A Change of Guard

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Friday 13 February 2015

David Viradet Kreng, patriarch of Long Beach Cambodian refugees, dies at 76

David Kreng, a leader of the Cambodian community in Long Beach, died Tuesday. Courtesy photo
David Viradet Kreng, who was instrumental in helping Cambodian refugees after the Khmer Rouge and was considered the patriarch of Long Beach’s robust Cambodian community, died Tuesday after battling a long illness. He was 76.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Kreng organized help for Cambodian refugees escaping government brutality and also lobbied American leaders to relax their immigration laws so that Cambodians can start a new life in the United States.
“Cambodians came here with only the clothes on their back and their hope,” Kreng, who at the time was chairman of the board of the Cambodian Business Association, told the Press-Telegram in 1995. “Now they are doctors, lawyers and engineers.”
Kreng was both passionate and humble about his work, his daughter Virany said.
“He never talked about it,” she said, recalling the level of her father’s political mindedness after coming across a photograph of him with the Dalai Lama. “But he definitely cared about people. When somebody needed help, he did what he could to help.”
Born in November 1938 in Svay Rieng, Cambodia, as the oldest of three children, Kreng came to the United States as a student in the 1950s and attended Ohio University on a scholarship. He started his advocacy for Cambodians when the president of the Cambodian Student Association asked him to help form an organization of Cambodian students.

An electrical engineer by trade, he settled in Southern California and went to work for Bechtel in 1968. But he continued to help those fleeing his homeland. Twice a week, he drove to Camp Pendleton to help arriving refugees and sought donations for clothing and other necessities for them.
He eventually made his home in Monterey Park and raised his three daughters with wife, Annie, whom he met through family friends and married in 1973. Still, Long Beach was a significant part of Kreng’s life and he often came here to help out for events and be a voice in Long Beach’s Cambodian community.
Long Beach is home to the largest population of Cambodians outside of Southeast Asia.
“When he wasn’t working, he was in Long Beach, helping out,” his daughter Virany said. “He loved to be there. He was most proud of making Long Beach a viable community.”
Kreng is survived by his wife, Annie; daughters Laddha, Virany and Natalie; a brother, Jack Kreng; a sister, Rasy Neal; and two grandsons.
Contact Karen Robes Meeks at 562-714-2088.

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