My family

 By Socheata Thaep

 

Cambodia, our birth place and pride. My mother Sarah was born in Cambodia on April 13, 1972. My mother had four siblings. Her family had struggled during the Khmer Rouge. She had two older sisters, an older brother and one younger sister. My mom was the second youngest out of the family. When the Khmer Rouge began, it was during the most chaotic period. My mother was around the age of 8 years old during this period, so it meant that she and her three oldest siblings had to do the most work. During this period of time, all families were forcibly separated and taken away from one another. They labored in different areas of the towns. My mother was separated from her family for 3 years, 8 months, and 20 days. She was sent to work, protecting crops and rice fields, cleaning up cow manure, carrying kilograms of dirt to form plantations.

 

This was child labor since she was only a child back then. The separation of the family made my grandparents worried sick, eventually leading to depression and mourning while they tried their hardest to continue with their given assignments. Eventually, the Vietnamese soldiers invaded the area of where my mother and her family were. Mother was able to run away towards her home and found her parents. With the help of the chaos of the Vietnamese Army and Khmer Rouge fighting, all of my aunts were able to find their way back home and reunite with the family. One person was still missing though. My uncle, Polah was missing. When the 4 years of chaos and terror under the Khmer Rouge ended, life began to seep back into how it was before. The missing presence of Oum Polah had the whole family in an uneasy feeling, but one day, he reappeared.

 

It turned out Uncle was lucky enough to flee to Thailand along with his wife when the Khmer Rouge was beginning to become chaotic. He was able to stay with the refugee campaign and work his way up in society and education. Along with that, the era was taking a turn and society itself was beginning to reshape in Cambodia. Oum Polah and his wife had the opportunity of immigrating to the United States as they were sponsored by the refugee camps. Oum Polah started the process of becoming fully successful, and he graduated and gained an opportunity to sponsor other family members to also immigrate to the United States. He decided to sponsor his parents. This meant that my grandparents had to become citizens to also sponsor their kids into the immigration process. Life began working out and the success of Oum Polah had saved the family generation. Profit was gained and there was enough money to buy a house.

 

They started off by sponsoring Oum Darling who is the middle child, and then Ming Chenda who is the youngest. Sadly, the sponsorship of my mother and her eldest sister was not approved, this led to delay in the immigration of the whole family and the last two sisters decided to live their life out in Cambodia. As this was occurring, my mother and father had met. They fell in love with each other but there were conflicting barriers that kept them apart. My father was someone who came from a rather distressed family. His father had recently passed away and the income of the family was not well and suffered a lot through the Khmer Rouge as they were closer to the range of chaos. My father had the characteristics of being protective and outgoing so he was able to reach out to my mother as she was rather shy and kept to herself. Although they had their differences and conflicts, they still ended up staying together and formed a family. They settled in a small town named “Thah Kmaoh” which was a decent area for jobs, schools and housing. My parents had rented a small home in the neighborhood and on October 19, 1995, the eldest child of the family, Tolah Thaep was born.

 

My mother had always told me that she had struggled taking care of my eldest brother because of the separation she had from her family who had all immigrated to the states. She felt lonely and afraid as she did not have much contact with her mother and she did not have the economic stabilization of raising a child. On the other hand, my father was rather in a harsh state during that moment and was not able to help much except from gaining a few dollars from working for people. Tolah had suffered from diseases and illnesses as a child and had at one point gotten so sick that he had to stay at bedrest for a week, this made my mother terrified and she had to take care of her only child. My dad worked his hardest to save money by baking and making food. Within the next 2 years, he was flexible enough to balance his jobs and make enough to support the family with a stable profit. Tolah had gotten better and was living his childhood at the age of five. Then once you know it, my mother gave birth to another baby boy on January 10, 2000, Marady Thaep.

 

Marady had grown up and was known to be mischievous throughout his young years. Both him and Tolah would always play and would never listen to mom when she yelled to come back inside the house in our small neighborhood. They would usually bet on a game that consisted of throwing pebbles to knock off other pebbles from the range and never listen to mother. Because of this, my mother would resort to calling my father for help, and this would terrify Tolah and Marady. Dad was considered extremely scary at that time, and in Cambodian society, it was accepted that parents would punish their kids who disobeyed them by hitting. Fortunately, the hitting did not occur much as the mention of my dad alone had sent my brothers into fear. A few years passed, and a little baby girl was born February 13, 2005. Her name was Socheata Thaep and that’s me! I grew up in that small town of “Thah Kmaoh” and was always surrounded by lots of love and care. With both of my parents always wanting a girl, they always favorited me. I still remember to this day where I would be mischievous and easily get away with things while my brothers had gotten a beating! I remember my childhood so vaguely but I do remember the moments where I was surrounded by love, sadness and even fear.

 

One day, it started to rain so all of the kids were extremely excited to play in the crying sky. Both of my brothers, especially Marady, was very joyful and ran out of the house as soon as he got permission from my mom. The only rule was to only play for 10 minutes so they wouldn’t get sick, this did not apply well to both Marady and Tolah. I remember as they ran down the neighborhood, 3 years old me was still wobbling her way down the porch to play in a puddle. I had remembered my mother would watch me from a distance to make sure I was safe and eventually the 10 minutes was up. The boys did not come back and guess what, dad was called! At that moment, I was terrified. I ran up to hug my mother's leg and she eventually had me washed up so I could get ready for bed. On the other hand, my two brothers had to face the consequences of being late to the house, father. After the washing, my brothers were dragged by the ear comedically now that I remember it, and they were whooped with a small stick!

 

Looking back at it, it was actually pretty funny and I remembered hugging my brothers after they got their punishments. The environment surrounding my family and I in general was very comforting. I kind of miss being surrounded by so many people and the community, being so open minded and free without a care. But at the same time, I am very thankful now that I have the opportunities that I do. I am a Cambodian girl living in America! I am able to learn and achieve great things with the people I am with now. I thank my past for making me who I am, and I thank my childhood for being so diverse where I can learn the rights and wrongs. I thank all my ancestors for all their efforts and I would like to thank my mom the most for being the hardest and strongest woman I know.