Teacher's guide to In My Heart, I Am a Dancer
by Debora Kodish and Deborah Wei
Part Three: Lesson 3 (k-4): My family memories
by Samon, Grade 8 (Francis Scott Key School, 1987)
In 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. It was about 2 p.m. I was playing with my friends at the back of the house. Suddenly, I saw a group of men wearing black clothes and they said everybody must get out of the city because they needed the city to put their soldiers in. They said, "You all have been rich and easy and now you must go to your hometown or find some other village to make rice fields or work for us. Hurry or we will shoot you." A lot of people got killed by the Khmer Rouge because they didn't do what the Khmer Rouge said. My family was very lucky because we didn't lose anyone from my family.
When my family got to our hometown, the Khmer Rouge told us that the people from the city couldn't live mixed with the village people and they put us into one group. A few months later, the Khmer Rouge told my family to move from our hometown to another village. Everybody worked hard, twenty-four hours a day. The people were put into groups. If you were older than fifteen, you were separated from your parents. I had five people in my family - my parents, two sisters and one brother. I am the smallest.
In 1978, the Khmer Rouge changed a lot. They let us go to work day and night. They gave us a very small amount of food twice a day. A lot of people died because there was no food and people got sick. My uncle, my cousin and my aunt all died. The Khmer Rouge tied one of my uncles with a heavy rock and threw him into the river. People who knew how to read or write were killed.
Some of the smart people pretended they didn't know how to read or write and got out of it. They told you to sing for them first, and if you knew how to sing songs, they killed you. Even little babies were killed too. Sometimes it was easy to kill people. They just threw them into the jungle. No one could help them. If you did, you would die too.
That same year, my father got sick. He was sick about two months and he never got better. One day, he called me to come near him and he said, "Samon, please give me something to eat." I said we didn't have any food or even a piece of rice in the house. My mother had gone to work. There was no one home except my father and me. A few minutes later, my father gave me a new scarf that we had to trade for some rice for him to eat. I asked him where I could trade for food and he pointed to the west of my house. "You must go that way. I'm sure they have something for us, " he said. "If they don't want this scarf, you beg them to give us some food to eat. In my life, I have never been so hungry like this day. I would rather die than stay alive, but before I die, I need some food to eat so I can close my eyes easily."
After I heard what my father said, I was crying and I ran as fast as I could because I was scared that my father was going to die. It was quiet in the town. I saw no one walking in the street. Everybody went to work. It was about one half mile from my house to the place I could trade for food. I thank God that I made it to that house and I got some rice and fish sauce. When I came back home, my father was so happy when he saw that I got some food. I cooked it for him and he ate all the food that I cooked. One day later, my father died.
In 1979, Vietnam took over Cambodia. In June 1979, my mother died. I couldn't go back to our home town because we didn't have any money or food to travel, so we went to Thailand. We stayed in Thailand for about three years. In May 1984, my family came to America and we found a new life again. But I still worry about my relatives who live in Cambodia. I hope Cambodia will be free so I can visit my relatives, because it has been ten years since I left them and I have never seen them since then.
