VOA慢速英语--美国的柬埔寨移民饱受心理健康困扰

AS IT IS 2016-05-06 Cambodian Immigrants in US Struggle With Mental Health 美国的柬埔寨移民饱受心理健康困扰

Some people think their problems will be solved if they just leave home and move far away, perhaps to another country. Yet resettling in a new country is not always easy.

Take a look at the thousands of people who left Cambodia from the 1970s to the 1990s. Many of them came to the United States to escape from the Khmer Rouge¹, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Up to two million Cambodians are estimated to have died during that period.

Mary Scully is a healthcare worker in the U.S. state of Connecticut. She has spent over 35 years working with Cambodians, both in refugee camps and in Connecticut. She now directs a mental health organization called Khmer Health Advocates.

Scully says 60 percent of the Cambodian refugees she worked with who became parents in the U.S. struggled with mental health problems. This prevented them from having good relationships with their children.

"If they have flashbacks, if they get anxious, then they go from being connected to being disconnected with their kids, which is very confusing for the child,” she said.

Jennifer Ka grew up in the United States. Her parents left Cambodia to escape the Khmer Rouge. She says she could never understand why her father always seemed angry.

“He was really never there and present with us because he was stuck in his trauma²; he never told me what happened to him in the Khmer Rouge,” Ka said.

Her parents had trouble earning money after they arrived in the U.S. There were few good job training programs for refugees.

Many refugees received financial assistance from the government. However, much of that support ended when the U.S. made changes in the government’s welfare program in 1996. The changes ended much of the federal aid available for immigrants and refugees.

Mary Scully says the Cambodian refugees she met suffered from feelings of anxiety and depression. They also had headaches and bad dreams.

Other health problems, like diabetes³, also came up in her research. Cambodian-Americans have two times the rate of type 2 diabetes compared with the total U.S. population.

While health care workers knew what kind of problems the refugees had, they were unable to do enough to help.

Scully says she thinks Cambodian refugees in the U.S. are “suffering in silence.”

Eric Tang teaches at the University of Texas. He says he thinks the U.S. government did not do a good job of helping⁴ Cambodian refugees settle and thrive in the United States.

There is a big difference between coming to the U.S. as a refugee and becoming a U.S. resident. Tang says the long-term support many people needed just was not available.

“The resettlement policy doesn't pay attention to, for instance, job training," he says. "[It didn't] allow people to heal from their trauma before we push them into sweatshop jobs."

The problems continued for the children of refugees. Born to parents who struggled to establish themselves in the U.S., they also had trouble following through with their schooling⁵ and finding good jobs and housing.

Tang says “Some do not go to college, and many are profiled, targeted by the criminal justice system, and subjected to deportation⁶ to Cambodia."

Jennifer Ka says she found a way to deal with some of her problems. During her childhood in the U.S., she was always worried about her father. She says she thought he did not like her.

It was not until she was an adult and made a trip to Cambodia that she started to understand why her father’s life was so difficult.

“I started to deeply understand the pain my parents suffered from the genocide that I was not aware of before,” she says.

Now she feels at home in Cambodia.

Words in This Story

thrive – v. to grow or develop successfully : to flourish or succeed

profile – v. to give a brief description that provides information about

welfare – n. a government program for poor or unemployed⁷ people that helps pay for their food, housing, medical costs, etc.

flashback – n. a strong memory of a past event that comes suddenly into a person's mind

anxious – adj. afraid or nervous especially about what may happen : feeling anxiety

trauma – n. a very difficult or unpleasant experience that causes someone to have mental or emotional problems usually for a long time

sweatshop – n. a place where people work long hours for low pay in poor conditions

1 rouge   

n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红

参考例句：

• Women put rouge on their cheeks to make their faces pretty.女人往面颊上涂胭脂，使脸更漂亮。
• She didn't need any powder or lip rouge to make her pretty.她天生漂亮，不需要任何脂粉唇膏打扮自己。

2 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

3 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

6 deportation   

n.驱逐，放逐

参考例句：

• The government issued a deportation order against the four men.政府发出了对那4名男子的驱逐令。
• Years ago convicted criminals in England could face deportation to Australia.很多年以前，英国已定罪的犯人可能被驱逐到澳大利亚。

7 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。