Treating the Tormented : In Southern California, Cambodian Women Find Solace Sharing Their Anguish

For thousands of Cambodian women in Southern California, the mourning brought on by years of strife in their homeland has never stopped. Memories of a lost child or the massacre of entire families continue to fuel their grief.

Help is difficult to find. Southern California offers only a handful of counseling services for some 70,000 refugees. And, according to counselors, Cambodian women face another obstacle: traditionally, they hold back feelings and are reluctant to talk about themselves.

But every Thursday in Santa Ana, a group of 10 Cambodian women try to cope with the harsh memories that will not fade. At the Neighborhood Service Center, they talk about their lives and the hardships they have faced in the past as well as the present.

Rann Luk’s 6-year-old son haunts her.

The last time Luk saw Thoeung was more than a decade ago in Cambodia. The boy had gone to get the family’s daily portion of rice at a nearby granary. When he did not return, Luk went looking for him and found him lying still on the granary’s dirt floor.

“My child . . . I saw my child. When I touched him, he wouldn’t move. I saw the bruise on his face and on his stomach and then the blood. I screamed. I cried,” Luk said through a translator.

Soldiers who had beaten Thoeung ordered Luk to bury her son. She begged not to. Although Thoeung appeared lifeless, she could not be sure he was dead. Unmoved, the guards threatened to kill her if she refused. So she dug a hole, placed her son in the ground, and buried him.

Luk’s nightmare did not end with the death of her 6-year-old son. Three of her other 10 children died during the deadly reign of Pol Pot in the late 1970s.

Rann Luk is now 53 and she attends the weekly meetings at the Neighborhood Service Center on Standard Avenue faithfully. “I don’t know what happiness is any more,” she said. “I still don’t know whether I can ever be happy again. It is too hard to think of hope.”

These women could never forget, even if they wanted to, said Sunly Ping Winkles, a case worker from the International Rescue Committee Inc., a voluntary agency that helps refugees resettle in Orange County. Winkles mediates the sessions at the Neighborhood Service Center, which helps about 3,500 Cambodians living in the east side of Santa Ana.

Most refugee service centers can satisfy only material needs such as shelter, food, and helping refugees file for financial assistance, Winkles said. And, she added, even if psychological help is offered, Cambodian women frequently do not seek it because they are not used to talking about their feelings.

The language barrier leaves many Cambodian women feeling isolated, said Chheng Leao Heat, the coordinator of health and English programs at Cambodian Family, a refugee center in Santa Ana. Indeed, most of the women at the center speak little or no English. And even though some of them are taking English classes, they feel most comfortable talking in their own language.

There is no pressure to talk if the women do not want to, said Mary Ann Salamida, the director of the Neighborhood Service Center. During recent sessions, several of those in attendance said nothing, preferring to listen.

The women in the group vary in age, from early 20s to early 60s. The younger women are more Americanized, wearing jewelry and painting their nails. The older women stick to simple smocks and cotton skirts or pants. But for all their differences, the women are bound by their past.

Since the group started seven months ago, the women have changed, Salamida said.

“They are more willing to talk now. They don’t look as depressed. They want to talk to each other,” she added.

All of the women have horror stories to share.

Winkles, who arrived in the United States in 1981 after several years in Thai refugee camps, has her own.

Her family had lived in Kandal, a province near Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Winkles was a school teacher, who with her tax inspector husband, had four children. After the Khmer Rouge moved in, her family was sent to work in rice fields. From 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. she tended the paddies and her husband made baskets. Winkles said she trusted no one outside her family in the commune where she lived. Anyone could be an angkar, a member of the communist forces charged with maintaining order in the communes.

“You never know who they were. They would come into the homes, pick anybody to arrest and you would never hear from that person again. Every day was frightening because you did not know who would be next.”

She watched her once healthy husband die of starvation at the age of 44. She cradled her daughter while she was dying of pneumonia. And she lost track of her other children when her family was divided and sent to different villages. Despite years of sending letters to friends and posting signs in refugee camps, Winkles does not know whether her children are dead.

“The whole time was so unreal, so painful. I hated the war. I really hated the war,” she said.

All the women in the group had to stay in refugee camps before receiving permission to immigrate to other countries. Yan On, 57, still wears the forest green jacket issued by a camp. She lost seven of her 13 children in her homeland.

“I wish someone could hear me scream and cry, ‘Where are my children? Where are my children?’ ” Yan On said.

During the meetings, On has to sit on the floor instead of a chair. Her legs and back are in constant pain from past beatings and hard labor on the rice paddies. She remembers being beaten by an angkar, who ordered her to hurry when she and others were carrying rice along a muddy road. When On did not walk fast enough, he kicked her in the back, and she fainted from the pain, she said. Believing she was dead, the angkar left her on the road, where On awoke hours later in the dark. There was no one around to help her to shelter.

“I couldn’t stand. It hurt so bad. I finally crawled back to the village,” she said.

Salamida said many of the women who come to the center are afraid to venture outside their own community so the group members sometime go on field trips to familiarize themselves with American institutions and life styles. On one trip they went to South Coast Plaza, where they window-shopped. The women took their children to ride on the mall’s carousel, saying they want them to grow up with good memories.

Lek Orn, 28, says she does not have any warm memories of her youth. Cuddling her 3-year-old daughter, Sophia, she says she cannot remember childhood friends or playing games. She does remember, though, the day she huddled on a tree branch, trying to stay quiet so she would not be beaten--or worse.

It was the day before Vietnam invaded Cambodia. She had been marching with a youth group when a bomb exploded near her village. Terrified, she ran to see if her mother had been injured.

“When I found her, I felt such relief. But then my mother told me to hide, the youth group leader was looking for me,” Lek Orn said.

She climbed up a tree next to her home. Moments later, she saw the group leader question her mother. He carried a rope and threatened to slaughter her family if she was found, Lek said.

“I realized I did something wrong when I went to find my mother. I knew they would kill me,” she continued. Though her legs were cramped and she was hungry, she said she stayed on the branches like a statue.

“I wouldn’t move,” Lek said, holding her child closer to her chest. “I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want my family to die.”

After the war, Lek eventually found her way to a Thai refugee camp and then to San Francisco where she lived in a shelter run by a Buddhist temple. From there, she moved to Orange County. She does not know what the future holds for her. But like many of the women in the group, she believes her child is now her future.

“I want my child to be happy,” Lek said. “That’s all I want for now.”