Sakira
"I have many privileges with my mother. Land, a lot of land, farm, over there. And then the Communist, they took it all."|
"I don’t want to steal for something to eat, but my neighbour asked me go to steal something for eat. You must take rice, cut rice for family eat. In the night I go...I take my two daughters with me and take my bucket to cut rice. After a while the Khmer Rouge…they caught me…beat me. I forgot, before the leader take me to home, they pushed me down in the field and say we will kill you." "I keep small antique and when escape to Thailand…I sell them...I get money. I have enough amount for business, buy medicine. It was silver. When I was work at communist regime, I change…from spoiled child to working in the fields. We changed. I came smart. I trade something for take care of children."
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Sakira was born in the mid 1940s in Cambodia. She married in the early 1960s and raised a family of four children. She lost most of her family to starvation during the four years she lived under the Khmer Rouge. She escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand in 1979 with her husband and . They came to the United States in 1981. Today she maintains a home for her family and volunteers in her Cambodian community.
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