In one culture, several generations can live worlds apart

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Park Village Apartments resident Sophanary Sok, 23, center, grew up speaking both English and Khmer. Keeping connected to your culture, Sok said, is important to holding families and communities together. Shawn Phang, 14, right, was a friend of Rin Ros, the teenage victim of a fatal Aug. 6 beating at Panella Park. CALIXTRO ROMIAS/The Record

Sophanary Sok and Kunthea Tuy, right, teach Cambodian dance to youths at the Park Village Apartments.  CALIXTRO ROMIAS/The Record

Sophanary Sok walks with her 3-year-old niece, Keomontha Meas, after doing laundry at the Park Village Apartments in Stockton. CALIXTRO ROMIAS/The Record

By Jennifer Torres

Record Staff Writer

August 23, 2010 12:00 AMSTOCKTON - The days since the beating death of 14-year-old Rin Ros have brought grief and disbelief - his aunt, who was his guardian, finds herself calling out to him before realizing again that he isn't there.

But as seven youths - three of them as young as Ros himself, and the rest not much older - face murder charges in his death, there also have risen concerns about Cambodian boys, growing up American in a refugee community, seeking their own identities when cultural and linguistic gulfs often separate them from their parents and other adults.

After school Aug. 6, Ros was in a car at Panella Park when, according to reports, a group of as many as eight or nine people pulled him out and beat and kicked him. The attack was fatal.

At 19, Michael Muy is the among the oldest of those charged in Ros' death.

Kunthea Tuy, a youth leader at the Park Village Apartment complex where Ros lived, said she knows Muy's family; they lived for a time at Park Village, too.

"What happened?" she asked his mother recently. "She said, 'I don't know.' "

In the late 1970s, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces took over Cambodia and killed an estimated 2 million people in a campaign of forced labor, starvation and execution.

Thousands fled. More than 150,000 of them were moved to the United States.

Many eventually settled in Stockton, where they formed enclaves, among which Park Village remains one of the largest.

Today, nearly one-quarter of San Joaquin County's Cambodian households remain linguistically isolated, meaning that no adult in the home speaks or understands English very well.

And often, the children don't speak Khmer.

"In this generation of parents ages 30 to 45, they're able to speak the language and understand some basic English," said Sophaline Buth, a liaison to Southeast Asian families in Stockton Unified School District. "But because of the economic crisis, most parents need to go far away to find work. In one family I'm dealing with right now, the father is a truck driver. Mom works late, and they leave their kids with the grandparent. The grandparent doesn't speak the language, and she trusts the grandkids that when they say they are at school, they're at school."

But they aren't at school. Buth broke it to the mother.

"She was in shock," Buth said, " 'Oh, my god. None of my kids are in class?' I said, 'No. Sorry.' "

After Ros' killing, the school district hosted a meeting for Southeast Asian parents where leaders including Buth and Tuy discussed community resources and how to be better aware of their children's behavior.

Problems usually start with poor school attendance, Buth said. She once counseled Ros about missing school. She had a similar conversation with one of the boys accused of killing him.

All of the teens she meets with, she said, are unfailingly polite - "In front of adults, they change their personality" - making it even more challenging for parents to spot potential trouble.

Fundamentally, she said, the problem is one of identity.

"Kids at school, they want to fit in among the majority," she said. "They say, 'I'm American, too.' But their culture, their background, they don't know that. They act out. Later on, when they've been educated, they appreciate who they are. But at the high school level or younger, they just want to fit in with their friends."

Siobhana Hach is 16. Ros was one of her friends.

"The boys, they want to be cool," she said. "Some people are jealous because they can't get this or that. Or they want to prove who's stronger than who."

Shawn Phang, 14, grew up with Ros at Park Village. He learned about his friend's death from adults in the apartment complex.

"When I heard it from the old folks, I really didn't know what they were saying," he said.

When they were younger, he said, he and Ros used to bike or play tag nearly every day.

"I almost grew up with him," Phang said. "I guess he moved on, got new friends."

Tuy said she hopes to restart Cambodian language and culture classes, as well as an after-school program for teenagers at Park Village. The classes stopped because of budget cuts. The program - which used to run from 6 to 9 p.m. - ended for safety reasons after two guards were shot in the complex parking lot in June 2009.

"Now we don't want them to go outside," Tuy said.

Sophanary Sok was folding laundry at Park Village last week. She grew up speaking Khmer and English. Now 23, she teaches Cambodian dance to young girls.

Keeping children connected with their culture will keep them connected to their parents and community, she said.

"That's the only way kids can really learn who they are," Sok said. "You don't want it to fade away. ... It's going to be a regret."

Contact reporter Jennifer Torres at (209) 546-8252 or jtorres@recordnet.com. Visit her blog at recordnet.com/torresblog.