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| Young girls perform a Khmer dance at the More Than a Party event at the Lynn Museum Friday. (Item Photo / Angela Owens) |
The Daily Item (Lynn, Massachusetts, USA)
LYNN - Sixteen-year-old Jimson Thach knew his parents came to America from their homeland of Cambodia in the 1980s. But beyond that, he said he didn't know much about their life before America.
"They don't really talk about it," he said.
An exhibit coming to the Lynn Museum next month detailing the stories of thousands of Cambodian refugees could change all of that.
Thach's parents, and most of the other middle-aged Cambodians living in Lynn, fled to America from a brutal genocide that killed an estimated 2 million people, said Kirirath Saing, the Southeast Asian Liason for Lynn's mayor.
"Most people you see here have lost a family member," he said as he waved his hand around a room full of Cambodians and their children, who were attending a fundraiser Friday night at the Lynn museum to support the upcoming exhibit.
The exhibit will feature stories of Cambodian refugees as told through sepia-colored photos of them as children, skinny and dirty, holding up a chalkboard with an identification number scrawled on it.
Thousands of Cambodians fleeing the Khmer Rouge dictatorship in the late '70s had these photos taken while in refugee camps in neighboring Thailand or Vietnam awaiting the opportunity to move to another, safer country, said Sayon Souen, one of the brains behind the exhibit.
"(This exhibit) is basically to celebrate them as heroes," Souen said.
Souen launched the exhibit in 2009 in Lowell. He and Lynn Museum officials said they wanted to host the second one in Lynn, and there's a possibility it will travel across the country, Souen said.
Saing still has his refugee photo. He carries it around as a reminder of a time when life was very, very different.
When the Khmer Rouge regime took over the country during Saing's childhood, soldiers killed his father and moved his mother and 12 siblings to rural slave labor camps. Only seven made it out alive.
"When I go to see a movie and I see violence, it brings me back," he said, casting his eyes to the floor.
Saing is one of the subjects of the exhibit, which is titled 'More than a Number' to emphasize that the wars' survivors have a story to tell beyond their chalkboard IDs.
The problem is that many Cambodians don't talk about their history, even to their own children, said Souen, who was forced to be a child soldier during the genocides.
"They didn't want to burden their children," he said. But Souen said that's exactly what needs to happen to make sure something like this never happens again.
"They have very, very painful stories, yet you have to talk about it, you have to share it, to teach your children about what happened," he said.
When Saing started digging through his past to participate in the exhibit, he said his 11-year-old son, Steven, started asking questions.
"He asked why he doesn't have any grandfathers," said Saing, whose wife's father also died during the war.
Now, Saing said his son hates war and wants to learn as much as he can about his parents' Cambodian past.
So does 16-year-old Thach. He said hearing his parents' stories changed how he thinks of them.
"I'm just more proud of them for making it through," he said.
Visitors can see "More than a Number" at the Lynn Museum, 590 Washington St., sometime in late February. Museum officials have yet to announce an official date.
Amber Parcher may be reached at aparcher@itemlive.com.
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