Beyond the Killing Fields: Voices of Nine Cambodian Survivors in AmericaStanford University Press, 1994 M10 1 - 285 pages In 1975, after five years of devastation and upheaval caused by civil war, the Cambodian people welcomed the victorious communist Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot. Once in power, the new regime tightly closed Cambodia to the outside world. Four years later, when the Vietnamese communists invaded Cambodia and defeated the Khmer Rouge, the world learned that during their control the Khmer Rouge had turned the country into "killing fields, " in one of the most horrifying instances of genocide in history. Of an estimated population of 7 million people, about 1.5 million had been killed or had died of starvation, torture, or sickness. After the Vietnamese takeover, thousands of survivors of the Khmer Rouge, fearful of continuing war and a new communist regime, fled their homeland. Approximately 150,000 of them settled in the United States. This book documents the Cambodian refugee experience through nine powerful first-person narratives of men, women, and children who survived the holocaust and have begun new lives in America. The narrators come from varied socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds and include a former Buddhist monk, an unskilled factory worker, and a farm boy, all of whom are ethnic Cambodians; a middle-class Chinese Cambodian housewife and her daughter; and a Vietnamese Cambodian medical student. The refugees first speak of their lives before the Khmer Rouge. We get an intimate view of a distinct way of life that had evolved over 2,000 years as the refugees relate Cambodian views of life, death, rebirth, karma, love, marriage, and family-views deeply imbued with Buddhist concepts. Next, with sorrow and sometimes anger, they relive their traumatic survival of the Khmer Rouge,reflecting on the deaths of loved ones and the desecration of their culture. Finally, they retrace their hazardous escapes and journeys to the United States and talk candidly about their hopes, dreams, and fears as they continue the difficult adjustment to a new social and cultural enviro |
Contents
Creating Beyond the Killing Fields | 1 |
Historical Background | 11 |
Society and Culture | 26 |
A Former Buddhist Monk | 37 |
A New American | 63 |
The Khmer Rouge Revolution | 91 |
A Welfare Mother | 97 |
A Khmer Rouge Escapee | 117 |
Coming to America | 165 |
A Widowed Single Parent | 203 |
A Cambodian Wife | 219 |
A Teenage Daughter | 237 |
Life Death and the Holocaust | 251 |
Cambodian and American Views of Successful Adjustment | 261 |
281 | |
Dads Little Girl | 136 |
Other editions - View all
Beyond the Killing Fields: Voices of Nine Cambodian Survivors in America Usha Welaratna No preview available - 1993 |
Common terms and phrases
American Apsara Asian asked baby Battambang became believe Bopha boyfriends brother brought Buddha Bun Thab Cambodian refugees Chinese Cambodian Communists cooked culture daughter Dhamma died escaped ethnic father feel felt French friends gave girls go back go to school grandmother happened happy hard heard holocaust husband jungle Khao-I-Dang Khmer language Khmer refugees Khmer Rouge kids killed Killing Fields knew Koun Srey learn English lived Lon Nol Look Tha loved marriage married Mom's monks months mother narratives narrators never Ngor night Niseth older parents Phnom Penh Pnong Pol Pot soldiers problems Pu Ma's refugee camp regime rice fields Sihanouk Sisophon sister social stay talk teach teacher tell temple Thai Thailand Theravada Buddhist things thought told took Vietnam Vietnamese village walked want to go wife worry
Popular passages
Page 285 - Methodological Problems and Policy Implications in Vietnamese Refugee Research.