Immigrant paints Story of his life as reported by CHARLES HAND INLAND VALLEY DAILY BULLETIN photograph by Thomas R. Cordova A Buddhist monk from Thailand now living in Chino saw in the life of César Chávez parallels to his own background as a rice farmer in his native land. Phinit Cheamak recorded his thoughts about Chavéz in an essay, then put on canvas what he saw as well. For his efforts, Cheamak was awarded with the 2002 César Chávez Memorial Education Award from the California Teachers Association. Cheamak, 31, said the struggles of American farm workers to improve work conditions and pay echo his life as a rice farmer struggling to make a living in a system favoring the rice more than the workers growing it. "The fact is, the, farmers get rich but the poor workers suffer from the pesticides and receive so little pay far their labor," Cheamak wrote. In Thailand, the system is much the same, Cheamak said. Although Thai farmers own the land on which they grow rice, they are at the mercy of the middleman who buy the rice at low prices, then resell it to wholesalers for much higher prices. The rice growers must also finance the planting, growing and harvesting. If a crop fails, the rice former could starve Cheamak said. "When I first studied about César Chávez, it touched my heart because I have almost the same story as his farm workers did," Cheamak wrote. "My farm was a rice farm and the mill owners would pressure down the price of the rice when the farmers would bring it to sell after the harvest." Cheamak said farmers earned four baht, the Thai currency, per kilogram of rice - about 10 cents. The middlemen sold it for about 15 baht. "Farmers never get rich," he said. It takes about 43 baht to make a U.S. dollar. There have been a few farmer strikes in Thailand, but they have produced little result, Cheamak said. Farmers do not have the leverage to make it work, he said. The painting that accompanied the essay depicts a Thai rice farmer laboring in his field. "It is the same as my life in Thailand," he said. The picture hangs in the teachers' association's headquarters in Burlingame. Cheamak is the oldest of four children born to Thai rice farmers. Despite the rigors of rice farming, Cheamak said he grew up with a love for the outdoors. That is why he became a forest monk, and the reason he chose the day he did to become a monk. "I ordained to a Buddhist forest monk Earth Day, April 22,1993," he said. That set him on a career of meditation and service in the peace of the Thai jungle. He planned to stay for 6 months. He stayed eight years. "I loved the quiet life, nature and meditation," Cheamak said. However, it was not to last. While he was meditating in the jungle, Cheamak received an invitation from an abbot who had come to a monastery in Ontario to help build the temple and help teach lay people to meditate. Cheamak accepted the invitation, and during the year he served at the monastery, he got a taste for American life. He saw the prosperity that was possible for someone willing to work. Cheamak reduced his responsibilities at the monastery to enroll in Chaffey College's English-as-a-second language program, not only so he could communicate in the land he intended to adopt but because of a bad experience at Los Angeles International Airport. As a U.S. Customs gent tried unsuccessfully to question him about his passport, he came angry and apparently insulting, Cheamak said. He said he was humiliated by the experience and vowed to learn the language so it would never happen again. Painting and drawing come naturally to Cheamak. Although he could afford only pencils and chalk in Thailand, he began drawing as a child, then made the transition to paint after coming to America. Cheamak said he intends to study art now that he is here, but has not decided what his major will be. He does not see art as a practical major because it does not pay as well as many other subjects he could study.