Social Center Fulfills Cambodian Refugees’ Dream

Five saffron-robed Buddhist monks sat on a Long Beach stage beneath the faded letters of an old sign reading “Oil-Chemical and Atomic Workers.” Directly in front of them stood a money tree laden with dollar bills.

The occasion was the kickoff of a three-month Buddhist observance, Chol Vassa. But the event--held at a former union hall--also marked the fulfillment of a 10-year dream for leaders of Southern California’s Cambodian refugee community.

A campaign that began with the collection of $50 donations from individual Cambodians had culminated in the opening of a religious, cultural and social center patterned after the pagodas of Cambodia--a facility described as the largest of its kind in the country.

The new Khemara Buddhikaram center is expected to draw people from as far away as Fresno and San Francisco, providing a cultural home for refugees who survived the Cambodian holocaust during the Pol Pot regime of the 1970s.

“It will help rebuild the cultural and social heritage that was destroyed during the war,” said the Rev. Chhean Kong, a Buddhist monk who spearheaded the decade-long effort to raise funds for the center. “The temple will invite people together to rebuild trust between Cambodian and Cambodian.”

Said Nil Hul, the executive director of the Cambodian Assn. of America, who was instrumental in the effort: “This is very important for the preservation of culture and values, as well as a catalyst to ease some of the mental yearning of the Cambodian people. It’s a lift. You come here and it’s like coming to your mother’s house.”

In addition to housing the largest Cambodian Buddhist temple on the West Coast, Hul said, the Long Beach center will eventually include a school, library, mortuary, senior center, youth center, homeless shelter and Cambodian art depository.

Although there are other Cambodian Buddhist temples in Southern California, most are located in private homes that do not include such non-religious amenities. And although other national Buddhist groups--most notably from Taiwan, Japan and Thailand--have built, or are building, large religious-social-cultural centers in the region, this is the first designed to serve the war-ravaged Cambodian community, Hul said.

“It will be like the pagodas back home,” he said. “All activities revolved around them from birth to death, both spiritually and morally.”

Dotted Landscape

In traditional Cambodian society, Buddhist pagodas dotted the landscape. It was there that the populace came to worship, educate their children and receive counseling or shelter. Cambodians say the pagodas--somewhat like churches, schools and city halls rolled into one--were the treasure troves of the country’s culture, art, architecture, history and social welfare.

But beginning in 1975, when the brutal Pol Pot regime came to power, the Buddhist monasteries were systematically destroyed and most of the monks overseeing them executed. Although the Vietnamese communists who took power in 1979 are slightly more permissive, Hul said, the practice of Buddhism is still not encouraged in his native land.

But the Cambodian refugees--about 85,000 of whom have settled in Southern California--brought their religion and culture with them. So in 1979, Hul, Kong and others began looking for a place to establish a religious-cultural center.

With the sale of the $50 shares, they eventually were able to buy a modest home in Lakewood to serve as an interim temple. Recently they sold that home to help raise the $600,000 they put down toward the $1.1-million price of the new site in west Long Beach. Formerly the headquarters of Oil-Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union Local 1-128, the brown brick building sits on two acres and includes a large meeting hall, offices, restrooms and kitchen.

Plans Described

Plans include a playground and sports field, and the fund-raising continues. It was particularly evident, in fact, during the recent festivities at which the money tree incongruously graced the stage in front of the monks. Nearby, volunteers passed silver tithing bowls among colorfully garbed celebrants squatting over steaming portions of rice, fried shrimp with eggplant, roast pork, bamboo shoots in vegetables and shredded fish.

Afterward they were entertained by Cambodian musicians and a comedian who told jokes in the native language.

“We used to have to go to El Dorado Park for our ceremonies,” said Setha Lor, 18, of Long Beach. “Now we have this. The community is proud.”

Said Mac Seng I, 55, of Walnut: “We needed some place to be with each other. This is good. We expect it to be a kind of sanitarium.”