First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [121]
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