Short Hair Detention

Short Hair Detention
Author: Channy Chhi Laux
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2017-10-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1480852953

In April 1975, Channy Chhi Laux was a happy thirteen-year-old girl who was excited to start a new school year. But as news reports announced that the Khmer Rouge was getting closer to taking control of Cambodia, Channy and her family were forced to relocate to Poipet, a border town to Thailand. From that point forward, Channy lived a life dictated by fear. In a moving narrative, Channy recounts the intimate details of her journey through four devastating years of the Cambodian genocide that killed more than two million of her people. From the first six months of starvation to the agonizing moments when the Khmer Rouge separated her from her parents, Channy details how she found friendship despite dire circumstances, learned to rely on her animal instincts, endured emotional pain, and found the courage to look past her misery and persevere for the sake of her mother. Through it all, Channy reminds all of us that it is possible to survive unforgiving conditions through faith in God, a fierce determination, and unwavering inner strength. Short Hair Detention shares the true story of a thirteen-year-old girls experiences as she struggled to survive the Cambodian genocide.

The Barter Economy of the Khmer Rouge Labor Camps

The Barter Economy of the Khmer Rouge Labor Camps
Author: Scott Pribble
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2023-07-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000915077

Pribble investigates the barter economies that developed in many of the labor camps established under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. When the Khmer Rouge abolished currency and markets in 1975, starving Cambodians created underground exchanges in labor camps throughout the country, bartering luxury items for food and other necessities, while simultaneously undermining the regime’s ideological goals of eliminating any traces of capitalism in Democratic Kampuchea. Pribble asserts three key points about the barter economy in the Khmer Rouge labor camps. First, the underground exchanges in Democratic Kampuchea provided food and medicine for desperate people subsisting under a totalitarian regime, saving the lives of countless Cambodians. Second, bartering was the riskiest way to obtain food because it was dependent upon the discretion of two or more individuals from different social classes under the threat of violent punishment, thereby altering the social dynamics of the camps. Finally, despite the regime’s extreme efforts to eliminate foreign influence from the country and impose communist ideology on millions of citizens, basic forms of market capitalism and a demand for superfluous luxury goods persisted in labor camps throughout the country. A fascinating study of the human consequences of imposing rigid ideology, that will be of particular interest to scholars and students of political history and Southeast Asian history. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

The Unwanted

The Unwanted
Author: Kien Nguyen
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2008-10-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316050059

Saigon fell to the Viet Cong on April 30, 1975. Kien Nguyen watched the last U.S. Army helicopter leave without him, without his brother, without his mother, without his grandparents. Left to a nightmarish existence in a violated and decimated country, Kien was more at risk than most because of his odd blond hair and his light eyes - because he was Amerasian. He was the most unwanted. Told with stark and poetic brilliance, this is a story of survival and hope, a moving and personal record of a tumultuous and important piece of history.

Return Engagements

Return Engagements
Author: Viet Lê
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2021-04-12
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1478012935

In Return Engagements artist and critic Việt Lê examines contemporary art in Cambodia and Việt Nam to rethink the entwinement of militarization, trauma, diaspora, and modernity in Southeast Asian art. Highlighting artists tied to Phnom Penh and Sài Gòn and drawing on a range of visual art as well as documentary and experimental films, Lê points out that artists of Southeast Asian descent are often expected to address the twin traumas of armed conflict and modernization, and shows how desirable art on these themes is on international art markets. As the global art market fetishizes trauma and violence, artists strategically align their work with those tropes in ways that Lê suggests allow them to reinvent such aesthetics and discursive spaces. By returning to and refashioning these themes, artists such as Tiffany Chung, Rithy Panh, and Sopheap Pich challenge categorizations of “diasporic” and “local” by situating themselves as insiders and outsiders relative to Cambodia and Việt Nam. By doing so, they disrupt dominant understandings of place, time, and belonging in contemporary art.

When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge

When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge
Author: Chanrithy Him
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2001-04-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0393076164

"A gut-wrenching story told with honesty, restraint, and dignity." —Ha Jin, National Book Award-winning author of Waiting Chanrithy Him felt compelled to tell of surviving life under the Khmer Rouge in a way "worthy of the suffering which I endured as a child." In a mesmerizing story, Chanrithy Him vividly recounts her trek through the hell of the "killing fields." She gives us a child's-eye view of a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps for both adults and children are the norm and modern technology no longer exists. Death becomes a companion in the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, the members of Chanrithy's family remain loyal to one another, and she and her siblings who survive will find redeemed lives in America. A Finalist for the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize.

The Purpose of Power

The Purpose of Power
Author: Alicia Garza
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2020-10-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0525509682

An essential guide to building transformative movements to address the challenges of our time, from one of the country’s leading organizers and a co-creator of Black Lives Matter “Excellent and provocative . . . a gateway [to] urgent debates.”—Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The New Yorker NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Time • Marie Claire • Kirkus Reviews In 2013, Alicia Garza wrote what she called “a love letter to Black people” on Facebook, in the aftermath of the acquittal of the man who murdered seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin. Garza wrote: Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter. With the speed and networking capacities of social media, #BlackLivesMatter became the hashtag heard ’round the world. But Garza knew even then that hashtags don’t start movements—people do. Long before #BlackLivesMatter became a rallying cry for this generation, Garza had spent the better part of two decades learning and unlearning some hard lessons about organizing. The lessons she offers are different from the “rules for radicals” that animated earlier generations of activists, and diverge from the charismatic, patriarchal model of the American civil rights movement. She reflects instead on how making room amongst the woke for those who are still awakening can inspire and activate more people to fight for the world we all deserve. This is the story of one woman’s lessons through years of bringing people together to create change. Most of all, it is a new paradigm for change for a new generation of changemakers, from the mind and heart behind one of the most important movements of our time.

Me Against My Brother

Me Against My Brother
Author: Scott Peterson
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780415930635

American journalist Scott Peterson describes the violent events that have torn apart Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda during the 1990s, including the involvement of the U.S.

Healing the Hate

Healing the Hate
Author: Karen A. McLaughlin
Publisher: Education Development Center
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1997
Genre: Education
ISBN:

This curriculum has been developed for middle and early high school students. The curriculum units address 1) examining about violence and prejudice; 2) addressing issues of diversity with students in their community; and 3) examining the role of contributing factors, such as the media and institutioal prejudice, in perpetuating hate.

They Were Just People

They Were Just People
Author: Bill Tammeus
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2009-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0826218768

Hitler’s attempt to murder all of Europe’s Jews almost succeeded. One reason it fell short of its nefarious goal was the work of brave non-Jews who sheltered their fellow citizens. In most countries under German control, those who rescued Jews risked imprisonment and death. In Poland, home to more Jews than any other country at the start of World War II and location of six German-built death camps, the punishment was immediate execution. This book tells the stories of Polish Holocaust survivors and their rescuers. The authors traveled extensively in the United States and Poland to interview some of the few remaining participants before their generation is gone. Tammeus and Cukierkorn unfold many stories that have never before been made public: gripping narratives of Jews who survived against all odds and courageous non-Jews who risked their own lives to provide shelter. These are harrowing accounts of survival and bravery. Maria Devinki lived for more than two years under the floors of barns. Felix Zandman sought refuge from Anna Puchalska for a night, but she pledged to hide him for the whole war if necessary—and eventually hid several Jews for seventeen months in a pit dug beneath her house. And when teenage brothers Zygie and Sol Allweiss hid behind hay bales in the Dudzik family’s barn one day when the Germans came, they were alarmed to learn the soldiers weren’t there searching for Jews, but to seize hay. But Zofia Dudzik successfully distracted them, and she and her husband insisted the boys stay despite the danger to their own family. Through some twenty stories like these, Tammeus and Cukierkorn show that even in an atmosphere of unimaginable malevolence, individuals can decide to act in civilized ways. Some rescuers had antisemitic feelings but acted because they knew and liked individual Jews. In many cases, the rescuers were simply helping friends or business associates. The accounts include the perspectives of men and women, city and rural residents, clergy and laypersons—even children who witnessed their parents’ efforts. These stories show that assistance from non-Jews was crucial, but also that Jews needed ingenuity, sometimes money, and most often what some survivors called simple good luck. Sixty years later, they invite each of us to ask what we might do today if we were at risk—or were asked to risk our lives to save others.