LINCOLN SQUARE — A landmark community center of international and local significance is in danger of permanently closing unless the mortgage is paid, officials from the Cambodian Association of Illinois said.
For years, the Cambodian immigrant population has accessed public services at the CAI building, which also houses the only Killing Fields Memorial outside of Cambodia, commemorating the 3.4 million people who died in the genocide during the Khmer Rouge regime and helping to heal the refugee community that resulted from it.
Now, fearing the National Cambodian Heritage Museum & Killing Fields Memorial may have to shut down if it can't make mortgage payments, the CAI is holding an interfaith fundraiser on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., on 2831 W. Lawrence Ave.
Supporters are invited to attend the fundraiser, which will include a candle lighting ceremony and Buddhist flower tree ceremony, concluding with lunch service.
"Our goal right now is we want to retire the mortgage, [and hope] the community will look at this icon and feel that it belongs to them," said Kompha Seth, executive director.
The center, which has been open since 2004, fell short of its original $1.5 million fundraising goal in 2001. Most of that start-up money went to building the museum, but a $350,000 funding gap remained.
Seth, a first-generation Cambodian refugee, says that he hopes to raise $7,000 to $10,000 Saturday, enough to keep them ahead by two or three months. Further fundraisers will be needed to keep the center afloat, he said.
The most essential purpose of the center is to provide a wide range of public services, including an after-school program, senior services and a Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program office.
Grants from the Illinois Department of Aging and the Immigrant Family Resource Program help pay the remaining mortgage. But with drastic cuts to those programs and delays in reimbursement payments from the state, CAI has been forced to get creative with funding.
They've tapped all viable sources of income — enacting museum admission fees in October; active application for grants, including the AmeriCorps Vista program; and requesting a $50 donation from families to add names to the Wall of Remembrance.
"The important part of this is to sustain — sustain our building and our program, and because this is a building built by the first generation of Cambodians and this legacy has to be carried on by future generations," said CAI associate director Kaoru Watanabe, a registered nurse.
Not only does the center provide a gathering space for the Asian American immigrant and refugee community, the museum is a tourist draw for Chicago's North Side.
Its focal point is a 13-panel glass Wall of Remembrance, etched with the names of over 3.4 million victims of the Killing Fields. A wooden wall divides the memorial from the museum to allow visitors to remember the genocide, light incense and offer prayers.
Seth said that the memorial-museum hybrid plays a pivotal role in the healing of many survivors.
"We call it a living museum — survivors come to grieve, to heal, and at the same time we empower them to move forward. This place is our soul," Seth said.
The effects of genocide remain embedded in the generation that fled Cambodia in the 1970s.
Sokha Ten Meyer, 63, was pregnant with a daughter when she left the country in 1979.
"I'm still angry," Meyer said. "Why did they do this to us? Why did it take 40 years for the trials to happen?"
Now a new generation recognizes the building's place in their Cambodian American identity.
Seattle resident Bopha Cheng, 31, was in town visiting relatives June 5. She said the building's role grows with every new generation.
"Something like this is needed in our community. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Killing Fields. It's also a time for the elders and the new generation to come together and really understand each other ... Even though the new generation hasn't gone through the Killing Fields, there's a secondary trauma that is affecting them," Cheng said.
The museum connects with Cambodian organizations nationwide to mark the Day of Remembrance every April and participates in youth programs to Cambodia.
Seth says that people from around the world visit the museum, but the building is especially important for Cambodian Americans.
"The Cambodians in the U.S. feel that this place belongs to them. The pain they feel after losing family in the Killing Fields leaves them after seeing their families' names on the Wall of Remembrance," Seth said.
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