The Social Medicine Portal

Cambodian Circle Dancing on a Frigid Bronx Night

The Youth Leadership Project organizers

There has been snow continuously on the ground in New York since before New Year, a somewhat rare occurrence in these days of global warming.  And saturday, January 31st was a particularly cold night.  As one approached the basement of the St. Nicholas Tolentine church, a few brave souls stood outside smoking cigarettes and talking on cell phones.

Inside was the first annual fund-raising dinner of the Youth Leadership Project, a  South East Asian community group.  A dozen or so large round tables were spread around a long white room.  At the tables was a happy crowd made up mainly of Cambodian immigrants. The room was filled with the sounds of people greeting friends.  They saluted each other by putting their hands together as if in prayer and making a slight bow.  Little kids zoomed in and out from a neighboring “children’s” room,  mingling briefly with the adults and then returning.   A small bar in the corner did a brisk business while people waited for the evening to start.

Chhaya and Khamarin, two of the YLP organizers, started the evening with a brief introduction to the Youth Leadership Project and appeals for help with two current projects.  One is the Justice is Healing project (covered in detail in our blog of October 15, 2008); the other is a planned community center (more details below).  They spoke in English and then Chhaya’s mother Ousara Phok,  got up and translated their speech, a “translation” that involved copious thanks to many of the people sitting in the room.

The speeches were accompanied by a three course meal from Huynh Catering Services.   The Huynh family, originally from Cambodia, has a long tradition of catering and Victor, we were informed, “does all the Cambodian weddings.”

With the speeches over, the very serious business of dancing began.  Monorom, “one of the best Cambodian bands”, had been invited from Philadelphia and clearly knew what music the audience wanted to hear. Very quickly the dance floor was full.  There were several different types of dances.   Madison looked something like a line dance and can be seen at this link.  Next came the circle dance (ramvong) a slow dance in which the dancers made elaborate movements with their hands as their hips swung slowly from right to left and back.  Genders alternated in the circle. It was explained that in the old times unmarried people were not allowed to touch as they danced, thus the physical separation created by the circle.  Finally, the Saravan dance which seemed to draw the most enthusiastic crowd.

We found a few minutes to catch up with Khamarin, one of the YLP leaders.  He is a 20 year old student at New York College of Technology with plans to become a X-ray technician.  He was born in the US and wasn’t entirely sure where in Cambodia his parents were born.  His mother, he thought, came from Battambang and his father from a very small village.

Khamarin’s first experience in organizing came in 1999 when his aunt, a YLP

Chhaya and Khamarin

organizer had been campaigning against the welfare reforms of the Guliani administration.  (This campaign was the subject of a film “Eating Welfare” made by CAAV: Organizing Asian Communities, the parent of YLP).  Khamarin was quite young at the time but could not help being impressed by the fact that his aunt had brought people to the community to help.  Thinking back now, he remembers how his elderly grandmother had started doing piecework about the time of the welfare cuts.   She sewed small hair bands (scrunchies) in her apartment.  He thought she was doing it as a hobby, but later he realized how many women in the community were doing this kind of piece work.  “They would do the sewing and then the kids would cut the bands apart and sort them into piles.”

In  2001, 2002 the YLP organized ACE  gatherings: Arts, Community, Empowerment.  “We would be broken up into little groups and have to cook an entire Asian meal right there,” he said, “You would interact with people who you wouldn’t normally meet.”  He learned about “the whole other side of the world.” This led him to training in community organizing and in 2006 he participated in the community health survey that was part of the “Justice is Health” campaign.  He would knock on doors and ask questions about health problems and experiences with the medical system.  health.  He remembered one elderly woman.  “My Khmer is not all that good, but it was enough to understand her.”  She told him that it had been 5 or 6 years since she had seen a doctor. She had complaints. Back pains, leg pains and recurrent nightmares going back to the war.  But it was too much trouble to go to the clinic and have no one there who would understand you.  And if she had to take the children to translate, they would miss school.

We discussed YLP’s vision of a community center.  The YLP house at 2473 Valentine Ave now serves as an unofficial community center and people gather there for holidays.  But it is small for the group’s ambitions.  They hope to create a Mekong Center that will serve local southeast Asians, not just Cambodians.  It would be place to teach cooking, sewing, gardening, art, and dance. “These are our people’s skills, even though here they  are not looked on as skills.” A group of urban planning students from Hunter College had helped them out.  As a school project the students had created plans for rebuilding the current house into a real community center.  Estimated cost: $2 million.  Now it was YLP’s job to figure out what they would do with the plans.

Khamarin said that he had never been to Cambodia.  He is afraid of flying.  What he knew of Cambodian history he had learned from YLP.  His schooling had not taught him much about his parent’s native country.

The Cambodian community in the Bronx has suffered multiple traumas.  But this was not in evidence last Saturday night.

posted by Matt Anderson, MD