Thai Camp’s School Gives Refugees Taste of America

A Whitney Houston lyric drifted from a window along Florida Street, catching the upbeat mood of the residents.

In a nearby classroom, a group of students echoed the words of their English teacher: “I cannot go to the store today. Maybe tomorrow we will go.”

Going--going to America--is constantly on the minds of the 11,000 Vietnamese here at Phanat Nikhom Camp, a mock outpost of the United States 50 miles southeast of Bangkok.

“I want to go to San Diego,” said a middle-aged man learning auto repair in a camp workshop. “My stepbrother lives there.”

Said another Vietnamese refugee: “My wife and children are in Mission Viejo. She left for the States seven years ago.

“Unfortunately,” he added wistfully, “she couldn’t wait for me and she has remarried.”

110,000 in California

Since 1980, more than 110,000 Vietnamese have found new lives in California. Here at Phanat Nikhom, an American visitor feels almost at home.

Most of the dirt roads that run through the Vietnamese section are named for American states. The music is Western, and English is a second language.

For nearly 9,000 of the Vietnamese here--”boat people” who reached Thai shores before this year--the prospects are good. They have been certified by the Thai government as eligible for resettlement in the West. Some have already been accepted and wait only for the flight to the Philippines where they will continue cultural and English lessons at the Bataan Refugee Center before flying on to their new homes.

The 2,000 other Vietnamese at Phanat Nikhom face a difficult future. Rejected by the Western resettlement countries, they have become part of Thailand’s caseload of long-stayers.

At some point, they are expected to be sent to Site 2 on the Cambodian border, where Western officials can interview prospective immigrants only on a laborious case-by-case basis. If that faint hope for resettlement fails, the long-stayers will be marked for eventual repatriation to Vietnam.

That unhappy prospect is a far cry from the send-off given to Vietnamese leaving for the Philippine camp. When the day arrives, most of the residents of the Vietnamese section gather on the main road out of camp. The departing refugees are dressed in their best clothes, their belongings bundled, ready to load on a bus for Bangkok’s Don Muang airport.

As the bus arrives, the America-bound refugees walk between lines of their fellow Vietnamese and are hugged, cheered and clapped on the back.

“Where are you going?” a reporter asked a teen-ager, who wore a crisp white shirt and had a shine on his shoes.

“To the Philippines,” he replied, “And then to Lawndale. I have a sister there.”