WEBVTT - The Baby on the Boat 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.440 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Mat 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:10.240 had made a myth out of me, spending so many 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:13.480 stories about my travels and adventures that some of her 0:00:13.480 --> 0:00:17.000 friends did not believe I was real. Is this the one, 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:19.600 one of them said. As I sat in MAT's kitchen, 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:22.920 tucking into a bowl of noodles, I was. I'll leave 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.840 from a journalism job in Cambodia, always choosing to go 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.640 home when I had time off rather than on holiday. 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:31.720 Matt's friends smiled and squeezed my arm as if to 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:34.880 confirm I was not a ghost. Is this your baby 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.519 girl with the big job and all the money, the 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.720 one who almost died on the boat. Matt smiled and nodded. 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.360 Her friend turned to me. Your mother talks about you 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.879 all the time, she said, still holding my arm. She 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:58.560 says you are special. That's puts out O Rang, journalist 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:01.720 and author of the Sea Ring memoir Ma and Me. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.640 Putsada's is a story right from the start of overcoming 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:11.800 staggering odds. It's also a story about familial loyalty and 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:16.440 cultural expectations, and the strength it takes to become one's 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:33.240 truest self. I'm Danny Shapiro and This is family secrets, 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.319 the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.759 keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.800 I was born in a seaside town in Cambodia called 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:52.440 the Bung Sum, in a hospital right in downtown near 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:57.240 an open market called Salo, and I have no memory 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.920 of where I was born, although when I was a 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.920 teenager I went for the first time to visit, and 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:09.840 immediately I fell in love with this beach community. I 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.919 could smell the briny air and feel that the sea 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.359 breeze pushing through my hair, and um, there was something 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.720 very idyllic and peaceful about it. But I remember about 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.520 the first time I visited Kabung Soud, Cambodia, were so 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:29.560 many palm trees and just absolutely everywhere coconut trees, just 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.079 a landscape that was so very different from anything that 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.920 I ever knew growing up in America. And it's one 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.480 of those things where you you see a place for 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.760 the first time with clear eyes and with new eyes, 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.280 and it just steared in my heart as I felt 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.600 so proud to be from this bland cut through with 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:55.640 such a pure light and um, just everything about where 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.639 I was born engaged my senses, the size of sounds, 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.200 that smells, to feel every thing, you know, sand between 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.440 my toes. They're on the beach and seeing the beautiful, 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:10.360 gorgeous sunsets Um they're in Kabung Sum. It's something that 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:12.440 just never leaves you. It was a bit of paradise. 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:17.360 So it's hard to equate that slice of paradise with 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.520 the reality of my country, which is the dark history 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.600 of genocide. It was four when I was born in 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:29.079 Kobung Sound, Cambodia. Most of Kimbodia had already been overrun 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.560 by the Camarouge communist regime, and so by then I 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.200 imagine um and my mother has the memories of this, 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.440 that Kabung Sum, this place that I saw for the 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.080 first time in a in a time of peace. Back 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.600 then in seventy four, when I was born, it was 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:49.320 actually a period of terrible chaos. It was a quiet 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.720 kind of chaos. As my mom describes that she could 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.840 feel a particular energy in the air and a certain 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.080 heaviness in the air. Kbung Sound, my mother tells me, 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:07.200 had been a place for the ultra wealthy and tourists 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.240 to come in and play with a playground for the 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.560 wealthy and during the war, and it specifically in nineteen 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.920 seventy four when I was born there suddenly it was 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.600 absolutely quiet. Nobody was on the streets, there were no taurists. 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:22.400 So my mother felt the weight of that moment and 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:25.359 what was about to happen. I don't think that she 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.800 actually knew that our country would truly fall to the 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.920 cammarriage at that moment in time, but she certainly felt 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.320 that something, something terrible was on the horizon. My mom 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:43.080 gave birth to five children, one of whom her second child, 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:47.120 died as a baby. All of my parents children were 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:50.960 born with a midwife at home, but something different happened 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:56.039 with me. When I was in my mother's room, she 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.919 felt nothing through the course of her pregnancy, no movement, 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.960 no eggs, nothing. It's almost as if I wasn't there. 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.320 And she worried that this baby she was carrying was 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:12.400 possibly dead. And so she made the decision with my 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.719 father that for the first time, she would go give 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:20.520 birth with trained professionals at the nearest clinic or hospital 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.839 to where my family lived in Realm, Cambodia, also on 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:28.599 the coast, about a twenty minute drive away. She entered 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.960 the clinic, pregnant, intending to give birth, and she was 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:37.760 absolutely convinced that something was wrong with me when I 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.440 was in her room, because I wasn't moving. You know, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.279 she got zero sense that she was even pregnant at all. 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.880 She only believed and was convinced that I was alive 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.840 when she did give birth, and the doctor held me 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.000 upside down and smacked me on the butt, and she 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.960 heard a very tiny little ink, a little cry come out, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.760 and that's when she knew her baby was alive. And 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:05.400 you were four and a half pounds when you were born. 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.720 I was I was very little. My mother believes that 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.560 she had about of hemorrhoids when she was pregnant with me, 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.960 and she took medicine that had an alcohol base, and 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:18.880 she believed that it was the medicine that she took 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.520 this sort of left me drunk and debilitated in her 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.200 womb and therefore unable to move or or not unable 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.000 to move. But but that I didn't move. It's almost 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.680 as if I was just, you know, sleeping, waiting for 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.520 my day to arrive in the world. When she brought 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.599 me back to the naval base where my family lived. 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.640 My father was an accountant in the Cambodian Navy. The 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.680 women of the village rushed to her to get a 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.800 look at my parents latest baby, and they weren't convinced 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.920 that my mother was carrying anything at home, because they 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:51.839 didn't see me for a while until they kind of 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.760 pilled back the layers of they called it Grandma, which 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:58.840 are which are sort of like computy ubiquitous scarves. And 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:01.800 once they peeled back the layers and saw there was 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.960 indeed a baby there, everybody was satisfied. But my mom 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.240 tells me, and has always told me, that I was 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:11.720 born sort of the kind of like the rent of 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.880 the family, the smallest, the weakest, the one who always 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.080 got sick. And so that's the story that I believed 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:20.920 about myself because that's the one that I heard most consistently. 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.880 But this isn't the only survival story that defines Putsada's 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:32.760 early life. When put is just a year old, it's 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.600 no longer safe for the family to stay in Cambodia, 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.720 and her parents, Ma and Bab decide to make their escape. 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.200 During that difficult journey, puts life is very much in 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:51.280 danger again. So in there came a point when my 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:54.360 father went to work and there was a lot of 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.000 chaos happening that day, and he was listening with his 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:04.400 coworkers to radio communications with their headquarters in Kimbodia's capital, 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:09.360 kunot Bing, and their colleague in kunot Bing said to them, 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:14.200 the Communists have arrived in punot Bing. They've taken over. 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:17.680 If you can get out, get out, go and good luck. 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.800 And that was it. The radio went dead. It was 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:25.760 April seventeen ninet and so my family rushed to the 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.960 docks to escape the only way we could, which was 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.280 by sea, and because of the fact that my father 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.640 worked for the Kimbodi Navy, we were allowed to get 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.000 on board one of four naval ships that were docked 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.560 at Real Naval based on the coast of Cambodia. In addition, 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.360 my father was able to go back to our neighborhood 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.080 and collect other family members, and so in total there 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.160 were fourteen relatives that were able to get into this 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:54.880 boat before my father ran out of time. My parents 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.280 tell me about that time that nobody on the boat, 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:03.160 including my parents, believe that we were going to be 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:06.800 leaving our country forever. There was always a feeling of 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:08.480 we're just going to go out to see for a 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.920 few days, wait till things calmed down. You know, with 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:15.120 the help of the Americans, we will prevail against the communists. 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.160 That was the prevailing attitude among my father and his 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.560 colleagues and the military wise at the time. Well, of 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.680 course that didn't happen. So suddenly these boats get thrust 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:29.080 out to see. And these boats, they were built for 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.880 a crew of sa to thirty men. Suddenly you have 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:37.280 more than three people on board each one. The way 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:41.120 my mother describes it, there was no room to sleep. 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:43.800 You just kind of sat the whole time and then 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:48.280 took turns laying down at night. On April seventeenth, n 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.880 it was actually ten days to my first birthday. And 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:55.120 from the time that I was born up until the 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.480 time my family left the shores of Cambodia, I had 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:02.000 not been doing very well healthwise. Um I was still 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:05.680 pretty small. I had not been growing robustly in the 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.600 way that my older siblings had been growing, and so 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.080 by the time my family got thrust out to see, 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.760 I was already a bit of a disadvantage in the 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.800 sense that I was already I won't stay sick, but 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.119 I was certainly, you know, in need of more nutrients 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.679 than what we ended up getting on the boat. So 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.640 when I turned one years old, about ten days after 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.400 our escape, I stopped moving and I stopped crying. There 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.559 wasn't very much to eat on the boat. There wasn't 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.559 much water to drink. And you know, as you can imagine, 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.640 a mother who was lactating needs nourishment to continue to 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.280 lactate and to provide milk for her baby. But my 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:46.880 mother didn't have that, and so she had no milk 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.240 in her breast to feed me, and so I didn't eat. 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.880 And she had tried to spoon feed a canned milk 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.640 into my mouth, but I wouldn't take it. I was 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:01.360 so malnourished that I just became very life list. As 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:05.240 my mother describes it, um I made no sounds, not 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.680 even a cry on my I didn't move. She described 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.440 me as being heavy, because she had been carrying me 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:16.079 all these days um at sea already NonStop. And I 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:19.520 remember asking her, how is that possible that a baby 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:23.360 could be heavy, especially one who was born premature, and 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.800 also a baby who was very malnourished. And I realized 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.520 now looking back, that when she described me as heavy, 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.520 it was perhaps more of an emotional feeling than a 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:38.839 physical feeling that this idea and this absolute fear and 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.600 terror that perhaps my baby is not going to make 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:46.720 it on this journey. So what happened was there was 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.760 a day that the captain of the ship walked across 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.200 the bow and throughout other parts of the ship to 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.240 sort of assess his passengers, and he came across my 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:04.320 mother and bent low to her, and apparently, as the 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.320 way my mother tells the story, looked at my mother's 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:13.200 baby and saw that this baby looked dead to him, 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.880 and he essentially told her, if your baby dies, you 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.160 need to throw your baby overboard. Do you see all 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:24.200 these passengers on this ship if you're if your baby dies, 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.880 your baby is going to contaminate all these other passengers 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.600 on my ship. Even though I've I've heard this story 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:35.400 so many times, I've told this story myself so many times. 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.080 I've written about this story so many times, and I 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.000 still get emotional about it because I am not a mother. However, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.160 I can imagine what that moment must have been like 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.680 for my mother. When somebody tells you your baby is dead, 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.679 you have to get rid of this baby. It's like 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:57.040 it's it's nightmarish, and it's like really literally the stuff 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:01.440 of nightmares. So what does she all the captain. My 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.280 mother is so clever and smart. She understood that she 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.120 had to sort of find some commonality between her and 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.680 the captain, and the commonality it was religion. They are Buddhist, 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.560 and so she told the captain. You know, she said lok, 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:18.199 which is a term of reverence in the language. Please 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.960 let me keep my baby. We're Buddhist. Please let me 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:22.880 keep my baby until we reach land and I can 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:27.720 give my baby a proper burial. And that was the 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.640 strategy that worked. My mother was able to keep me. 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.320 When I think about it now, I can't imagine the 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:40.040 fierce determination it must have taken my mother, just absolute 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.840 steely determination. It took her to face down somebody of 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:48.320 authority in our culture where we are always told, especially 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:53.240 as women and girls, too respect authority. Um, you know, 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.959 we don't have a right to request anything, or to 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.800 talk back or anything like that. And yet she did. 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.040 She did it in the name was keeping her baby 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:09.680 and saving her baby, saving me. In Puts memoir, she 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:14.200 quotes the poet wars on Shire who once wrote, you 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.280 have to understand that no one puts their children in 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.400 a boat unless the water is safer than the land. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.840 This couldn't ring truer from Ma and their tumultuous experience 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:30.760 at sea. There is no predetermined destination. The ship docks 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.720 at the naval base in Subic Bay in the Philippines. 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.680 For over three weeks, Ma has seen only sea and sky. 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:44.600 When she finally sees land, safe land, she weeps. By 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.680 the time the ship docked, my mother had a single 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.760 and very narrow mission in mind. She was going to 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.040 do whatever she could to save me, truly, because she 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.760 herself wasn't fully convinced that I was still alive. So 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.560 when the ship sure as a big bay nettle base, 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.400 she thrust me into the arms of the very first 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.600 white man she saw, who was a soldier there on 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:13.720 the base, And that soldier pointed her to a building 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.880 with a red cross on It was the American Red Cross, 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:18.760 and so my mother went there. My mother had no 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.800 English words whatsoever to explain that her baby was sick 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.760 and she needed help, and so she passed me off 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:30.880 to the nurses there. And it was in that moment, 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:35.120 for the very first time, that I think my mother 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:40.400 could actually take one true deep breath because she no 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.920 longer was carrying me in her arms, and that she 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:47.960 felt safe now that she was with you know, she 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:50.880 was in a facility of doctors and nurses that could 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.200 help revive her baby, and indeed they did, you know, 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:59.040 immediately doctors and nurses hooked me up to an IVY trip. 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:04.040 My mother there ended up laying on the ground underneath 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:09.360 my hospital bed and and I'm certain, out of sheer exhaustion, 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.960 just fell into the deepest sleep. I just think about 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:17.000 that time. I just can't imagine. Here's this young mother, 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:22.560 thirty years old. She has carried her baby for three 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:24.520 and a half weeks in the middle of the ocean, 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.760 fleeing her war torn country, and unsure of what her 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.280 future is, holding an issure of even where her family 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:35.520 is going to end up, and her single concern is 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.400 keeping her baby alive. And that the moment she's able 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.520 to release her baby into the arms of medical professionals, 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.000 that is the moment that I could imagine, like one's 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.120 body just gives in as she just the way she 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.720 described it, she just you know, I can't translate the 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:56.160 word correctly, but but them my word is a lot 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.480 and I think the closest translation I could come up 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:19.960 with is the you faint, We'll be right back put 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.760 recovers at the Red Cross. And after this temporary stint 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.320 in the Philippines, the family finally makes it to America. 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.720 They settle in Corvallis, Oregon, where they are among the 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:38.800 first Cambodian refugees brought into this community. There's this perfume 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.720 in the air in Carvellis, Oregon that I am certain 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.520 has to do with all of the crops that grow 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.399 all up and down the Willamet Valley. You have strawberries 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:52.240 and raspberries, blackberries, any kind of berry you can imagine 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:56.359 grows in the Willamette Valley. And so every summer the 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:01.000 air is just filled with an absolute sweetness. That is 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.720 something that I think of and I smile whenever I 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:07.959 think of my hometown. Um there in Oregon. So my family, 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.000 I grew up in a I would describe our neighborhood 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.920 as sort of a lower middle class neighborhood. Um, and 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.119 you know, we we live. My family lived in a 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:19.479 in a ranch style house. It was a three bedroom 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:25.080 to bath house, constantly overrun with kids. Because not only 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.680 were my parents raising myself and my siblings, but they 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.600 were also raising one of my cousins and then over 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:37.959 the years more of my cousins. Immediately, the family embarks 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.679 on the project of rebuilding their lives. Those a landscape 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.520 is lush and welcoming, the transition is far from seamless. 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:50.160 Ma and Boss struggle to find work. My dad went 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:54.520 from wearing a navy uniform with three stripes on his 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.320 a pelts and feeling very proud of who he was 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:02.640 working for the Kimbootan government, now suddenly wearing an apron 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.000 and flipping burgers at our local diner in downtown Carvella 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:10.560 Is called m Burton's Diner. And my mom she had 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.879 to convince my dad to go out and find work. 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:18.960 Because my mom is a very prideful woman and though 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.600 she accepted the help of our church sponsors and Carvallis, 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:26.960 she didn't want any anybody in America to think that 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:31.040 we were dependent on Americans to survive. She wanted to 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:33.639 prove that we were independent and that we could survive 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:36.880 our our own So she worked as a janitor, scrubbing 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.960 toilets and vacuuming and mopping floors at the Student Health 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.840 Center at Oregon State university and it was essentially media 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.159 labor when we first arrived in Carvallis, and um, you know, 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.000 I never I remember growing up and not really seeing 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.440 them that whole much. In essence, we were raised And 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:57.280 when I say we, my siblings and my cousins were 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.600 raised by my older sister Cineow. She was oldest in 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.760 the family. She was eight years old when we escaped Cambodia, 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.520 and she was the one that cooked our dinners, and 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:09.720 she was one the baby sat us and walked us 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:11.879 to school and whatnot. And I think that this is 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.879 one of the things as a child of immigrants, but 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:19.679 specifically a child of refugees, um that I've come to 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:23.760 learn and appreciate and be extraordinarily grateful for for my 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.760 parents is that there's that kind of silent sacrifice that 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:30.680 parents do. You know, when one leaves one's country by force, 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:32.680 and in the case of my family, because of a war, 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.120 you end up in another country, you do absolutely whatever 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:42.400 it takes to do to survive. Tell me a bit 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:51.080 about them expectations culturally regarding familial duty and what it 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.840 means to be a member of a family, and particularly 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.960 what it means to be a female member of a 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:01.600 family to be a daughter in my culture and my culture, 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.840 when you were born and if you are born female, 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:11.399 essentially your life is going to have one path only, 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.040 and that path is that one day you are going 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.360 to get ready to a command man and you are 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.639 going to be a stay at home mother and or 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:20.800 you know, work in the rice patties, if your family 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.919 happens to own rice patties. But you know, for for 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.720 girls and for women in Cambodia, there's no sense of agency, 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.359 there's no sense of independence. It's almost as if you 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:33.960 belong to the men in your family. It's a very 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:38.040 patriarchical society in that way. And so in America that 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:41.320 was really difficult. Indeed, it was a culture clash in 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:44.960 my family and specifically for my parents and even more 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:48.760 specifically for my mother, because so much of what America 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:53.520 is for for being a woman is different than how 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.240 it is to be a woman in Cambodia. And so 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.840 on the one hand, though my mother went out and 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:04.840 worked outside of the home, she wore pants, she ended 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:06.880 up learning how to drive, She did all of these 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:11.560 things that my women don't do in Cambodia. But we 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:13.880 were not in Cambodia. We were in America and they 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.680 were starting new lives, and so she understood she had 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:21.800 to operate in a different way. However, she still held 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:26.080 onto those cultural codes of what it means to be 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:29.560 a girl in my culture, because that's the way that 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:31.960 she raised my sisters and I. One of the things 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:35.320 that I grew up hearing as well as my sisters 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:38.520 was one day, when you grow up, you're going to 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.240 have a husband, and when you do, you have to 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:43.000 have a hot meal ready for him when he gets 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:45.639 home from work. I'll never forget that. She told us 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:48.320 that so many times. It just steered into my into 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:52.159 my entire being, and so I had a very narrow 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.600 vision of what it meant to be a my daughter. 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.600 And at the time, one of the things that's so 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:02.399 hard is that an American culture, in American society, it's 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.280 already hard enough to be a teenager and figure out 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:07.679 how to fit in, but then to have this added 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:13.680 complexity of being a Cambodian refugee in American society and 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:20.680 added familial pressure and cultural pressure of adhering to and 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:25.320 maintaining a fidelity to my own Cambodian culture while also 0:23:25.440 --> 0:23:30.159 navigating this American culture that was an extremely difficult place 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:33.760 to be and to navigate those two worlds. It was 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:36.600 a real challenge, and not just for me. This is 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:40.480 something that you know is repeated with among many refugees 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:46.600 and among many immigrants. Though Ma imposes many of these 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:51.560 Kami conventions upon her children, she herself had flouted them 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:54.560 when she was a teenager growing up in Cambodia. Ma 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:57.960 was raised in a very traditional family and she was 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:01.800 expected to fulfill all the duty of a perfectly obedient 0:24:01.920 --> 0:24:06.720 to my daughter. But she bristled, she pursued an education, 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:11.159 and when her marriage to Put's father was arranged, she fled. 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:18.600 She literally ran away. So she had this history of 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:24.679 really not wanting this, but nonetheless, you know, fulfilling her duty, 0:24:25.200 --> 0:24:27.600 and that becomes a huge part of her story, and 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:31.520 then a huge part of her story with you, that's right, 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:35.920 and then it became my story until I met my wife. Essentially, 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:40.560 I often feel that as a child, we come across 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:43.439 these moments in our lives, where would we get a 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:46.320 glimpse into our parents before they were parents, Like they 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:51.199 were actually people, they they were young people, they were 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:54.879 kids also, they had dreams, they had ambitions. You know, 0:24:54.920 --> 0:24:57.520 they fought with their parents away. You know I fought 0:24:57.520 --> 0:24:59.639 with my parents. You know, they were their own people, 0:24:59.720 --> 0:25:01.960 because when I'm when I was growing up, I only 0:25:02.000 --> 0:25:05.520 ever sought my parents as just parents. And so there's 0:25:05.560 --> 0:25:10.480 this whole other life that they had before they had 0:25:10.560 --> 0:25:13.439 children and before they made a family together. And so 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:15.840 for my mom, when I learned a story about how 0:25:16.520 --> 0:25:19.560 she ran away because she didn't want to get married 0:25:19.600 --> 0:25:23.520 in an arranged marriage, what I understood about her was that, 0:25:23.680 --> 0:25:28.239 oh my gosh, all this time I felt that my 0:25:28.280 --> 0:25:31.239 mom and I had been always in conflict with each other, 0:25:31.280 --> 0:25:33.000 always fighting with each other, and all this time I 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:36.600