Co-Founder's Letter

It'll Take a Lifetime
Joan Chun

Dearest Uncle
Krystal M. Chuon

Between the Altar Ashes
Moleca Mich

I.
Our family altar is framed around portraits of my grandfathers —
On the right: paternal, a tall, slender figure with hollowed cheeks
Sitting stoically on a wooden chair in front of a television and cases of Coca-Cola.
On the left: maternal, donned in a dress shirt and tie, a youthful face with softer eyes
And the faintest of smiles emitting warmth through black and white.
Two men so seemingly different from each other, I could assume only from appearance,
While the intricacies of their personalities were left bound to memories unspoken.
The only thing I knew for certain
Was that in the end,
Neither had the chance to flee their war-torn country.

II.
Whenever the moon was full, and the altar flowers were fresh
I would bat tuk and send my thoughts upwards with the gentle wafts of incense.
As a young girl still learning what it meant to pray,
Instead of the god that Catholic school told me existed
I would speak tomes with the family I would never meet
In English, the only way I could
Hoping with all my heart that language barriers didn’t exist in the afterlife.

III.
“I know we don’t know each other, but I hope you can see us,
Working so hard to create a life you would be proud to live.
Please allow us to have what we need to keep going,
Good health, a strong mind, a kind heart, thick skin,
Whatever it may be, whatever you could spare.
Just know that all the while,
The blood in our veins will help us carry you along.”

On Our Living Room Floor
Peuo Tuy

First Generation–Khmer Americans
circa 1981–Dallas, TX
Rosen Yin

Those Who Came Back
Monsoon Photography

In the '70s and '80s many Cambodians suffered from the war. Large groups fled the country, mainly to the United States and France. Their children grew up abroad. In recent years some of these 2nd generation children came 'back' to Cambodia for internships, to do jobs or to set up businesses, but also to reconnect with their roots. They see the country of their parents in their own way. They discover more of their roots and more of their identity. They root in the country themselves. How is it for them to reconnect? How do they experience Cambodia? What do they think of it and what does it do to them to be here?

The exhibition comprehends 25 pictures, taken at the interviewees favourite places in Cambodia. Each picture has a written interview of 2 to 5 pages. For this website quotes are taken out of these interviews. The original exhibition was held at Meta House, the Cambodian-German cultural institute in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from December 7-15 2017.

i'm giving birth to you
Noeun Chimm

a piece of me
that was long forgotten
the birth of salvation
with the root sprouts still attached
withholding the abundance of pain
in reverence to your growth
transition yourself to become
what you need

If Only I Spoke Khmer to My Mother
Moniphal Bing

(Son, listen to the language of where I came from.
Give me a chance to talk to you,
even if my English is not good.)

Mama, less in wat i gotta say.
It’s torture to see u crie, cuz
I wanna kno where u cam from.

(Son, if you want to learn the truth,
then practice the language with me;
even if your Khmer is not good.)

Mama, iunno wat to say to u.
Ewery won mix fun of me!
Dey dont kno where i cam from.

(Son, try practicing with me and
don’t listen to what others say to you. Speak with me,
even if your Khmer is not good.)

Mama, ef only i can talk to u rite
now. Seeing u crie, and dont kno
where u cam from. I shouldha practice wit u,
even if my khmai is no gewd.

Cambodian Mother
Mana Kheang

Love is kind and full

Love’s how mom asks, “Nham bay nov? (have you eaten yet?)”

Yet she’s mad at you.

Description: Growing up in Cambodia, I know that it is rather hard (or makes us super shy) to tell our family members how much we love them. At least, we cannot tell them in words - but we convey this in actions. “Nham bay nov?- Have you eaten yet?” is how my mother would show how much she cares for her family, although she is mad at us.

Island Fun
Ava Tuy


Hello!

My name is Ava Tuy. I’m half Laotian and half Cambodian. I am ten-years-old. I live in Utah and I live in a house with my mom, dad, and my brother. My family and I love to go hiking, camping, and on family road trips.

Our last family trip was to Washington State on Anderson Island. On our first day there when we went in the house to settle in my cousin wanted to go skateboarding down this very steep hill where most kids get hurt, but we didn’t know that, so he went down and two seconds later he fell and rolled into a ditch. Later on we decided to call the fire department since there were no hospitals on the small island, but what we didn’t know was that the entire fire department would come to us. After they came then we discussed what happened, and then they treated him.

While on the island, my mother (who is Laotian) taught us how to forage for food like she should have back in Laos. We picked berries and apples and went crabbing. My dad (who is Cambodian) taught us how to get clams, mussels and oysters.

I wouldn’t ask for another family, because I had a wonderful time with them.

-By Ava Tuy

Family Inheritance
RJ Sin

“The song speaks of my life as a Khmer American and
because of my family how I come to cross paths with roots.”

Verse 3:

I was young before and now I’ve grown up
Before then my mother fled from the city and came to the U.S
My auntie Long lives in Cambodia but I have never been
My father told me about the Khmer Rouge
Running away from the gun
Telling my auntie to wake up
Dreaming talking in their sleep
Pol Pot ridiculous
Motherland they diminished
By running to Thailand my family
survives now
I learned about history since I was
young I swear
They say Pol Pot time was harsh
Cannot forget
Cannot be heartbroken
Must note it down
I am a Khmer man and I don’t argue
They say Pol Pot time was harsh
Cannot forget
Cannot be heartbroken

Refrain - “Ter Bong Smos Ning Oun Dae Ruer Te?”
by Chhoun Malay:

I haven’t met you
How can I understand your sorrow my dear?
Meeting you, I’m terrified

Interpretation and translation by Tola Say 2019.

In Retrospect
Hit Chim

Letter Home
Seng So

Forty-four years ago on April 17th, 1975, Khmer Rouge forces entered Cambodia’s capital seeking to implement an agrarian revolution. Families were torn apart and forced into labor camps throughout Cambodia’s countryside. Between 1975 and 1979 under Khmer Rouge rule, over two million Cambodians perished from torture, death, starvation and forced labor. The Cambodian Genocide also known as “The Killing Fields” has shaped the lives of Cambodians home and abroad. Today, Cambodians in the diaspora are emerging beyond the identity of the genocide. We are in a moment of a cultural renaissance — from music and the arts, to food and crafts, to education and tech. There is an energy and life that is taking shape in our community. I wrote this letter to Cambodia, reflecting on our growth as a community in America.

Last night I saw you sitting next to my bed, whispering lullabies in a language that has since left my tongue. Momma was in her late twenties the last time she pressed her feet against the softness of your soil. I was twenty-five when we first met. I had traveled across the Pacific to bury my grandmother. And there you were.

You were smiling. But there was a deep sadness in your eyes. You missed us, it had been too long. I saw the scars they left on you and dropped to my knees. We had fled when the dark clouds rolled in. You stayed because you were resilient. You knew that the nightmare would soon fade.

Even in the whirlwind you made sure to shelter us. You gave rise to a people that withstood. That carried you with them. A people that remembered to dance. To celebrate. To love.

Some four decades later, here we are. Did you get the last postcard I sent you? Our family has grown. The last time you saw Momma there were only four of us, now there are eight. We’ve become activists, artists, doctors, lawyers, renowned chefs, engineers, musicians and working-class folk raising our families the best we know how. Some of us are still trying to find our way. Yet, through it all we still keep you in our thoughts.

The old folks are still gossiping, still waiting for the green grass to grow. They talk about home, about you, about the children. Last month we were all in the streets trying to keep our families together. Can you believe it? After all the storms we’ve weathered, they want to tear apart our home again.

The monks are praying. In April we celebrated the New Year. I saw Momma dancing. Do you remember the last time she danced? I even heard her singing. She sang a lullaby in a language that has since left my tongue and I fell asleep dreaming of our tomorrows.

Photos by Seng So. All rights reserved.
source: https://medium.com/@APEN4EJ/letter-home-1cd607c7a329

Power
SK iLLerest

Here’s one of the projects off of my latest album entitled, “Power.” It focuses on the US justice system, racism, and deportation within in regards to my community and how I’ve seen it affect my people. As a Khmer-American and child of Khmer refugees displaced by the Khmer Rouge who struggled to re-adjust in an adoptive land America, I feel that I have a unique perspective and inside look at the range of issues and repercussions of injustices that affect a micro-community such as mine. My goal is to highlight and bring awareness to all of this through my music.

Contact
Facebook: SK_illerest
IG: SK_illerest
Email: illerestsk@gmail.com

Asian-American History X
Eric Tu

My dad used to tell me stories of Nha Trang post-1975--says there are two versions of every TV show, but only one is broadcasted

In one episode, my aunts and uncles escaped the war and made it to America (instead of just their photographs), a story in which there is no difference between the past and the ground

In another, I was born in a field of gun powder, where children and seeds aren't supposed to grow, raised from the ashes of singed goodbye letters, an ocean of dust

My dad tells me he came to this country after spending two and a half years in refugee camps

In this episode and every other his English still isn't American, and my young body becomes the subtitles of every broken word, the ones that can't be translated

These are incomplete synopses, I've tried calling home to Vietnam, but these ghosts don't hold phones the way the living hold memories

But I could tell you about America, you know, how they recorded the bombs and napalm dropped on our villages for documentaries but didn't record our history into textbooks, this Asian-American History X, or my childhood spent on the couch of our old apartment where the television kept cutting out or the evenings we sat at the dinner table in my early twenties, dad telling me about the refugee camps and me recording the history that America tried erasing

I could tell you of other episodes in which people other than the people I love, are the ones that didn't survive the war

The ones where it is someone else's uncle that is seen for the final time the night he escaped on the small boat only to be swallowed by the ocean

The episodes in which no one's child washes blue, ashore

Before the end credits, a photo of my aunt appears on screen, in loving memory of a woman spirited away, leaving behind a body and a farewell script she's rewritten, next to a noose she's rewired 108 times

And me, a ghost boy in utero, tiny ghost raised by bigger ghosts, I inherit my family's trauma every time I contemplate a world in which whispers are only the opposite of bullets, and even the sound of bullets is never enough to quiet the dead...

in this country of tiny seeds in bloom to old earths, raising strawberries and children in this battlefield where neither are meant to survive.

THE EQUATOR
Christine Su

     Because it was hot. Saline droplets attached themselves one to another, fusing into a small pool at the base of her neck, on the ridge where the collarbone tells one that the neck has ended and the chest has begun. The droplets expanded, distended like an overfilled glass whose convexity stretches anxiously; finally, one drop escaped the checkrein. The moisture tickled her, and she awoke.
     “Shit,” she said, noticing her blouse was wet, afraid the water had found its way to her father’s face, to the photograph she clutched even as she slept. Was I crying? She wondered, tasting the salt on her lips. Pressing her palms to her face, she realized that it was not her eyes that wept, but her hair––indeed, her whole head was sweating, effusing salt-water. How bizarre, she thought. But then again, it was so hot. Weird things happen when it’s hot. Hell, people see swimming pools in the middle of the Sahara. Tom Hanks befriended a bloodied volleyball in that movie, for goodness’ sake. Kids suffocate in cars. The heat has effected stranger things than sweating, she thought. Suddenly a peculiar thought entered her mind: Is it effected or affected? And then, aloud: “Oh my God, what the hell does it matter?” She laughed, somewhat abashedly, even though there was no one to hear her. When they put me away in Bellevue, she thought, I can ask them: does the heat effect or affect insanity?
     One arm above her head, holding the picture by a corner so as not to leave any smudge, she leaned back on the other arm and slid her legs out in front of her. Pins and needles. She had been seated on the bed, legs tucked beneath her, staring at that visage. Squeezing the photo border as if strangling the paper would make him talk. She stared and squeezed until her fingers turned pale and her teeth left an imprint along her lower lip. She noticed for the umpteenth time how handsome he was in his youth: smooth, ink-black hair, tanned skin, angled gaze. There was a sadness present, even then––an uncertainty, a fuzziness somewhere between paralysis and ataxia––that he had unconsciously passed on to his daughter. Talk, damn you, she demanded. And then, anger melting, Please, tell me––who are you? Who am I? What happened?, again and again until she slipped into exhausted sleep.

     They moved past him in a blaze of green, black, and fawn. He marveled at the dust that rose from their booted feet––he had never seen such shoes before. No one in his village, not even the pretien poom––the village chief––wore anything besides rubber slippers, and then infrequently. There were many men, and as they ran their heavy feet created a low dust haze that blurred them together into a large, dirty, moving olive mass. His eyes felt gritty, and he rubbed them with his forefingers. Suddenly something collided with the boy, knocking him off the dirt path and into the mud in the sodden rice field. “Bong!” he cried out, frightened, searching for his sister. Where was she? His aunt? And his mother? Vision still blurred, he crawled to the edge of the road, and watched as the soldiers, guns raised above their heads, ran amongst the small cluster of homes, yelling something he could not understand. “Bong!” The boy’s voice was lost amid the sound of shouts and trampling feet. And then, a strange humming. The men yelled louder, and one, noticing the boy, motioned to him in frantic gestures.
     Before he could back away, he was thrown––he felt the fever pass over him, around him, through him. He tried to shut his eyes, but felt he could not move any part of his body. All around him, he heard screaming…a cacophony of voices now…soldiers, children, elders, men, women. He tried to cry out himself, but something prevented him. The air was thick and hot, and the words choked in his throat. He strained repeatedly until, after what seemed like a very long time, the heat, the humming, and the voices faded. Unable to remain conscious, he put his head down between the plants and let himself sink into the cool mud. A strange green gas folded over him and swept quickly through the rice field, silently, like the snakes that often slithered away from his small hands in the course of morning play. In dream-sleep he watched them move farther and farther away, until they were tiny brown and green flecks against the horizon.
     He felt something tickling his cheek, and slowly, he awoke. Galaat, he thought––cockroaches. Many times they had interrupted the boy’s peaceful sleep. He wiped his face with his hand, hoping to scatter the creatures, but instead felt wetness spread through his fingers and onto his neck. He heard a small sound, and turned to it.
     There, next to him, lay a dark figure: a charred face, a mass of burned hair, a torn garment. His mother. Her mouth was open, and the boy noticed that some of her teeth were missing.
     His mind jumped to the day before, when she had chided him for biting a hard nut, chipping one of his front teeth. She had smiled, touched the tooth with her index finger, and shook her head gently. He touched one of her lips how, and blood spilled out. It was hot, and he pulled his hand away. There was blood everywhere––it seemed to come from nowhere––from her ears, her fingertips, even her hair. In between each of a series of explosions, she had smashed through the fields, screaming for her son. Finally finding him, face down in the mud, she wrapped her arms around him, shielding him from the searing heat. A blast had torn the back of her head, and blood effused from her skull. As she lay behind him, thick droplets swept along the tattered strands of her hair, finding their way to the weakened boy. He stared at the ground as it changed color now, absorbing the hot fluid of his mother’s essence. He touched his face again, and unknowingly transformed the dampness into red streaks that stung and smoldered.
    He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see another soldier––whether or not he was the one who had gestured to him before, the boy did not know. Questions came from the soldier’s mouth, but the boy did not answer, Instead, he watched as flames of yellow leapt from different points behind the soldier, snatching and receding as the man moved, taunting the boy in a strange game. The soldier shook him, spewing rapid questions, but the boy did not speak until, pressing his palms to his face and feeling his mother’s death, he said quietly, “Kdao, kdao. Kdao nah.” Hot. So very hot. He looked away, and did not look up again.

    The salt water was tears now, and they heated her face. You promised him you’d never cry, she chided herself. But the tears continued, burning piquant channels down her cheeks. Unlike her father’s, her face was a rugged terrain of raised, tender half-moons, humbling yet unsurprising results of massive amounts of sugar and caffeine used to quell her silent grief. The drops paused only slightly as they reached the imperfections, each brief hiatus reminding her of the flaws as the intermittently wiped the tears with the back of her hand.
    The phone startled her. It was Mom.
    “Aloha! How are things in paradise?”
    “I’m fine, Mom. Keeping busy. How about you?”
    “Well, I’ve been out in the yard––cutting grass, trimming the hedges, watering my azaleas…I’m about to pass out from the heat…” Talking, talking, talking. Have to finish the quilt for the church bazaar. Have to sit outside Shop-Rite and sell tickets to the fish fry. Have to take Mrs. Longden to pick up her prescriptions. Her days were swollen with appointments, obligations.
     “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re so quiet…oh well, say hi to your dad.”
     There was a pause, and she knew that it would be several moments before he picked up the phone. Finally, she heard a listless sigh at the other end of the line.
     “Hi, Dad.”
     “Hi, kid. How you doing?”
     “I’m okay. How are you? How’s everything?”
     “Oh fine. Everything’s fine. Yep. Sure is hot today. Here’s Mom.”
     Thirty-some years of the same conversation. She rose, and stole a momentary glance in the hall mirror as she walked toward the window. Her eyes were blood-red and puffy, she noticed. Almond and dark, they were her father’s eyes. “They look like they hurt,” she unknowingly said aloud, and quickly averted her gaze. As she turned, the photo slipped out of her hand and onto the floor.
     “What?” Mom’s voice again. And then, in response to the silence, “So what’s up? Whatcha doing today?”
     Moving the curtain, she watched as her daughter sat alone in the yard, separated from her neighbor’s children. She sat, legs folded under her, one hand clutching a small bottle, the other a plastic wand. She drew in deeply and blew long, slow exhales, staring as each bubble became larger and larger until it finally broke free and drifted into the obscurity of branches and leaves above. Following the bubbles, the child looked up at the window, smiled, and in the same instant, turned her eyes away.
     She plucked the picture from the floor by one corner, and wiped it gently on her shorts.
     “Can’t do much, Mom,” she said. “It’s too hot to do anything today.”

Familial Things
Sanary Phen

Family is love and keeping a family together is the ultimate labor of love.

Pa and Mak escaped the war and genocide in Cambodia but could not escape the emotional aftermath. They left everything they knew behind; their home, their history, their family, mother, father, brothers and sisters, a large part of themselves and their identities. The choice to leave was difficult but made easier at the thought of all the heartache and sadness they were leaving behind. They experienced many losses during the genocide but none more poignant than the loss of their first 2 children, Sophei and Sreymao. They left to save their two remaining children. Despite the passage of time, Mak would recall the details of their deaths vividly and through Mak’s recollection of her life, so would I.

Sophei was 4 and fell ill as a result of some unknown ailment; no medicine or healthcare was available for him. Mak told me how shortly after his death the Khmer Rouge soldiers came and took him from her. She never knew what they did with his body or where he was buried. I pictured his tiny body tossed amongst the other unfortunate souls in some mass grave just inside the jungle next to acres of rice fields stained in the blood of my people. I would cry with Mak as tears welled in her eyes. She told me in her delirious grief and desperation, she ran out into the pouring rain slipping in the cakey red mud and earth, carrying a blanket and crying out for him, afraid that he was in some dark place, frightened, cold and alone. She desperately wanted to keep him warm and safe. She hated herself for failing to protect him.

Sreymao was only 2 when she died. She starved to death. Mak believed while she was away working in the fields from sun up until sun down, the older woman in charge of overseeing the younger children stole portions of Sreymao’s rations to feed her own grandchildren. Sreymao held out long enough for Pa to return home from the labor camps further out. Mak said by the time Pa arrived Sreymao could no longer see. As she drew closer to her final moments, she cried out for him. Comforted by his arms cradling her and the sound of his voice, she drew her last breath and slipped away. To this day Mak will force me to eat out of the subconscious fear I might die of starvation. As a child I grew annoyed at her insistence that I eat even when I wasn’t hungry. As an adult I realize the significance of her gesture and the older I get the more those realizations helped me to understand the choices Pa and Mak made.

In my youth, I constantly sought surrogates to complete the mental image I had of what a family should be. Pa and Mak did their best to create a circle of support for themselves by reconnecting with people they knew from their villages back in Cambodia and who like themselves also resettled in Lowell, Massachusetts. These people became my aunts and uncles and their children, my cousins. I was grateful for the community my parents built around me. The city of Lowell, a small burrow in the state of Massachusetts, became my home and the Cambodian community within it my family, but I still couldn’t help feeling there was something missing.

Throughout my childhood, Pa and Mak spoke of their family often. My favorite stories were the ones Mak would tell about Yay and Tha, my grandparents. I enjoyed hearing Mak tell me about her mischievous adventures and how Yay and Tha dealt with each situation. She told me how they would make veiled threats of corporal punishment but that their gentle nature and temperament would prevail each time. It ultimately proved to her how much they truly loved their children. These stories were some of the more light-hearted ones she would share with me. I would stare at the pictures of Yay and Tha’s wrinkled faces and envision the kindness and wisdom behind their eyes. Mak was not able to return to Cambodia before Yay passed. She flew out to Cambodia for the funeral after 15 years of being separated from her home and her family. She was able to see Tha before he died. He passed away not too long after her visit. I couldn’t help but feel he died due in part to a broken heart. I did not mourn for him or Yay in the way I felt I should have for people who were and are such a large part of my identity, but I only knew them through Mak’s stories,though letters sent in red and white striped envelopes laden with international postage stamps and written in a language I could not read, through their voices I could only hearon prerecorded cassette tapes and in static noises over a phone signal stretched tight across the oceans worlds away.

I don’t think my siblings or I could ever fully understand the grief Mak bore not being able to perform her duty as a daughter—that is, to care for Yay and Tha in their old age, to be by their side and be their strength as they grew weak. She never would have guessed how much I mourned that with her. I was sad for her and sad for myself. Sad at the loss of a grandmother’s love I could never have and the soulful kindness of a grandfather I longed to know. I felt her anguish and wanted to take it all away from her. Little did I know I was locking bits and pieces of it away within the walls of my heart or that there would be more sadness to come. I learned then that when we love someone, we often become the keeper of their sorrows.

Pa and Mak had only each other, my older sister, Nin and me when they arrived. They would go on to have 2 more children born in the good old U.S. of A-- my brothers – one only a year younger than I, Browh, and my baby brother 7 years my junior, Kbee. I was keenly aware of how small my family was. I remembered how badly I wanted to have a big family with paternal and maternal grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins abound and family reunions every year, but this was not the reality I lived in. Pa and Mak did the best they could to raise us. I learned to appreciate my little family and the strength of the bonds my siblings and I had with one another.

I remember when Kbee was born. I fell in love with him the minute I laid eyes on his little face. I was happy to be his caretaker and to practice my mothering skills changing diapers, making bottles, feeding and bathing him. We were as close as any pair of siblings could be. I prided myself on being his favorite. He would insist on crawling into bed with me and would run to me for comfort, affection and reassurance. His hugs and kisses made all the cares and troubles in the world disappear. I smothered him with so much love it annoyed him and amused me. I imagined myself becoming a successful businesswoman, wife and mother with Kbee being the fun, loving uncle living with my family so he could save money while he was in college. I imagined my life with him in it and thought I would have him always.

I was 12 going on 13 when he was diagnosed with cancer. He was only 4. From the time he was diagnosed I compartmentalized the reality of his situation and the fact he might not survive his illness. I dedicated the majority of my time to caring for him confident that my will for him to live would carry us through it all. I assisted my parents with interpretation at the hospitals and doctors’ visits, read instructions to them for his medications, prepped his IV’s, changed dressings and spent weekends and evenings keeping him company during treatments and hospital stays. We would play video games and watch Disney videos, singing along to all the songs. There was nothing I wasn’t willing to do for him.

Despite my dedication to providing the best care for him, despite all my prayers and wishes, I was powerless. I watched helplessly as the cancer ravaged his body and cried as I saw the strength in him wither away. My heart could not possibly bear any more sorrow but it came anyway. He passed just 2 months shy of my 16th birthday. I was so lost in my own anguish that I never once thought about how Mak and Pa felt or how devastated they must have been. I was too young to see the significance of that moment in time and to realize how Kbee’s death had them reliving the final moments with Sophei and Sreymao. I never once considered all of the loss in their life and how they were able to function after suffering through so much. I was secretly angry at them for not being able to protect me from this pain and from the trauma and tragedy that was their life. A piece of me died with Kbee and my world spiraled down in a descent of depression and despair. I became distant from my family, especially my parents, and isolated myself from everyone in my community. I fell into darkness and felt as if I would never see the light again.

I think Popa and Dear could see the hole inside me and the sorrow I filled it with when they met me. I was young and still processing my grief, not fully understanding it would take years before I would recover from it. I was dating their teenage grandson and enamored with the idea of being in love and being a part of the big loving family he came from. I was welcomed with open arms and open hearts. Popa and Dear were heaven-sent and helped ease the ache in my heart. I loved Popa and Dear more than I could have ever loved their grandson. They were the only grandparents I had ever really known. Through them I received the wisdom that comes with age and experience. Even when the relationship with their grandson ended, I made the effort to keep them in my life and the lives of my children, their great grandchildren. I wanted my children to have a connection to the big, loving family I always dreamed of having. I loved the boisterous laughter and heartfelt hugs at each holiday gathering. I would stop by on Fridays for Dear’s fish and chips or stop in to just sit and chat with Popa about life. I knew their home was always open to me; there was no fear of ever being rejected. It was a safe place, a place where I would tuck away a piece of my broken heart.

Dear eventually passed and so did Popa. I mourned for them deeply and felt guilty for feeling such waves of emotion. Things had come full circle for me. I was now in my late 30’s seeking inner peace amidst the turmoil in my mind and the reconciliations within. I hated myself for not being able to feel the same intense emotions of grief for the loss of my biological grandparents. I felt the need to dig deep, reevaluate and reflect on the choices I made and the events that had come to pass; my life experiences, my family’s history and the trauma at the root of it.

It took years to process the internal conflict. I had to acknowledge the cultural biases I developed and the collective mourning I was subconsciously going through most of my life. I came to the realization that life and death are intertwined in a never-ending circle. So where there is life there will always be death, and to fully accept life you must also accept death. I held onto the grief for so long that I became lost in my sorrowfulness, focusing solely on all the losses and failing to recognize the strength, resilience and blessings inadvertently borne of the communal trauma of my past and of those who came before me. I genuinely love each member of my family--my grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins; from the ones my heart would never fully know to the surrogate members of the fragmented family I created for myself. They are all a part of who I am and who I am to become.

We all have family figures that help shape who we are either by their presence or absence in our lives. Family is one of the most precious gifts in this world that neither death, time nor distance can diminish. Family is a never-ending cycle of relationships, real or imagined, plagued by recurring conflicts and heartfelt euphoric reconciliations. Family is defined neither by bloodlines nor DNA but by empathy, tolerance and the acceptance. Our life stories are intertwined through the love we have for one another. It is worth going through all the sorrow and heartache to ultimately embrace the moments of pure joy and happiness in just being present, connected and together.

Dear Mother
Peuo Tuy

Two Worlds Unite
Evan and Channy Freedman

My parents named me Alexander last year for no particular reason. My middle name has a deeper origination; it’s Lucas, similar to my poppy’s middle name, Lewis. Poppy is a respected orthopedic surgeon. Dad hopes that I will be a doctor too one day.

My parents met at an English Language class in Lynn, MA. Dad was the esl teacher and mom the diligent student. Their courtship was fast and true. Less than 6 months from their first date at a Korean restaurant in Somerville, MA, they were engaged. Another 6 months and they were married.

Dad’s side of the family is Jewish. Poppy grew up orthodox Jewish; he didn’t eat shellfish or pork until he moved out of his family’s Brighton, MA home. His wife, my nanny, was raised more secularly. She had a bat mitzvah at age 13, but she rarely attended temple. The pair met in high school and have been inseparable going on 49 years of marriage.

Mom’s family is Cambodian. Well, mom always says she’s half Chinese. Mom emigrated in 2009. Her immediate relatives quickly followed suit, including her mother, ma, and her brother, my soy ku. She still has a brother and sister in Cambodia. They’re waiting to come to the US as soon as legally possible.
Being half Jewish and half Khmer is unique and interesting. Maybe I’ll go to Buddhist temple, maybe Jewish temple. I don’t want to feel like an outsider in either community. I want an inclusive experience instead of having to choose. I didn’t have a Jewish bris when I was 8 days old and I won’t have a bar mitzvah. In the Jewish tradition, the mother’s religion determines the child’s. I won’t have a Christmas tree either. I hope I don’t feel left out.

Life has been pretty good so far. It started off a little rough; I was born with a bilateral pneumothorax. Basically, my lungs weren’t functioning when I was delivered. The wonderful staff at Salem hospital nicu saw me through a stressful first few days. To make matters worse, mom came down with a terrible infection. She spent time in ICU. We were in the hospital 8 long days, but we thank god we made a full recovery.

Mom is pretty protective of me. She thinks of all the ways I can get hurt. In Cambodia, babies sometimes fall ill from disease or lack of resources. Dad is more permissive. He takes me outside even if the weather is a little chilly. Mom sometimes gets upset at this and ultimately dad does what she wants.

I’m so thankful that I live with ma and soy ku in our house. Ma takes such good care of me, and soy ku is so warm and fun. I’m learning that family is such an important part of life.

I hear Khmer and English at home. Ma speaks no English so I’m getting pretty good at understanding Khmer. She’ll throw in some Chinese, too, along with some music videos in both languages.

My cousins love to come over and play with me. Dad’s nieces are 16 and 14. They’re very busy with school and activities but they find time to come over. Mom has 2 nephews and a niece who visit all the time.

It’s ironic that dad practices Buddhism, maybe even more than mom. Is that what brought them together? I just hope to grow up to be healthy and happy. Whatever happens, I know that I am loved.

postcard 2
Eric Tu

story goes that we walked
down the streets of Saigon
as the city was falling
and when the motorcycles stopped
running and the markets closed
we walked through them
never born at all

after the war
the city stopped dreaming
and when our bodies rested
the earth laid itself
across our caskets
and those the bombs
turned dust again
orbit around her cerulean revolve
like ghosts leaving a shell
like photo-boxes emptying in reverse

when we floated with the buildings
we became a city of ashes
where the streetlights go ghost
where we see dust from 1975
and america sees confetti

we no longer speak out city’s name

to pronounce a name
the war soon pronounces her dead
and when the sun rises
the dirt takes another daughter captive
as we watch our city in ruins and still we remain passive
they mispell “genocide” like “w-a-r”
and still we remain silent

as another yellow man is underground
and now he’s my ancestor
another yellow woman becomes dust
and soon she’ll be a constellation
another yellow boy has his youth captured in celluloid
and now he is endless

and I, too, am endless nameless
the last name of an only son
livng out the last words of our dying language
wispering peace mantras
with the same mouth
i keep the razorblade in

so deconstruct me
like an island off the mainland
disconnected from my hometown
like coordinates with no end-points
just star lines falling to the ocean

so follow me, before the sunrise,
and let’s go anywhere,
where we can watch the city lights
go out one-by-one
where the stars fade the same
and the city lights spread to the sky
until blue becomes its own city

let’s stand on the beaches
of these ruins
like the shores of a
broken orange planet
the way we did the night
we left nha trang

kept afloat because we are energy
and we can’t be destroyed anymore

so this city and you and i
we all just float on
hovering like glass bottles
and our bodies are love letters

this is our story
and tonight is our last chance to tell it

so listen
listen to the jasmine wind
tonight it sounds like our names

He Prayed To Be On Earth
Peuo Tuy

In thanh-sor, we pushed the clouds aside
to find each other
I never once knew of him in thanh-dey
he died before I was conceived

Ma told me his calloused hands
brought food for her and the family

I kept pushing the clouds to see his face
Finally found him

Threi papmar he ate with me
My favorite fish omelette sided
with fresh wild vegetables and sweet jasmine rice

I examine his jaw and the way he chews his food
I imitate

He tells me to eat in silence that way we can concentrate
Tha breaks it with a smile and tells me
that Mak is a soft- spoken delicate woman
Like pka rhomduls
But I tell him that rhomduls gives off a powerful radiant energy when kept hydrated —
Petals white and yellow; magnificently gorgeous
That’s Mak to me

I say, Tha please eat
I see his hands are sticky
I go and get a bowl of spiritual water
to have him wash it off
Tha, why are we in thanh-sor?
I want you to come to earth with me,
have you be with Mak, Pbouk
and all of your grandchildren

He pra-thana to live on earth after death,
But Theravada summoned him to thanh-sor
He continues to eat his fish omelette
as he sees tears from his granddaughter
dribble down her face.

Bound Together by Our
Roots and Heritage
Rosen Yin

I've been told that eating fresh veggies and herbs back in Cambodia brings you "life". For the first time since I was a child, I visited this garden that has been around since the late 80's in Old East Dallas. These Khmer ladies pictured here (along with other members of the community) tends and cares for the garden. I was touched by the simplicity and joy they exhibit in the work they do. You too can experience a piece of Cambodia or Southeast Asia locally. These veggies "meanh rouh cheaht.”

A Moment
Amrith Fernandes Prabhu

Lowell, MA

I check my watch, we still have a few moments. So we find a spot in the shade of a great American elm. Its thin leaves hang so low that it almost tickles her shoulders. I look up at the bits of soft blue sky peeking between its branches. She looks like she has a thought forming and I want to ask her about it. I want to ask her what she is peering at, and straighten out her wrinkles. But I do not know even what I am trying to ask her.

I think of her face as it one was before our days in this country. The image of her boldness with Yves Saint Laurent sunglasses that covered over fifty-five percent of her face consumes me and I smile. She brings me back when she says “Imagine this big tree in the winter. Bare and broken in shadow and sunlight.” And just like that she answers the question I have yet to form. In these few words, she has described herself. Just imagine, she is telling me. “Just imagine, how branches must mourn for warmth in the winter and how bare they must feel.”

You see, twenty years ago on June 1st, 1999 my mother’s brain aneurysm ruptured, just three years after our arrival to this country. A day that I would recall as the single worst day of my then young life and a day that is missing some pieces in my memory. The events of that day and the months that followed turned her into a toddler, needing attention and kindness to a degree much more present than my 16-year old self could offer. The three weeks spent by her side in the ICU followed by another three months (also known as the summer of my junior year of high school) spent in a hospital, and many more months at a rehabilitation center, would define the next two decades of my life’s story. Much like raising a child, it took years to nurture my mother from toddler-like behavior, quell her uncontrollable anxiety and fear, into someone who is affectionate, humorous, and even pleasant to be around.

Perhaps you have never heard of a brain aneurysm and the science behind it. It often goes undetected, living silently and doing no harm to the body it resides in. My mother’s brain aneurysm lived in an artery in her frontal lobe and ruptured that June morning. It required the wounded artery to be clipped in a 7 hour surgery, but not before her head was half shaved and she was looped with multiple tubes. In the years that followed, she couldn’t follow a conversation, couldn’t express her thoughts or feelings, couldn’t answer to simple yes or no questions, and much less be a mother. She became unable to walk, became incontinent, couldn’t dress, bathe, or feed herself. She lost short- and long-term memory and the use of her whole left side- left eye, left arm and left leg, rendering her often frustrated and in tears. She lost her laugh, language, warmth, and character. To me, she had died without dying.

What she could do, was breathe. Lying next to her that whole summer, I would breathe a few deep breaths. She fell asleep a little faster that way. What I learned about the brain is how it is both fragile and resilient. Anything that happens to the brain impacted the bits and pieces that connected her body and soul, and influenced the emotions that affected her laughter, tears, and fears. In the decade that followed, especially after my father died and I became her primary caregiver, she would awaken with anxiety to bad dreams. Each night I would go to her room, lay next to her, and bring her into my calm. I’d practice deep breaths with her and take a moment to refresh our senses. Whenever she felt sad or frightened, we would practice our breaths together, to expunge daunting thoughts and replace them with positive ones.

And this was how I continued to learn about breathing and the brain. I learned that humans breathe in waves and patterns, and it completely affects a person’s state of mind and energy. We breathe through the right nostril and patterns, and it completely affects a person’s state of mind and energy. We breathe through the right nostril for an hour, then through both nostrils for a moment, then largely through the left nostril for the next hour. This process is called the nasal cycle. When breath lengths increased, her brain waves slowed down. The more I learned, the more it made sense to continue our breathing lessons together, considering how much the breath impacted the brain.

Now, twenty years later, my mother is back to speaking five languages, plays catch with her grandchildren from the comfort of her wheelchair, and tells jokes that she can barely get through because she is shaking with laughter. She remembers all the Mangalorean coconut based recipes from our heritage and walks my sisters and I through them. The brain, in all its complexity, can be so controlling and yet, relaxed by the breath in such a humble and purposeful way.

As these thoughts pass my mind, she nudges me. “Atta aamhi vochya. Let’s go. I’m feeling cold. We can continue imagining in the car.” Just imagine, she is telling me. So I imagine with her. After all, we only have a moment.

Under the Tamarind Tree
by Sokunthea Oum


Momma sitting by her side
Swatting flies
Under the cover of a shanty shack palm tree roof
Under the tamarind tree
Vietnamese soldiers dusting up plumes red dirt storm
On an offensive attack.
Khmer Rouge retreat in chaos
Scattering in disguise
On the back of their heads white frightened eyes

In and out of dream stage
Lying in the searing dusty dry season heat
Remembering being pulled and propped up to seat
Lifeless rag doll
Momma putting spoon to her lips to force feed
Didn’t want to eat but sleep

Kru emerged to bless and chase away the evil spirit
That latched onto her soul when we sought shelter
Visiting medical individuals would come and go for weeks
With hollow pills to swallow

Long large needles to shoot clear liquids
Butt cheeks red and sore
Covered with scores of prick marks all over
The look of a frightened grave face mother

In hazy memory under the tamarind tree
Remembering that distinct feel to slumber and not be bothered
The whisper of worries and soft cries
Drained with tries
The dying girl taken to a dusty dirty makeshift military clinic
When an ivy drip costed them an arm and a leg

Awaken to Momma caressing her cheek
A weathered woman smile to her girl being on the mend
With her eyes being able to stay open
Not an end