The Teacher from Thailand

Pam posing with lilies in her front yard

(All quotes are direct from the original conversation).
I was introduced to Pam while working on a video documenting project with CHAA (Community Health for Asian Americans). I was immediately drawn to Pam’s vibrant and warm personality. CHAA chose Pam to give the organization insight into the Thai community in the Bay Area. While filming, I learned about Pam’s personal journey from Thailand to America.

The Interview

Pam’s name in Thailand was Punchakarn. She is from the Khao Wong District, Kalasin Province in northeastern Thailand. Both of her parents were teachers, and Pam herself was a public school teacher in Thailand for 17 years before leaving that job to teach for two years at the school her family established and ran.  Pam was very passionate when she spoke of her school, which is a private school for students but also provides free education for those coming from poor families. She told me how her school also provides support for students who have been rejected by other institutions. She recalled one student who had been performing poorly at his former school and had behavioral problems. When his parents moved him to Pam’s school, he improved and received good grades. He is now ranked first in the school. “He got all grade A in every subject and his reading is compared to a 6 grader right now. So I am very proud of our school,” Pam said with a smile on her face.

Visiting Pam at her home

Unfortunately, her school fell into debt due to economic difficulties in Thailand. The government cut its budget, so the school soon faced money troubles. Because of this, Pam decided to come to the US to earn more income for the school. To her, the United States provided the opportunity to make enough money to pay off the debts sooner, and she felt that she could use her English skills to accomplish this.

When Pam first came to America, she was undocumented and came to Los Angeles, where she worked at a Thai restaurant. Pam recalls, “Working in a Thai restaurant was very hard because I had to work 12-14 hours continuously with no break.  I  worked from 10:30 in the morning until 11:30 at night. I almost died the first week because I felt so exhausted. I went back to the place where I lived and just slept.   I didn’t want to eat at all for many days. I felt very bad both physically and mentally. I almost gave up many times but I didn’t.  I had to encourage myself so that I could keep working.  I told myself that no Pam, you can not give up because you have some big goals to accomplish.  I tried to keep moving forward, but it was very very tough”.

Outside of her apartment

During her time in L.A., Pam faced what she considered to be the most difficult time in her life. She was let go from the Thai restaurant due to slow business.  She had no money for rent or food. Pam recalls, “I got to the point where I only had 50 cents left in my pocket. 50 cents! Maybe it was time to go back home because I didn’t see a future here. However I tried to think about how I could survive.  Therefore I decided to borrow five dollars from my housemate and bought a day pass ticket." She explained, “In L.A. with a day pass, you can get unlimited rides on any bus or subway all day long until midnight. I got on the bus to try to find a job for the day so that I could have some money to survive. Fortunately I found a restaurant job for the day.  They said, 'today our head chef was sick so we need you.’ That day I worked as an assistant chef with the owner, and got paid 70 dollars. I used some of it to buy food and then saved some of it for the bus fare so that I could have an opportunity to find more work.”  Pam recalled another time when she was very sick for four days. This was during the time of the Songkram Thai festival in L.A.  Despite her illness, Pam forced herself to attend the festival, where she fatefully met her future employer, who paid for her plane ticket from L.A. to Oakland to have her work as a translator on a publishing project.

Working in the Bay Area was a great experience for Pam. Working for her new boss “was very convenient and a big relief because I didn’t have to pay any rent.  My boss provided 3 meals a day everyday.  Even on weekends when I didn’t work, I still got meals. Moreover my employer and her husband took us, me and my friend, another girl who worked on the same project, to visit many places in the Bay Area.  For example they took us to the Napa Valley and to San Francisco. We took many pictures including pictures of the golden gate bridge. So my life sort of flipped, like you flipped your hand.  At that time I was really happy because I had money to send back home and I lived a better life, too.”

Pam currently provides freelance Thai translation and language lessons. She currently volunteers to help other Thai immigrants in the Bay Area and has been volunteering at a local elementary school as a teacher’s assistant. She has also gotten married, and is now a green card holder, putting to rest many of her old anxieties related to jobs and immigration.

Though her life is in a better place now, Pam has not forgotten the challenges she faced. She recalls when she and another undocumented friend wouldn’t dare cross the street when there was a red light due to the fear of being caught by the police and deported. “We lived with fear all the time period. We saw no future.  However my friend and I still had a small hope that we could live a better life. Therefore we kept moving forward and worked hard. Nowadays besides my friend and I, there are many Thai people who live here with fear but they cannot tell their stories.  We kind of understand each other about how hard it is to live illegally.”

Pam added, “Many Thai people came here because of financial issues. We didn’t  come here because of a war in Thailand. We came here to try to find jobs so that we could earn more money.  We had to live a very hard life but we couldn’t complain. Thai people have special problems because they are undocumented.   Burmese, Khmer, Karen, Bhutanese and many other Asian people have better immigration status because they are refugees.  For Thais it’s harder because they are economic refugees and they don’t automatically get a social security number.  They have two problems:  they cannot work here legally, and they cannot get good jobs because they cannot speak English. They might get paid $ 65 a day for 12 hours of hard work.”

After all of the struggles she has faced, Pam feels a personal need to use her skills to help others in her community. “I want to help the Thai people and explain that they should not be afraid to ask for help. I want to tell them that many organizations can help them with no risk of them being deported.”

“I often volunteer as a Thai interpreter and I feel much better about myself now.  I want to help spread information about these helpful resources. I really want them to know that there are many organizations that can help them even though they are undocumented."

Though she may not be an elementary school teacher anymore, Pam is teaching many people around her by reaching out to people within her community about resources that may help them in their own struggles. From struggling to pay rent as an undocumented person to starting her own translation business, I hope that people can look at Pam’s journey and be inspired by her hard work, dedication and belief in making a better life for herself, a sentiment shared by many who come to this country.

To visit Pam's website and have access to her Thai translation and language classes, go to

www.weekendthaitranslation.com.

Edited by Tom Hyre