lowell, Massachusetts
1990-1999
Cambodians
Demonstration School
Documents