![]() They were among the 195,000 Cambodian refugees who resettled in the US between 19. But he abandoned both of them before her first birthday, so it was just the mother and daughter who traveled to the US in 1985. Nourn’s mother met her father at one such camp. Some began the treacherous trek through the jungles to refugee camps in Thailand. In the aftermath, survivors found their way back from the work camps to their homes. By the time the Vietnamese army toppled the Khmer Rouge in January 1979, the regime had killed at least 1.5 million people - nearly a quarter of the country’s population. The Khmer Rouge sought to eliminate the country’s ethnic minorities and educated class and forced much of its populace into agricultural work camps that led to widespread famine and death. Pol Pot had seized the capital Phnom Penh six years earlier, stepping into a power vacuum left by civil war and the US military’s targeting of North Vietnam. Ny Nourn was born in a refugee camp to a mother who had fled the Khmer Rouge on foot at the age of 18. “The thing with genocide is that it will continue,” said Theanvy Kuoch, a survivor and founder of Khmer Health Advocates in Connecticut. ![]() Now, as the contours of their inherited traumas become clearer with age, they stand on the front lines of efforts to end a destructive cycle that began spinning before they were born. The children of these survivors grew up never comprehending why some of their parents could not stand the sound of fireworks or airplanes, or the roots of the abuse they experienced in their households.Īs Ny and many other children of refugees found acceptance through gangs or violent partners, the Cambodian genocide shattered another generation. But for many in the Cambodian American community, the mental health of the survivors fell to the wayside as they faced more immediate concerns upon their arrival in the US: assimilating into a new country where few looked like them and they could barely speak the language, all while learning how to survive with little money in a wealthy country. Studies have thoroughly documented the long-term effects that the genocide has had on survivors who resettled in the US: post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, diabetes, and hypertension.
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