Older Southeast Asian refugees, specifically Cambodian, Lao, and Hmong find themselves struggling with a different culture environment after fleeing war and refugee camps. MPR’s Jim Bikal looks at some of the local efforts, including that at the Older Refugees Program, being made to support elders in the communities.
JIM BICKAL: Most of the older Southeast Asian refugees have been through war, political oppression in refugee camps, and now the adjustment to a completely foreign culture. Judy Sam Webber is the resource coordinator of the older refugee programs for the Lao Family Community of Minnesota. She says some of the refugee groups have had an especially difficult time adjusting to the United States.
SPEAKER 1: I think that Cambodia and Laos have suffered a lot because their cultures are more pacifist and less aggressive and less assertive than perhaps the culture here in the United States. The Vietnamese people are more like the Americans in the sense of being more individual, putting a stress on the individual. And so they've been able to prosper and succeed a little bit more than perhaps the Cambodians and the Lao and the Hmong.
JIM BICKAL: Lar Munstock is a volunteer with the Minnesota Cambodian Buddhist Society. She says the Cambodian elders who are now in America have generally had very little education.
LAR MUNSTOCK: The biggest problem is the language barrier. Most of our people who survived the war, the Holocaust are the illiterate one. So they don't know how to read, to write their own language. They had difficulty to learn the new ones.
JIM BICKAL: In Cambodia, someone is considered an elder once he or she becomes a grandparent, which often happens by the age of 45. Younger members learn to respect their elders and seek them out for wisdom and advice. Munstock says that isn't happening in the United States.
LAR MUNSTOCK: When coming here, the children who learn they feel they know everything, and they think that the grandfather do not understand, do not know anything. They don't listen to them so that they lost their self-respect.
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JIM BICKAL: Here at the Liberty Plaza Community Center in Saint Paul, three American women sponsored by Unity Unitarian Church are teaching older Hmong women how to knit. Through an interpreter, [? Sia Fung ?] says knitting is much different than the traditional Hmong needlepoint called pa ndau.
SPEAKER 2: Pa ndau is more easier because they don't have to-- they don't have pattern. They just do by guessing and then estimate. But knitting is pretty hard for them. They said they have to read pattern and count stitch and everything. So they find that knitting is more harder than their pa ndau.
JIM BICKAL: These Hmong women meet twice a week to socialize, cook, and learn to knit. Their group is organized by the Women's Association of Hmong and Lao. Judy Sam Weber says each ethnic group now has a program for elders.
SPEAKER 1: Each group has at least two meetings a week in different locations. For instance, today, there's a group one of the two Cambodian groups meets. And part of it is to work on their survival English skills. They also work on Khmer literacy, which is the native language of Cambodia. And then they will have guest speakers or discussion topics about relevant issues that the participants have brought up.
JIM BICKAL: The executive director of the Minnesota Buddhist Society is [? Ming Krayem. ?] He feels strongly about helping the Cambodian elders.
SPEAKER 2: It's the program in which we put a lot of effort because we know that these people have been through so many problems and very difficult problems. And we understand them. We try to help them, and we seem to go in the right direction.
JIM BICKAL: [? Ming Krayem ?] of the Minnesota Cambodian Buddhist Society. I'm Jim Bickal reporting.
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