Conversation : ‘I Saw Women Go to School and Have Jobs’

In Cambodia it was always taught that women must obey and respect men. Many of the old books that some Cambodians still read set out rules for a “good woman.” She should always go to bed later than her husband and get up earlier than him, so she can attend to all household tasks. If he is a drunkard or adulterer or gambler, he is still always right. And even if he curses her, she should be quiet and respectful. If she follows these rules she’ll be considered the best woman in the community and when she dies she’ll go to heaven.

When I grew up in Cambodia no one had any different ideas about that, so it all seemed natural and right. In my mind, women were a group of people who were there to take care of the house and raise children. They were regarded as very weak people, and they certainly had no chance to express opinions on such matters as politics.

Therefore you can imagine my surprise when I first landed in San Francisco with a group of 350 other Asian officers and at our orientation an American girl [who looked] about 19 years old got on stage and talked in front of hundreds of high-ranking officers. She didn’t even seem nervous, just normal, and I thought: Oh, my God! I’ve never seen anything like this before! Yet it was exciting to see a woman taking that kind of role and I felt admiration for her. Suddenly, it seemed appropriate. And as time went on, all my ideas began to change.

When the Khmer Rouge took over in Cambodia they forced everyone, including my family, to work in the fields. It was a very hard time, especially on my youngest son. Several times he was so starved that everyone thought he had actually died. But I didn’t know during those years where my family was or even if they were alive, although I wrote many letters trying to find them. In 1979 the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia and drove out the Khmer Rouge. I sent a letter to all the Thai refugee camps to be posted on the bulletin board, asking if anyone had news of my family.

By 1980 I was working as a punch press operator in Wichita, Kan., and a letter came saying my family was alive. I wrote my wife and the very day she received my letter she made plans to escape Cambodia with our children and somehow join me in America. My wife is very gentle and honest and makes friends everywhere she goes. She has much strength, too, because she managed to get our family through many horrible experiences until finally they arrived on a plane in Wichita [in 1981].

For months I had been preparing for them to come, saving money every way I could. When my children get off the plane they were like little skeletons, their hair very sparse, their knee and elbow joints so huge that I became very tearful.

The children started public school right away. Our family never took any welfare. My wife, Saphan, found a job in a factory; our oldest daughter and son--Yari, then 18, and Vanny, 17--found part-time minimum wage work, and the two younger girls, Rina, 15, and Kolvaty, 12, helped cook and clean. Our 8-year-old son Chesda was very weak for a long time. But as they grew used to America the children became very different--extremely happy, as if they had been born anew.

When my daughters were little girls I never imagined they would grow up to be educated or to run businesses. I thought that would be only for my sons. But my thinking changed as I saw women here go to school and have good jobs. All my daughters are independent in the American way. I taught them to respect their husbands if their husbands respected them, but to respect themselves first. Now two of my daughters own and operate a beauty salon. Their mother helps there. My youngest daughter worked and put herself through college all by herself, graduating as a social worker from Cal State. She’s an interpreter in Superior Court. My oldest son returned to Cambodia where he works for a Japanese company and my youngest son is a doughnut baker.

Many Cambodians, even the mothers, value sons more than daughters, but I like them all the same. Yet many men still treat women as weak. They don’t listen to them or think they can have good ideas. Sometimes when Cambodians come here and the wives see other ways, it even can lead to divorce. The husband might say: “Get me a drink of water.” And the wife might say: “Get your own water.” And he might say: “Oh, you’ve got freedom now, you’re American now!” I tell fathers who come from old ways that if they want their children to respect them, they must earn it. Otherwise the father will end up alone. The old traditions were OK 100 years ago, but not now. This is true not just for the United States or for Cambodia but for the whole world.