Treatment of Exchange Students Leads to Lawsuits Filed
Each year approximately 30,000 foreign students come to the United States to learn and get a taste of the American way of life through cultural exchange.
According to the U.S. Department of State’s Dictionary of Internal Relations Terms defines ‘Public Diplomacy’ as, “government-sponsored programs intended to inform or influence public opinion in other countries; its chief instruments are publications, motion pictures, cultural exchanges, radio and television.”
What occurs during these cultural exchanges that have natural parents filing lawsuits and questioning the way Americans live?
The father of a South Korean student filed lawsuit through Leawood, Kansas attorney Stephen M. Gorny in Reno County against 70-year-old Richard Young, the student’s host father and Face the World, the Novato, California student exchange agency that had placed the boy in Young’s home.
Young was sentenced to 13 ½ years in prison for molesting the South Korean exchange student who was 15 years-old at the time Young hosted him in 2007.
Numerous exchange students leave our country with a horrible impression of America. More than you know; which is part of the problem.
Edna Burgett, former area representative for California-based, cultural exchange agency, ASPECT Foundation, continues to make headlines across the globe for the treatment of exchange students she supervised.
Part of the Problem
A majority of exchange students are required to sign a ‘Code of Conduct’ form upon arriving in the United States. The form states that if the student should have any problems or concerns, the student had better understand that they must only speak to their local coordinator.
If a student should go to a trusted teacher or the mother of a friend they’ve met at school, about problems they are having in the home, this could cause the student’s placement agency to immediately send the student home. Not the impression of the United States we want these visiting teens to have; if they confide in a friend of misbehavior going on in the home, then they will be kicked out of the United States.
Exchange students have been told by their local coordinators to keep their mouth shut or go back where they came from.
Actual Response #1:
…“Why do you keep calling!? So what if there’s cockroaches in the oven! All homes in America have roaches in their ovens! Stop calling me!”
Local coordinator’s response to 15-year-old boy from South Korea. He would later tell you, politely, that he would not mind so much having to turn on the oven for 15 minutes at 350 degrees to kick the cockroaches out of their home; it was the smell afterwards that caused him to lose his appetite.
Actual Response #2:
…“Well, you must have liked it or you wouldn’t have waited so long to say something!”
Local coordinator’s response to 16-year-old-girl from Germany upon finding the courage to tell her local coordinator her host father had been sexually abusing her for nearly three months.
Actual Response #3:
…“you better give me your (expletive) phone! I’m the adult here! I will let you know when you get it back – if ever! You don’t like it… go back where you came from.”
Local coordinator’s response to 15-year-old boy from Montenegro. His placement agency accepted $15,000 in ‘program fees’ for this cultural experience. After his mother’s chemotherapy treatment, he just wanted to hear how she was feeling and he got caught calling her. His local coordinator cited calling home may cause him to become homesick and was given orders to not call home for two weeks.
Is this Typical American Behavior?
A sexual education teacher was approached by a 15-year-old boy from Vietnam.
The boy would swallow and look down as he methodically described the routine his host father had for him when he arrived in America.
When the student stepped in the shower and once the water reached a hot temperature, he was instructed to pound on the shower wall four times. This would be his host father’s signal that the water was ready. This would also be when his host father would join him in the shower. This had been their two month routine since the boy’s arrival in America.
The routine would conclude with drying off and going to the family room where he was to wait for his host father. His instructions were to take the four cushions from the couch and lay them on the floor and then lay face down. The boy from Vietnam received a massage, oftentimes lasting over an hour, to include turning over to lay on his back for a full-body massage.
It was just the night before that his host father may have gone too far; asking his exchange student if he were given money, would he shave his pubic area and afterwards he’d do the same to the student.
While many exchange students continue to be placed in the homes of registered sex offenders and convicted felons, many among the student exchange industry may want you to believe that these are merely ‘isolated incidents.’
The Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students encourages anyone who suspects abuse or neglect of an exchange student to report to their local law enforcement or contact CSFES at once.