As a refugee myself, it is heartbreaking to watch millions of people flee their homes seeking safety. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees found that 14 million people were displaced by war in 2014, the largest number in a single year since World War II. In total, the UN counts 59.5 million displaced people globally in 2015, almost double the count in 2005 and the largest number ever. While over 30 governors around the U.S. have allowed fear to cloud their judgment and compassion, Gov. David Ige rightly supported allowing refugees to resettle in Hawaii.
No one plans to be a refugee, but sometimes there is no other choice when war and violence erupts around you. My family found themselves in this situation 40 years ago. On Aug. 15, 1975, four months after the fall of Phnom Penh, my father and mother escaped the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields with three sacks of rice, salt, a cooking pot and 30 Thai baht.
My parents were rice farmers in rural Cambodia. My three older sisters were born in their small village, all delivered in their house by my grandfather. They led normal lives until they heard about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, who were targeting people like my family, who were not ethnically Khmer. My mother said she knew when to flee: “It was time. We heard that the Khmer Rouge was coming and we couldn’t hide out any longer. We were afraid we were going to die.”
My grandfather paid a smuggler 4,000 baht, a huge sum at the time, to help guide them to the Thai border. Not only were they afraid of Pol Pot’s regime, they had to worry about malaria, dengue fever, starvation and crying children who could give them away. As they neared the border, they heard gunshots and then encountered three Khmer Rouge soldiers. The smugglers killed the soldiers so that they could reach the border.
When my family finally set foot in Thailand, there was a huge sense of relief, but it was short-lived. They survived the jungles of Cambodia but how were they supposed to live in an over-crowded makeshift refugee camp? I was born a few months after their arrival, although I have no documentation that demonstrates my birth. Food was scarce in the camps and they had no money to buy supplies. My parents did day labor and my sisters went around the camps selling rice cakes that my mom made early in the mornings before going to work. There was also a constant feeling of uncertainty about where we would end up. Would we be able to stay in Thailand? Or be sent back to the killing fields of Cambodia? Four years passed like this.
In 1980, rumors spread in the camp that some of the refugees would be relocated to the U.S. and Europe. We got word that a group of people in the tiny town of Moroni, Utah, would come to our rescue. These strangers would help my parents find work, show us how to register in schools, and teach us how to be Americans.
After a few years, my family relocated to Salt Lake City and then to Oakland, Calif., where I grew up. I eventually graduated from high school and college, served as a Peace Corps volunteer to Bangladesh, and worked as a social worker and teacher. Most of my friends assume I was born in the U.S. and have no idea about my previous life as a refugee.
As the current crisis unfolds, I know there is a young girl like me, on the run with her family, not knowing where she will end up. Rather than walls, border guards, and “not welcome” signs, I hope that the international community can rise to the occasion and show her the same compassion and support that my family received 40 years ago.
