A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES : Platform : Immigrants on Voting: ‘Americans Can Stand Up and Speak’ : SOPHAT PHAN, 47, Cambodia / <i> Office manager, Santa Ana; U.S. and Cambodian citizen</i>

Sometime in the next few months I expect to vote for the very first time in two elections--one in the United States and one in Cambodia when it will hold its first election ever, after years of war and suffering, under supervision of the United Nations.

I have been a U.S. citizen about a year. I feel very happy to be able to vote for the U.S. President. I will vote for Bush because of foreign affairs. I believe he has helped Cambodia, although we know he has some problems because of the economy. Of course, I have not voted here before and I have some worries. Some of my Cambodian friends have been citizens for some while, but they don’t vote because they are not sure how to use the voting machine. It might be very difficult.

The election in Cambodia will be very important. They say that Cambodians who live in America will be allowed to vote in it by proxy. In the meantime many, many Cambodians, including myself, plan to go back for a little while to Cambodia to help get ready for the election. It will be the first time I have been back since 1980, when I escaped to Thailand. I came to America in 1983 after three years in the refugee camps.

In Cambodia, I lived many years under the Khmer Rouge. And they are one of the groups running to be elected. Many people just refuse to believe all the horrible things they did. But I know.

It is true that I am afraid of returning. Already some people inside Cambodia who tried to start a political party have been killed. They say by death squads. It could happen to us. But when I think about how the bad people are doing bad things to the pure people, the innocent people, I must go.

We worry that the parties inside Cambodia aren’t really for true democracy, or a free market economy, or free speech and press, or a strong legal system. My party wants free education for everyone, and human rights and protection of the rights of ethnic minorities. So we who have lived in America have a lot to teach our fellow Cambodians, who have never seen most of these things.