It Was a Terrible Time

Abstract

U Sam Oeur and his family suffered in Khmer Rouge concentration camps. Relocating to the USA after the regime fell, he became a noted poet. We organize an event for him to read to the children of Indochinese Housing Development Corporation. His poems tell terrible stories of suffering, but also of rebirth in America. I have misgivings about introducing the children to such horror and ask them how many of them knew of such suffering in their ancestral homeland. Most raise their hands. “We wrote a book about it,” a service provider says, Stories of Survival.