Andy Ngo |
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They bombed her city
My name is Andy Ngo and I’m a fourth year student at USC. Currently studying pre med, I’m a health promotion and disease prevention major. I’m also doing a progressive degree in the masters of global medicine
I’m from San José, California. I’m Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese and Laotian.
My mom was part of the killing fields [under the Khmer Rouge], she was captured as a child.
They bombed her city [possibly referring to U.S. bombs, shells from the U.S.-backed Lon Nol regime, or Khmer Rouge artillery], Phnom Penh, and she was running away from the bombs, literally, and she could see the city being bombed and ransacked by the Khmer Rouge, and they [Khmer Rouge] captured her as she was running away. They all took different people, as the people from Phnom Penh were running away. She was separated from her family. She said she could remember she was about 9 or 10 years old at the time and she never got to see her brothers or sisters again. And she was separated from her parents as well.
And so when she was caught in the concentration camps she witnessed a lot torture. They didn’t do a lot of things to the children, my mom said, they kept the children alive and tried to feed the children. But she saw a lot of death and she said a lot of times when she would hear torture or somebody dying, they would disappear and that’s how she knows they were killed. And that’s how you hear about the killing fields. They used to just take people, she said, to the fields, and they have a ditch or a hole and they would just tell them to turn around, and shoot them in the head, from the back, and they would fall into the ditches. Other people from the concentration camps she was in would come back and be missing finger nails and toe nails. And friends that she made, the older adults, would die, and that really took a psychological toll on her.
Once the Americans liberated the concentration camps [historically inaccurate; The Vietnamese invasion in 1978 caused the Khmer Rouge to fall, although they were not necessarily there as liberators. The U.S. did not liberate camps.] that my mom was put into, she was forced to walk to the next refugee site. And so she was a child, probably captured for months already and they forced her to walk to Thailand, to the closest refugee camp that she could find. And so when she was able to walk to the refugee camps with other people from the concentration camps, she found her parents and her other brothers and sisters. During that time they would have to travel through the woods, the forest, and various other terrain. And they would lose people because sometimes bandits would capture other people who were a part of the traveling group or people were too sickly to make it or couldn’t make the journey from the concentration camp.
Object Description
| Profile of | Andy Ngo |
| Title | My Mom Was Part Of The Killing Fields |
| Profile bio | Andy Ngo was born on December 3, 1992, and grew up in San Jose, California. Although he does not have any direct experience with the Vietnam War, both of his parents lived through the war and were refugees. Andy’s mother is originally from Phnom Penh, Cambodia which was the site of the secret bombing missions by the United States government, while Andy’s father is from Saigon, Vietnam. Growing up, Andy’s parents were always open to talk to him about their experiences inside the re-education camps, both in Cambodia and Vietnam, and what it was like when they escaped to Thailand. Because of his unique indirect experience, Andy provides valuable insight as to how some of the first generation Vietnamese-Americans perceive the war. Andy is currently a senior at the University of Southern California and hopes to one day become a doctor. |
| Profiler bio | Eric Brunts is a Senior at USC, from Denver, CO and is majoring in Industrial and Systems Engineering. Jon Koehmstedt is a Senior at USC, from Fairfax, VA and is majoring in Computer Science. Douglas Yuk is a Senior at USC, from Hong Kong, and is majoring in Biomedical (Electrical) Engineering. |
| Subject |
Vietnam Vietnam war refugee Khmer Rouge assimilation |
| Profiled by | Brunts, Eric; Koehmstedt, Jon; Yuk, Douglas |
| Profile date | 2016-04-05 |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | San Jose |
| Geographic subject (county) | Santa Clara |
| Geographic subject (state) | California; Texas; Washington |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA; Cambodia |
| Coverage date | 1978 |
| Publisher (of the original version) | http://anotherwarmemorial.com/andy-ngo/ |
| Type |
images video |
| Format | 1 image; 4 video files (00:09:52); 4 transcripts |
| Language | English |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Part of collection | An Other War Memorial -- Memories of the American War in Viet Nam |
| Filename | ngoandy |
Description
| Profile of | Andy Ngo |
| Title | They Bombed her City |
| Format | 1 transcript, 2p. |
| Filename | ngoandy-vid1_tr1.pdf |
| Full text | They bombed her city My name is Andy Ngo and I’m a fourth year student at USC. Currently studying pre med, I’m a health promotion and disease prevention major. I’m also doing a progressive degree in the masters of global medicine I’m from San José, California. I’m Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese and Laotian. My mom was part of the killing fields [under the Khmer Rouge], she was captured as a child. They bombed her city [possibly referring to U.S. bombs, shells from the U.S.-backed Lon Nol regime, or Khmer Rouge artillery], Phnom Penh, and she was running away from the bombs, literally, and she could see the city being bombed and ransacked by the Khmer Rouge, and they [Khmer Rouge] captured her as she was running away. They all took different people, as the people from Phnom Penh were running away. She was separated from her family. She said she could remember she was about 9 or 10 years old at the time and she never got to see her brothers or sisters again. And she was separated from her parents as well. And so when she was caught in the concentration camps she witnessed a lot torture. They didn’t do a lot of things to the children, my mom said, they kept the children alive and tried to feed the children. But she saw a lot of death and she said a lot of times when she would hear torture or somebody dying, they would disappear and that’s how she knows they were killed. And that’s how you hear about the killing fields. They used to just take people, she said, to the fields, and they have a ditch or a hole and they would just tell them to turn around, and shoot them in the head, from the back, and they would fall into the ditches. Other people from the concentration camps she was in would come back and be missing finger nails and toe nails. And friends that she made, the older adults, would die, and that really took a psychological toll on her. Once the Americans liberated the concentration camps [historically inaccurate; The Vietnamese invasion in 1978 caused the Khmer Rouge to fall, although they were not necessarily there as liberators. The U.S. did not liberate camps.] that my mom was put into, she was forced to walk to the next refugee site. And so she was a child, probably captured for months already and they forced her to walk to Thailand, to the closest refugee camp that she could find. And so when she was able to walk to the refugee camps with other people from the concentration camps, she found her parents and her other brothers and sisters. During that time they would have to travel through the woods, the forest, and various other terrain. And they would lose people because sometimes bandits would capture other people who were a part of the traveling group or people were too sickly to make it or couldn’t make the journey from the concentration camp. |
| Archival file | Volume3/ngoandy-vid1_tr1.pdf |
