Stuart Isett for The New York Times
Tuy Sobil, or K.K., right, a former gang member from Long Beach, Calif., founded the club after being deported in 2004
Stuart Isett for The New York TimesTach Piseth, 11, practiced spinning on his head at the Tiny Toones break dancing club in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The club teaches about 150 youngsters.
The New York Times
By SETH MYDANS
Published: November 29, 2008
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — It may be the only place in Cambodia where the children are nicknamed Homey, Frog, Floater, Fresh, Bugs and Diamond.
And there are not many places like this small courtyard, thumping with the beat of a boom box, where dozens of boys in big T-shirts are spinning on their heads and doing one-hand hops, elbow tracks, flairs, halos, air tracks and windmills. And, of course, krumping.
It is a little slice of Long Beach, Calif., brought here by a former gang member by way of a federal prison, an immigration jail and then expulsion four years ago from his homeland, the United States, to the homeland of his parents, Cambodia.
The former gang member is Tuy Sobil, 30, who goes by the street name K.K. The boys are Cambodian street children he has taken under his wing as he teaches them the art he brought with him, break dancing, as well as his hard lessons in life.
K.K. is not here because he wants to be. He is one of 189 Cambodians who have been banished from the United States in the past six years under a law that mandates deportations for noncitizens who commit felonies. Hundreds more are on a waiting list for deportation. Like most of the others, K.K. is a noncitizen only by a technicality. He was not an illegal immigrant. He was a refugee from Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge “killing fields” who found a haven in the United States in 1980.
He was an infant when he arrived. In fact, he was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and had never seen Cambodia before he was deported. But K.K.’s parents were simple farmers who failed to complete the citizenship process when they arrived.
Like some children of poor immigrants, K.K. drifted to the streets, where he became a member of the Crips gang and a champion break dancer. It was only after he was convicted of armed robbery at 18 that he discovered that he was not a citizen.
Like many deportees, he arrived in Cambodia without possessions and without family contacts. He was a drug counselor at first and then founded his break dancing club, Tiny Toones Cambodia, where he now earns a living teaching about 150 youngsters and reaching out to hundreds more.
With the financial support of international aid groups like Bridges Across Borders, based in Graham, Fla., he has expanded his center into a small school that teaches English and Khmer and computers in addition to back flips, head stands and krumping, or crazy dancing.
Some other deportees have found work that uses their fluency in English, particularly in hotels. Some have reunited with families. But many have slipped into unemployment, depression and sometimes drug use.
“Some were doing well initially but now over time have become unemployed or never did get employment, and just got discouraged,” said Dimple Rana, who works with Deported Diaspora, which is based in Revere, Mass., and helps deportees adjust.
“I know of a whole bunch of returnees whose mothers were sending money from their Social Security,” she said. “Now, with the economy in the United States, it is very hard and families are not able to send even $100 or $150.”
K.K. stands out as a success, both in finding a calling and in embracing his fate. He has a fair command of the language, unlike some deportees who arrived with no knowledge of Khmer.
“I think it was meant for me to be here, even though I lost my family,” he said. “And my kid is there, Kayshawn. He is 8.”
K.K. is in touch with his relatives in Long Beach but has not seen them since he was deported.
“Right now, you know, these kids are my family,” he said. “I don’t have a kid here, but I adopted one, a street kid. His mom and dad are on drugs.”
The boys and girls leaping and spinning here are the children of Cambodia’s underclass, like thousands who fill the slums of Phnom Penh — children who spend their evenings, as K.K. put it, “begging and digging through garbage to find food.”
K.K., whose youth was not so different from theirs, said he teaches them to find pride in who they are. A wall of his center is marked with students’ graffiti: “I want to be a rapper,” “I want to be a D.J.,” “I want to be a doctor.”
“I try to tell them not to judge people by the way they look,” he said. “I still have a struggle here in Cambodia. People judge me. People see me with tattoos and think I’m a bad guy.
“Sometimes it’s, ‘Come on, we’re going to kill some Americans,’ ” he said, describing threats from street toughs. “I’m not American. I’m Khmer, man.”
His journey between identities reached a point of strangeness when he was invited last December to perform with some of his students at a Christmas party at the United States Embassy.
“The American ambassador gave me a handshake and a hug, and asked me one day when his kid is a little older he wanted to put him in my school,” K.K. said.
The ambassador at the time, Joseph A. Mussomeli, recalled the performance as “great fun,” but he said the piquancy of the moment had not been lost on him.
“You are right that there is a certain wonderful irony to him being ‘rejected’ or at least ‘ejected’ from the U.S. and still landing on his feet — or shoulders and head — dancing,” Mr. Mussomeli said in an e-mail message.
“While watching him I was reminded of that great patriotic speech by Bill Murray in ‘Stripes,’ ” he added, “where he talks about Americans as being rejects from all the good, decent countries of the world! K.K. is/was an American in everything except in law — and he has shown this by his creativity, tenacity, and undying optimism.”
Now another irony is in store for K.K. His club has been invited to send dancers to perform in the United States — Cambodian boys who speak no English and have never left their country.
The real American among them, K.K., deported and excluded from the United States for the rest of his life, must stay behind.
“I can’t go,” he said over the thump of the boom box, as his boys jumped and bounced around him like tiny springs. “I can understand that they deported me here. I’d like to go visit — only visit, because I live here now. I have a brand new life.”
Anti-government demonstrators carry a wounded woman to safety near the Government House in Bangkok November 30, 2008. A grenade blast wounded 34 anti-government protesters at Government House in Bangkok early on Sunday, a spokesman for an anti-government satellite television channel said.REUTERS/Stringer (THAILAND) 
Paramedics load an injured anti-government demonstrator into an ambulance near the Government House in Bangkok on November 30, 2008. A grenade blast wounded 34 anti-government protesters at Government House in Bangkok early on Sunday, a spokesman for an anti-government satellite television channel said.REUTERS/Stringer (THAILAND)
An injured anti-government protester is carried on a stretcher after an explosion during a protest at government house Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. An emergency official says an explosion inside the Thai prime minister's besieged office compound has wounded 33 people. The protesters, who have occupied government house, the prime minister's compound, since August, upped the stakes this week by overrunning Bangkok's international and domestic airports and bringing them to a halt in their campaign to oust the government.(AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)
An injured anti-government protester, left, waits for a first aid treatment in a medic tent after an explosion during a protest at government house Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. An emergency official says an explosion inside the Thai prime minister's besieged office compound has wounded 33 people. The protesters, who have occupied government house, the prime minister's compound, since August, upped the stakes this week by overrunning Bangkok's international and domestic airports and bringing them to a halt in their campaign to oust the government.(AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)
A female anti-government protester, right, walks with her injured relative to a waiting ambulance after an explosion during a protest at government house Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. An emergency official says an explosion inside the Thai prime minister's besieged office compound has wounded 33 people. The protesters, who have occupied government house, the prime minister's compound, since August, upped the stakes this week by overrunning Bangkok's international and domestic airports and bringing them to a halt in their campaign to oust the government.(AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)
Injured anti-government protesters are transported on a pick up truck to hospital after an explosion during a protest at government house Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. An emergency official says an explosion inside the Thai prime minister's besieged office compound has wounded 33 people. The protesters, who have occupied government house, the prime minister's compound, since August, upped the stakes this week by overrunning Bangkok's international and domestic airports and bringing them to a halt in their campaign to oust the government.(AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)
An injured anti-government protester is taken from the scene in a wheel chair after an explosion during a protest at government house Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. An emergency official says an explosion inside the Thai prime minister's besieged office compound has wounded 33 people. The protesters, who have occupied government house, the prime minister's compound, since August, upped the stakes this week by overrunning Bangkok's international and domestic airports and bringing them to a halt in their campaign to oust the government.(AP Photo/Wason Wanichakorn)
An injured anti-government protester is carried on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance after the bomb blast during a protest at government house Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. An emergency official says an explosion inside the Thai prime minister's besieged office compound has wounded 33 people. The protesters, who have occupied government house, the prime minister's compound, since August, upped the stakes this week by overrunning Bangkok's international and domestic airports and bringing them to a halt in their campaign to oust the government.(AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)
Security guards for anti-government protesters examine the site of a bomb blast during a protest at government house Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. An emergency official says an explosion inside the Thai prime minister's besieged office compound has wounded 33 people. The protesters, who have occupied government house, the prime minister's compound, since August, upped the stakes this week by overrunning Bangkok's international and domestic aiports and bringing them to a halt in their campaign to oust the government.(AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)
Police officers examine the scene of a small explosion next to a barricade set up by anti-government protesters outside Bangkok's Don Muang airport November 30, 2008. Foreign governments are increasingly concerned at the closure of Suvarnabhumi airport since Tuesday by political protesters as part of their campaign to topple the government of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat. The U.S. embassy in Bangkok said it had asked the Thai foreign ministry to provide "appropriate compensation" to U.S. citizens stranded by the closure of Suvarnabhumi and the older Don Muang airport, a big domestic hub.REUTERS/Darren Whiteside (THAILAND)
An anti-government potestor stands near a barricade outside Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok. Thai police have surrounded and cordoned off Bangkok's main airport after scuffles with protesters, raising fears that days of crippling demonstrations could end violently.(AFP/Saeed Khan)
Protesters, some armed with sticks, ride on a pickup truck as they head to their checkpoints at the besieged Suvarnabhumi international airport in Bangkok. A grenade attack on protesters occupying the Thai premier's office wounded at least 46 people Sunday, further raising tensions as police tried to end an opposition blockade of Bangkok's airports.(AFP/Hoang Dinh Nam) 
Protesters ride on a pickup truck as they head to their checkpoints at the besieged Suvarnabhumi international airport in Bangkok. A grenade attack on protesters occupying the Thai premier's office wounded at least 46 people Sunday, further raising tensions as police tried to end an opposition blockade of Bangkok's airports.(AFP/Hoang Dinh Nam) 
