Photo By Keith E. JacobsonKosal Suon, a survivor of the Cambodian killing fields, came to speak to the Rotary Club on Tuesday night.
By Samantha Fields,
Townsman Staff
Thu Feb 21, 2008, 02:57 PM EST
Wellesley - When Kosal Suon returned to his native Cambodia three years ago, it was the first time he had been back since the Khmer Rouge tore apart his family, killing his brother, forcing his father to flee, and driving Suon, his mother and sisters from their home in the countryside into a Thai refugee camp.
“When I landed in Cambodia … it’s a country I was born in, but I don’t know a lot about it,” said Suon, who left Cambodia at the age of 6, and the refugee camp, which was his home for 10 years, at the age of 16. “It was a feeling that, you know it’s your place, but you don’t really know it in your heart.”
It was then, too, that he met his father for the first time, and was reunited with two older sisters who had stayed behind when Suon, his mother and two other sisters came to the United States in 1992.
“It is an overwhelming feeling, when you see your family coming out to greet you,” he said. He will return to Cambodia for the second time this summer.
A tall, articulate, soft-spoken man, Suon now lives in Lowell, the city with the second largest Cambodian population in the Unites States, and works with refugees through the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association and Adolescent Consultation Services.
After arriving in the U.S., Suon learned English (his fourth language), graduated from high school and earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from UMass-Amherst. Now, in addition to holding down two part-time jobs, he is working towards a master’s degree in social work at Boston University.
Invited to address the Rotary Club Tuesday night at the Wellesley Community Center, along with Judith Dickerson-Nelson, the educational director of the CMMA, Suon shared his family’s story, and spoke of some of the struggles now facing Cambodian refugees in the U.S. For many of them, because of the trauma of what they went through in Cambodia, their lack of education and the language barrier, “it’s just so hard for them to live in this country,” said Suon, likening the experience to dropping an American down in the middle of a jungle.
Working with kids who have, for some reason or another, ended up in the court system, Suon acts as a liaison and an interpreter — of culture and experience, often, in addition to language — between the kids, their families and the courts. “I feel like it’s great that I’m there, because I can connect them to the court system, and tell the court system what we went through,” he said. “It’s hard for anyone to imagine what we went through, without hearing stories.”
From 1975-1979, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime controlled Cambodia, and killed approximately 2 million people through forced labor, starvation, disease and execution. Suon’s older brother was one, lost to starvation. His mother lost all of her brothers and two sisters; his father lost all of his sisters, and most of his brothers.
His father fled when the Khmer Rouge came to power, forced to hide his identity as an educated man. Intellectuals — doctors, lawyers, teachers and former government officials — were the first ones targeted by the new regime. “It’s hard to control intellectuals,” said Suon, so they went first. Then came the upper class, often easily identifiable by their light skin and soft, uncalloused hands. Next were the elderly, expendable because they were unable to work for the regime: “To keep you is no gain, to lose you is no loss,” Suon said, paraphrasing a Khmer Rouge saying.
Also targeted were those who broke tools or failed to listen to what they were told; those who tried to flee to neighboring countries or escape the labor camps; those caught stealing or plotting against the regime; and those who dared show emotion over a family member or friend killed by the Khmer Rouge.
In 1979, after Vietnam invaded Cambodia and toppled the Khmer Rouge, Suon, his mother and sisters returned briefly to their village, only to be driven out again by civil wars that gripped the country. They spent the next 10 years in one of eight refugee camps set up along the Thai-Vietnamese borders, where food was scarce, and they were kept in by barbed wire and fear.
“I spent most of my childhood there in the refugee camp,” said Suon, describing the horror of life there, which in many ways was barely an improvement over life under the Khmer Rouge.
“Some people called it ‘beyond the killing fields’ because there was a lot of criminal activity at nighttime,” he said. “Nighttime was a nightmare for us.”
In 1992, Suon, his mother, his younger sister and an older sister were sponsored to come to the U.S. They spent several months in Columbus, Ohio, where his mother now lives, before moving to Lowell.
“Most of the Cambodians in Lowell survived all that,” he said. “Lots of us are survivors of the Khmer Rouge and of the camps.”
And it is largely because of those experiences that many of them are struggling here today. There is the language barrier, which sometimes exists even within families, when parents speak little English, and their children, born here, speak little Cambodian. When children become the translators too, Suon said, that changes the dynamic and who has the control in families. Alcohol abuse is another major problem, particularly among older Cambodians who “self-medicate.” And many Cambodian families live below the poverty level, working long hours at low-paying factory jobs that prevent them from spending time at home with their children, who then often turn to street gangs, or wind up in trouble with the law.
“It’s so hard for them to communicate,” said Suon. “So often I see identity crisis among the younger generation. They look Cambodian, they speak a little Cambodian, but they don’t understand anything about Cambodia.”
Thu Feb 21, 2008, 02:57 PM EST
Wellesley - When Kosal Suon returned to his native Cambodia three years ago, it was the first time he had been back since the Khmer Rouge tore apart his family, killing his brother, forcing his father to flee, and driving Suon, his mother and sisters from their home in the countryside into a Thai refugee camp.
“When I landed in Cambodia … it’s a country I was born in, but I don’t know a lot about it,” said Suon, who left Cambodia at the age of 6, and the refugee camp, which was his home for 10 years, at the age of 16. “It was a feeling that, you know it’s your place, but you don’t really know it in your heart.”
It was then, too, that he met his father for the first time, and was reunited with two older sisters who had stayed behind when Suon, his mother and two other sisters came to the United States in 1992.
“It is an overwhelming feeling, when you see your family coming out to greet you,” he said. He will return to Cambodia for the second time this summer.
A tall, articulate, soft-spoken man, Suon now lives in Lowell, the city with the second largest Cambodian population in the Unites States, and works with refugees through the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association and Adolescent Consultation Services.
After arriving in the U.S., Suon learned English (his fourth language), graduated from high school and earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from UMass-Amherst. Now, in addition to holding down two part-time jobs, he is working towards a master’s degree in social work at Boston University.
Invited to address the Rotary Club Tuesday night at the Wellesley Community Center, along with Judith Dickerson-Nelson, the educational director of the CMMA, Suon shared his family’s story, and spoke of some of the struggles now facing Cambodian refugees in the U.S. For many of them, because of the trauma of what they went through in Cambodia, their lack of education and the language barrier, “it’s just so hard for them to live in this country,” said Suon, likening the experience to dropping an American down in the middle of a jungle.
Working with kids who have, for some reason or another, ended up in the court system, Suon acts as a liaison and an interpreter — of culture and experience, often, in addition to language — between the kids, their families and the courts. “I feel like it’s great that I’m there, because I can connect them to the court system, and tell the court system what we went through,” he said. “It’s hard for anyone to imagine what we went through, without hearing stories.”
From 1975-1979, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime controlled Cambodia, and killed approximately 2 million people through forced labor, starvation, disease and execution. Suon’s older brother was one, lost to starvation. His mother lost all of her brothers and two sisters; his father lost all of his sisters, and most of his brothers.
His father fled when the Khmer Rouge came to power, forced to hide his identity as an educated man. Intellectuals — doctors, lawyers, teachers and former government officials — were the first ones targeted by the new regime. “It’s hard to control intellectuals,” said Suon, so they went first. Then came the upper class, often easily identifiable by their light skin and soft, uncalloused hands. Next were the elderly, expendable because they were unable to work for the regime: “To keep you is no gain, to lose you is no loss,” Suon said, paraphrasing a Khmer Rouge saying.
Also targeted were those who broke tools or failed to listen to what they were told; those who tried to flee to neighboring countries or escape the labor camps; those caught stealing or plotting against the regime; and those who dared show emotion over a family member or friend killed by the Khmer Rouge.
In 1979, after Vietnam invaded Cambodia and toppled the Khmer Rouge, Suon, his mother and sisters returned briefly to their village, only to be driven out again by civil wars that gripped the country. They spent the next 10 years in one of eight refugee camps set up along the Thai-Vietnamese borders, where food was scarce, and they were kept in by barbed wire and fear.
“I spent most of my childhood there in the refugee camp,” said Suon, describing the horror of life there, which in many ways was barely an improvement over life under the Khmer Rouge.
“Some people called it ‘beyond the killing fields’ because there was a lot of criminal activity at nighttime,” he said. “Nighttime was a nightmare for us.”
In 1992, Suon, his mother, his younger sister and an older sister were sponsored to come to the U.S. They spent several months in Columbus, Ohio, where his mother now lives, before moving to Lowell.
“Most of the Cambodians in Lowell survived all that,” he said. “Lots of us are survivors of the Khmer Rouge and of the camps.”
And it is largely because of those experiences that many of them are struggling here today. There is the language barrier, which sometimes exists even within families, when parents speak little English, and their children, born here, speak little Cambodian. When children become the translators too, Suon said, that changes the dynamic and who has the control in families. Alcohol abuse is another major problem, particularly among older Cambodians who “self-medicate.” And many Cambodian families live below the poverty level, working long hours at low-paying factory jobs that prevent them from spending time at home with their children, who then often turn to street gangs, or wind up in trouble with the law.
“It’s so hard for them to communicate,” said Suon. “So often I see identity crisis among the younger generation. They look Cambodian, they speak a little Cambodian, but they don’t understand anything about Cambodia.”
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