Wayne E. Wright, PhD

Family

I am blessed to have a wonderful family. My wife, Phal Mao Wright, and I met in Cambodia while working together at the Cambodian American National Development Organization (CANDO). Phal has worked in the past as a receptionist, and as a translator, and is currently a full time student at San Antonio College. We have three children: Jeffrey Sovan, Michael Sopat, and Catherine Sophaline Wright. Michael and Catherine are in Elementary School,  and Jeffrey is in Middle School. Jeffrey is a Math whiz and is into Pokemon and video games. Michael is a train enthusiast. Catherine is into being cute, smart and helpful.

I was also blessed to have been raised in a wonderful family where I was one of six children. My father, James L. Wright, Sr., is a retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge and was actively involved in the community in Long Beach with volunteer efforts with the local schools. He served for many years on Long Beach’s Sister-City Committee, and has held numerous leadership positions in our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). My mother, Janet Wright, has a Masters in Religious Studies, can read and write in Hebrew, and has been on archaeological dig in Israel. Mom has taught early morning seminary classes for the youth of our church, and has also held numerous leadership positions. Mom and Dad lived and worked in China for two years from 2006-2008 teaching English at Xi’an International Studies University, and had the time of their life.

 My older brother Jim and his wife Marie live in Long Beach. Jim served a mission in Korea, and works in the computer industry. He currently works with Norton on their internet security software. I am grateful for Jim’s work in keeping my computers safe. Marie is a professional photographer.

My younger sister Laurie (Dukes) and her husband Tim and son Timmy live in Saudi Arabia.  Tim recently retired as an intelligence office in the Air Force and is now working as a trainer. Laurie has studied Chinese and lived in China, and has taught middle school in California. She is currently working at the library at their compound in Suadi Arabia.

My younger sister Connie (Wilson) and her husband Darrell live in Orange, CA with their 4 children (Nathaniel, Benjamin, Elijah, and Susanna). Darrell works as a network administrator for 3-Day-Blinds. Connie previously worked providing assistance to a disabled senior.

My younger brother Mark served a mission in Columbia and speaks Spanish. He and his wife Tracy live in Provo, Utah. Mark is a doctoral student at UC Riverside in Anthropology, where he is focusing on Mayan studies and learning to read Mayan Glyphs. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at Brigham Young University. Tracy is a middle school music teacher.

Finally, my youngest brother Jonathan recently returned from serving a Spanish-speaking mission in New Mexico, following a couple of months of missionary service in Nicaragua.  He is currently a full-time student in Utah and works for a telephone company where he uses his bilingual Spanish skills to work with international customers. He and his beautiful wife, Analise, were married in 2008 in the Mesa Arizona Temple. 

I am often asked how I learned to speak Khmer (Cambodian). I first began learning the language in 1986 while serving a 2-year mission for my church in Washington, DC, where I had the privileged of working with and learning from refugee families from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. At the time, my church did not provide training in Cambodian at the Missionary Training Center, so I learned it on my own. I obtained a book titled Modern Spoken Cambodian (by Franklin E. Huffman and Im Proum) from Cornell University, and later tracked down the tapes which accompanied the book which were only available from Yale University. Each day I would listen to tapes and follow along with the lessons and drills in the book. As I went to homes of our Cambodian members and friends, I would try out the new phrases I had learned. Each effort was met with praise and laughter, and then I was told “you talk like a book!” They would then teach me the “real” way of speaking Khmer. I also learned to read and write Khmer through self-study using the same authors’ Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader.

At the end of my mission, I returned home to Long Beach, California, which I soon discovered was the largest population of Cambodians outside of Cambodia. I was quickly hired by the Long Beach Unified School District as a bilingual teacher’s aide, and worked with Cambodian ELL students in elementary and high schools. I participated in Khmer heritage language programs in the community for several years, but finally had an opportunity for formal study at Cornell University through the Southeast Asian Summer Studies Institute (SEASII) in the summer of 1991. I graduated from California State University Long Beach the following year, and then spent a year and half (1993-1994) in Cambodia as a volunteer with a U.S. AID funded project called the Cambodian American National Development Organization (CANDO). While my Khmer language skills were good before I arrived in Cambodia, they improved dramatically in the year and half I lived and worked there. After my return, I began working as one of the first Khmer bilingual teachers in the Long Beach Unified School District, in one of the only Khmer bilingual programs in the country. Since then I’ve been able to keep up my Khmer language skills by working on translation projects, keeping in touch with Khmer friends and making new ones, and enjoying Khmer music, videos, karaoke, news programs, and books and magazines.

Hobbies

Music – French Horn

I love music, and have played the French Horn and its variants (Mellophone, Marching French Horn, and Alto Horns) since Junior High. I played in the Long Beach Community Orchestra for over ten years. I’ve also played with two Civil War re-enactment bands, the Americus Brass Band (from 1984-1986) and the Band of the California Batallion (from 1997-2000). These brass bands wear authentic uniforms and play original music from the Civil War period. We performed at cultural events around Southern California and at Civil War Re-enactments throughout the country. I had to put my horn away for a couple of years while I finished by PhD at Arizona State University and as began my new career at the University of Texas, San Antonio. However, I picked my horn back up and played with the Alamo City Community Marching Band here in San Antonio from 2005 – 2006.