Lany Tan Lang
Clinical therapist/artist

Lany Tan Lang		Lany Tan Lang on her porch with pet cat and spirit house.

Lany Tan Lang came to the United States in 1964 as an exchange student. Cambodia cut off diplomatic relations with America shortly after she arrived. She could not return and was sent to Hawaii where she married a fellow Cambodian and gave birth to their daughter. When they moved to the Washington area, she worked as a Khmer instructor for the Foreign Service Institute. In 1984 she went to Catholic University to study social work. She received her master's degree in 1987, after which she was employed by the Prince George’s, Maryland’s Mental Health Department to work with the Cambodian community. She was the first Cambodian woman to work as a mental health clinical therapist in the Washington area. Increasingly she is being called to consult on mental health issues affecting Cambodian refugees throughout the United States and in Thailand. Lany also creates silkscreen prints depicting images from the murals at Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia.

Quotes from Lany Tan Lang:

I think I live in the world with pain. The losses that I have been through. The anger in me. I can not get back there (Cambodia), so I have to create my own little world here.

I feel that I am very lucky to pick this country as my second homeland. This country is full of opportunities. I always think that if I am back there (in Cambodia) I’ll probably be selling bananas or whatever...I don’t know. Have 12 or 13 kids and probably be run down—look like an 85 years old woman. Probably be very quite. This country gives me so many opportunities that I can verbally express my own opinion. I can do a lot of things. I can get up in the morning andif I decide to do something, I say, “This is what I want,” and all I have to do is to work very hard and pursue it. And I got it. I don’t need to know the general or the chief of province in order to get that, to get through to somebody. I don’t need to work that hard.

What’s Cambodian, what’s American? I’m both. I’m American when I want to be American. I’m Cambodian when I want to be Cambodian. I’m blending the two in situtations. I’m glad you asked. I think I always search, “Am I American or am I Cambodian?” I always see myself, “Oh, I was pretty much American that time.” Then when I’m more Cambodian, “I was pretty much Cambodian.” But then sometimes I want to say, “I’m going to give these people a little taste, an American flavor,” so I mix, and I’ll completely turn around. Blend them together, the two cultures. It’s wonderful. You don’t have to be Cambodian and alienate [yourself] from America when you’re living here. But you can be yourself, who you are.

[An example is] when I have a meeting, I’m surrounded by Americans and I find myself a little too passive. Then I say, “Well, this is an American way to,” so I kind of sit around and listen and be more assertive. If I had a meeting among Cambodians and I find myself too assertive, then sometimes I see myself too vocal and demanding my own right. It’s not the Cambodian way. Then I turn around and I say, “Slow down.” I think that’s the advantage of being bicultural, the advantage of being able to jump back and forth. If you don’t feel good on one side, you jump to the other side.

Lang with collection of Cambodian Buddha statues.		Lang in her living room.