INTERAGENCY MEETING
Testimony of a Cambodian Woman
February 23, 2000

Ms. Kethida Lim was scheduled to be here today but this morning I learned that she was overcome by apprehension and is unable to be with us. This is a good example of the difficulties of reaching out to our community as advocates. Although we may view ourselves as having her best interest in mind, her ongoing fear of authority, insecurity and unfamiliarity our system of government has caused her instead to hide her pain rather then to seek assistance. It is important that we continue to reach out to women like Ms. Lim and welcome her as a part of this country. Although she is not here she has given us permission to tell her story.

Ms. Kethida Lim came to the United States in 1981 and is a permanent resident living in Silver Spring, Maryland. In Cambodia, Ms. Lim became an orphan when she five years old. Having no living relatives, she was taken in by a family who charged her with the care of their infant children. At the age when a young child in America would be attending Kindergarten, Ms. Lim instead was taking care of other people's babies and performing housework. In an environment with little or no social services, a child can be made to labor. Ms. Lim has never received any formal education nor had she ever had any expectation of receiving one. She married at the age of sixteen, which was normal for most Cambodian women. She lived with her husband and sold fresh produce. By 1975 and the coming of the Khmer Rouge she had five children.

She spent four years in the Killing Fields being tortured and subjected to forced-labor under the Khmer Rouge regime. Ms. Lim witnessed the murderous killings of her husband and each one of her five children. In 1979, she managed to escape to a refugee camp on the Cambodian-Thai border. At the camp, she was involved with helping a Cambodian dance troupe, working to make costumes and dressing the dancers. This enabled her to regain a sense of her own culture and community, and alleviated the traumatic effects of the Khmer Rouge atrocities. With the assistance of members of the dance troupe she came to the U.S. Ms. Lim's resettlement experiences typify the struggle of many Southeast Asians upon entry into the United States. Community support systems were non-existent because there were few Southeast Asians in this area at that time. After one month in the country, she enrolled in a language class taught by an American instructor who did not speak nor understand Khmer. Unfamiliar with the classroom setting and what was expected of her, after three months of classes she learned very little. Ms. Lim stopped going to classes and began to work where English skill was not needed. She became a maid at a prestigious hotel here in Washington, D.C. She thought that she could earn a living without knowing the language. But soon she became pregnant and her responsibilities grew. During the past nineteen years, she raised five children. Alone, she worked to support all of them. She realizes now that her inability to learn English has been a downward spiral, causing a serious and long lasting obstacle to gain meaningful work to provide for her family's basic needs.

Most recently she was earning $7 to $8 an hour at an assembly plant where she worked twelve-hour night shifts. Presently, her family is sharing a four-bedroom apartment with another family of four. Her apartment is not subsidized and Ms. Lim is unable to access housing services that might be available to alleviate this harsh living condition. There are ten people cramped in the apartment. Ms. Lim sleeps on a mattress on the floor in the living room beside the front door.

Ms. Lim has five children (three teenaged girls and two boys all born in the U.S.) under her custody and living with her. The children attend public school, however her eldest daughter, now eighteen, has dropped-out. When her children had problems in school, she was unable to help them because of her inability to communicate to teachers and counselors. As the children become more Americanized, they become less able to communicate with her in their native language, creating family problems. She feels that they respect her less as a parent due to her own lack of education and her dependency upon them to communicate for her to the outside world.

Watching her husband and children die in Cambodia, she has inevitably suffered severe emotional trauma, making it difficult for her to take advantage of certain opportunities. Seeking health services to address these emotional problems is culturally inappropriate for Cambodian women such as Ms. Lim. In Cambodia, you are either normal or mentally ill whereby you must be institutionalized. And under the Khmer Rouge, you were executed if you had any symptom of mental illness. It is documented that many Southeast Asians suffer post-traumatic syndrome disorder that continues to go undetected and untreated. Underlying this is a distrust of the government rooted in her personal experience.

Another issue for Ms. Lim is transportation. To access many services, she must have dependable transportation. Ms. Lim's lack of literacy make it difficult for her to utilize public transportation. Without the basic and necessary communication skills, she is fearful of being lost if she missed her stop. She cannot read street signs or ask for help. This fear deters her from using public transportation. This problem also clearly limits her prospective opportunities for employment. She is completely dependent on community members and friends for her transportation needs. In the past, her choice of job opportunities has been dependant upon whether a friend can take her to the work place regularly. Greater availability of door-to-door public transportation may alleviate her fear of the surrounding and open up her horizon, at least until her issues of socialization are addressed.

As you can see, the issues assailing Southeast Asians are many and diverse and require a particular cultural sensitivity and understanding.