The years following the communist Khmer Rouge takeover in April 1975 were dark ones for Cambodia. It was a cruel regime. Many were killed, died from disease, or were separated from their families. An estimated 160,000 Cambodian refugees made the perilous decision to leave their homeland and seek a new life in the United States; others went elsewhere, perhaps in France, West Germany, or Australia—distances unheard of in their former village lifestyle.
“Go West! A Memoir for My Sons: Our Family Journey and Khmer Rouge Life Experiences” tells the story of one family’s struggle to reach, for them, the promised land: America. Ultimately, six siblings from the original nine family members found themselves in Minnesota. This is their story.
A Moving Memoir
The author, Sideth Niev, gives readers a heartfelt account of the gut-wrenching experiences that he and his family endured on their journey.The family members who made this journey were his parents and siblings, though they were sometimes helped by other relatives. By the time they reached America, his family of nine had dwindled to six: Niev and his five sisters.
Niev’s primary mission in writing this story is a legacy to his three sons, who were born later after he came to the United States and married. Throughout the book, he often interjects guidance and advice for them. The narrative is very personal in that regard.
It is told from two viewpoints, or voices, as Niev recounts his experiences as a little boy and as an adult, a thread that runs throughout the narrative.
Those voices—the young, hungry child struggling to survive in a harsh world and the now-successful adult who has reaped the rewards of life in America—combine to share an engaging, inspiring, and moving narrative.
Mah’s Dream, a Powerful Driver
Deceitful acts plague them, as acts of kindness help them. Their faith in a brighter future sustains them; it’s the author’s mother, known as Mah, whose dream one night of her family “going west” drives them onward.Mah’s dream left a powerful impact on her. The vision depicted an old man with a long white beard, holding a staff in his right hand. She shared with her children how she questioned the advice of the man in her dream: She was concerned that they would not speak the language in a new place. The old man assured her, “Your children will speak for you.”
The predominantly Buddhist culture believed strongly in the power of dreams. According to a study that researched the dreams of those who survived the Khmer Rouge, if the dream involved a deceased person, it was particularly unsettling. In the case of Sideth’s mother’s dream, it was a sage, with a long white beard and carrying a staff—a sort of deity—and she believed that he was a hermit or a holy person.
Life under the Khmer Rouge regime was difficult at best. As Niev writes: “They wanted to restart, reset, redo, rebuild everything their way, how they envisioned the world for everyone else. Their attitude was, ‘Forget traditions. Good or bad, they are a waste of time.’”
The Khmer Rouge was on a rampage to purge various ethnic groups. It had a disdain for the Vietnamese at the same time as tensions were building between Vietnam and Cambodia with cross-border raids.
A Euphoric Escape
Readers will learn of unspeakable hardships that the family withstood: foraging for food, eating critters found in the waters of rice paddies, digging for plant roots, losing their scant possessions, and, at times, losing each other.One outing with a friend proved fateful. They were feet away from an exploding grenade. While not directly hit, the author still has a bit of fragment lodged in his scalp. For him, it is a constant reminder of where he came from and what could have happened that day, but didn’t.
While their lives were bleak, the author maintains an optimistic attitude. Along with their trials and tribulations, he shares joyous moments, occasional times when their stomachs were not empty, and games played with other young boys that he met.
The Khao 1 Dang camp opened in 1979 in Thailand after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. It was one of the enduring refugee camps on the Thai-Cambodia border. At its height, this compound of bamboo and thatched houses sheltered nearly 140,000 refugees. It closed in 1993.
This was the last stop for the author’s family before they finally made it to America, a family that endured years of separation, forced labor, and starvation.
Some of the author’s final words to his three sons are humbly shared:
“We pray that the United States of America, that supposedly ‘big and bad’ country, in actuality perhaps the greatest nation on earth, will continue to be a beacon of hope to the oppressed, and down-trodden of the world. May those loving and seeking freedom, life, liberty will still find it in the generations ahead. Please cherish it, protect it, and defend it, if you have the power in the days ahead.”
by Sideth D. Niev is a memoir of a Cambodian family's escape from the Khmer Rouge's persecution. Bluecord
