The flickering lights of the kitchen gave me an excuse to look away from my lovely grandmother, who had never seemed more vulnerable. With tears falling from her face she told us her Khmer Rouge story. From 1975 to 1979, a communist regime carried out a genocide of the educated, the weak, and anyone disobedient to the order of the Khmer Rouge. They mercilessly killed at least two million people, 21% of Cambodia’s population. Many more are still unaccounted for.

She told us she had heard people on the streets whispering that there was a refugee camp to run to if you could make it. ‘The army is evacuating the city and sending everyone to camps.’ She left everything behind and fought for her family’s life; bare foot and carrying them on her back. On her journey to safety, when they crossed rivers, she told her children to submerge their heads under the swamp water. The soldiers were scanning the area with an order to kill on the spot. This is the danger they faced every day. At least they had made it here, but my grandma had lost two of her children’s lives on that journey. Their names were Sotheara and Visal. I am named after her children. But until I was 16, all I knew of it was that my dad named me and that my mother had wanted me to be an Emily.

In the same year that my grandmother began to tell her story, my father attempted to share a piece of his. On a night like any other, my dad drove into his driveway and turned off the engine. I could tell he was going to start a heavy conversation. He told me where my name came from. With a sud- den change in his expression I felt his heart breaking. His voice cracked and he looked out of the window, but all he saw was the past. He told me his siblings had been starving, and on their search for food in the garbage or anything they could catch in the bodies of water around them. It had been a long time since any of them had had anything to eat. His brother had asked for food, but my dad who was in his pre-teens, had said he caught the fish himself and deserved to eat it himself. His brother had later died of starvation. My father said it was all his fault, body shaking, tears falling. I tried to be strong for him, holding back my own tears.

A year later I saw my aunt standing over me, I was straight jacketed on the floor, half blind and hallucinating. A psychedelic drug had taken effect a couple hours before. I was never a drug user, but curiosity got the best of me that night. My aunt who had seen me grow from a helpless newborn to a now helpless teenager said she couldn’t bear looking at me, tearing up with a knot in her throat. I heard my name and that is when I felt all of the shame at once. My grandmother carried her young children through forests and rivers trying to find a better life for them. Was this what my aunt and uncle had died for? That night I promised myself to never disappoint my family again.

I was the one people turned to for a laugh, the one everyone counted on to be most grateful. I am to live for three people instead of one. If my grandma calls my name and thinks of her children, I want her to look up to a smiling face that is grateful to be alive. If my father calls my name, I want him to look up at me caring for my own siblings. I’m glad my name was inspired by my aunt and uncle, or else these stories of unspeakable tragedy might never have been shared with me. After all of this, I now dedicate my life to carrying out the responsibilities of a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, a Southeast Asian woman, and an American.

© Sothearavisal. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.