Thousands of Cambodian and ethnic Khmer people from the Bay Area and beyond made their way to Stockton’s Wat Dhammararam Buddhist Temple, the largest in the state, for a three-day New Year celebration over the weekend. This year, a certain gravity accompanied the joy in one of the state’s biggest Cambodian communities.
Amid the Chaul Chnam Thmey festivities traditionally associated with the end of rains and sweet rest after reaping the rice harvest, the Khmer people marked 50 years of survival after a campaign of genocide engulfed the South East Asian county beginning in 1975.
San Lorenzo resident Sovandy Hang, who led activities at the temple, was 5 years old when communist dictator Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh. Up to 3 million people — a quarter of the country’s population — died at the hands of the regime, which specifically sought to purge artists, scientists, musicians, writers and free thinkers from society.
As much as he tried to bury the horror, it never really went away. “Yes, I remember,” said Hang, a social worker for Santa Clara County.
Like many of his fellow refugees, Hang came to California, arriving in Oakland at age 14 in 1984.
As more refugees made their way to the U.S., state agencies planted a Cambodian community in the Central Valley city of Stockton about 80 miles east of San Francisco after the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980 passed, believing an abundance of low-skilled agricultural jobs and space could accommodate many them.
The proudly Cambodian community that expressed itself with Khmer games, activities, dances and food inspired Hang, who remembers playing volleyball in Stockton in the late 1980s. In 1996, he established Oakland Khmer Angkor Dance, a traditional dance troupe for youth.
He continued visiting Stockton and met his wife Neary by a sapling while dancing in the rain in the temple’s square 27 years ago, at another solar New Year. The tree stands tall now, shielding multigenerational families from the sun at the edge of the same square, where bright concentric circles under rustling garlands encourage romvong circular dance.
Visiting other cities is common for the scattered Northern California Cambodian and Khmer community. More than 15,000 of the state’s roughly 123,000 Cambodian and Khmer people live across the Bay Area. Another 15,000 or so live in San Joaquin County. Additionally, hundreds of Khmer Krom–ethnic Khmer originating from land now within Vietnamese borders–live in San Jose. The Wat Khmer Kampuchea Krom, the first temple devoted to serving this community, expects to open next spring.
More cities are giving the diaspora a chance to make the rounds this year — Long Beach, home to the largest Cambodian community in the U.S., held its iconic parade and festival early so people could also attend events in Stockton.
Stockton’s Cambodian Americans have persevered through more than the genocide. In 1989, a racially motivated school shooting at Cleveland Elementary killed four Cambodian children and one of Vietnamese descent, all children of refugees.
Cambodian New Year helps people gather strength from the past before plowing ahead. Rooted in Brahman and Theravada Buddhist traditions, Day One is Moha Songkran, derived from the Sanskrit sangkranti, for movement or passage. Day Two, Wan Nao, represents the transition between the new and the old. Wan Thaloeng Sok, the final day, launches a new era, or year.
Stockton’s Wan Thaloeng Sok on Sunday was welcomed by a full moon the night before and coincided with Moha Songkran in Cambodia’s time zone.
Cambodian folks from Stockton and the Bay converged with 98-year olds from Long Beach and monks who flew from Cambodia to tie bracelets onto wrists, uttering blessings.
“There’s a feeling of pride — it just hits differently this year,” Hang said. “I’m in a place where I can showcase the arts and culture as opposed to 50 years ago.”
The 30-acre temple grounds, at the convergence of Stockton’s industrial, rural and residential tracts, burst with colors and decorations augmenting some 90 statues hand-built by head monk Kong Tith over 10 years.
All weekend, before sunrise, elder volunteers woke inside old wooden houses alongside the temple. Before roosters could crow, they steamed sticky rice in bamboo baskets, shredded coconut meat and pounded pandan leaves.
Out on the promenade, nostalgic cyclo bike rickshaws waited for drivers and riders. Vendors ground sugar cane and prepared to serve lemongrass beef sticks, kathiew oxtail noodle soup and banh ja’ neuk, mung bean paste-filled rice orbs sunk in a ginger, coconut milk and palm sugar bath.
Shops displayed krama, multi-use checkered textiles, thick silk dresses, printed sarong skirts, jerseys exhibiting Cambodian and Khmer pride and $5 parasols that looked like enlarged cocktail umbrellas.
When the first cars started arriving, speakers blasted ancient ensemble music and broadcast monks’ chants from a pavilion where lines of people offered rice and money to feed their ancestors and clasped their hands in prayer. In a separate area, others affixed faux bouquets onto tall dirt mounds, purifying their minds from past sins and making positive wishes for the future.
Erika Mey, who traveled to Stockton from Los Angeles with her mother, said that this was the biggest Khmer New Year celebration of her life and a chance to make new friends and reunite with loved ones. She was particularly moved to see people from various walks of life come together to preserve culture and traditions, support the community and show each other love.
“To think that 50 years ago, we nearly lost everything — today, we are still growing, rising and building as a people and a community,” she said. “This is going to be one of the best years yet!”