First They Killed My Father (36 page)

“Pa, I miss you,” I whisper.

Pa grins at me, his round face wrinkles around his mouth and eyes.

“Pa, I’m leaving for America tomorrow. Eldest brother said America is very far from Cambodia, very far from you …” The words linger in the air. So afraid of what his answer may be that even in my dream I cannot tell Pa my fear.

“Don’t worry. Wherever you go, I will find you,” he tells me as his fingers gently brush strands of hair out of my face. When I open my eyes in the morning, the rain has stopped and the sun is peaking out behind the clouds. The cool breeze blows my hair across my cheeks, tickling them.

A few hours later, Meng, Eang, and I hold hands as we enter Bangkok International Airport. Our plane, a giant silver bullet with wings awaits us at the gate. My heart thunders loudly in my ears, my palms cold and sweaty. Heartened by my dream of Pa, I walk onto the aircraft.

I’m almost home. After a thirty-one-hour plane ride across the Pacific, I am in my last hour of the trip from Bangkok to Phnom Penh. Below me is Cambodia—my land, my history. With my forehead resting on the window, I see that it is the rainy season and most of Cambodia is submerged in silver, shimmering water. I think of Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak. Swallowing tears that drip down my throat, I reflect on how I left my family behind.

When Meng and I came to America, I did everything I could to not think about them. In my new country, I immersed myself in American culture during the day, but at night the war haunted me with nightmares. On occasion, the war crossed over from my dreamworld to reality, as it did in 1984 when the drought in Ethiopia brought daily images of children dying from starvation. On the television screen, children with bellies too big for their bodies and skin hanging loosely on their protruding bones begged for food. Their faces were hollow, their lips dry, their eyes sunken and glazed over with hunger. In those eyes, I saw Geak, and I remembered how all she wanted was to eat.

As the Ethiopian crisis faded from the screens and Americans’ consciousness, I was even more determined to make myself a normal American girl. I played soccer. I joined the cheerleading squad. I hung
out with my friends and ate a lot of pizza. I cut and curled my hair. I painted my eyes with dark makeup to make them look more round and Western. I’d hoped being Americanized could erase my memories of the war. In her letters to Meng, Chou always asked about what I was doing—I never wrote her back.

Khouy, Kim, and Chou continued to live in Ma’s hometown of Bat Deng with our aunts and uncles. Soon after Meng and I left, our maternal grandmother, along with the wife of our youngest uncle and their two daughters, also made their ways to the village. Youngest aunt wrote that Khmer Rouge killed her husband. As for our grandmother, she is in her eighties, weak from old age, and speaks very little Khmer. When asked about what she saw, grandmother’s wrinkled eyes well up and tears flow down her cheeks. Shaking her head, her small hand wipes her eyes and rubs her chest above her heart.

When she turned eighteen, Chou married a man in the village and later bore five children. Together they opened a small stand in front of their house selling bamboo containers and brown sugar. Khouy, with his salary as the village’s police chief, supports his wife and six children. In Bat Deng, a community of almost a hundred Ungs grew out of the ashes of the war.

In 1988, hoping to join us in America, Kim made his way to a Thai refugee camp. There he stayed in hiding for a few weeks, surviving on the money that Meng sent him. On the other side of the world in Vermont, Meng hurriedly filled out the family reunification papers to bring Kim to the States. A few months later, we received news that the United States had reduced the number of refugees allowed into the country. As a result, the Thai camp officials rounded up the refugees and deported them back to Cambodia. In Vermont, Meng scrambled to raise the ten thousand dollars it would cost to get Kim out of Thailand. Meng arranged his escape through a black market ring that brought him as far as France. After many years and after filling out many immigration forms, Meng now anxiously awaits the arrival of Kim and his family in Vermont.

Meng and his wife, Eang, have lived in Vermont since we arrived there as refugees in 1980, and they now have two daughters. Because of
their hard work and determination, our family in Cambodia and in America thrives. Stranded in a foreign land, with little knowledge of the culture, society, food, or language, both work long hours at IBM to support the entire family. Though Meng has kept the family in Cambodia and here afloat for many years, he still harbors deep sadness that we did not succeed in bringing over our entire family. With current politics and immigration laws, the chance that our family will ever be reunited is very slim.

As for me, I lived for fifteen years isolated and sheltered from the continuing war in Cambodia. While Meng and Eang worked not only to make ends meet but to have enough left over to send to Cambodia, I learned to speak English, attended school, and looked after their two children. Eventually, I earned an undergraduate degree in political science and went to work for a domestic violence shelter in Maine. After three years, in 1997, I moved to Washington, D. C., and found work at the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World (CLFW).

Now, as the spokesperson for CLFW, I travel extensively across the United States and overseas, spreading the message about landmines and what is was like in Cambodia. As I tell people about genocide, I get the opportunity to redeem myself. I’ve had the chance to do something that’s worth my being alive. It’s empowering; it feels right. The more I tell people, the less the nightmares haunt me. The more people listen to me, the less I hate. After some time, I had talked so much I forgot to be afraid; that is, until I decided to return to Cambodia.

As the trip grew near and my anxiety increased, my terrible nightmares returned. In one dream, I’d board the plane in America as an adult woman only to step off in Cambodia as a child. The child was lost in a crowd of people, desperately looking for her family, calling the names of her siblings, calling out to her parents. I woke up each morning increasingly panicked about this homecoming.

The day of the trip, my anxiety transformed into excitement. As I boarded the plane in Los Angeles, I fantasized about how it would feel to return to where I belong. A place where everyone speaks my language, looks like me, and shares the same history. I envisioned myself getting off the plane and walking into the open arms of my family. I
daydreamed about the warmth of the many arms of my aunts, cousins, and Chou around me, encircling me, forming a protective cocoon, keeping me safe.

Finally, the plane’s tires screeched against the tarmac of the short runway, and I braced myself for the first meeting with my family in a long time. My heart beat loudly inside my head, making my scalp sweat. The stewardess announced for all to remain in their seat until the plane came to a complete stop. It felt like hours later by the time I emerged from customs to make my way out of the airport.

I spotted my family right away. They were all there. Twenty or thirty of them stood elbow to elbow and pushed at each other to catch their first glimpse of me in many years, with Chou and Khouy in front. Though the temperature was a mild seventy-five degrees, my hands were sweaty and hot. I watched my aunts’ and uncles’ eyes frown as they continued to study me. My comfortable, practical, stain-resistant, loose-fitting black pants, brown T-shirt, and black Teva sandals drew quizzical looks from Chou and Khouy. Then I realized my mistake. I looked like the Khmer Rouge. All my fantasies of instant connection were crushed. My family and I reacted awkwardly to each other and they kept their many warm arms at their sides.

Standing by myself, I stared at Chou. My throat tightened. Though she had grown, I am still a few inches taller than she. Her hair long and black, her skin smooth, her lips and face made up with rouge, and she reminded me of Ma. She was beautiful. Once her glance reached my face and our eyes locked, I saw that they are the same: kind, gentle, and open. Instantly, she covered her mouth and burst into tears and ran over to me. The family was speechless. She took my hand, her tears cool in my palm. Our fingers clasped around each other naturally as if the chain was never broken, and I allowed Chou to lead me to the car while the cousins followed with my bags.

I wish to acknowledge first and foremost Bobby Muller, my employer and mentor. Many thanks for his work in Cambodia and for opening the Kien Khleang Rehabilitation Center. When I was in America trying to erase the genocide from my memory, Bobby was in Cambodia giving a voice and aid to the survivors and victims of landmines and the continuing ravages of the Pol Pot regime. Without his support and encouragement, this book might not have been written. Bobby has shown me how one person can change the world. I also wish to thank Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who has been an inspiration to me. He is a politician who transcends the stature of his office, and his dedication and work is invaluable in our efforts to abolish landmines.

My gratitude goes to my agent extraordinaire, George Greenfield, for believing in this book. Many thanks to my friend, reader, and incredible writing teacher, Rachel Snyder. I also owe a huge debt to the fabulously talented Trena Keating, my editor at HarperCollins, whose support and enthusiasm for this book never wavered. Without Trena’s great editing, you’d all be reading a much longer book. Thanks also go to Bronson Elliott for her words of encouragement.

I would like to give special thanks to Mark Priemer, my best friend, who always encouraged me no matter what I did or where I went, and without whose love and support I would not be who I am today. To my girlfriends and new sisters in America: Ly Carboneau, Heidi Randall, Beth Poole, Kia Dorman, Britta Stromeyer, Joan Mones, Nicole Devarenne, and Jeannie Boone, thanks for reading many drafts.

To my second family in Vermont, Linda, George, and Kim Costello, thank you for bringing my family to America. To Ellis Severance, my ninth-grade English teacher at Essex Junction High School, thank you for my first A-plus on my essay. Every time I think to myself that I cannot write about this, I remember you. To all the great teachers at the Albert D. Lawton Junior High School and Essex Junction High School, and Saint Michael’s College, thank you for preparing me for life in America. Also a special thank-you to the community in Essex Junction, Vermont, where kindness is abundant. There was no better place for me to heal.

Finally, to my American-born nieces, Maria and Victoria, I hope this book will allow you to get know the grandparents and aunts you never met.

To learn more about the
Campaign for a Landmine Free World
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To learn more about
Cambodia
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L
OUNG
U
NG
is a survivor of the killing fields of Cambodia—one of the bloodiest episodes of the twentieth century. Some two million Cambodians (out of a population of just seven million) died at the hands of the infamous Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime.

Born in 1970 to a middle-class family in Phnom Penh, Loung was only five years old when her family was forced out of the city in a mass evacuation to the countryside. By 1978 the Khmer Rouge had killed Loung’s parents and two of her siblings and she was forced to train as a child soldier. In 1980 she and her older brother escaped by boat to Thailand, where they spent five months in a refugee camp. They then relocated to Vermont through sponsorship by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Holy Family Church parish in Burlington.

“The first English book I remember loving,” she says, “was
Froggy Went a-Courtin’.
I can still hear the music in my head. I love the humor and silliness of it all.”

Her employment history reaches back to a local shoe store, where she sold shoes and “developed an intense dislike for smelly feet
and socks.” After college, she waited tables for two weeks. (“I was fired when the management team found out I was dyslexic with numbers.”)