Tustin Teen Masters a Lesson in Life

When Adena Spingarn first volunteered at Cambodian Family, people at the Santa Ana organization that helps immigrants and refugees were puzzled by and wary of the white teenager.

They couldn’t figure out why someone who lived in a well-to-do area of north Tustin would want to help strangers in a poor neighborhood. A few distrusted her because she was not Cambodian.

Yet, since spring 1996, Adena kept showing up every week, first to teach children how to dance, then to speak and read English. Over time, she became accepted among the Cambodian clientele.

When the Volunteer Center of Greater Orange County was soliciting nominations for its 1998 Spirit of Volunteerism awards, Cambodian Family chose Adena. It was as if she had joined their family.

“I just went to where the need was,” said Adena, 17, who with friends began volunteering for the local American Red Cross chapter in 1996, then learned about Cambodian Family.

“You can strip away race and socioeconomic background, and people can still identify with each other,” the teenager said.

One of Adena’s friends dropped out because of time demands, and the other, her former boyfriend, left when the couple broke up.

But Adena stayed on as an independent volunteer, teaching ballet to children at the center. When she stopped dancing because of injuries, she switched to tutoring.

“We’re very impressed with her language, writing and communication abilities,” said Mike Murtaugh, youth coordinator for Cambodian Family.

On a recent Thursday afternoon, Adena was helping Tang Chheng and Tola Tan, Century High girls who have been in the United States for 18 months.

The three took turns reading from “The Witch of Blackbird Pond,” the story of an immigrant who came to the United States from Barbados in the 1600s. Her students--bent over the pages, brows creased in concentration--slowly tried to form letters into words.

Adena helped 15-year-old Tang tackle words such as “hesitate,” “disheartening’ and “Connecticut.”

“ ‘Connecticut’ is not really pronounced the way it’s spelled,” she told the sophomore.

“Have you guys ever seen a dolphin?” Adena asked, referring to a story.

“No, what is it?” Tang responded.

“They’re like big fish, but they’re pretty,” Adena explained.

When she compared a ship to Titanic, both pupils grinned in recognition.

It was tougher for Adena to define what’s meant when someone “sparkles.”

“It’s like when they’re happy,” she told Tola, a shy and serious 14-year-old freshman.

“Like when my friends say, ‘Let’s go to Disneyland,’ ” Tola said, breaking into a wide smile when she got it.

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Cambodian Family helps immigrants of all ages adapt to America by offering English as a Second Language courses, job preparation skills, tutoring, a computer lab, dance activities and counseling. Most clients are Cambodian or Vietnamese. A few are Latino. Almost all come from nearby neighborhoods in Santa Ana.

Some adults survived the Cambodian conflict of 1970-75, leaving the country in the late 1970s and living in Thailand before moving to the United States in the 1980s. Adena has heard their stories of extreme poverty and mass slaughter on the killing fields.

Many of the older children were born in refugee camps, younger ones in the United States.

“Many parents need extra help in raising kids in America,” said youth coordinator Murtaugh. “Many of them lead isolated lives right behind us on Minnie Street.”

Many families live in crowded apartment houses in the southeast Santa Ana neighborhood, which has been troubled by crime and gangs. About 70 neighborhood children attend the after-school program daily. Often, the parents don’t read or speak English, and the children are among the first in the family to be educated.

“During the Pol Pot regime, if you went to school or even if you wore glasses, you were killed,” said Claudia Lamb, resource coordinator for Cambodian Family. “Many parents don’t know what a museum is. They’ve never been to a library.”

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The school dropout rate among Cambodian youths has been high.

“Without tutoring, they can’t do their homework because their parents don’t read or write English [to help them],” Lamb said. “Our big focus is to keep them in school. Now, more of them are graduating from high school, and we’re talking to them about college.”

Tang dreams of becoming a doctor.

“I want my English to get better fast. I want to get straight A’s in high school and go to college.”

Tang remembers how scared she was walking into an American store and not knowing the names of anything on the shelves.

“I have friends, but they don’t speak English, so talking with [Adena] really helps,” Tang said.

What Adena gets from the experience is a different perspective on life. As a senior at Foothill High in Tustin, she’s surrounded by kids who live in comfortable houses, who enjoy the financial support of their parents and whose biggest worry is about getting into a good college.

“It keeps me levelheaded to see people who have so much less than me,” Adena said. “It makes my problems feel smaller. I go to a very wealthy high school. I live a very nice life. I can get caught up in the fact that my parents didn’t buy me a car on my 16th birthday, or other materialistic things. I can get a warped perspective.

“That’s why I volunteer. It keeps me focused on the important things.”

Though born in America, Adena understands the plight of refugees. Her Jewish grandparents were Holocaust survivors who fled Poland after being in Nazi work camps. Her mother was born in Israel but immigrated to the United States with her family in the 1950s.

Adena’s parents were poor growing up and worked hard to succeed. Her mother, Dvora Cyrlak, works as a radiologist at UCI Medical Center in Orange. Her father, Neil Spingarn, is a chemist who owns an analytical lab in Santa Ana.

Both attended Yale graduate school and have instilled the importance of higher education and hard work in Adena and her 15-year-old sister.

“She’s a great role model,” resource coordinator Lamb said.

Murtaugh said Adena has shown initiative that he finds unusual in someone her age. On her own, she wrote a fund-raising letter for Cambodian Family and sent it to businesses. She’s trying to start a book club at the center so youths can read and analyze books together.

She still volunteers with the Red Cross’ youth HIV/AIDS education program, visiting schools and family-service centers to give presentations about prevention of AIDS.

“There’s so much my peers don’t know about AIDS, and maybe this will save a few lives,” she said.

Adena finds time to volunteer even as she studies for college entrance exams, writes for her school newspaper and maintains a 4.5 grade-point average. She has her sights set on Princeton University, where she would like to study international relations so she can work in the United Nations or become a diplomat.

“I’m lucky because I have parents who could read to me,” Adena said. “They can help me with my homework. If I need an essay proofread or I have a question about math, I have a great support system.

“They’ve given a nice life to me, and I want to do that for others.”

To volunteer with Cambodian Family or for information about services, call (714) 571-1980.