About Many Chout Uch
Many Uch arrived as a refugee in 1984, one of thousands of Cambodians who had fled civil war and survived the Khmer Rouge genocide. The Puget Sound area is home to the third-largest Cambodian population in the country. Many was 8 years old when he and his family settled in the nearby Park Lake Homes public-housing complex.
By the time he was 14, he was a kid who lived in rough neighborhood and ran in a gang. In 1994, when he was an accomplice in an armed robbery, Many served 40 months in prison. “I came out a different person than when I went in,” says Many, who used to run in the Local Asian Boyz gang in Seattle, Washington. The reality, though, is that Many’s fate and the fate of some 1,500 other Cambodian offenders from throughout the country was sealed in 1996, when the United States stiffened its immigration laws.
The crime, he says, was “spur of the moment,” something he “got caught up in.” He was an 18-year-old high-school student at the time, the getaway driver in an armed robbery at a home. A felony conviction marked Many as a felon, but immigration laws after 1996, worsened his situation. During the years when the United States didn't have a repatriation agreement with Cambodia, deportees like Many were jailed indefinitely. After decades of refusing criminal deportations, the Cambodian government signed an agreement in March of 2002 that did allow the US to deport Many and roughly about 1,500 other Cambodian refugees convicted of “aggravated felonies.”
The new policy and pending deportations sent shivers throughout the Cambodian community of Seattle. Cambodian immigrants came to the US to escape the Pol Pot revolution which murdered about 2 million Cambodians. On the day Many completed his jail sentence for the robbery, he was immediately shuttled to immigration jail, where he spent an additional 28 months. In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled against such jailing, in another case stating that immigrants being deported who had served their sentences, but because of those crimes which also constitute immigration holds for deportation, must either be deported or set free. Many was subsequently set free, but then, when a repatriation agreement was signed with Cambodia later in 2002, the deportations began again.
At the end of SENTENCED HOME, Many Uch was still awaiting news of his deportation, taking advantage of what time he had left in the U.S. to give today’s Cambodian-American youth something he never had—the ability to play little-league baseball.
Many Uch and a friend purchased a pool hall in 2006, with the goal of creating a space that would keep community youth off the streets. They have transformed it into a neighborhood gathering spot and cultural center. Many still works part-time as a courier, but since filming finished, he has focused his efforts on education and activism around immigration reform. He was selected to attend a prestigious leadership workshop for promising activists in the Southeast Asian community in Washington D.C. in 2005. Many secured grant money to work with Hate Free Zone in Seattle on the RAFT (Refugee and Family Togetherness) Act, which would, among other things, restore the right of review of deportation cases to refugees. In July, 2006, Many and his fiancee Sophany welcomed their new daughter, Chandhrea Many Nem, into the world. They live in White Center. Until a time when the law changes, Many will wait to be deported.
Many is currently in the process of seeking a pardon from the Govenor