Between two worlds (continued)

THE HISTORY OF the Southeast Asian peninsula is a bloody one, steeped in colonialism, civil war, and the aggressive and often shadowy operations of the US government and military during its conflict with North Vietnam.

From the late 1800s to the early 1950s, the countries now known as Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam were all part of the French colony Indochina. The 1954 Geneva Conference declared independence for the people of the Southeast Asian peninsula, dividing Vietnam between a communist north and a capitalist south. After the withdrawal of the French, communist groups in Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam began rising to prominence. In response, the US provided economic and military support to local, often unpopular anti-Communist groups (the largest and most well-known of these military conflicts is, of course, the Vietnam War, a key element in the social turmoil that gripped America from the 1960s through part of the ’70s).

In 1975, the communists prevailed over the US-backed governments throughout Southeast Asia. What followed were some of the bloodiest and most deadly government campaigns in history, with the newly installed communist regimes seeking out and systematically killing any person who was thought to have supported anti-communist forces. The governments were especially suspicious of educated persons — teachers, merchants, former government officials — and those who were not killed were sent to brutal "re-education camps." In the "killing fields" of Cambodia, almost two million of Cambodia’s seven million people died at the hand of their own government.

Hundreds of thousands of people managed to escape to Thailand, many crossing the treacherous Mekong River in boats or making their way through miles of brutally hot jungle on foot. From the Thai refugee camps, refugees were relocated to "third countries," such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and France. Ultimately, an estimated 1.3 million Southeast Asian refugees are said to have entered in the US between 1975 and 1998.

If a family of refugees from Southeast Asia already had relatives here when they arrived in the late 1970s, the newly landed family usually "camped out with" the more well-established relatives for their first few months, explains William Shuey of the International Institute of Rhode Island, one of the agencies responsible for resettling refugees. Because refugees almost always arrived with very few possessions and even less money, extreme poverty was common. Shuey tells of 50 people who slept in the basement of Trinity Methodist Church while they waited to find housing. Maliss Men recalls arriving at the home of her "sponsor" family in South Providence to find that there were not enough mattresses to go around.

In the time since, the economic picture has improved, though not across the board. The median annual household income for Hmong, Laotian, and Vietnamese families just about matches that of the typical state resident — around $42,000 — but between 12 and 22 percent of families in these communities remain below the federal poverty level, compared to nine percent of statewide residents. Moreover, the Cambodian community’s median household annual income remains stuck at around $27,000, and nearly a third of Cambodians still live below the federal poverty level.

Southeast Asians are still a relatively new addition to the state, with almost all the members of the different communities having arrived within the past 20 years. Their presence in sheer numbers is still dwarfed by that of other minority communities (there are about 10 times as many Latinos statewide than South Asians, for example), but Rhode Island’s Southeast Asians have slowly put down roots. For the most part, they have done so quietly — except for the occasional Providence Journal column titled "In the Southeast Asian Community," there is no apparent Rhode Island-based Southeast Asian media outlet, and the community receives relatively little media attention. And a Southeast Asian has never been elected to public office here.

In 2002, Allan Fung, a Cranston city councilman, became the first Chinese-American elected to public office in the state. He sees some clear lessons for the Southeast Asian community — indeed, for any immigrant community — in the trajectory of Rhode Island’s more established Chinese-American community.

First, says Fung, people must unite as a group, and factions that might be divided over ethnic or political lines must come together. Second, they must identify their collective issues and concerns. Third, they must voice those concerns. And the older generation, says Fung, often look to their children to be that voice: "Children of immigrants understand government a lot better [than their parents] because they went through school here." Fung points out that being involved in politics means more than getting elected to office. And indeed, despite a lack of Southeast Asian names on the Rhode Island ballot, the 1.5 generation is helping the community to find its political footing in other ways.

ThongKhoun Pathana, 27, was 11 when he arrived in the US from a refugee camp in Thailand. He and his brothers spoke no English, and his parents were so unsure of what awaited them that before they left Thailand, they filled their suitcases with bamboo, rice, and papaya — just in case all they could find here was "orange juice, white bread, and potatoes," says Pathana.

He went to Woonsocket High School, deciding in his junior year to become an architect. Pathana’s parents beamed. His stepfather dedicated himself to 12-hour shifts as a machine operator at the Comtran Corporation’s wire factory in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. His mother opened an Asian market in Woonsocket. "The choices they made," Pathana writes in an e-mail, "no parent would do, with long days at the grocery store . . . For six years my mother . . . never took a vacation . . . This [was] only worth [it] to earn enough money for my college tuition." With his degree from the Syracuse University’s School of Architecture, Pathana moved back to New England and began building.

In addition to working toward his architect’s license as an intern with the New Hampshire-based firm Lavallee/Brensinger Architects, Pathana is a board member of the Watlao Buddhovath in Smithfield, one of the largest Lao Buddhist temples in New England. He is also president of the Laotian Community Center of Rhode Island, based at the temple, and the director of its Sunday school. The combination of having been raised in Woonsocket and operating at the helm of the Laotian community in Rhode Island makes Pathana a natural resource. He recalls a phone call from the Woonsocket police in the middle of the night. A Laotian husband and wife were having a domestic dispute, the officer explained; would Pathana come to their apartment and help mediate? Telling the story, Pathana just shrugs. "I’m a community leader," he explains simply.