...
is worth a thousand words, but at last night's Oscars, F.
Murray Abraham and Hang Noor proved that, in Hollywood at least, one picture is worth a great deal more.
Judd Rose, ABC News, Los Angeles.
Well both Hang Noor and Dith Pran, the man he played, are among the lucky ones.
They survive the killing fields, escaping eventually to a new life in America.
In the past 10 years, nearly 115 ,000 Cambodians have left their homeland to come to this country.
Adapting to a totally new culture is never easy, but some of the refugees are getting a head start at a camp along the Cambodian Thai border.
ABC's Jim Lorry has been on special assignment.
They will soon be residents of places like California, Minnesota, or Virginia.
Cambodians who've waited up to five years in refugee camps in Thailand have been finally screened and accepted and are now being taught what to expect in a totally different way of life.
This is my kitchen.
What is this? This is my kitchen.
Yeah, my kitchen.
The kitchen, part of a model American home built in the refugee camp for an unusual training program, funded by the U .S.
government and run by three voluntary agencies for the past four years.
For five months, these Cambodians are learning the basics.
When you go to America, okay, America, and you go to Thailand.
You see pictures over here.
The refugees here are not under many illusions.
They've seen a lot of misery in Cambodia these last 15 years.
Hoxon Savut is a former commando in the American -backed Cambodian army of the early 1970s.
He knows it'll be better in America, but it won't be easy.
Oh, not easy, I think.
Really hard, I think.
But I cannot go back to my country.
I have to go to America.
For all the lessons here, most still know little about where they're going.
Where is that? I don't know.
But the staff of the American agencies which run this program is realistic.
So we don't make any illusions of teaching everyone to speak English perfectly and we'll be well adapted to America.
We just want to start the process.
In six months or so, 7 ,000 Cambodians here will be on their way.
They'll face many problems.
Most will go on welfare at first.
Few will have jobs.
The older ones will have it hardest.
Their hopes will lie, as always, in their children.
They are already learning fast.
With a little luck and some help, they'll become, as the millions of immigrant children before them, the real Americans.
Jim Laurie, ABC News, Panathongkamp, Thailand.
We have an update tonight.
New Host Very tough.
The first part is about to start.
First, it's Li Li's children shop.
First, we'll decide if they need to drink Yeah! Yeah! Okay.
Hey, come on, Holly.
All right, little girl.
We'll show them how it's done.
Go ahead and show them.
You want to play? You know what we're going to do here? Downstage, down center.
Okay, now, if I went to my right center, what if I went here? Up right.
Up right, okay.
So there are nine spots in the stage, and that's more, Holly, look here.
Down left, down center, down right, right, center, stage left, up left, center.
Good night.
Say goodbye.
Do you high? High.
How you say? Yeah! All right.
Up here, along here.
Oh Oh Oh It's a money Real money I got that money you got Everybody else let me do next time.
Yeah The I can't put it on You reach this Baby Hello Okay switch I'm going to be a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a beautiful dancing.
What do you think of American dancing? The break dancing? You like it? Do you go to dances at school? Sometimes.
Who do you think is the best dancers in America? I think Malik.
The black? Yeah, I think Malik.
Yeah? Yeah.
That's how he gets around town.
Okay, what was, let me practice.
How do you say I'm happy? Koi DJ.
Koi DJ.
Right? No, I'm sad I forget.
Koi SOK SAO.
How do you say I like Shukong? Yeah, something in it that there's some food in it.
You take it? Yeah, but it's very light.
It makes me feel it's very light.
Full of rice.
I don't know how to act.
Like I was doing.
Hi.
He was never high.
They wear the same suit like our parents.
Then the old man go in Wisconsin and the old man asked him, you see my cousin in Washington? And he said, oh, then you know I had.
How did you know it was a ghost? What did you think of your school? You like it? Not really.
Why not? I want to come back to my friends.
Where do you go to school now? The upper.
Not the same.
Yeah.
In the United States.
Are you married? No.
How old are you? 18.
You're 18? I'm 18.
Pretend is in here is some feathers.
Right.
You hear feathers.
You know what feathers are? No.
You know, like bird feathers, very light.
You know what feathers are? Like on a bird.
You know? Or how about this? How about rice? It's a bag full of rice.
Okay.
Very light.
Okay.
You know rice.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
It was scary.
Americans are really shocked by what they saw.
But somebody said the movie really wasn't as bad as it really was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was true.
What was worse? I mean, why wasn't it real? Why do you think it was? There was shots.
Some of them they cut head out.
The only shot they showed was they shot people.
In the movie, the only shot.
Yeah.
But some other they cut head out.
And they didn't show that? Yeah.
Some other they used electric.
Okay.
Okay.
That's okay for me.
You don't wear a hat? But it's too cold.
Yeah, it's too cold.
You don't wear gloves? I don't need gloves.
Do your friends in high school wear hats and gloves? Not really.
No.
Not much.
Don't they get caught up? I don't know.
They just don't like the way they're dressed.
It's hard to say.
There are a lot of points that need to be clarified, need to be pinpointed.
In the long run, of course, we probably go back.
If Cambodia settles down, the war will be over.
And then at that time, if the Cambodians have the opportunity to get education and technology, probably they are willing to go back and rebuild the country.
But in the meantime, there is nothing to do with that yet.
What they try to do are to try hard themselves, to build themselves, and to be good people or to be productive to the society while they are here already.
But I can say that most of the parents are expecting their children to be knowledgeable, to be technical, I mean to learn as much as possible what they have to learn or what they will have to know.
Most of the parents are dreaming to go back to Cambodia as soon as they can, as Cambodia restore peace again.
But it's hard to stop them to think about the hope of returning home.
I can say that...
One of the critical issues facing the youth right now is that there's no way to bridge the gaps.
I mean, when they go to school, they are learning how to be an American.
But when they go home, they have to be Lao.
But there's nothing that can help them bridge those two gaps or bring those cultures together.
There's no program.
The parents feel so inadequate because they cannot help the kids with their homework.
And they are still trying to make a living here, trying to make money.
And because of that, they cannot really...
They lack service team, they lack confidence to provide the right type of guidance that will help bridge those gaps.
That's what we see the role of the center to do, to be the one who has to provide that type of services, but we don't have the funds to carry such a program.
It's very hard with the American children.
They try to adjust with the parents at the same time.
So, as you know, the children of that age are very skeptical.
They try to learn a lot, they try to ask the question a lot, they want to know a lot.
And as you know, they don't have any training.
They don't receive any training at home.
While they arrive here, they must be trained by the teacher at school.
And receive the training here at school.
That's one of the problems that the parents are not really happy with the school system right here, because the school system in Cambodia is completely different from the school system in America.
And the parents are allowed to sometimes to hit the children, you know, the parents can hit the children with no problem.
And they can tell the children whatever they want to do, if they don't do, or they don't respect or they don't obey them.
They can hit them and to make them respect or follow the advice.
But right here, the parents cannot touch the children.
And the parents cannot really tell the children what they want to.
The children kind of resent to their orders or to their words.
So there is a problem right there between parents and the children.
Sometimes there are misunderstandings between parents and children.
The children tend to learn the system, new system in America.
But the parents that are illiterate and came from the rural area, they tend to warn the children just to be controlled.
To follow the old system in Cambodia.
So there is a gap right there.
There is agreement right there.
Some of the children didn't listen to the parents.
Some of the parents abuse since they stick to their traditional custom.
So one of the shortcomings of the center at this time is that we are funded by the federal government.
The federal government needs to provide the services to the adults.
But nothing can be offered to the youth.
So we have to think about some program trying to use the center after business hour.
And that's what we like.
I need some money so I can assemble material expertise and put it together for them.
And we have been successful in some sort of way by being able to get some money from the Chicago Council of Fine Arts.
My name is Chris Naha -Be.
My real full name is Chris Naha -Be.
And I'm the executive director of the Lao Service Center.
The center was set up by the Lao Association to help the refugees of the population in the town with adjustment problems.
Or the problem they have here in the town area.
Why have so many Lao left the country and come to America? The main reason is political.
The country right now is governed by a group of people who are aligned with the government of Hanoi and Moscow.
And because of that, a lot of the Lao want very much to go back to Laos and live over there.
But at this point it's quite impossible because of the new regime that is implementing the new policy of integrating the Vietnamese population with the Lao.
It's like a slow takeover of the Lao and the Lao culture and the Vietnamese culture are totally different and that creates a lot of conflict.
Why for the young? It's a different story.
Some of them was born in the camp or have been here long enough that they didn't even remember how the country looked like.
So they may as well stay here as far as their view that they have received because they have access to much more consumed goods than they would have access at home.
So they become more and more Americanized at this point in time and that do create some problem in terms of family structure and relationship between parents and child because old value is being discarded for new value while the parents are still hanging on their own value.
Does uptown present special problems for refugee children adjusting to life in America? I would say so because the view of America right now is limited to what they see in uptown.
I don't think this can give them an accurate picture of what life in America is really all about.
There's a lot of crimes here, high crime and this is a place for a lot of safe half way houses and a lot of alcoholic around here.
And they like a lot of programs that can help them learn and adapt to life here.
That's not enough right now from what I know is that there's only as an association we did manage to apply for some grants from the council of fine art on behalf of one old member to conduct a law class in the uptown law house.
And that's been going on for the last two years and this is the only program geared to the law children that I know of at this time besides the one that the child is in.
Some of the areas that I feel that there's a really strong need is in terms of more programs, not in terms of cultural programs like dances but even in terms of educational programs for design especially for them.
And that's the center we like to work in.
