The Cham draw on their inner strength

Banana trees grow tall here, shadowing crowded stalks of lemon grass and green onion. Severed bits of a cow slaughtered in conformity with Islamic law fill bright blue plastic tubs. Nearby, women sit cross-legged, chatting and laughing; their strong hands grind fresh ginger in stone mortars.

Centuries ago, the Cham ruled over their own kingdom, known as Champa, along the coastline of what's now Vietnam. They were maritime traders whose first religion was a form of Hinduism, but they later adopted Islam. Today they are a people without a homeland, their numbers a few hundred thousand. For centuries, they have been chased from place to place -- from the highlands of Vietnam to the rivers of Cambodia and, in the bloody aftermath of genocide, to the United States, where thousands have settled.

In the margins of each place, they've come together.

So it is here, where a hundred Cham families live in this worn Santa Ana complex alongside Latinos, Laotians and Cambodians. In the middle of one of the city's most crime-infested neighborhoods, they have turned one apartment into a mosque and built a world centered on faith. In celebration, neighbors prepare feasts and share stories. In hardship, they share burdens, the cost of food and the cost of burial.

But even as they've struggled to keep their small community intact, the outside world has crept in. Some young people have turned to gangs and drugs. Others have packed their bags and fled. A few have drifted from the religion and language that shaped their youth. Now, when the call to prayer goes out, the mosque is filled mostly with elders and small children, as if those in the middle simply disappeared.

On the day of the feast to celebrate the beginning of Ramadan and the end of the Islamic school year, one man finds himself wanting to rebuild his ties.

Nasia Ahmanth doesn't properly speak Cham, which is similar to Malay. He rarely attends mosque and can't read the Arabic of the Koran. He rarely prays.

He was a baby when his father, El Ahmanth, led a village of Cham refugees here. But as the group put down roots, Nasia drifted, lured by the streets. By the time he was 17, he says, he was an addict and speed was his drug of choice. As it raced through his body, he felt unstoppable, light and creative at once.