For Cambodian Americans, Returning Home is Unlikely

Though Cambodia's worst years are past, many Cambodian Americans who fled the tattered nation still aren’t ready to return. They may never be.
The reason is that Cambodia has still not healed from the wounds of the past. The mass-murder has ended, but poverty, corruption, crime, and memories continued to haunt the small Southeast Asia nation.
"When you live here you get a value," explained Poly Sam, 42, a Cambodian immigrant in Washington and survivor of the Khmer Rouge. "It's not a good time to take that value to Cambodia."
Others agree.
“It’s not that I don’t like my country,” explained Waddanak Sem, 32, a Cambodian-American living in Sterling. "If I go back I have no opportunity. There’s none for my kids, either. It’s just not a country for opportunity.”
Based upon the 2006 American Community Survey, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that some 5,000 Cambodian Americans live in the Washington area. There's some 200,000 nationwide. Most arrived in the United States between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, fleeing a country wracked by five years of Khmer Rouge rule.
Between 1975 and 1979, an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians were murdered, starved to death, or worked to death in the Communists’ efforts to create an agriculturally-based society. Particularly targeted were doctors, artists, intellectuals, teachers, and those with affiliations to the previous government. One-fifth of the country’s population perished.
"No Cambodian alive was not affected by the war," said Sovan Tun, the President of the Cambodian Buddhist Society in Silver Spring.
According to a 2005 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 90% of Cambodian Americans report having lost a family member or friend during the Khmer Rouge years.
As a result, many Cambodian immigrants in the United States don't have living relatives in Cambodia.
“Many have lost their family members and relatives,” said Hassan Kasem, 55, a Cambodian immigrant and broadcaster at Radio Free Asia in Washington. “There’s no reason to go back.”
Kasem is a former Huey pilot with the Khmer Republic, the U.S. backed government that preceded the Khmer Rouge. He’s also a Muslim Cham, a Cambodian ethnic minority that was particularly targeted by the Khmer Rouge.
Kasem lost his father, mother, two brothers, and two sisters to the Khmer Rouge. Ninety-thousand other Cham Muslims died during the period—over one-third of the Cambodian Cham population. The rest were dispersed.
Even those with family in Cambodia have a tough time returning.
“It’s a sad place to be because you were there,” said Poly Sam, also a broadcaster at Radio Free Asia.
Sam lost his brother, two brothers-in-law, and two nephews during Pol Pot’s rule. He arrived in the United States in 1983 after spending 3 years in a Thai refugee camp.
“Cambodians here get over the hump,” he explained. “Others in Cambodia have a survivor mentality. People are just trying to survive”
Victoria Yap, a Chinese Cambodian and U.S. citizen, said that there’s anger, too. “Some parents are fed-up,” she said. “They say, ‘I don’t want my kids to know about the past or speak the language.’”
Yap is one of the “boat people.” She and her family escaped Cambodia in 1975 to Vietnam, where five years later they sailed to Indonesia. Yap wants her kids to learn about the past.
“We want them to know,” she said of the children. “Unless they see it they won’t understand.”
The continued social problems in Cambodia also keep some refugees from returning.
“It’s very chaotic because of lack of enforcement of laws,” said Sam of current-day Phnom Penh. "There's lots of bribery, corruption. You get crooks, child molesters, murderers. Children are imported from Vietnam,” he said. “It's unsafe. You can't go out after eight pm.”
Sowattey Sem, 26, is studying for her MBA at Southeastern University on student visa. She fears for her parents back home in Phnom Penh.
"I miss them and worry about them," Sem said. "The big war is over, but the country has lots of rivalry; shootings. Cambodian society is not that safe."
According to the United Nations website, Cambodia is among the poorest nations in the world, with an estimated 36% of the population living in poverty. In rural areas of the country, the U.N. estimates the number is 40%. The country’s per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is just $438, also one of the world’s lowest.
"You'll see a $60,000 Lexus next to someone walking barefoot," said Sam of the income inequalities in Phnom Penh. "A five-star hotel next to shack. Factory workers get $50 per month and they send $10 to $15 to their parents in the countryside.”
Cambodia is also a difficult place for outsiders to do business.
Kasem, the former Huey pilot, returned to Cambodia in 1995 looking for business opportunities. He didn’t stay long. “I was not a successful businessman because I just can’t bribe everyone when I want to deal with them on business issues,” he explained.
Many Cambodian Americans also mistrust the Cambodian government, which is a Constitutional Monarchy with a King and Prime Minister.
“The King has the title of Head of the Country, but he does not have any real power,” said Jiahn-Yih Wuu, the 2nd Minister of Religious Ceremony at the Cambodian Buddhist Society in Silver Spring. Wuu arrived in the United States six months after the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975. He hasn’t returned.
“The Prime Minister, Hun Sen, sold the wood from the country," he said, referring to the government’s plunder of Cambodia’s natural resources. “I'm very sad about that.”
There's also disgust among survivors over current government officials.
"The current government is run by a mixture of Hanoi-leaning former Communist officials, former Khmer Rouge soldiers and cadres and former royalist fighters," Kasem explained. "All of them were at one point of another in the same Communist school of thought.”
In recent years, with United Nations assistance, Cambodia has established courts to prosecute former Khmer Rouge leaders for crimes against humanity.
But the process has been slow and frustrating. The trials have been over-budget, delayed, and hampered by procedural slowdowns. And there’s a heavy dose of hypocrisy: the current Cambodian government includes former Khmer Rouge leaders.
"The Khmer Rouge trial is a joke endorsed by culprits," Kasem said. "There are many more who are as guilty as the current leaders and who will never have to face their victims. This is a trial of selective prosecution."
Despite the reasons not to return, the draw of home is strong. Some hope to go back.
“I may go back when I retire,” said Sam, the radio broadcaster. Sam wants to give something back to the country that took so much. “Open a school. Teach English,” he said.
But many of the immigrants will likely not return. They’ve built lives and communities in the United States.
“Many have called the U.S. home—the place of rebirth—and to some degree are successful in life,” Kasem said.
And, many are American Citizens.
"Being American is a good thing," said Sam.
The children make it hard to leave too.
Kasem has two daughters, 22 and 27.
“My older daughter, a GMU grad, is working in D.C. with a lawyer placement firm,” Kasem said. “My younger daughter is on a short deployment—before a longer one—on USS Ronald Reagan.”