Full here.
Khmer Rouge directly and indirectly affected me, mostly with how my parents reared me. My dad was so scared I wouldn't learn English and didn't want me to speak Khmer. He always told me, "You are American." Although I never asked, my grandma was a die hard Khmer Rouge supporter.
Mom taught me Khmer. She died when I was younger. She was a very feminine and kind hearted woman. Even before the war, both her parents died and she obviously taught us the importance of family and tradition. Now I can understand Khmer and speak it, but only at a very elementary level. When I visited Cambodia, people were so surprised that my Khmer was so good since most Cambodian-Americans were so Americanized they didn't even know how to speak it.
We had a small community of 400 families that was well connected. No one talks about the war; they tend to remember Cambodia as just a shithole. A lot of Khmer who returned to visit went during the 90s and had bad experience since the country itself was a very dangerous place at the time. My father is the president of the local Cambodian temple that serves everybody. Since he couldn't use the computer, I did all the paperwork, flyers, legalities, and was exposed to getting monks visas by the age of 14. I learned how to pray, meditate for hours, and practiced Buddhist philosophies. I went to temple every Sunday, helped set up, clean and was always the last person to leave. The sad thing is that the old people who support the temple are dying. Out of 30 kids in my age bracket, I was the only one to show up with Khmer New Years last week. I feel very to connected Khmer culture, unique social norms, traditions, and customs. I took a trip to Cambodia last winter. We had family all over the country from all socio-economic backgrounds and was fortunate enough to spend at least one week in every 'class' from sleeping in a straw house with no running water or electricity to lavishing with my upper-class fam in Phnom Penh.
The effects of the Khmer Rouge can be seen with still resonates with this generation. There is a huge age gap in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge effectively did the complete opposite of Hitler's 'Final Solution' by killing the most educated, creative and audacious segment of our populace. The Khmer who survived still suffered from lack of education since it was disrupted during the war. Even though U.S. government relocated Khmer refugees to some of the worst areas, but most Khmer parents are uneducated (in terms of academic attainment). My dad is included. He does all these great things and is a person of immeasurable character but the lack of general history and worldly knowledge predisposes him to racist philosophies, poor reasons of causation and general naivety.
Back to the Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge didn't only kill because you wore glasses or spoke French, they also killed people who spoke out. There are so many first hand accounts about the animosity and pandemonium; children ordered to kill other children who protested an uncomfortable orders, turning family members for having extra food to gain favor with camp leaders, and many other atrocities unrelated to the education of the person. I've heard stories of camp leaders who would kill just because they didn't like you or because you were better looking. If a camp leader fancied your wife, you were probably killed.
Some Khmer people resisted the Khmer Rouge. Initially, there was a small somewhat organized force that fought against the Khmer Rouge. They were quickly defeated. Although it may not have been necessarily violent, people in the camps resisted in the ways they could. Some snuck out to search for extra food to bring back to their families and some of the fathers flat out refused to eat in order to let their families live. Getting caught sneaking out was punishable by death. I remember a story of one of the elders brother who slowly persuaded a camp leader in being more lenient and doing 'good' things for the camp. When the leaders' superiors came around and saw that people looked 'better', that camp leader realized how he was fooled and torture/killed the elder's brother. These are just a few of probably of many risked their lives in spite of adversity. Courage and bravery are invaluable traits in people and should be passed onto future generations. People who displayed these exemplary acts of character, although forced by a time of immense desperation, were often killed and are no longer on this Earth.
The lesson learned by those who survived and watched their audacious peers die was that being obediently, subjugating yourself and conditioning yourself to day to day mentalities meant surviving. It wasn't their fault obviously and in the end those with this mentality survived, but in the process I feel like Khmer people lost their ability to proliferate their life attitude.
They carry this mentality into America. Many OG's (old people) gamble, drink, smoke and live paycheck to paycheck. This is more prevalent with men, but lots of woman gamble with even more money. No father is perfect, but Cambodian fathers in general were far from ideal. I hate to feed this negative stereotype, but most Khmer dads had little to offer in parental guidance other than work hard and abstain from temptation.
My dad used to tell me to give up all the time during sports events and thought everything I did other than scholastic work was unproductive and stupid. He attitude was, "if it's too hard don't do it." If you fail, you're destined to be a failure. Thank god I was stubborn. He straight up told me if a white man offers you a job that pays $10/hr you must give your all to make him $30. Maybe it was more obvious with my father, but I saw this across many families and with my friends. 3 out of 20 Cambodian guys in my generation are in post compulsory education. A lot are doing nothing except working low paying service sector jobs and generally are wimpy, depressed and apathetic. They absolve their time escaping into video games, anime and conspicuous consumption. I think that even given the fact that Khmer people were thrown into the foreign jungles of the inner cities, a strong masculine father figure would have allowed the last few generations of Khmer men to develop better. Khmer girls cringed at the idea of dating another Khmer guy in America. All of the girls in my generation branched out to Vietnamese, Laotian, Caucasian, black and other Asian men for partners; pretty much every other demographic than Khmer.
I can't prove this exactly, but I think the Khmer Rouge weeded out a lot of men who had exuded these masculine values. That is also in addition to the educated. In Cambodia, it is far worse, but thats another post. I know a lot of the socio-economic problems that affect Cambodian Americans today stem from being relocated to the inner cities of the U.S., but I feel there is just lack of proper masculine figures in Cambodian households because the Khmer Rouge killed lots of men who had balls.