By Megan Walter
The only memory I have of speaking
Khmer as a child is when my grandpa taught my brother and I a swear word to
tease my mom. I remember laughing and laughing, repeating the word with my
brother while my mom scolded my grandpa. My grandparents and my aunt were the
only members of my family who actively spoke the language. Unfortunately,
before I got a chance to learn much, my grandparents passed away when I was
quite young and due to family issues, I wasn’t able to see my aunt much. My
mother came to America with her parents and little sister in the seventies —
because my grandfather had served in the Khmer military, most of my family was
fortunate enough to be able to come to America prior to much of the events of
the Khmer Rouge. However, much of my family was split apart, and my mom and her
parents had to travel from refugee camps to unfamiliar lands. I don’t know if I
have any family left in Cambodia.
Being only four years old, my mom
quickly adapted to American life. In exchange for fitting in, she gave up her
Khmer culture — a classic immigrant experience. Although she loved her mother’s
cooking, she exchanged it for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and KFC. Her
parents encouraged it. Speaking English was preferred. Both working multiple
English-speaking jobs, her parents wanted to practice the language too. Her
familiarity with the Khmer tongue wavered. Growing up in Randolph,
Massachusetts she wasn’t surrounded by a Cambodian community like in Lowell. In
fact, there were hardly any Asian kids at her school. When my grandparents
asked her to visit Cambodia with them, she refused because she wanted to focus
on her American life. She already had white American friends, an American
boyfriend, and was pursuing a college degree. By the time she had my brother
and I, she had nearly forgotten the language in its entirety.
My
aunt, my mom’s older sister, came to America when my mom was in college. It’s
hard to imagine coming to America after living through a genocide and reuniting
with your sister only to discover you no longer speak the same language. My mom
helped my aunt find her footing in America. While my mom attended college
courses, my aunt took English classes. It was then that, to my mom’s shock and
surprise, my aunt told her that she had a husband and child back in Cambodia.
With time, they were able to bring my oldest cousin and my aunt’s husband, my
uncle, to America.
As of
now, because their parents speak Khmer, my cousins have more knowledge of Khmer
than my mom who was born in Cambodia. Even still, they only understand it and
do not speak it. Being half white, with very little family that speak Khmer, I
hardly know the language. Even further, I grew up and went to school in a
primarily white community. My brother and I were always the only Cambodian kids
at school. I found a community with the Asian American kids at school, but it
wasn’t quite enough. I very frequently felt a gap between us — their families
didn’t have the lasting effects of genocide looming over them. Much of my
childhood felt like I was trying to figure out how Cambodia fit into my life. I
felt like I hardly understood anything about Cambodia. I felt like an outsider.
Not
knowing the language and only barely eating the food, when my grandmother and
aunt had made it for me, I had only had the tiniest taste of being Cambodian.
There are many dishes that I miss eating at my grandparents' house but have a
hard time finding because I don’t know what they’re called. Other Cambodian
people often didn’t recognize I was Cambodian because of my looks. My American
name, with my dad’s American last name, made me feel even further disconnected
from Cambodia. Even though my family had told me what they could about their
experiences, I wanted to learn more. I knew about the genocide, but I craved
knowledge about the food, language, and culture. Whenever and however, I could,
I tried to find information about what people wore in Cambodia or what
Cambodian dance and music was like or anything that I could get my hands on. It
gave me a sense of belonging to learn. It felt like I was finding a missing
piece of myself.
I
don’t blame my mom for trying to fit into America. Even so, I’ve always
regretted that I wasn’t able to grow up learning the Khmer language. Even
though I knew it would be hard, learning a new language with no foundation in
it, I felt like learning Khmer would give me a new connection to my culture. I
felt like I would find a new connection with my late grandparents as I would be
able to speak their mother tongue. I hoped that it would encourage my family to
learn Khmer along with me. Above all, educating myself felt like a way to get
in touch with myself. To learn Khmer, to me, was to be recognized as Cambodian,
to remember the food I had eaten as a child, and to connect myself to a culture
that I felt like I had lost, or rather, never had. Even though I am struggling
to learn simple words, to learn the language feels almost like a redemption, a
rebirth.