“U.S. Deportee Brings Street Dance to Street Boys of Cambodia”

“I can’t go,” K.K. 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.” The Article “U.S. Deportee Brings Street Dance to Street Boys of Cambodia” that was published on Sunday, November 30, 2008 shows us, the reader, that this young man’s statement is an accurate one. The article discusses how in Cambodia a little slice of Long Beach, California, was brought there 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 in his dance studio 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. The only thing is 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. Some other 189 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.

My opinion of the Article “U.S. Deportee Brings Street Dance to Street Boys of Cambodia” is that it is amazing how a person can make a negative situation positive. Even through this terrible situation 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. But the only hurdle left in K.K. way is his club has been invited to send dancers to perform in the United States but the Cambodian boys who speak no English and have never left their country and do to him being deported and excluded from the United States for the rest of his life, he must stay behind.


Article written by: Seth Mydans

The New York Times

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Article on page A6 of the New York edition.