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Thida C. Khus
executive director, Cambodian Network Council
Thida Khus, is a wife, a mother, and was the executive director for the Cambodian Network Council, a national organization devoted to leadership development and solutions to issues unique to the Cambodian community. Thida came to the United States in 1979. When Cambodia fell to the communists she and her husband lived in Thailand where he was teaching mathematics. They stayed briefly in a Thai refugee camp before Thida with her children came to the United States. Her husband joined them four months later when he was offered a job by a company in San Antonio, Texas. Thida worked for an organization called the United Catholic Conference as a social worker. In 1985 she helped establish the Khmer Cambodian Society of San Antonio which helps Cambodian refugees. She became the organization’s executive director. In 1989, the Cambodian Network Council was created and an office was established in Washington, DC. A year later Thida was nominated to be CNC’s executive director. Once a month she returned to San Antonio to visit her husband and her three college-aged children. After working at CNC, Thida and her husband traveled through Cambodia to consult on rebuilding the country.
Quotes from Thida Khus:
I don't know if the board has asked the question why a woman is heading this organization, but I'm sure everywhere I go people ask me why am I, a woman, the director. I'm sure the board has the same question. I think probably this is the first time that a woman is doing this in a refugee community....I have never for once looked at myself as 'leading.' I just look at it as a job that must be done and I can do it. I always look at my role as facilitating so we can bring all the people out.
We women are no different than anybody else. It's not just for men or women. Anything that needs to be done—you can do it just like anybody else. We just have to get involved in all levels. But right now the big need is in policy making in organizations in the leadership role. Women have to step out and do it. And it's okay to do things and take credit for it. That's the most difficult thing that I had to learn. First of all, since the beginning I don't want to take the credit, I’m willing to do the thing, but I don't want to take the credit. Even now, I never look at myself as a leader but I always look at myself as a doer. Things that need to be done, have to be done. Because we have problems with my own organization (mainly with men), some women said to me, "Hang in there. If you quit, no women dare to do it again." They really gave a lot of support to me. However, the cultural barrier is still there. Houses are not open to me if my husband is not here. Can you believe that? They can not invite me to their own home.
The key to the solution in Cambodia or in the United States is to get more women from the community to come out and do things, not just men. Because women are the ones who actually hold the fort, hold the family together, raise the children., deal with day to day problems, they are the ones who go to temple. They are the ones who cook at the temple. They are the ones who mainly clean the temples. They do all of those things.
Being a woman I don’t have a personal goal. You do a lot of things that need to be done. It’s always doing, living for the community. I think right now my family has expanded, from just me, my children, and my husband to the Cambodian community in San Antonio, to the refugee community in San Antonio, and now it’s to the Cambodian-American community in the whole United States. That’s how I feel. Maybe it’s too big of a thing, but talking about the personal level, that’s how it is. And my personal goal, I’d like to help the community to be on their feet, to be able to take charge of their life.
My personal goal is to see that happening, and then later on I can retire so I can go fishing with my husband. But even though fishing probably is the thing that I most enjoy doing, I can’t see living life doing something that has no meaning to somebody else.
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| Thida C. Khus |
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| Thida C. Khus in her office at Cambodian Network Council, Washington, D.C. |