Jim Russell Interviews
Loung Ung PART 2
by Jim Russell,
Afternoon Host of KOSI 101 Radio, and asiaXpress.com "correspondent-at-large."

Q: What is it like for you to have seen the recent apprehension and trials of some of the key Khmer Rouge officials from so far away after being so intimately touched by the devastation they caused?

A: I’m very, very hopeful that the Khmer Rouge will be put on trial. And though I’m far away in another land, I still have a brother and sister in Cambodia, and I’m not ever that far away, because despite the fact that America is now my home, Cambodia is my heart and Cambodia is my soul, and because of that I will always be connected to Cambodia.

Q: As you tour America with such a very personal account of what you’ve been through, do you find American audiences still can’t quite grasp the devastation that your country went through?

A: I think most definitely they cannot grasp it, and they’re very blessed. I do not wish people to have gone through my experience, and yet I find that they really do care when you bring the story to them. When you take it out of the magnitude of 1.5 million or 2 million people killed out of a population of 7 million, which was the case in Cambodia, and you bring it to the level of a person, a family, a father, a mother – I think people really understand. People really understand that it might be numbers and we might talk about it in terms of numbers, but when it comes down to it, it’s all about love and family. And whether you lost a father in a war or you lost a mother in an automobile accident or a sister to disease, people can always understand loss of loved ones and they connect to that.

Q: Do you have any thoughts about the violence that pervades American society now, having come from a country where violence was a part of everyday life? Do you see that America has changed in the amount of time you’ve been here?

A: I think it has changed, and even with saying that, I have no proof. It doesn’t seem to me that many young people today have a reference point to go to. When I was in a foster home, the foster mother said to me "the only thing you’ll ever amount to is if you become a prostitute because the only thing you have going for you is your looks" – and I was nine years old! I always knew when people said things like that to me or was hurting me, I always brought back the images and the faces of my father and my mother and their words and their love and memories of being in their arms and memories of going to movie theaters with my parents. I always had that reference point to go back to. I always knew that I couldn’t be bad if such great people loved me so much. I don’t think kids have that reference point here. I don’t know if they feel that love from their parents. I don’t know if their parents were there to do that. For me, during the war, in the midst of everything going on, I always knew my parents didn’t just love me, they were absolutely in love with me.

Q: Were you surprised at the response to what began as a series of diary entries and a very personal account has become a book read by hundreds of thousands all around the world?

A: It’s been wonderful. I’m completely surprised. I expected the book to come out and maybe sell ten copies, but [we’re] into our third edition already and I have signed contracts with ten different countries, so it’s going to be translated to ten different languages. And more gratifying than that are the letters I’ve been getting from people, from young Cambodians that I’ve met all across the country and people from different places who have said to me that in their wars and their situations, they don’t talk about it – especially the Cambodians. They don’t talk about the war, and having me being in the media and doing book tours and talking and hearing me on the radio gives them permission to broach the topic again. It [allows] the younger generation of Cambodians in different parts of the world to bring the topic up and to ask questions.

Q: So in a sense, you’ve become the vicarious voice of so many who either have been afraid to speak or never thought they would have had a voice.

A: Yeah. I guess in a sense that that has happened, and if I’m able to contribute to the healing of people’s hearts, then I’m happy for it.

Back to Part 1

More information on Loung Ung’s book First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers as well as her work with The Campaign For A Landmine Free World is available on the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation website, vvaf.org