A Clash of Cultures, Cambodian-Style : Refugees: Hundreds of children whose families fled the Khmer Rouge are acclimated to American life in classes at Hazeltine School in Van Nuys.

Ten years ago, Cambodian children--all refugees forced out of their homeland by the Khmer Rouge in 1975--began enrolling at Hazeltine Avenue School in Van Nuys. The school changed dramatically, dropping from a 95% Anglo enrollment to 90% minority in about five years.

Although a burgeoning Latino population contributed to the shift, the growing numbers of Cambodians proved the greater challenge for teachers.

Assistance arrived in the form of six Khmer-speaking teachers’ aides, special English classes and counseling services. Today, about 200 Cambodian students attend Hazeltine, which has the largest Cambodian enrollment among San Fernando Valley elementary schools.

Acclimating scores of Cambodian students to a new culture has been an ongoing challenge for teachers, as refugee children continue to come to Hazeltine. The school now regularly sends children home with bulletins printed in three languages: English, Khmer and Spanish.

Hazeltine--which has 1,200 students enrolled in 48 classrooms, five with mostly Cambodian children--holds regular staff meetings to inform teachers of such customs. Parenting classes also are offered, informing adults of such services as the school nurse, psychologist and community health centers.

“Some of these students have survived in the jungle and war situations,” said Diane Agliam, Hazeltine’s assistant principal. “Many relied on folk culture and folk medicine, like ‘coining,’ to pull them through. We have to be sensitive to that when dealing with the children today.”

Coining, a common practice among Cambodians, involves the repeated rubbing of a coin lengthwise along an arm until redness occurs. The action, usually used to relieve headaches, is said to bring the “hot pressure” or sickness out of a body. Some Cambodian children have burn marks the size of a dime or smaller on their stomachs--evidence of another remedy, where burning incense or special embers are applied to the skin. The practice is said to protect small children from such ailments as diarrhea and asthma.

“If we know that coining is taking place, we ask the parent to come in for a consultation,” Agliam said. “It’s a delicate situation. It’s obviously their culture. We start by acknowledging that they’re doing the best they know with their child.

“We always approach the situation not from a condemning attitude but from one of assistance--explaining that the school nurse is available--that there are more modern, accepted and advanced technologies available.”

Amy Catlin, a UCLA anthropologist who has studied Cambodian culture, said many Cambodian parents would not accept alternatives. Headache remedies such as aspirin are considered chemical-based--definitely not for consumption by Cambodians.

Khmer-speaking teachers’ aides help bridge cultural gaps best, administrators said. Sopheap Ho has worked as an assistant teacher at Hazeltine for four years. She escaped from Cambodia to Thailand in 1980 and arrived in the United States in 1981.

“I like teaching the children, because I can help them work out things between their own culture and the American culture,” Sopheap Ho said. “I can talk to them in Khmer, but I mostly speak English to help them speak their new language.

“Two years ago, I taught children to say things like, ‘This is my hair. This is my hand.’ Now they come back to me and speak rapid English. I like that. It makes me feel good.”

In a Hazeltine classroom for second- and third-graders, 25 children, mostly Cambodian, sat at attention on a recent afternoon. A strictness pervaded the room as children recited in unison, occasionally interrupted by a “Joey, sit up!” and “Neo, cover your mouth when you sneeze!” One red-haired child, a recurrent troublemaker according to teachers, mumbled about the “wetbacks” that he said surrounded him.

Principal Nat Glickman said such name-calling is rare. “The assimilation between racial groups is fairly smooth, especially with younger children,” Glickman said. “They’re less conscious of any difference. When name-calling does occur, it seems to come from outside. Kids bring it from home or from other friends. We try to deal with it immediately.”

Activity in an adjacent classroom was less subdued. “Children! Pick up a crayfish to show our visitors!” said Jackie Kurkjian, a first- and second-grade teacher of 20 pupils. Children dunked hands into a small pool holding the crayfish and later showed prized crayfish books, crayfish stories and crayfish poems they had constructed.

Kurkjian said she uses a “living language” approach when teaching her Cambodian charges. The children’s immediate environment is used to teach new words such as feed, water, sand and so on.

Hazeltine’s Cambodian children, who are usually shy in the presence of strangers, had little to say about their transition from refugees to Van Nuys grade school pupils. Yon Yem, an 11-year-old fifth-grader who arrived in the United States in 1982, said she does not remember her homeland’s war, other than helping her mother cook and other vague memories of life in a tent. “It was OK,” she said. “It’s fun now. We have a lot of fun.”

Agliam said such shyness in the children was first taken by teachers as a sign of weakness or disrespect. “At first, if Cambodian students did not look at teachers when spoken to, we would say, ‘Look at me, I’m talking to you!’ ” Agliam said. “But we quickly learned that Cambodians keep their heads down as a sign of respect to elders. We’re not going to insist that a child look directly in our eyes if this is taught as a sign of disrespect in the home. We continually balance those two aspects--home instruction and school instruction. It’s a fine line.”

Something as simple as a hand gesture to “Come over here” means something quite derogatory in the Cambodian culture, Agliam said, adding, “The children, in essence, have become our teachers in these things.”

Another complication for Hazeltine has been determining the ages of Cambodian children. The Cambodian culture marks a child’s first birthday as one year after the date of conception. “Sometimes the ages are a lot older than what the children’s papers indicate,” Glickman said. “Or sometimes there’s simply no documentation. They’re going by what they can remember. We do our best.”

Esty LaHive, who has taught at Hazeltine for 27 years, has perhaps witnessed the greatest number of such complications.

“When I started, we had a middle-class neighborhood with an active PTA,” said LaHive, who taught the first bilingual class at the school in 1978. “There was lots of parent participation--many parents worked in the film industry. Mothers would volunteer their time.

“Now, both parents of children usually work. We have many more single parents and lots of transient families. Children come and go out of here all the time. But the children adjust to whatever circumstances they find themselves, no matter what culture they’re from. We talk about their problems and how they feel--especially the older ones.

“And of course we have every language you can think of represented. It’s a beautiful makeup, really. It looks like the United Nations around here.”