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By Root 1279 0

this research was initially prompted by the observations made by Dan Dickason, an ESL (English as a second language) teacher at Cleveland High School in Portland, Oregon. In the early 1980s, Cleveland High School had experienced an influx of young immigrant Cambodians. In these students Dickason saw something unfamiliar. Once, on a trip to a high school teacher’s home, a young Cambodian girl was digging in the ground and unearthed a bone. She began to unravel, screaming and running about. Slowly other Cambodian students began to share their stories. One shared stories about cannibalism. Another described how the Khmer Rouge had cut people open to eat their livers. At the time, little was known about the horrors of Cambodia. Dickason himself was in denial until he saw footage on the CBS News in May 1983 showing a mountain of human skulls in Cambodia. Then he began to pay attention. The next day he called Dr. David Kinzie, director of the Indochinese Psychiatric Program at Oregon Health Sciences University.

I was one of the Cambodian students at Cleveland High School. When three psychiatrists, Dr. William Sack, Dr. David Kinzie, and Dr. Richard Angell, came to our school to interview us, I asked them why they were so interested, what was their goal? What did they know about Cambodia that I didn’t? I told my cousin and a friend of my fear of talking to them, my fear that I could not be strong about the past. That I would cry in front of strangers. Even in our relocated Cambodian communities, the past was something we had tried to leave on the road behind us.

Most of our scars were well hidden, set aside in our battle for academic success. Out of forty students at Cleveland High School who had lived under Pol Pot, half were diagnosed with PTSD, and half suffered from some form of depression. It seemed curious. Many were motivated students and some were on the honor roll. At the time, it all sounded abstract to me.

Four years later, Dr. William Sack received a grant for over $1 million from the National Institute of Mental Health to expand the research. I was approached at that time to help interpret and to interview subjects. In two weeks I suddenly had to master a brand-new vocabulary including terms like “schizophrenia,” “cyclothymia,” and “dysthymia.” Harder still, I had to learn to ask questions that triggered memories. At twenty-four, I had no idea what I was getting into. Like soldiers going into battle, I didn’t know what outcome to expect. Maybe it was better that way.

My first hint came at the end of our training. The staff had gathered to watch documentary films about Cambodia, including part of the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields. After a few minutes, I stormed out. I remember taking refuge in the women’s rest room, leaning against the wall and weeping. For the first time in years, I had allowed myself to feel the pain of the past that was buried in my soul.

How familiar everything was: the fields of broken flesh; legs, arms gushing blood; corpses covered with buzzing flies; and the sweet stench of decaying flesh. I didn’t need to watch this to have a better understanding of what Cambodian subjects had endured. I had lived through it myself. All I needed to do was to close my eyes and the memories came back.

And so began my dual life. As a researcher, my job was to be a cultural voyeur. I was to use my knowledge of Cambodian customs, culture, and my own wartime experiences to establish a common ground with other refugees. In theory, they would be more comfortable talking to someone who knew what they had endured. It was a strange role for me. In conducting psychiatric interviews, I was both the insider, who knew their trauma, and the outsider, the dispassionate, clinical researcher. There I sat, efficiently recording details that jogged so many of my own harsh memories. Unlike during my training experience, I couldn’t run away and take sanctuary in a rest room. I couldn’t stop listening when subjects’ and their parents’ or guardians’ distressing stories awakened my emotions. My job was to listen,