Last modified: Thursday, June 1, 2006 11:38 PM EDT Chan Sonavy, left, and Johnny Phav marry at Attleboro City Hall last month. Both are immigrants from Cambodia. (Staff photo by Mike George) New country, new life By RICK FOSTER / SUN CHRONICLE STAFF ATTLEBORO -- The groom, clad in a work shirt, nervously pulled the wedding ring from a plastic bag. The bride, who understood only a little English, beamed expectantly. But the wedding of Johnny Phav and Chan Sonavy conducted last month by City Clerk Sue Flood in a city hall meeting room, was as joyous as any carried out in a church. And it signaled not only the beginning of a new family, but a new future in a new land. Phav, a handsome machine operator who works for an Attleboro plant, and Sonavy, who arrived in America only recently, are both Cambodian immigrants. Too young to remember the horrors of the Khmer Rouge era, they were no less a part of the exodus that led hundreds of Southeast Asians to relocate in Attleboro during the 1980s and `90s. On their wedding day, Phav and his new wife were thinking only of their future. Phav, who came to America 10 years ago with his parents and two brothers and four sisters, lived in Providence until six months ago, when he moved to Attleboro. `` It's nice here,'' he said. `` It's a quiet place.'' The couple, surrounded by a small collection of family, met in Cambodia last year after they were introduced -- long distance -- by Chan's aunt. Phav paid a visit during a two-week trip to Cambodia, and the two fell in love. Chan eventually obtained a visa to come to America. Among the invited guests at the late afternoon wedding was Bill Dunlevy, the head of Comprehensive Social Services of Attleboro, which provides linguistic and citizenship training to local immigrants under a state and federal grant. Dunlevy has assisted numerous Southeast Asian and other immigrant families, going back to the 1980s and 90s, when what had been a trickle of new arrivals by Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees led to the evolution of a sizeable Cambodian community in Attleboro. `` All in all, it's a nice way to end a day,'' said Dunlevy, who receives many social invitations from immigrant families, many of whom he has helped qualify for citizenship. During the `80s, large numbers of individual immigrants and family groups from Southeast Asia arrived in Attleboro and nearby cities, including Pawtucket and Providence, from refugee camps in Thailand. The arrivals were part of the extended fallout from the Communist takeover of South Vietnam and Cambodia, which left many families who opposed the regimes or who were identified with America with no alternative other than fleeing. During the 1990s, their numbers continued to swell. According to the latest federal census, Attleboro's Asian community swelled by 72 percent to 1,569 people between 1990 and 2000 -- a large number of them Cambodians and Vietnamese. Many of them were farmers, government workers and professional people thrown out of their livelihoods by the revolution and who arrived in America with little money and fewer prospects. But Asians also arrived in smaller numbers from China, India and Pakistan, including business people, entrepreneurs and highly trained technical workers and engineers. Dunlevy, who has seen many immigrants bootstrap themselves from refugee status to become homeowners and business people, admires the newcomers' accomplishments. `` If you look around the East Side, the impact is obvious,'' he said. `` Before there were a lot of buildings owned by absentee landlords that looked like they were falling apart. Now they're lived in by owner-occupants who take a lot of pride in their property.'' Many of those new homeowners are immigrants who worked multiple jobs and pooled family resources to buy a stake in America, Dunlevy said. Typical of those who have succeeded is Suthay Kem, an education aide in the Attleboro school system, who was a student in Battambang when Cambodia fell to the communists. Like millions caught up in the brutal social restructuring imposed by the Khmer Rouge, Kem and his family were virtually enslaved and forced to work in the rice fields. `` They kept moving us from one place to another,'' Kem said. Eventually seven members of his family died, including his father, who committed suicide. `` None of us had enough food or medicine,'' he said. We worked 12 to 13 hours a day just to get food to eat.'' Kem said he worries that few of the young Cambodian students he works with at Attleboro High School fully appreciate the hardship their parents and grandparents experienced to bring them up in freedom. But like most, he has made the most of his new start in America. After arriving in Providence in 1983, Kem worked assiduously at learning English and landed a job as a Khmer-English translator before joining the school department. He and his wife Sengly now own a house. Sengly operates a hair salon in Lowell. Kem says that after more than 20 years, he has gained a firm grasp of the American dream. `` In my country, we worked just for food,'' he said. `` Here we work for the future.'' Although Cambodians and Vietnamese account for a large part of Attleboro's Asian influx, immigrants from India, Pakistan and Taiwan are also part of the picture. While not all faced the horrors of brutal regimes, climbing the ladder of success in America one rung at a time is a common theme. Ilyas Bhatti, a Plainville resident who works in Attleboro, arrived in Boston in 1971 as a student seeking a masters degree. The Pakistani native, who now runs his own engineering consulting group, eventually rose to direct the Metropolitan District Commission, and helped build the Big Dig tunnel project in Boston. He was also appointed to co-chair the state's Asian-American Commission with Susan Weld, wife of former Gov. William Weld. Bhatti, who now travels the world consulting on major public works projects, said he initially intended to get his master's degree in America and return home. But two things happened that turned him into an American: He met his future wife here, and an extraordinary person who ran the rooming house where he lived convinced him of the basic goodness of the American people. Arriving with little money, Bhatti found a small place called the Wellesley Hotel and took a room from the owner, Mrs. Mercier, at $3 a day. One day, Bhatti found a pile of dollar bills on a stairway and dutifully turned them in. Mrs. Mercier was so impressed by the young man's honesty that she became something of a fairy godmother, offering help, advice and even transportation from her personal chauffeur. Bhatti says he believes that kind of compassion and willingness to embrace newcomers is typical of Americans. Now, Bhatti, who attained his American citizenship on the Bicentennial in 1976, speaks of that principle often when addressing other immigrants and their families. `` I think that if you are honest and you work hard, America is the country for you,'' he said.