GROWING UP KHMER

By Rithier Koam

 

As a second-generation American, being born and raised in Lowell. The Khmer culture was never as close to me as it may have been to other kids in my class. My family came to America from Cambodia around 1998 for a better life also known as the American dream, as with most other families that come from Cambodia. My parents only have two kids, me and my older brother. 

We would always have to go to the temple on the weekends for our religious beliefs at the time. As time went on life would begin to get in our way so we would attend less and less each year. To now not attend very much but most of us still maintain our beliefs about the gods and deities of our culture. 

I was never forced to learn the Khmer language as I assume my parents did not deem that I needed it at the time of growing up. I chose to learn the language at the start of high school in freshman year though to try to connect with my culture more and understand more of what it means to be a Cambodian. Learning about a new language at this age posed more difficulty than I expected because I did not grow up learning the language throughout my life so far. So condensing all of this information into one whole year was tough but I managed to learn and pass the class. In my sophomore year, the coronavirus hit, and learning Khmer was my lesser concern at the time during a global pandemic. I of course tried to learn more about it during the time gap between freshman and sophomore year but it didn’t go well. As I had forgotten most of the lessons and language over the summer. Now in Khmer 2 during remote learning this was especially difficult for me, learning over a screen in my house for the whole year for the first time in my life. So, trying to remember the basic concepts from the first year and now more advanced language skills and practice from the second year had me overwhelmed. I did manage to pass the class and get a good grade from it, but I would not focus on learning Khmer over the summer which just hurt me more. 

This will be my last year of learning Khmer in high school because after coming back to school sophomore year I have just lost passion for learning the language and have already met my goal of understanding and speaking the language. I also have three years of a single language taken for college.  For me, if I have a lack of motivation to continue learning something that I feel that I have already fulfilled my purpose of doing in the first place. I will not be giving it my all in the class or to myself which just hinders me more than if I were to continue my studies. 

I have learned some things from the classes and I don’t think it’s a bad class if you are 100% committed to learning the language. I just find that for myself there are other options of learning more about my culture and language from my relatives and elders more easily and more fun than sitting in a class and learning about the language. The classes I have taken were not going to give me some realization of knowing everything about my culture and traditions and I knew that ahead of time before taking the class. But it still gave me an in-depth understanding of my background, culture, and heritage. 

 I will most likely come back later in my life to fully be able to speak the language and understand it fluently. Until then this is as much as I will be to know more about my language and culture. I don’t regret taking that class, it’s better to figure out something and quit than to never try new things in the first place.