This man's name is Saravuth In. Every day he sits patiently by the north-east subway entrance in Union Square in front of his chess set, inviting passer-bys to play. I met him whilst waiting for a friend and after he promptly cut me to shreds we got to talking.
He has a fascinating and tragic story. Born in Cambodia, his parents and siblings were killed by the Khmer Rouge. He made it by as a shoe-shine boy till he was taken into a missionary orphanage by a man named Brother Michael, who later pushed for him to be included in President Ford's "Operation Babylift" -- a mission in which 28 Cambodian orphans were airlifted to the United States, put into foster families, and given appropriated citizenship. Unfortunately, he was subsequently abused by his foster parents and became a ward of the state. Despite this, however, he obtained a full scholarship to Rutgers where he studied PhD English Literature.
Saravuth fell in love with a woman in Montreal with whom he had three children. But after a messy divorce, he ended up in a dire situation, living on the streets with all his personal documentation in hand -- documents like his passport and birth certificate and social security card that were lost when he was beaten and robbed. He was deported to the U.S. on the basis of his fingerprints and a scrappy copy of a Washington Post article from 1975 that featured his photo. And now he can neither obtain a job (other than the typical illegal refugee fare, which he refuses to engage in as an educated man) nor gather welfare because, in a catch-22 of American bureaucracy, the government cannot fully identify him other than as a 'displaced citizen' without his full paperwork. Though he plays at a grandmaster level, chess is, like the classical guitar he used to earn on the streets of Canada, simply a means of getting by -- a hobby which was once enjoyed, but now exists at a purely functional level.
I ended up visiting Saravuth pretty much every day while I was in the city. Not only because he taught me the nuances of the Sicilian Dragon and the Yugoslav Attack, but because I genuinely enjoyed hearing him speak of such things as his favourite book, James Joyce's
Ulysses, or his days as a concert cellist. This is an educated and eloquent individual who speaks both French and Latin; a natural teacher who loves nothing more than to frequent his knowledge. And yet here he sits as a homeless man, denied of his passion and purpose in life. It amazes and saddens me that something like this can happen. I would like nothing more than to meet Saravuth again some day. Just not sitting on the steps in Union Square, freezing to death in the middle of winter.
[Note: on my last day in New York, I finally beat him. But I half suspect that he let me.]
