Cambodian genocide survivors tell their harrowing tales at BCC

Cambodian genocide survivors tell their harrowing tales at BCC

On Friday at Bristol Community College, a panel discussion presented as part of a day devoted to the Cambodian genocide brought it all back in short, matter-of-factly terrible sentences.

Genocide survivors mark a tragic anniversary at BCC

A "Panel of Survivors" spoke at Bristol Community College on Friday about the Cambodian genocide.

A "Panel of Survivors" convenes during Bristol Community College's program about t... [+] 

By Marc Munroe Dion

Herald News | 15 April 2016

FALL RIVER — America associates the Cambodian genocide with the movie “The Killing Fields,” about the killing of perhaps more than two million Cambodians during the murderous regime of the Khmer Rouge. But Cambodia’s heartache goes back further, into the years of the Cambodian civil war, from 1970 to 1975 and the United States' bombing of the country from 1965 to 1973.

Many Cambodians fled. Others stayed and died.

During the "Panel of Survivors" at BCC's activities Friday surrounding the Cambodian Genocide, Senay Chang recounts how she feared for her children, years after her coming to America. Listening is panelist Makna Men, Senior Academic Counselor at BCC. — Herald News Photo | Jack Foley

On Friday at Bristol Community College, a panel discussion presented as part of a day devoted to the Cambodian genocide brought it all back in short, matter-of-factly terrible sentences uttered by four panelists, all born in Cambodia, who spoke to the crowd at the Margaret L. Jackson Auditorium.

The panel was part of a day dedicated to the Cambodian genocide presented by the BCC Asian Student Association and the BCC Holocaust Center.

“I was a little boy in a village along the Vietnamese/Cambodian border,” said Makna Men, a senior academic counselor at BCC.

Men said he used to count the bombs as they fell from American B-52 bombers.

“After they kicked us out of our village, I was starving,” said Senay Chang, who is a research assistant for the Providence City Council.

Savon San works for the TRIO program at Bristol Community College. He has spent most of his life in America.

“Both my parents were survivors,” he said. “I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand.”

San said when he ponders the future of people with Cambodian ancestry in America, he thinks of his and of future generations.

“The kids who grew up with me ended up joining gangs,” he said.

Sokvann Sam became a Buddhist monk at 12, a vocation he abandoned when the Khmer Rouge began their regime.

“If I stayed, I would be killed,” he said.

He walked away from his temple, his home, wearing the robes of a Buddhist monk, which he was quick to repurpose into something more civilian because the Khmer rouge were killing any monks they could catch.

He got out in 1979. Five other family members didn’t.

“I never hoped to live,” he said.

“Coming to the United States was not a choice,” Men said. “It was a chance.”

Seney Chang said her escape took her through four countries and three refugee camps.

She said she has always found it difficult to answer the simple question, “Where did you grow up?

“I wouldn’t let my son cross the street until he was 14,” Chang said, demonstrating the anxiety that haunts her even in America.

It was a hard panel to sum up, but Makna Men did it eloquently when asked what was his hope for the future.

“My hope is that leaders around the world remember the past," he said. “The suffering should end now.”