Documentary illustrates history of a genocide

http://media.www.dailycampus.com/

John Bailey

10/7/09

(Post by CAAI News Media)

The film told the story of Poeuv's attempt to uncover the history of her family, who survived the genocide during the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia. The film revealed both a country and a family searching for closure 30 years after their lives were violently uprooted.

"I felt like I didn't know my own family," Poeuv said as narrator of the film. "And I wondered - what other secrets had they left behind in Cambodia?"

Poeuv's quest to illuminate her family's past brought her to sites of former labor camps, homes of survivors, a Khmer Rouge encampment and the Cambodia-Thailand border, where her family escaped the country after the Vietnamese army drove Pol Pot from power.

The screening, which was sponsored by the Asian American Cultural Center, SUBOG, the Asian American Studies Institute and UConn's chapter of Kappa Phi Lambda sorority, commemorated the beginning of Asian American Heritage Observance at UConn. The observance lasts throughout October.

"[Asian-American Heritage Observance] is about building awareness," said 7th-semester political science major and member of Kappa Phi Lambda Yumi Iizuka. "It's something I wasn't very familiar with, and the film really resonated with me. It's a great way to open a dialogue about the Cambodian genocide."

Other students said they were touched by the film as well. "I almost cried a few times," said Deanne Wallace, a 1st-semester political science major. "I think it really expanded my awareness [of the issue]."

Poeuv is also the CEO and founder of Khmer Legacies, an organization devoted to preserving the history of the Cambodian genocide through survivor accounts.

"New Year Baby" was not just a film, Poeuv said during a question-and-answer session after the screening, but an educational tool. "I wanted to be able to channel the interest and energy into something that would benefit the Cambodian community."

Despite the cultural shattering brought on by the genocide, Poeuv emphasized the need for connection and reconstruction, especially among younger Cambodians. "It often takes the prodding and the curiosity of the second generation to get the stories out of their parents," she said.

She likened the reconstruction effort to that of the Shoah Foundation's work with Holocaust survivors; by using "regular people" as primary sources, she said, the everyday reality of history can be reclaimed.

Cathy Schlund-Vials, assistant professor of English and Asian American studies and Asian American Studies Institute faculty member, hoped that the film would provoke fresh discussion among students "eager to learn more about the genocide."

Schlund-Vials' academic work includes projects on Cambodian-American literature and "cultural productions that [hope] to reclaim a pre-genocide nationality," according to her faculty Web site.