from the Cambodian killing fields

His boyhood spent in a slave labor camp, Kilong Ung survives, excels and now wishes to heal
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/his_boyhood_spent_in_a_slave_l.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
October 16, 2009


For more than 30 years, Kilong Ung, a Portland software engineer, struggled with haunting memories of nearly starving in a slave labor camp, the deaths from exhaustion of his father, mother and little sister, and the extinguishing of 1.7 million other Cambodians by starvation, disease, torture and execution under Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime.

Ung, then a boy, miraculously survived and came to the United States as a refugee, reaching the pinnacles of the American Dream: a Reed College education, graduate school, and lucrative jobs in the corporate world. But despite the successes, he could not forget.

He dreamed of creating a way to share the horrific past with his two Oregon-born children. And he wanted to honor the people who didn't survive, as well as those who helped him make it in life.

Ung decided to write a book, to simultaneously get rid of the memories and preserve them. This summer, he self-published his memoir, "Golden Leaf, a Khmer Rouge Genocide Survivor."

But the book is only a means to an end, the 49-year-old Ung said. He wants his memoir to "leverage the past" and help Cambodia. The goal: to use some of the proceeds from the book to build a school in his country of his birth. He plans to name the school "Golden Leaf."

The book describes the cruel, dirty, hunger-filled life inside a labor camp. Ung buries his grandmother, catches and eats a rat, cradles his emaciated mother, and is arrested and degraded for stealing a coconut.

When the Vietnamese drove the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979, Ung fled Cambodia by foot to Thailand with his older sister and her boyfriend. They eventually settled in California as refugees, and within a year moved to Oregon.

Because of his experiences, Ung writes that he saw himself as "a leaf at the mercy of the wind." But while other "leaves" were crushed, he persevered and became a "golden leaf."

What sets Ung apart from fellow survivors, said Mardine Mao, president of the Cambodian-American Community of Oregon (CACO), is not just perseverance, but also a vision to transform past suffering into something positive.

"I've lost so much," Ung said, "and if I do nothing with the past, all that has happened would have happened for nothing."

Ung and CACO will organize a fundraiser in March with the goal of collecting $50,000 for the school project. Mao is visiting the Siem Reap province in Cambodia this month on a humanitarian mission and scoping a site for the school.

Area Rotary clubs are also interested in supporting the project, said Gene Horton, a member of the Hillsboro Rotary Club, who plans to help Ung raise funds.

"I'm quite impressed with Kilong," Horton said. "He's come so far; it's an amazing story. He's forceful and dedicated enough to make this idea happen."

Ung's other hope is to inspire Oregon's Cambodian community. He has served as a Cambodian language teacher, youth mentor, and past president of CACO. Under his leadership, the organization grew and formed support groups for youth, women, and elderly, a heritage banquet, and a public forum to discuss the Khmer Rouge tribunal, among other programs.

"Many Cambodians would rather forget the past, because it's too painful to relieve the memory. Kilong found the courage to speak up," Mao said. "His work is a great example that ordinary people can do extraordinary things. It provides an inspiration to those of us that may want to share similar stories."

But perhaps Ung's biggest contribution is guiding fellow refugees into the midst of the American mainstream. He wants to serve as a bridge between the Cambodian and American communities, Ung said. His higher education, active participation in the Rotary club and the Royal Rosarians, fluent English and other achievements can be a model of success.

In the end, Ung's story is a deposition against the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge.

"A book becomes evidence," Ung said. "It becomes a legacy, a document."

His final message is of forgiveness and recovery. Ung is converting his sorrow into action: his family has put down roots in Oregon. Against all odds, "a leaf at the mercy of the wind... became a tree."

-- Gosia Wozniacka
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Oaxacan Guelaguetza in Oregon

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for the gods of water and corn

Celebration is a tribute to the gods, and a restoration of indigenous villages in Mexico
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/celebration_is_a_tribute_to_th.html
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Photos by Gosia Wozniacka
October 09, 2009

The Guelaguetza, a cultural celebration that attracts throngs of tourists to the Mexican state of Oaxaca, is coming to Oregon.

A tribute to the gods of water and corn, the Guelaguetza brings together 16 different indigenous communities from seven diverse regions of Oaxaca (pronounced whah-hawk-ah). Through music, colorful dances, food and arts, it keeps alive the centuries-old cultures and traditions of the Zapotecs, Mixtecs and Triquis, among others.



Guelaguetza means "offering" in Zapotec, and the word denotes a system of mutual assistance between communities or individuals.

Oregon's Guelaguetza is a sign of a community coming of age. Indigenous people make up one of the largest groups of Mexican immigrants in Oregon, about 40,000, according to Santiago Ventura Morales, who heads an organization that connects Oregon's indigenous Mexicans to each other and to outside resources. The majority are Mixtec, and some Zapotec and Triqui. They live mostly in Gresham, Canby, Woodburn, Cornelius and Corvallis, he said.

Many came to Oregon since the 1980s, are U.S. citizens, and have dreamed of holding a Guelaguetza for years. It's an important stepping stone for a community that's often isolated and discriminated against – even by fellow Mexicans – because of traditional characteristics like darker skin color, long hair, or speaking an indigenous language.

"We need to teach others about our culture, to show the diversity of Mexico and of Oaxaca," said Ventura. "We want our children, who are born here, to continue practicing their parents' customs and speaking their language, so that they're not ashamed to be an indigenous person."

Justo Rodriguez, 29, who came to the United States in 1999 to join his father in Woodburn, still remembers going to the annual Guelaguetza in the city of Oaxaca (the capital of the state of Oaxaca). Rodriguez and members of his village, San Mateo Tunuchi, would perform the Danza de los Diablos, the devils' dance, as part of the celebration. The Danza is a village tradition dating before the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century.

Rodriguez last attended the Guelaguetza in 1997, and he missed the custom. After moving to Oregon, he and his father Leonardo Rodriguez – who also used to dance – decided to start a Los Diablos troupe. Members hail from the same village, but several were born in the United States. For weeks, they have been practicing to perform in Oregon's Guelaguetza.



In addition to sharing the rich traditions and culture of Oaxaca, the Guelaguetza's goal is to unite the Oaxacan community and further the work of organizations that help their villages of origin, said Donaciano Garcia, one of the event's organizers.

Garcia, who hails from the town of Barranca Fierro Mixtepec, started a hometown association three years ago, Generación Barranca 2006 Inc., to support the economic development and children's education in the village where he was born.

That's the only way to break the chain of dire poverty, lack of educational opportunities, and migration to the United States, he said.

"The idea is that the children who live in Oaxaca shouldn't have to come here, shouldn't have to risk their lives to cross the border in order to have a better future," Garcia said. "We can help change their ideas by making them see that getting educated is an option. They can become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer in Mexico, and help solve the problems over there, without coming here."

To date, Garcia's association has raised more than $12,000 from fellow members. The group purchased computers for the village school, a copy machine and a concrete mixer for the town, and planted more than 100 fruit trees. Next project: a village library.

Generación Barranca 2006 Inc. is one of dozens of hometown associations organized by Oregon's Oaxacans, which will be featured at the Guelaguetza.

"If one small group can make a difference in their village, then so can another," Garcia said. "The Guelaguetza is a great chance for us to work together and help those less fortunate."

The Guelaguetza may also help save Oregon's Oaxacan community, organizers say. Under pressure from mainstream American and Latino culture, indigenous languages and customs are threatened, said Octaviano Merecias-Cuevas, who hails from Oaxaca, speaks the Mixtec language, and did research on indigenous languages at Oregon State University.

"The Guelaguetza is like a Oaxacan powwow," he said. "Families get together, share and recover their languages and cultures, which is something that many have lost."

-- Gosia Wozniacka



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Chinese immigrants, transformed

A once-despised immigrant group grows strong...

Portland's Chinese community finds a new pride to replace old perceptions
By Gosia Wozniacka, The Oregonian
Photo by Abby Metty, The Oregonian
http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2009/10/portlands_chinese_community_fi.html



Gold miners, poor and exotic foreigners confined to Portland's Chinatown. Not worthy to own land or become U.S. citizens. This was life for arrivals from China at the turn of the 20th century and well beyond.

State and federal laws that discriminated against the Chinese have been annulled. And with China's modernization have come changes in perceptions. But stereotypes dissolve slowly.

The China Design Now exhibit at the Portland Art Museum, a dazzling display of that country's ingenuity, pop art and business potential, could further change how Oregonians think about China and, consequently, about the Chinese Americans in our midst.

But the branding of a new China is also transforming the local Chinese community, which is spreading beyond Chinatown and more diverse than ever. Once marginalized, Oregon's Chinese are gaining new clout and visibility.

Positive images of wealthy, creative Chinese people -- such as those at the upcoming exhibit -- aren't yet prevalent in Oregon, says Louis Lee, an accountant and Hong Kong native who has lived in Portland's Chinatown more than 20 years.

"It (the exhibit) shows a different aspect of China and Chinese people, not known to the Western world," Lee says. "It's risky, because you're fighting the current."

That current runs long and often negative. Chinese immigrants arrived even before Oregon became a state, searching for gold. They built rail lines and roads, worked in fish canneries and farms, and dug canals. Chinese laborers often earned less, were subject to laws that prohibited interracial marriage, and could not become U.S. citizens.

In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, banning Chinese immigrants. Violence against the Chinese was common in the Northwest; mobs raided and burned Chinese homes in Portland. The law existed until 1943.

Parts of Portland's Chinatown, Lee says, added to the negative image: its pagodas and lions fit Westerners' one-dimensional vision of a Chinese enclave. Add to that the fact that most Chinatowns, including Portland's, were forced to locate in down-and-out neighborhoods, he says, and "that creates an image for the Chinese people. We have to fight that image."

Oregon and America have embraced Chinese immigrants -- but the old China image lingers, says Stephen Ying, vice president of the Oregon Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. The group was formed in the late 19th century to assist Chinese individuals with discrimination and U.S. regulations.

"We're not just restaurant or laundromat workers, or gold diggers," Ying says. "There is modern China now and modern Chinese."

Oregon's Chinese community -- about 28,000 people -- is diverse, Ying says. Immigrants hail from mainland China, Hong Kong or Taiwan. Others are American-born. The small number doesn't account for Chinese people who claim more than one racial/ethnic group on the census.

Ying came to Oregon from Hong Kong 30 years ago. He graduated from Rex Putnam High School, worked at Intel and lives in Milwaukie. His life defied old stereotypes. But he still remembers Oregonians telling him, "Go back to where you belong," and a child in a restaurant pointing him out, "Mom, look, a Chinese." Today, that might make Ying proud.

Old China still has its place.

In her Beaverton home, Mary Leong frames old photographs for an upcoming exhibit about Portland's Chinatown. The elegant, slender woman, who is 87 but looks about 60, says she would hate to see China stripped of its legacy. Leong was born in Tualatin, but her parents were Chinese.

"The U.S. will realize that all this modern stuff is not really China," she says. "It's a copy of the United States."

Leong's father came to Oregon in the 1880s; her mother in 1918. When Leong's family settled in Portland before WWII, Chinese immigrants were not allowed to own property or live outside Chinatown.

Leong was proud of being Chinese; she speaks Cantonese and Mandarin. "It was very important that I never lose my heritage," she says. Leong has visited China twice, most recently in 1993, witnessing first hand the rapid changes in her parents' homeland. But, she said, China will eventually go back "to what's originally Chinese ... like Confucius, the songs, the plays, they'll go back to that."

"It's like a kid who gets a tattoo," she says. "Eventually, when he gets older, he wants to get rid of it. Eventually, you go back to your heritage."

But preserving the old doesn't have to negate the new, says calligraphy teacher Yan Buliang. He emigrated to Portland 10 years ago to join his two Oregon-educated sons. Though an engineer by profession, he has studied and practiced calligraphy all his life and comes from a family of artists.

During China's Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, Buliang watched art and creativity restricted and degraded. Antiques, books and artifacts were destroyed; traditional customs and concepts suppressed. Some artists were arrested, while others were reduced to writing and illustrating Communist slogans.

"You couldn't say or do things," Buliang says through a translator, "because the government controlled your mind. Their goal was to 'break the old and establish the new'."

After the revolution ended, Buliang retired and founded a calligraphy association at a Beijing university. He loved the art form and wanted to make sure it survived. At the same time, he saw China transformed and welcomed the changes -- even though he admits to sometimes having a hard time understanding them.

"I'm happy, because China is progressing," he says. And traditional Chinese art is more than 3,000 years old, he adds, so people won't discard it just because of new trends.

"Art reflects the lives of ordinary people," Buliang says. "People change, so art changes with them. You can't be stationary. You have to change and open up in order to progress."

Like China, Oregon's ethnic Chinese community has also changed, its leaders say. And it's connected to China more than ever.

"The world has shrunk," says Lee, the accountant. "In my day, you were oceans apart. Today, you are just next door."

It's now less expensive to fly, so Oregon's Chinese visit China, some -- like Lee --– as often as once a year. They communicate with their families there regularly by phone or Internet. They know China is changing, because they witness it themselves.

When Ying went to China for the first time in 1990, his relatives lived in a "poor and stinking" farming community on the outskirts of Shanghai. When he went again a few years later, their village had become a city and a highway cut through what was once their home. "Now it's big buildings, taxis and McDonald's," he said. "I'm amazed at how China has changed. It's so big, so creative. It has a lot of hidden talent."

The changes make him proud to be Chinese.

"As Chinese immigrants, we are proud of the changes, because China has become a powerful nation," Ying said. "Everyone wants to learn Chinese and go to China. We used to be afraid to be Chinese, but now we're afraid of people not knowing we're Chinese. You just lift your head up, because China got so strong."

Even the local government in Oregon pays more attention to the Chinese community, Ying says. "Because China is doing so great, city hall listens." This week, Ying flew with Speaker of the House Dave Hunt and other officials on a trade mission to China.

And because of opportunity created in China, there is a new phenomenon among Oregon's Chinese: "Back paddling," Lee says. "The tide has turned." Students, lawyers and engineers are going back, he says.

Lee's adult son, who was born in Oregon and works as a marketing coordinator in Baltimore, is taking intensive Mandarin classes. His hope, Lee says, is to widen his future job opportunities. It's a huge shift from when Lee was a university student and speaking Chinese was of more a hindrance than a plus.

"Gradually, Chinese people see something different. China is more attractive to them; it's a way to find an edge," Lee says. "They are seeing the possibility, no, the necessity, of their career taking them there."

Gosia Wozniacka: 503-294-5960; gosiawozniacka@news.oregonian.com
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