August 18, 2025 • 57 mins
Please welcome guest speaker Julie Botom-Richny Chhay. Julie shares her family's experience during the Cambodian genocide, drawing parallels to current genocide in Gaza and how generational trauma continues to impact survivors and their descendants.
• Cambodia's genocide under Pol Pot's regime killed nearly 2 million people between 1975-1979
• The Khmer Rouge specifically targeted educated people - teachers, doctors, artists, and even those who wore glasses
• Julie's mother survived being attacked and left to die in the woods at just 8 years old
• Refugee experiences at the Thai border included further violence against those seeking asylum similar to North Korea
• Children were deliberately separated from families and indoctrinated to view the regime as their true family with parallels of immigrants in the US.
• Cultural erasure included banning traditional music, dance, and other art forms central to Cambodian identity
• Intergenerational trauma manifests in complex family relationships and continues decades after the violence ends
• The targeting of education, suppression of information, and divisive politics follow similar patterns across different genocides
• Modern censorship includes selective blocking of information about ongoing genocides on major platforms like Google
• Survival stories remind us that behind statistics are real human lives forever changed by political violence
https://youtu.be/mNDolWiY440?si=oErM1k0Exy2mTqkX
Opinion | ‘Do Not Forget Gaza’: The Last Words of a Martyred Journalist | Common Dreams
Israel’s “final decision” for conquest and occupation of Gaza - World Socialist Web Site
S-21, Tuol Sleng - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
U.S. Involvement in the Cambodian War and Genocide
walrus_cambodiabombing_oct06.pdf
Cambodia’s ‘Killing Fields’ artist dies | Features | Al Jazeera
Cambodian Genocide: S21 Prison Tuol Sleng Museum and Killing Fields Phnom Penh - FeetDoTravel
We urge you to reflect on these historical patterns as they emerge in current conflicts, and to recognize that peace requires us to confront uncomfortable truths about both past and present atrocities.
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Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.
Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
These opinions belong to us and do not reflect any
company or agency.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode
of the United States of PTSD.
I am very happy that today Ihave one of my former students
here, Julie, and of course thewonderful Erica is back, which I
love, Erica, we all know that.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That is so kind.
I love you too, Matt.
And we were so excited to haveyou here for this conversation
and I just wanted to throw outone really quick thing, erica.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I shared it with you, but one of my friends had sent
me a message saying that hereally appreciated how much work
we were doing on genocide andhow much of an impact it was
making.
Although it was hard to listento, so I do want to give a shout
out to him for just sending usthat feedback.
It was really helpful and itwas validating to know that we
are we're we're reaching people,so I was very happy about that.
(01:12):
As I was saying before westarted recording, julie, we've
been doing the last couple ofepisodes about the genocide
that's happening in Gaza, andyou are from your family.
Your family of lineage is fromCambodia.
You have agreed to come on andtalk today about the genocide
that happened in Cambodia, andwhile you're telling your story,
I want the listeners to reflecton how that is parallel to what
(01:35):
is happening today, becausegenocides all have the same
markings in terms of how theystart and where they go.
Without further ado, julie, goahead and tell us your story.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, so I've been studying genocide for quite some
time.
I took interest in it at a veryyoung age when I had found out
that Cambodia did go through agenocide and my family my mom
and my dad all went through thishorrific event that had
happened.
So the interesting part abouthow this all started as well is,
(02:11):
during this time it was around1975.
And right before 1975 wascoming to an end Vietnam War.
So Vietnam War was ending andthe US decided to actually bomb
parts of Cambodia.
During this time Cambodia wasactually part and involved in a
(02:32):
current civil war.
So the civil war consisted ofthe government and the Pol Pot
regime.
So during this time, because ofthe bombings, it gave advantage
to some of the other powers tokind of overtake.
So that's when Pol Pot and hisregime took over in April of
1975.
(02:54):
So he came in, he fled all ofPhnom Penh, which is the city,
and his goal was to gathereveryone within the city and
move them out into the fields,into open fields.
So Cambodia consists of littlecities here and there, but the
biggest city is Phnom Penh,which is the capital, and a
(03:15):
majority of the rest of ourcountry is either temples or
rice fields, lots of farms, lotsof mango trees, coconut trees.
So he gathered all these people, told them that they can't take
anything with them.
Take whatever it is you haveand we are going to gather.
So during the gathering hewould line certain people up.
(03:37):
So if you were either a teacher, a doctor anyone who was
educated wore glasses, lightskins.
A doctor anyone who waseducated wore glasses, light
skins.
If you were any sort of threatthat you might be towards the
government, you were killed.
And this also came in likedifferent patterns throughout
the genocide.
So in my mom's case, she wasabout eight years old when this
(04:00):
had happened.
She was one of five.
My grandmother she is 100%Chinese.
She was a migrant from China.
My grandfather, my biologicalgrandfather, was a wealthier man
.
He was in politics.
He also was really known forgiving back to the community,
(04:24):
having his own farms and stufflike that.
So they gathered everyonetogether.
They would separate people.
So my mom was actuallyseparated.
So my grandpa went into onecamp.
My mom went into another withher oldest sister, to another
with her oldest sister and thenher younger siblings, which
(04:45):
consisted of two sisters and,and I think, another brother or
two other brothers I'm not ahundred percent.
Sure, they stayed with my greatgrandma.
So everyone's separated and thewhole point of this was
actually to segregate everyoneinto, like, different age groups
.
(05:05):
But Pol Pot saw the younger kidsas an opportunity to reprogram
them.
So the soldiers were dressed intire.
It was like made out of tiresole shoes and they wore um,
they call it like gama, which islike a scarf, and then they
would wear like all black andthey would have guns with them
(05:31):
and they were basicallybrainwashed that this is your
family, like, this regime isyour family.
Whatever your family was before, it no longer exists.
And they made it acceptablethat, like, if you have to kill
your family, you have, you'regonna kill them.
And it was like a motto of likethis is how we're gonna live by
.
Everyone lives by what theycalled at the time on goa.
(05:55):
So there was no more religion,no more um, culture of like
dance.
So if you know anything aboutlike the Cambodian culture,
we're very rich in the arts, sowe are known for like our
dancing.
We are known for our music.
All musicians were also killed.
So one of the most famousmusicians during this time, his
(06:15):
name was Cincy Samoit.
I actually still listen to hismusic to this day.
Actually, he was killedimmediately and then he sang
with another female.
She was also killed.
So a lot of our arts, music,currency, everything during this
time was completely killed off.
It wasn't allowed.
We were no longer allowed tosing or dance, and you could
(06:38):
only sing or dance the stuffthat Pol Pot taught you to do.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Julie, can I, can I ask one just question.
So when you were talking abouthow they had killed off the
musician because art, any formof art, has always been a way to
challenge the norm Did theykill all artists, like painters,
musicians?
(07:03):
Besides musicians, likepainters, writers, sculptors,
all of that?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
All of them.
I think the only person theykept and actually it is in a
documentary and I completelyforgot the documentaries mean,
I'm not 100% sure if it was likes 19 or something along that
line, but there was one painterthat they kept.
They kept him to paint whatthey were doing and depicting.
(07:31):
So a lot of the photos thatwere painted were gruesome.
If we really want to go intodetails, this one stays in my
mind because it's not onlytraumatic but it just shows you
how severe genocide really isand how much people can't care
(07:51):
even for their own kind.
And this is a genocide againstyour own people.
It wasn't even a genocide thathappened from one country to
another.
This was just our own peoplewere attacking each other and
killing each other.
So there was a painting and itwas soldiers and they were all
standing.
One was in the process ofkilling someone.
(08:13):
The other one was holding thefoot of a child you could tell
was bluntly hurt from a treethat was nearby, because you
could see the blood on the treeand that.
That painting sits with mebecause this was the reality.
(08:35):
This, this wasn't.
Oh, wow, like this is just a.
This really happened.
There are many.
There's a white mountain orsome sort that's recently come
out and that's also known as thesecond killing field.
So what a lot of people don'tknow is, um, cambodia is known
as the land of the killingfields because of all this, uh,
(08:55):
hence the book the killingfields that was written by dith
pran and he was actually localin new england.
He, um, I think, studied inYukon and he was also a writer
and at the time he was ajournalist and he wrote about
his story during this time andthat was his story of the
killing field.
(09:16):
So that I think really thatimage was really has always
impacted me and I can still seeit to this day and I can easily
just picture it.
But that was part of howgruesome genocide was.
I remember reading a lot andhearing that the rivers were
(09:38):
flooded with nothing but bloodand the lakes and the fields
were filled with just bodies,like everywhere you could walk
into like a body any moment, andthere were just areas.
So actually the men would getgathered, sometimes the women,
mainly men.
They would actually gather themat night and they would tell
(09:59):
them like, hey, I'm going topick you, you, you, and we're
going to take you here, and oncewe take you here, we have a job
for you.
Those men were never seen again, so wherever they went, they're
most likely not alive.
There was also.
They turned a school and thisis, I think, part of like the
(10:21):
documentary on the S-19, if Iremember correctly if that was
the title, but don't quote me onthat there was a school that
they actually converted into anexecution area.
So each classroom had a bed andin each bed they would strap
someone down and they would say,hey, you're going to stay in
(10:43):
here and you're going to tell useverything we need to know
about the government, and, like,like they're trying to get
information from regular peoplewho have no idea, like why am I
here?
So they would strap them to thebed, no food, no water, and
their photos would be taken,with like a number on it and and
you can actually look this upthey have files of like photos
(11:06):
of these people and they havenever been seen again.
So that that was one of thethings that they did.
But going back to my mom, so mymom was sent to a concentration
camp, so she was separated fromthe rest of her family.
My mom is now in aconcentration camp where, as you
(11:28):
know, most concentration campsare known for killing people,
right.
So my mom was in there with mysister and somehow word got news
, news was told that my mom andher sister came from a very
well-off family and my mom didget news that my grandfather at
(11:54):
this time is now missing.
So it is assumed now that mybiological grandfather has been
killed.
So the only surviving memberthat my mom knows of right now
is my grandma and her othersibling, so my mom's oldest
sister's name, lynn my, my momis the second oldest.
My mom witnessed lynn getkilled in front of her.
(12:18):
So she was shot in front of mymom.
They took my mom and they slither because there's a very
important vein in the femalebody that runs through your
underarm.
So they slit my mom there, theyleft her in the woods and they
said she's either going to bleedto death or there's an animal
that's going to come and they'rejust going to, they're just
(12:40):
going to get her.
So before this all happens,you're also slaving away in the
rice fields.
So before you're executed andbefore you're sent to your death
, you're literally slaving awayin rice fields, working all day.
You're just served one meal,which is like one little bowl of
rice congee.
No protein, no, nothing.
(13:02):
You weren't allowed to likefind your own food.
You were only allowed to eatwhat was given to you.
If you didn't, you wereungrateful, you were killed.
Basically, whatever you did,whatever you said, it would be
held against you.
So my mom, she survived.
And towards the end of 1979,there was bombings that were
(13:29):
happening and I guess what hadhappened was the Vietnamese and
the Viet Cong were coming intoCambodia for some reason.
So the Pol Pot regime wasscared, so they went into hiding
.
So they all started runningaway and they hid inside the
woods and they were coming inand I don't know if they were
(13:51):
really trying to help us.
I don't know what was exactlygoing on, but they did come and
during this time my mom fled.
So she was like all right, I'mgoing to live, I have to live.
So she was like all right, I'mgoing to live, I have to live.
(14:19):
So she was able to go to theThai border and somehow
reconnected with my mom's, nowthe only survivor of this war.
So they made it into the Thaiborder.
Now, in the span of 1975 and1979, almost 2 million people
were killed by their own people.
That's like a shocking numberin a span of just four years,
(14:41):
four or five years.
So my mom made it to the borderof Thailand, and the tragedy
doesn't end when you think it'ssafe that.
That that's the crazy part.
So I don't know if you've heardmuch recently, but Cambodian
Thailand or current Thailand, asof right now, there's tension
(15:02):
between Thailand and Cambodiaover land and over temples.
This tension has happened forquite some time.
But I think too, with theCambodian people, they've just
gotten to a point where it'slike we just want peace.
Our country has dealt with somuch pain and tragedy and
(15:22):
they're still picking themselvesup.
It's still a third worldcountry, but they're doing
everything they can to pickthemselves up.
From what has occurred to them,you know, years before field.
(15:47):
So this killing field wasactually a mountain.
So it was agreed that Thailandwould actually take in the
Cambodian people as refugees,and as refugees eventually, like
you'll either re home, into,like somewhere else, or you'll
move back home, but it was justa refugee camp, or you'll move
(16:09):
back home, but it was just arefugee camp.
So on this mountain, um, and toget to to thailand, that was a
feat in itself.
So they actually plantedlandmines.
So there were landmines rightbefore thailand and cambodia to
essentially hurt people from notgetting over.
There.
There were rivers, there wasalso a mountain.
So this mountain the thai wouldactually stand on top of the
(16:29):
mountain like wait for thecambodian people to get up to
the mountain and they wouldactually push them off or kill
them.
So they weren't allowing themto enter thailand, even though
it was agreed upon that theywould.
So the government had found outthat they were doing this and
they were like you can't do that.
We have an agreement that youare supposed to take these
(16:51):
people in as refuge and even ifwe're overflowing with people
and even if there's a lot ofpeople at the border, we need to
do what we can to take them inas of right now, because they're
now here on asylum.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
It's not it's a fear of their own life.
One thing that I wanted to makea reflection on is, like how
you're describing this violencetowards refugees right, this is
something that we've seen overand over again and I just really
wanted to number one.
Thank you so much for bringingout the point.
(17:25):
In addition, all of the otherstorytelling, as far as you know
, forced family separation andpeople recognizing that if you
indoctrinate children, you cancreate cycles of violence and
that is something that I seeparallel Perhaps we can talk
(17:46):
about that a little bit as faras how early people at times
target children forindoctrination about militarism
and violence, and also thetargeting of refugees.
So we have other instances ofwithin borderlands, of extreme
violence against refugees andkilling areas, and so this story
(18:08):
is just like.
It's so important for us tolisten to these stories and
understand that this hashappened all around the world at
these borderlands, where peoplehave shot at people just trying
to flee conditions of violence.
So, yeah, thank you for sharingthat.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, of course, and I find that children become.
It's very sad because childrenbecome part of this thing that
they shouldn't be involved in,right, and it's like they
shouldn't be holding guns, theyshouldn't.
It's like they shouldn't beholding guns, they shouldn't be.
You know the thought of killingother people.
(18:48):
I mean my uncle.
He served two tours.
He was in Afghanistan andKuwait right after 9-11.
And he would come back withstories and he was like these
kids would run up to me but Icouldn't trust them.
Like I wanted to trust them andI wanted to trust them and I
wanted to see them as children.
But you can't see them aschildren because they might
(19:09):
actually be a threat and that'sdue to humans, that's that's due
to adults, that's that's due tohow they program them.
That this is how it should be,because it's it's right to do
for your country and, like yousaid, it is.
It's horrible and we do see apattern of it.
We see it in Sudan when ithappened.
We've seen it in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
We're seeing it now, you know, but yes, If I could
just add to that something I sawthe other day.
I just looked it up, I'llinclude it in the notes for the
episode and again, I just wantto thank you as well.
This is really hitting me, soI'm having a hard time with this
(19:51):
, but thank you again forsharing this.
Yeah, so I saw this video theother day.
When you're talking aboutchildren, it's an Israeli father
reading a book to his son andit's about invading Lebanon and
why the Lebanese people are liketerrible people and the kid is
(20:11):
just repeating back what thefather is reading to him and
it's highly disturbing.
But I'll put it in the notes.
But, as we can see, this is apattern.
Everything you're saying withwhat erica talked about, about
separating the families, I meanwe see it at the border.
Now we see them where you knowthey're selling merchandise for
alligator alcatraz, which is aconcentration camp like the fact
(20:34):
that people are glorifying thisnow in this country is sick.
It's.
It's so disturbing it.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
It is.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
But I just wanted to add that, if you can, keep
talking please.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah.
So my mom was able to make itto the refugee camp and
unfortunately she was not metwith any of her other siblings
or her father.
She was only met with mygrandmother and her, her aunt,
which is my, my grandma's umyounger sister.
(21:07):
So during this time so actuallyCambodia is very it's so rich
in culture and the arts, like Imentioned before, and since we
were colonized by the Frenchpart of the education system you
actually learned how to speakFrench.
So my grandma actually speaks,she speaks French, she speaks
(21:32):
Khmer, which is the Cambodianlanguage, and she actually
speaks two different dialects ofChinese.
One of them is Chu Chow, andthen there's like another
dialect that's kind of like theCambodian mix of like like a
Cambodian Chinese dialect.
So a few of the people who havemigrated from China that lived
(21:54):
permanently in Cambodia, a lotof them speak this, this dialect
.
So my grandma spoke those twodialects.
Grandma spoke those twodialects.
My grandma had, at the time,known of people who had gotten
away out of the country beforethe war had even started and had
news.
So she wrote letters in French,she wrote letters in Khmer, she
(22:16):
wrote letters to people thatshe knew that she could get a
hold of and the whole point ofthis is actually to get
sponsored into the US.
So that was part of like,essentially, when you get
sponsored which I know we don'treally hear that word anymore
but basically someone takes youin and they kind of like rehome
you, they rehouse you and theykind of get you set up for your
(22:38):
future in a different country,mostly in America.
So my grandma got a hold ofsomeone here in Rhode Island.
It was a gentleman who actuallywanted to take my grandma's
hand in marriage.
My grandma was able to take theflight with my mom.
They were able to get, you know, all the photos not photos.
(23:00):
They had their photos taken.
So there's actually the onlyphoto that I have of my mom as a
child and of my grandmother wasthis refugee camp photo.
So that is the only photo Ihave of look at my mom.
It's it's a stoic look on herface.
(23:29):
So now at this point she's 12years old and she's just went
through like four years ofeverything that no child at that
age should even witness in lifeand her face is just so
expressionless and it's just solike what?
What happens from here?
Like will it be good, will itbe bad.
Is this really a new beginningfor me, or is this just the
(23:53):
beginning of something of morechallenges to come?
So in the photo was my grandma,and then it was also my
grandma's sister and her newhusband.
So they were able to move.
They landed here in Providence.
My mom came here on a plane inthe dead of winter and she had
(24:15):
nothing on but a pair offlip-flops and whatever clothes
was on her back, which was veryminimal.
Cambodia is a very hot country,so my mom did not know what to
wear, how to dress.
They were housed in a housingunit and they all lived in this
one apartment.
And that was the beginning formy mom in the US and her age was
(24:41):
changed.
So they actually backtrackedher age.
So she's a few years younger inthe US than her real age.
But, with that being said, shedoesn't have a birth certificate
.
So for many, many years shethought she was this certain age
and my grandmother recentlytold her like no, you were born
this year, stop lying to people.
(25:02):
And my mom's like I don't know,I don't have a birth
certificate.
I can't even tell you where Iwas born, what time and what
hospital.
There was no documentation.
So during the Pol Pot regimethey made you get rid of all of
that.
So you weren't allowed to havephotographs, you weren't allowed
to have jewelry.
Jewelry ended up becomingcurrency and a way to trade
(25:23):
later.
So my grandma was able to keepthe jewelry, but that was only
for trade, so you could trade itfor, like food, if you, if
someone had food or clothing oranything like that, but actual
money, currency it was useless.
There was no point in usingthat.
So my mom made it to the US andshe went through her own trials
(25:48):
and tribulations.
Coming to the US.
It was not any better.
She had to deal with racism.
She had to deal with you know,again being looked at as well.
You're a refugee.
You're a refugee.
So during this time in the 80snow the 80s, early 80s it's like
wow, there's like a flood ofCambodian people, like what is
(26:12):
going on?
And, as we know, withimmigration, when there's a new
group of people coming in, it'slike whoa, what is going on.
So my mom had to deal with many, many more issues after that
and my grandmother, who's anamazing grandmother.
I love my grandma with all myheart and soul, but I know the
relationship that my mom haswith my grandmother is also very
(26:35):
different.
So my grandmother grew up verywealthy and her husband gave her
the life that she loved.
My grandma loved to go dancing.
My grandma loved music.
My grandma had a nanny forevery one of her kids, including
my mom.
So my mom had her own nanny.
(26:55):
So my grandma wouldn't reallytend to her kids.
She would spend time with thembut it wasn't like a motherly
type, like she had otherpriorities.
Basically, from what my mom hastold me and I think, with my
grandma adjusting, I think thetrauma just kept going and I
(27:19):
think my grandma looked at mymom as, like you are my child
from my first marriage and Ithink it pained my grandma to
see it because I think it likemy grandma wanted to embrace my
mom, but I don't think mygrandma understood how to do
that and I think it was veryhard for her to be a mom to my
(27:46):
mom during this time.
But my grandma started work.
My mom actually started work inher early teens as well, which,
you know, at the time therewere no laws on child labor, so
my mom did like little smallodds and ends job.
My mom wanted to put hereducation first, which my mom
(28:08):
did, and she went through a lot.
After that, my mom was sexuallyassaulted by a family member.
My mom was able to get away, sothat was one of the things, but
one of the things that reallyguided my mom were teachers, and
(28:28):
I think, too like that, thatwas for her, her guiding grace,
she, um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I.
There are a couple of thingsthat I wanted to reflect in this
.
So number one, as far as, like,intergenerational trauma like
my family also had experienceswith war, and this concept of
the different ways thatdifferent generations will talk
about that trauma yeah, so youknow, I have stories that my
(29:01):
grandmother would tell me thatshe never told my dad.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Or my grandmother on my mom's side would tell my mom
certain stories that otherpeople within the family
wouldn't know.
So, this is and the complexitybetween intergenerational
relationship and how you'rebringing up the
intergenerational trauma.
It's so important what you saidthat it doesn't stop when the
(29:31):
violence stops.
And and I I am curious becausefor me, as someone also that has
intergenerational trauma aroundwar, I have the last two years,
you know you just think aboutall of the people impacted and
(29:52):
how the next generations aregoing to be impacted, and I keep
on communicating.
I'm like I'm two generationsaway from the worst that my
family experienced, away fromthe worst that my family
experienced, and I am impacted.
And I am impacted through therelationship and, for example,
your mother describing howteachers or people outside of
(30:13):
the family in some ways neededto be part of that raising of a
human being, which I think Iwould really invite our, our
listeners and other people thatthey know to really reflect on
some of those things about whatdoes it mean to require a
collective raising, being raisedcollectively in this kind of
(30:36):
way, because the relationshipwithin the family is fractured
due to this trauma that has beeninflicted by people in power
who have made these decisions.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Something I wonder about, and I'd be curious when
you both think about this, is,julie, you talked about how
things happen really quickly inCambodia, and Cambodia,
land-wise, is fairly, is fairlysmall, correct in terms of size
wise it's a pretty decent size.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
so if you look at the map, cambodia is very close to
thailand, vietnam and like laos,so we're all like kind of like
heavily influenced by each other, which is very interesting, but
it is like a good decent size.
It's not like extremely large,but we have a lot of open land.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
The only reason I was asking was because I was trying
to compare to.
If you were trying to do thatin a larger, mass land wise
country like the United States,it might be not as easy to do it
that quickly.
Yeah, correct, so it would haveto be a lot slower.
(31:55):
So then I think about, over theyears, how teachers have been
continually vilified and how weare trying to get rid of
education and we are.
We are doing it in a lot moresystem, systematic way, over a
longer period of time, and Ican't help but wonder if the end
results, if that's the plan forthe end results, is the same
right, because a lot of whatwe're seeing it's parallel, it's
(32:19):
all happening.
It just isn't happening asquickly as it happened in
Cambodia or as quickly ashappened in Gaza or in Sudan or
in places that are just land,wise, smaller right, so it's
easier to contain.
I don't know what do you, whatdo you think on that Curious?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I, I believe that teachers have like a major
impact on, like on on studentsand like a difference that they
can make in their child's life,especially someone who might be
newer to the country, and for meit also comes with like they're
really good teachers andthey're really bad teachers,
(32:57):
right.
So I think it all comes down tolike what teacher will affect my
future in the next year?
Right, that you have them, andit's and I think that's where,
like, the change can happen.
You know what I mean, and Ithink that's why it's not as
progressive as it should be.
It's because it should be inmasses, right, like I'm sure
(33:20):
we've all heard like oh wow,that that teacher was horrible,
or oh, this, this professor wasgreat, or there's a good police
officer, but then you hear like,well, that's a bad officer, and
I think there's so muchnegative that we don't really
get to the positive, and I thinkwe need to reflect more on the
positive, because those are butI wonder, Julia, I'm sorry to
(33:42):
interrupt, but I'm talking aboutin terms of the cultural shift,
not necessarily like individualteachers.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
So when you see the Department of Education getting
the funding cut and when you seestudents who are being
politically active gettingthrown off campus and getting
expelled.
Active getting thrown offcampus and getting expelled.
When you see teachers who arestanding up for genocide getting
fired.
When you see um us fightingagainst funding students having
(34:11):
free lunch but we're trying toget teachers to carry guns right
, like there's somethingfundamentally wrong and I just I
wonder if what happened in thekilling fields is going to
happen here.
It's just that the way it'shappening is much slower.
That's kind of what I thought.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I know.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Erica, you had yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I just want to mention the things that really
emerge forwards for me arenumber one we talk about the,
the vilification right on asystemic scale.
When I think about thevilification of science, the
vilification of teachers,there's the, you know, the one
(34:53):
thing that's absent isvilification of the rich and the
political class right in theUnited States.
I think everyone and thelisteners can recognize the fact
that the targeting has been aprogressive thing in order to
undermine legitimacy anddiscourse and dissent, Like.
(35:26):
I think that in any of theseexamples, what we see is an
elimination of dissent andfundamentally, if we eliminate
the dissent, I mean the USeducation system has already
been suppressing information.
Anyone who has come frominternational spaces can tell
you all of the things that theUnited States of military has
been doing around the world,including, you know, Vietnam,
(35:46):
Cambodia, all like so manydifferent Latin American
countries, like Guatemala, right, Like it, our education system
is already insufficient, isalready showing a narrative that
puts the military in a positionof being like um, like idolized
, uh, and, and so I would saythat in some ways, we've already
(36:10):
been in that position for apretty long time.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
yeah, if I could add to something that, to that too
as well.
Erica, julie, this actuallyhappened in your class, I think
you you may have heard ustalking about it, but but we one
of the groups had done a.
They had looked at theecological impact of genocide,
of the genocide in Gaza, and Ihad found on my phone, because I
(36:33):
was trying to help them out Ifound an article that talked
about the, the zoo, for example,and like how 95% of animals in
the zoo had been killed and howthe damage it was doing to like
the wildlife and the water andland and all that stuff.
And I had showed it to one ofthe students and I said pull
that, you know, pull this up andread it when you're doing, when
you're doing your research.
And she went to pull it up ongoogle.
(36:55):
It didn't exist and then wecouldn't find it right.
So, like I'm thinking myself tomy phone was safari and I did,
I didn't make that connectionand she's like I can't find it.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I'm thinking when I looked at my phone, it was
Safari.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
I didn't make that connection.
She's like I can't find it.
I'm like well, type in the nameof the article.
I'm trying to help her find it.
It is not popping up.
One of the other students triedto look it up and it wasn't
popping up.
Then somebody said do you thinkit's Google?
I said I never thought aboutthat.
We pulled up Firefox and it wasthe first thing that popped up.
Google had actually made thearticle not there and it was not
(37:26):
.
It wasn't like an opinion piece, it was an actual article, like
a scientific article, about thedamage and the impact that it
was happening to the ecology inthe area.
I was blown away by that.
So we were already seeing it inthat level too, where they're
censoring information that we'regetting.
We know that Google is heavilyinfluenced by Zionism.
(37:49):
I will say we know that.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I also feel like I know you had mentioned to in
class.
You had recommended me to watcha movie and I had told you and
I forgot the name of the movie.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I don't remember what the movie was.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, it was for our group project.
It was for a group project.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
I totally don't remember what it was.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
For our final and you were like, jules, you guys
should look up this movie.
And I was like, wait, Iremember that I had another
professor actually tell me towatch the movie as well, but I
remember telling you I couldn'taccess it, I couldn't open it,
and you were like you weresaying like, oh, they do that.
Like you have to try and findit on a platform where it allows
(38:33):
you to watch it.
And I was like, well, I couldhave swore this platform worked,
it allows you to watch it.
And I was like, well, I couldhave swore this platform worked,
but it didn't an hour after shehad posted the video for us to
watch.
So I think it just shows you tolike there are a lot of things
that like, like even with theCambodian genocide like.
So I took, I took actually agenocide class in high school
and the professor at the timewas one of my.
(38:55):
I've always loved history andhe was one of my favorite
professors, or my favoriteteacher, not professor at my
high school and he had me teachthat part of genocide, the
Cambodian genocide.
But he kind of like reallyskimmed like the Cambodian
genocide when he was teaching it.
But I had one professor inhistory at CCRI, who actually
(39:21):
was the only professor and theonly history teacher that I've
met that had mentioned that thatCambodia was bombed by the U?
S like no one ever knew likethis happened that like wow,
like the U?
S like bombs other countries.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I think it would probably be easier to make a
list of the countries the UnitedStates has not bombed.
It might actually be shorter,right, we can probably do that.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
At this point.
But those are the things wedon't talk about.
Or, like I know I talk aboutthis with, like my fellow
students, like why don't we see,you know, the black community?
And like slavery and like whatthey went through, why is that
not genocide?
Or how about the nativeAmericans?
That's a genocide in itself,but on our land we don't want to
(40:06):
see it that way.
It's kind of like theglorification of like we're like
great and we're like perfectand we don't do anything wrong.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
This entire country is funded on genocide, and
that's how.
That's how it happened.
And then the Native Americansand the African Americans.
I was reading a biography theother day.
Well, actually it wasn't abiography, it was a.
What do you call it whensomebody else writes this?
I guess it would be a biographyright, Because it wasn't an
autobiography.
(40:34):
Yeah, I was right Of one of thefirst freed slaves in
Connecticut who actuallypurchased land and property, and
I was reading all thedocumentation in this book about
it and it was just disturbingthe stories that they don't
teach you about what wasactually done to the slaves and
(40:54):
it wasn't there.
He had also referenced Irishishslaves as well, which I I don't
even know that I knew was athing, yeah, so there was quite
a lot of information in therethat I thought how come we're
not told any of this stuff?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
yeah, well, I think too, like part of like
immigration too is that it comesin patterns, like I remember
remember doing a projectrecently on St Louis and I
forgot in what years, but likethe Irish and the Italians, they
were the newer immigrants thatwere coming into the US and they
(41:31):
were doing the jobs that at thetime people were like we don't
want to do them.
They were like doing the coalmines they were doing.
And you know, when we look atthe time, people were like we
don't want to do them.
They were like doing the coalmines they were doing.
And you know, when we look atthe pattern of immigration, this
is what it is.
It was built on the hands ofimmigrants that essentially did
not want to do the jobs thatpeople currently don't want to
do.
Now, you know it's it's it'slike that dirty work, you know,
(41:54):
like one of the things that, um,you know it's kind of not
spoken about as well as actuallythe Chinese immigrants Chinese
were slaves, so it's morepopular on the West Coast where
that history is very lucrativein that.
But they built train tracks.
They were in charge of buildingtrain tracks, and my mom
(42:16):
actually, so she was actually onthe Newport Preservation
Society for a few years.
She's no longer on there, butshe was on there to educate
people on the fact that Asianpeople built all of this.
They built railroads, they'vebuilt things, and they weren't
granted citizenship.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
No, and then what we also did and we do this as well
with many minority groups isthey were then targeted, as part
of the opiate crisis, ascausing the opiate crisis.
They brought in opium and itwas all their fault.
Because we do that?
We've done that with everysingle group that we don't like
we vilify them and then we saythat they're coming in and
(42:58):
they're spreading drugs andthey're raping people and
they're doing all this stuff.
It's the same story ondifferent faces, when the
reality is, the only people whoare doing that are the
colonizers.
They're the people who havebeen doing it since day one.
Big pharma.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
The biggest legalized drug trade I've ever seen in
this ever right.
They do that legalized drugtrade I've ever seen in this
ever right.
They do that and we we,historically have been the ones
that have been enslaving andraping everybody, not not the
groups that have been coming into like help.
It's infuriating.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yes, no, it and it's, it's, it's, it's really true.
Like we, we see all of this andyou know withrican-american
community too, like we look atthem and it's like it didn't end
for them after slavery.
It continued.
You know, like they had so manyother things that they had to
go through in battle.
You know as we taught, you knowas we learn in like oppression
(43:50):
and you know diversity.
This is a lot of the things welearned, but also, too, like the
killing didn't stop either.
Like they were lynched, theywere killed, they were targeted.
It was violence, were alwaystowards a group of people, and
them too, specifically at thistime.
You know it's just, it's likethis cycle julie, you have said
(44:15):
so many powerful things.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
really you have.
I can't thank you enough forcoming on and talking about this
and we've seen I think we'veseen the parallels.
We've talked about theparallels.
When you were talking about thelandmines, I was thinking about
how North Korea does that.
right, they make it impossiblefor people to get out and they
use all sorts of ways, includingspies within their own people,
(44:38):
which you've also referenced.
That which, minus the landmines, I mean we're pretty much doing
the same thing here.
We've got ICE, we've got allsorts of informants all over the
place.
Like you, never know what'shappening, and it's really scary
.
You talked about fightingamongst themselves.
I mean, that's what this wholecountry is about is being as
divisive and tribalistic aspossible, and as long as that
(45:00):
continues, we are never going tobe unified.
And as long as we're neverunified, we're going to continue
to be torn apart.
And the idealizing ofpoliticians.
I saw something the other day Iknow I've talked about Bernie a
lot, but he pisses me off a lotis that he's saying the right
stuff and his, his followers arelike sycophants.
They're like oh, he should bepresident.
He's like the greatest personin the world, blah, blah, blah.
(45:21):
He still can't say genocide.
I actually saw an interviewwith him the other day where he
was dodging the word, likedodging it.
He was trying not to use it andat one point he said it doesn't
matter what we call it.
No, it absolutely matters whatwe call it so stop pretending
it's not genocide.
Yeah, he is just as bad as therest of them and I'm sick and
tired of people.
(45:41):
Putting them up on thispedestal pisses me off.
I think they're worse than megapeople.
I really do yeah, because theyare so delusional that, yeah, he
is this great guy and he's notsorry, that wasn't a soapbox.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
No, no, I know I feel like every Bernie follower I've
met.
I'm like you guys are like, sodown my throat, like with all
this, like Bernie stuff.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
They're delusional, they're absolutely delusional.
They just they think he's thisgreat guy.
I mean, at the beginning he wasclosing this door on people's
faces when they were trying totalk to him about genocide and I
still, to this day, cannotbelieve Marjorie Taylor Greene
is one of the people, of thevoice of reason right now, which
just blows my mind.
(46:24):
I don't know what planet I'mliving on at this point.
And I do want to add to this Imentioned to say that I emailed
my senator who is Glumenthal andhe's in Connecticut.
It is my opinion that he is araging Zionist.
That is my opinion and I thinkit's pretty well supported.
But I sent him an email sayingthat I do not support my tax
dollars committing genocide andthat Israel is an apartheid
state, and blah, blah, blah,blah blah.
(46:45):
And he basically responded backand said October 7th blah, blah
, blah, I will always supportIsrael.
I don't care what you know, youknow, basically, I don't care
what the constituents say, Iwill always support Israel.
I don't care what you know, youknow, basically, I don't care
what the constituents say, Iwill always support Israel.
And that was, that was the gistof his email.
So then I called his office andI said well, he clearly didn't
read the email, because therewas nothing in my email.
(47:05):
They were supporting Israel, itwas the complete opposite.
And I don't even think theycared what I said, because you
know they don't work for usanyway, they work for Israel.
They don't work for us anyway,they work for us they don't work
for any of the voters.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, oh my god, yeah I, it's like you.
You look at, like this patternand it's like we're given, we're
taken, our rights are takenaway from, like talking about it
right, like we're not allowedto talk about it, we're not to,
we're not allowed to do this,like as students, we can't
mention it, like there are justso many things that work against
us.
But it's like, at what pointare we going to open the door
(47:39):
and realize that, like, we'rehurting innocent people, like
people are affected by this, andit's not even people, it's
literally children, it's, it's.
It's just so, it's just soupsetting and like, like we've
said, like history alwaysrepeats itself.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Erica, what is your reflection?
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I wanted to circle my reflection when you're, when
you're talking about like it'speople, like it's innocent
people, and I I'm reflectingback to Julie, the moment where
you said they would like strapsomeone down onto a bed and and
torture them and starve them,being like, give information,
give us a yeah, like.
And when you think about thestories of palestinians coming
(48:22):
out of these torture prisons, um, that israel has where it's
like you know you work for hamas, like who do you know?
What do you know?
And, to be honest, like, do youhear those stories about
american soldiers, um, in iraq,in afghanistan, like asking,
like doing these things wherethey were?
(48:42):
Like I was told in this roomthat there was information to
get out of this person and thereare soldiers who, like look
back on that now and some of thetimes they're like I honestly
don't know if that was actually,that was, that wasn't, that was
where I needed, yeah, that thatperson was not involved or did
not know those things.
And you know, like the unitedstates engaged in torture,
(49:07):
israel in engages in torture.
Uh, the united states, hereright now with the ice condition
, like conditions of the ice andprison concentration camps, is
engaging in torture.
And if we do not name thisspecifically and explicitly, we
are going to continue to live indenial and continue to be in
(49:28):
this space where the ethics ofhumanity just has been dissolved
.
And I am not like none of usare willing.
We're not okay with it, andthat's why we're not okay with
it, and that's why we're havingthese conversations right.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
I agree 100 with you.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Yes not okay with it one bit, and I I talk about it
every day and I'll continue totalk about it every day until
they kill me.
I don't care.
Right, like seriously, likethat's just the way it is, and
it's gonna be the way it is yesso, julie, thank you again.
(50:09):
and then I did want to um spend,because we're doing the end of
every episode.
Yes, one was absolutelyheartbreaking.
They're all heartbreaking,actually.
But the last five journalistsin Gaza were killed, and their
names I'm going to probablybutcher the names Anas al-Sharif
, mohammed I think it'spronounced Quraik Ibrahim Zahir,
(50:31):
mohammed Nofal and MohamedAliwa are the five journalists
that were killed in Gaza.
One of them left a note for hisdaughter, so I'm going to read
it as he wrote it, and I willput a link to this as well.
(50:51):
This is my will and my finalmessage.
If these words reach you, knowthat Israel has succeeded in
killing me and silencing myvoice.
First, peace be upon you andAllah's mercy and blessing.
Allah knows.
I've gave every effort and allmy strength to be a support and
a voice for my people.
(51:13):
Ever since I opened my eyes tothe life in the alleys and the
streets of the Jabali refugeecamp.
My hope was that Allah wouldextend my life so I could return
, with my family and loved ones,to our original town of
occupied Ascalon.
But Allah's will came first andhis decree is final.
(51:34):
I have lived through pain inall its details, tasted
suffering and lost many times,yet I never once hesitated to
convey the truth as it is,without distortion or
falsification, so that Allah maybear witness against those who
stayed silent, those who acceptour killing and those who choked
(51:54):
our breath and whose heartswere unmoved by the scattered
remains of our children andwomen, doing nothing to stop the
massacre that our people havefaced for more than a year and a
half.
I entrust you with Palestine,the jewel in the crown of the
Muslim world, the heartbeat ofevery free person in this world.
I entrust you with its peopleand with its wronged and
(52:18):
innocent children, who havenever had the time to dream or
live in safety and peace.
Their pure bodies were crushedunder thousands of tons of
Israeli bombs and missiles, tornapart and scattered across the
walls.
I urge you to not let chainssilence you, nor borders
restrain you.
Be bridges towards theliberation of the land and its
(52:40):
people until the sun of dignityand freedom rises over the
stolen homeland.
I entrust you to take care ofmy family.
I entrust you with my beloveddaughter Sham, the light of my
eyes, whom I never got thechance to watch grow up as I had
dreamed.
I entrust you with my dear son,salah, whom I wished to support
(53:00):
and accompany through lifeuntil he grew strong enough to
carry my burden and continue themission.
I entrust you with my belovedmother, whose blessed prayers
brought me to where I am, whosesupplications were my fortress
and whose light guided my path.
Whose supplications were myfortress and whose light guided
my path.
I pray that Allah grants herstrength and rewards her on
(53:21):
behalf of the best of rewards.
I entrust you with my lifelongcompanion, my beloved wife Umm
Salah, from whom the warseparated me from many long days
and months.
Yet she remained faithful toour bond, steadfast as the trunk
of an olive tree that does notbend, patient, trusting in Allah
(53:44):
and carrying the responsibilityin my absence with all her
strength and faith.
I urge you to stand by them andto be their support.
After Allah Almighty, if I die,I die steadfast upon my
principles.
I testify before Allah that Iam here with his decree, certain
of meeting him and assured whatis Allah is better and
(54:06):
everlasting.
Oh Allah, accept me among themartyrs, forgive my past and
future sins and make my blood alight that illuminates the path
of freedom for my people and mymercy.
Forgive me if I have fallenshort and pray for me with mercy
, for I kept my promise andnever changed it or betrayed it.
Do not forget Gaza and do notforget me in your sincere
(54:30):
prayers for forgiveness andacceptance".
And again, that was written byAnas al-Shadaf.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
And so is the importance of journalists.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Yeah, and as a moment just to reflect on that, the
scary part is that if the fiveremaining journalists in Gaza
are dead, who is going?
Speaker 1 (55:04):
to be reporting what's happening now.
I just wanted to Matt it's thefive remaining journalists of
the last Al Jazeera team.
So there are other journalists.
Thank you for clarifying that,but it is very much so that he
was in areas reporting in areasthat would have been recording
(55:28):
what is now happening in GazaCity In the Israeli invasion of
the city.
Ground invasion of Gaza City.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Thank you for clarifying that, erica.
Thank you, julie.
Erica, were there any finalthings you wanted to say for
Julie, or ask Julie?
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Julie, I am glad that you are here.
Aw, thank you, I mean likeanyone who emerges, who survives
right, and the birth that comesafterwards.
So you existing is a beautifulthing.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
And an example of human resilience and human
resistance.
So thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
And thank you for sharing this story.
Thank you for sharing thisstory.
Thank you for sharing this storyof your family thank you, thank
you so much for having me andgiving me the space to share,
because it is, it's.
It's again I know we've said ithistory repeats itself and
we're seeing it now and I thinkit's.
It's up to us to say, like,enough is enough, like when,
(56:35):
when does it stop?
Because I think in this day andage, like all we want is peace
and we don't want to see anymore violence.
I mean, like I said, cambodiais under attack.
They just want peace there.
There can only be so muchviolence that people see in a
lifetime and it's, it doesn'tneed to be passed on, and that
(56:57):
generational trauma and thethings that we hand down to the
next group of children.
It needs to stop, it needs toend.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
Very well said, Julia .
Thank you.
Thank you, Erica, Helloeverybody, and thank you again
(57:35):
for listening.
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank you again.
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic
advice or to replace anyprofessional treatment.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
These opinions belong to us and do not reflect any
company or agency.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode
of the United States of PTSD.
I am very happy that today Ihave one of my former students
here, Julie, and of course thewonderful Erica is back, which I
love, Erica, we all know that.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That is so kind.
I love you too, Matt.
And we were so excited to haveyou here for this conversation
and I just wanted to throw outone really quick thing, erica.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I shared it with you, but one of my friends had sent
me a message saying that hereally appreciated how much work
we were doing on genocide andhow much of an impact it was
making.
Although it was hard to listento, so I do want to give a shout
out to him for just sending usthat feedback.
It was really helpful and itwas validating to know that we
are we're we're reaching people,so I was very happy about that.
(01:12):
As I was saying before westarted recording, julie, we've
been doing the last couple ofepisodes about the genocide
that's happening in Gaza, andyou are from your family.
Your family of lineage is fromCambodia.
You have agreed to come on andtalk today about the genocide
that happened in Cambodia, andwhile you're telling your story,
I want the listeners to reflecton how that is parallel to what
(01:35):
is happening today, becausegenocides all have the same
markings in terms of how theystart and where they go.
Without further ado, julie, goahead and tell us your story.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, so I've been studying genocide for quite some
time.
I took interest in it at a veryyoung age when I had found out
that Cambodia did go through agenocide and my family my mom
and my dad all went through thishorrific event that had
happened.
So the interesting part abouthow this all started as well is,
(02:11):
during this time it was around1975.
And right before 1975 wascoming to an end Vietnam War.
So Vietnam War was ending andthe US decided to actually bomb
parts of Cambodia.
During this time Cambodia wasactually part and involved in a
(02:32):
current civil war.
So the civil war consisted ofthe government and the Pol Pot
regime.
So during this time, because ofthe bombings, it gave advantage
to some of the other powers tokind of overtake.
So that's when Pol Pot and hisregime took over in April of
1975.
(02:54):
So he came in, he fled all ofPhnom Penh, which is the city,
and his goal was to gathereveryone within the city and
move them out into the fields,into open fields.
So Cambodia consists of littlecities here and there, but the
biggest city is Phnom Penh,which is the capital, and a
(03:15):
majority of the rest of ourcountry is either temples or
rice fields, lots of farms, lotsof mango trees, coconut trees.
So he gathered all these people, told them that they can't take
anything with them.
Take whatever it is you haveand we are going to gather.
So during the gathering hewould line certain people up.
(03:37):
So if you were either a teacher, a doctor anyone who was
educated wore glasses, lightskins.
A doctor anyone who waseducated wore glasses, light
skins.
If you were any sort of threatthat you might be towards the
government, you were killed.
And this also came in likedifferent patterns throughout
the genocide.
So in my mom's case, she wasabout eight years old when this
(04:00):
had happened.
She was one of five.
My grandmother she is 100%Chinese.
She was a migrant from China.
My grandfather, my biologicalgrandfather, was a wealthier man
.
He was in politics.
He also was really known forgiving back to the community,
(04:24):
having his own farms and stufflike that.
So they gathered everyonetogether.
They would separate people.
So my mom was actuallyseparated.
So my grandpa went into onecamp.
My mom went into another withher oldest sister, to another
with her oldest sister and thenher younger siblings, which
(04:45):
consisted of two sisters and,and I think, another brother or
two other brothers I'm not ahundred percent.
Sure, they stayed with my greatgrandma.
So everyone's separated and thewhole point of this was
actually to segregate everyoneinto, like, different age groups
.
(05:05):
But Pol Pot saw the younger kidsas an opportunity to reprogram
them.
So the soldiers were dressed intire.
It was like made out of tiresole shoes and they wore um,
they call it like gama, which islike a scarf, and then they
would wear like all black andthey would have guns with them
(05:31):
and they were basicallybrainwashed that this is your
family, like, this regime isyour family.
Whatever your family was before, it no longer exists.
And they made it acceptablethat, like, if you have to kill
your family, you have, you'regonna kill them.
And it was like a motto of likethis is how we're gonna live by
.
Everyone lives by what theycalled at the time on goa.
(05:55):
So there was no more religion,no more um, culture of like
dance.
So if you know anything aboutlike the Cambodian culture,
we're very rich in the arts, sowe are known for like our
dancing.
We are known for our music.
All musicians were also killed.
So one of the most famousmusicians during this time, his
(06:15):
name was Cincy Samoit.
I actually still listen to hismusic to this day.
Actually, he was killedimmediately and then he sang
with another female.
She was also killed.
So a lot of our arts, music,currency, everything during this
time was completely killed off.
It wasn't allowed.
We were no longer allowed tosing or dance, and you could
(06:38):
only sing or dance the stuffthat Pol Pot taught you to do.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Julie, can I, can I ask one just question.
So when you were talking abouthow they had killed off the
musician because art, any formof art, has always been a way to
challenge the norm Did theykill all artists, like painters,
musicians?
(07:03):
Besides musicians, likepainters, writers, sculptors,
all of that?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
All of them.
I think the only person theykept and actually it is in a
documentary and I completelyforgot the documentaries mean,
I'm not 100% sure if it was likes 19 or something along that
line, but there was one painterthat they kept.
They kept him to paint whatthey were doing and depicting.
(07:31):
So a lot of the photos thatwere painted were gruesome.
If we really want to go intodetails, this one stays in my
mind because it's not onlytraumatic but it just shows you
how severe genocide really isand how much people can't care
(07:51):
even for their own kind.
And this is a genocide againstyour own people.
It wasn't even a genocide thathappened from one country to
another.
This was just our own peoplewere attacking each other and
killing each other.
So there was a painting and itwas soldiers and they were all
standing.
One was in the process ofkilling someone.
(08:13):
The other one was holding thefoot of a child you could tell
was bluntly hurt from a treethat was nearby, because you
could see the blood on the treeand that.
That painting sits with mebecause this was the reality.
(08:35):
This, this wasn't.
Oh, wow, like this is just a.
This really happened.
There are many.
There's a white mountain orsome sort that's recently come
out and that's also known as thesecond killing field.
So what a lot of people don'tknow is, um, cambodia is known
as the land of the killingfields because of all this, uh,
(08:55):
hence the book the killingfields that was written by dith
pran and he was actually localin new england.
He, um, I think, studied inYukon and he was also a writer
and at the time he was ajournalist and he wrote about
his story during this time andthat was his story of the
killing field.
(09:16):
So that I think really thatimage was really has always
impacted me and I can still seeit to this day and I can easily
just picture it.
But that was part of howgruesome genocide was.
I remember reading a lot andhearing that the rivers were
(09:38):
flooded with nothing but bloodand the lakes and the fields
were filled with just bodies,like everywhere you could walk
into like a body any moment, andthere were just areas.
So actually the men would getgathered, sometimes the women,
mainly men.
They would actually gather themat night and they would tell
(09:59):
them like, hey, I'm going topick you, you, you, and we're
going to take you here, and oncewe take you here, we have a job
for you.
Those men were never seen again, so wherever they went, they're
most likely not alive.
There was also.
They turned a school and thisis, I think, part of like the
(10:21):
documentary on the S-19, if Iremember correctly if that was
the title, but don't quote me onthat there was a school that
they actually converted into anexecution area.
So each classroom had a bed andin each bed they would strap
someone down and they would say,hey, you're going to stay in
(10:43):
here and you're going to tell useverything we need to know
about the government, and, like,like they're trying to get
information from regular peoplewho have no idea, like why am I
here?
So they would strap them to thebed, no food, no water, and
their photos would be taken,with like a number on it and and
you can actually look this upthey have files of like photos
(11:06):
of these people and they havenever been seen again.
So that that was one of thethings that they did.
But going back to my mom, so mymom was sent to a concentration
camp, so she was separated fromthe rest of her family.
My mom is now in aconcentration camp where, as you
(11:28):
know, most concentration campsare known for killing people,
right.
So my mom was in there with mysister and somehow word got news
, news was told that my mom andher sister came from a very
well-off family and my mom didget news that my grandfather at
(11:54):
this time is now missing.
So it is assumed now that mybiological grandfather has been
killed.
So the only surviving memberthat my mom knows of right now
is my grandma and her othersibling, so my mom's oldest
sister's name, lynn my, my momis the second oldest.
My mom witnessed lynn getkilled in front of her.
(12:18):
So she was shot in front of mymom.
They took my mom and they slither because there's a very
important vein in the femalebody that runs through your
underarm.
So they slit my mom there, theyleft her in the woods and they
said she's either going to bleedto death or there's an animal
that's going to come and they'rejust going to, they're just
(12:40):
going to get her.
So before this all happens,you're also slaving away in the
rice fields.
So before you're executed andbefore you're sent to your death
, you're literally slaving awayin rice fields, working all day.
You're just served one meal,which is like one little bowl of
rice congee.
No protein, no, nothing.
(13:02):
You weren't allowed to likefind your own food.
You were only allowed to eatwhat was given to you.
If you didn't, you wereungrateful, you were killed.
Basically, whatever you did,whatever you said, it would be
held against you.
So my mom, she survived.
And towards the end of 1979,there was bombings that were
(13:29):
happening and I guess what hadhappened was the Vietnamese and
the Viet Cong were coming intoCambodia for some reason.
So the Pol Pot regime wasscared, so they went into hiding
.
So they all started runningaway and they hid inside the
woods and they were coming inand I don't know if they were
(13:51):
really trying to help us.
I don't know what was exactlygoing on, but they did come and
during this time my mom fled.
So she was like all right, I'mgoing to live, I have to live.
So she was like all right, I'mgoing to live, I have to live.
(14:19):
So she was able to go to theThai border and somehow
reconnected with my mom's, nowthe only survivor of this war.
So they made it into the Thaiborder.
Now, in the span of 1975 and1979, almost 2 million people
were killed by their own people.
That's like a shocking numberin a span of just four years,
(14:41):
four or five years.
So my mom made it to the borderof Thailand, and the tragedy
doesn't end when you think it'ssafe that.
That that's the crazy part.
So I don't know if you've heardmuch recently, but Cambodian
Thailand or current Thailand, asof right now, there's tension
(15:02):
between Thailand and Cambodiaover land and over temples.
This tension has happened forquite some time.
But I think too, with theCambodian people, they've just
gotten to a point where it'slike we just want peace.
Our country has dealt with somuch pain and tragedy and
(15:22):
they're still picking themselvesup.
It's still a third worldcountry, but they're doing
everything they can to pickthemselves up.
From what has occurred to them,you know, years before field.
(15:47):
So this killing field wasactually a mountain.
So it was agreed that Thailandwould actually take in the
Cambodian people as refugees,and as refugees eventually, like
you'll either re home, into,like somewhere else, or you'll
move back home, but it was justa refugee camp, or you'll move
(16:09):
back home, but it was just arefugee camp.
So on this mountain, um, and toget to to thailand, that was a
feat in itself.
So they actually plantedlandmines.
So there were landmines rightbefore thailand and cambodia to
essentially hurt people from notgetting over.
There.
There were rivers, there wasalso a mountain.
So this mountain the thai wouldactually stand on top of the
(16:29):
mountain like wait for thecambodian people to get up to
the mountain and they wouldactually push them off or kill
them.
So they weren't allowing themto enter thailand, even though
it was agreed upon that theywould.
So the government had found outthat they were doing this and
they were like you can't do that.
We have an agreement that youare supposed to take these
(16:51):
people in as refuge and even ifwe're overflowing with people
and even if there's a lot ofpeople at the border, we need to
do what we can to take them inas of right now, because they're
now here on asylum.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
It's not it's a fear of their own life.
One thing that I wanted to makea reflection on is, like how
you're describing this violencetowards refugees right, this is
something that we've seen overand over again and I just really
wanted to number one.
Thank you so much for bringingout the point.
(17:25):
In addition, all of the otherstorytelling, as far as you know
, forced family separation andpeople recognizing that if you
indoctrinate children, you cancreate cycles of violence and
that is something that I seeparallel Perhaps we can talk
(17:46):
about that a little bit as faras how early people at times
target children forindoctrination about militarism
and violence, and also thetargeting of refugees.
So we have other instances ofwithin borderlands, of extreme
violence against refugees andkilling areas, and so this story
(18:08):
is just like.
It's so important for us tolisten to these stories and
understand that this hashappened all around the world at
these borderlands, where peoplehave shot at people just trying
to flee conditions of violence.
So, yeah, thank you for sharingthat.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, of course, and I find that children become.
It's very sad because childrenbecome part of this thing that
they shouldn't be involved in,right, and it's like they
shouldn't be holding guns, theyshouldn't.
It's like they shouldn't beholding guns, they shouldn't be.
You know the thought of killingother people.
(18:48):
I mean my uncle.
He served two tours.
He was in Afghanistan andKuwait right after 9-11.
And he would come back withstories and he was like these
kids would run up to me but Icouldn't trust them.
Like I wanted to trust them andI wanted to trust them and I
wanted to see them as children.
But you can't see them aschildren because they might
(19:09):
actually be a threat and that'sdue to humans, that's that's due
to adults, that's that's due tohow they program them.
That this is how it should be,because it's it's right to do
for your country and, like yousaid, it is.
It's horrible and we do see apattern of it.
We see it in Sudan when ithappened.
We've seen it in Afghanistan.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
We're seeing it now, you know, but yes, If I could
just add to that something I sawthe other day.
I just looked it up, I'llinclude it in the notes for the
episode and again, I just wantto thank you as well.
This is really hitting me, soI'm having a hard time with this
(19:51):
, but thank you again forsharing this.
Yeah, so I saw this video theother day.
When you're talking aboutchildren, it's an Israeli father
reading a book to his son andit's about invading Lebanon and
why the Lebanese people are liketerrible people and the kid is
(20:11):
just repeating back what thefather is reading to him and
it's highly disturbing.
But I'll put it in the notes.
But, as we can see, this is apattern.
Everything you're saying withwhat erica talked about, about
separating the families, I meanwe see it at the border.
Now we see them where you knowthey're selling merchandise for
alligator alcatraz, which is aconcentration camp like the fact
(20:34):
that people are glorifying thisnow in this country is sick.
It's.
It's so disturbing it.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
It is.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
But I just wanted to add that, if you can, keep
talking please.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah.
So my mom was able to make itto the refugee camp and
unfortunately she was not metwith any of her other siblings
or her father.
She was only met with mygrandmother and her, her aunt,
which is my, my grandma's umyounger sister.
(21:07):
So during this time so actuallyCambodia is very it's so rich
in culture and the arts, like Imentioned before, and since we
were colonized by the Frenchpart of the education system you
actually learned how to speakFrench.
So my grandma actually speaks,she speaks French, she speaks
(21:32):
Khmer, which is the Cambodianlanguage, and she actually
speaks two different dialects ofChinese.
One of them is Chu Chow, andthen there's like another
dialect that's kind of like theCambodian mix of like like a
Cambodian Chinese dialect.
So a few of the people who havemigrated from China that lived
(21:54):
permanently in Cambodia, a lotof them speak this, this dialect
.
So my grandma spoke those twodialects.
Grandma spoke those twodialects.
My grandma had, at the time,known of people who had gotten
away out of the country beforethe war had even started and had
news.
So she wrote letters in French,she wrote letters in Khmer, she
(22:16):
wrote letters to people thatshe knew that she could get a
hold of and the whole point ofthis is actually to get
sponsored into the US.
So that was part of like,essentially, when you get
sponsored which I know we don'treally hear that word anymore
but basically someone takes youin and they kind of like rehome
you, they rehouse you and theykind of get you set up for your
(22:38):
future in a different country,mostly in America.
So my grandma got a hold ofsomeone here in Rhode Island.
It was a gentleman who actuallywanted to take my grandma's
hand in marriage.
My grandma was able to take theflight with my mom.
They were able to get, you know, all the photos not photos.
(23:00):
They had their photos taken.
So there's actually the onlyphoto that I have of my mom as a
child and of my grandmother wasthis refugee camp photo.
So that is the only photo Ihave of look at my mom.
It's it's a stoic look on herface.
(23:29):
So now at this point she's 12years old and she's just went
through like four years ofeverything that no child at that
age should even witness in lifeand her face is just so
expressionless and it's just solike what?
What happens from here?
Like will it be good, will itbe bad.
Is this really a new beginningfor me, or is this just the
(23:53):
beginning of something of morechallenges to come?
So in the photo was my grandma,and then it was also my
grandma's sister and her newhusband.
So they were able to move.
They landed here in Providence.
My mom came here on a plane inthe dead of winter and she had
(24:15):
nothing on but a pair offlip-flops and whatever clothes
was on her back, which was veryminimal.
Cambodia is a very hot country,so my mom did not know what to
wear, how to dress.
They were housed in a housingunit and they all lived in this
one apartment.
And that was the beginning formy mom in the US and her age was
(24:41):
changed.
So they actually backtrackedher age.
So she's a few years younger inthe US than her real age.
But, with that being said, shedoesn't have a birth certificate
.
So for many, many years shethought she was this certain age
and my grandmother recentlytold her like no, you were born
this year, stop lying to people.
(25:02):
And my mom's like I don't know,I don't have a birth
certificate.
I can't even tell you where Iwas born, what time and what
hospital.
There was no documentation.
So during the Pol Pot regimethey made you get rid of all of
that.
So you weren't allowed to havephotographs, you weren't allowed
to have jewelry.
Jewelry ended up becomingcurrency and a way to trade
(25:23):
later.
So my grandma was able to keepthe jewelry, but that was only
for trade, so you could trade itfor, like food, if you, if
someone had food or clothing oranything like that, but actual
money, currency it was useless.
There was no point in usingthat.
So my mom made it to the US andshe went through her own trials
(25:48):
and tribulations.
Coming to the US.
It was not any better.
She had to deal with racism.
She had to deal with you know,again being looked at as well.
You're a refugee.
You're a refugee.
So during this time in the 80snow the 80s, early 80s it's like
wow, there's like a flood ofCambodian people, like what is
(26:12):
going on?
And, as we know, withimmigration, when there's a new
group of people coming in, it'slike whoa, what is going on.
So my mom had to deal with many, many more issues after that
and my grandmother, who's anamazing grandmother.
I love my grandma with all myheart and soul, but I know the
relationship that my mom haswith my grandmother is also very
(26:35):
different.
So my grandmother grew up verywealthy and her husband gave her
the life that she loved.
My grandma loved to go dancing.
My grandma loved music.
My grandma had a nanny forevery one of her kids, including
my mom.
So my mom had her own nanny.
(26:55):
So my grandma wouldn't reallytend to her kids.
She would spend time with thembut it wasn't like a motherly
type, like she had otherpriorities.
Basically, from what my mom hastold me and I think, with my
grandma adjusting, I think thetrauma just kept going and I
(27:19):
think my grandma looked at mymom as, like you are my child
from my first marriage and Ithink it pained my grandma to
see it because I think it likemy grandma wanted to embrace my
mom, but I don't think mygrandma understood how to do
that and I think it was veryhard for her to be a mom to my
(27:46):
mom during this time.
But my grandma started work.
My mom actually started work inher early teens as well, which,
you know, at the time therewere no laws on child labor, so
my mom did like little smallodds and ends job.
My mom wanted to put hereducation first, which my mom
(28:08):
did, and she went through a lot.
After that, my mom was sexuallyassaulted by a family member.
My mom was able to get away, sothat was one of the things, but
one of the things that reallyguided my mom were teachers, and
(28:28):
I think, too like that, thatwas for her, her guiding grace,
she, um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I.
There are a couple of thingsthat I wanted to reflect in this
.
So number one, as far as, like,intergenerational trauma like
my family also had experienceswith war, and this concept of
the different ways thatdifferent generations will talk
about that trauma yeah, so youknow, I have stories that my
(29:01):
grandmother would tell me thatshe never told my dad.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Or my grandmother on my mom's side would tell my mom
certain stories that otherpeople within the family
wouldn't know.
So, this is and the complexitybetween intergenerational
relationship and how you'rebringing up the
intergenerational trauma.
It's so important what you saidthat it doesn't stop when the
(29:31):
violence stops.
And and I I am curious becausefor me, as someone also that has
intergenerational trauma aroundwar, I have the last two years,
you know you just think aboutall of the people impacted and
(29:52):
how the next generations aregoing to be impacted, and I keep
on communicating.
I'm like I'm two generationsaway from the worst that my
family experienced, away fromthe worst that my family
experienced, and I am impacted.
And I am impacted through therelationship and, for example,
your mother describing howteachers or people outside of
(30:13):
the family in some ways neededto be part of that raising of a
human being, which I think Iwould really invite our, our
listeners and other people thatthey know to really reflect on
some of those things about whatdoes it mean to require a
collective raising, being raisedcollectively in this kind of
(30:36):
way, because the relationshipwithin the family is fractured
due to this trauma that has beeninflicted by people in power
who have made these decisions.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
Something I wonder about, and I'd be curious when
you both think about this, is,julie, you talked about how
things happen really quickly inCambodia, and Cambodia,
land-wise, is fairly, is fairlysmall, correct in terms of size
wise it's a pretty decent size.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
so if you look at the map, cambodia is very close to
thailand, vietnam and like laos,so we're all like kind of like
heavily influenced by each other, which is very interesting, but
it is like a good decent size.
It's not like extremely large,but we have a lot of open land.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
The only reason I was asking was because I was trying
to compare to.
If you were trying to do thatin a larger, mass land wise
country like the United States,it might be not as easy to do it
that quickly.
Yeah, correct, so it would haveto be a lot slower.
(31:55):
So then I think about, over theyears, how teachers have been
continually vilified and how weare trying to get rid of
education and we are.
We are doing it in a lot moresystem, systematic way, over a
longer period of time, and Ican't help but wonder if the end
results, if that's the plan forthe end results, is the same
right, because a lot of whatwe're seeing it's parallel, it's
(32:19):
all happening.
It just isn't happening asquickly as it happened in
Cambodia or as quickly ashappened in Gaza or in Sudan or
in places that are just land,wise, smaller right, so it's
easier to contain.
I don't know what do you, whatdo you think on that Curious?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I, I believe that teachers have like a major
impact on, like on on studentsand like a difference that they
can make in their child's life,especially someone who might be
newer to the country, and for meit also comes with like they're
really good teachers andthey're really bad teachers,
(32:57):
right.
So I think it all comes down tolike what teacher will affect my
future in the next year?
Right, that you have them, andit's and I think that's where,
like, the change can happen.
You know what I mean, and Ithink that's why it's not as
progressive as it should be.
It's because it should be inmasses, right, like I'm sure
(33:20):
we've all heard like oh wow,that that teacher was horrible,
or oh, this, this professor wasgreat, or there's a good police
officer, but then you hear like,well, that's a bad officer, and
I think there's so muchnegative that we don't really
get to the positive, and I thinkwe need to reflect more on the
positive, because those are butI wonder, Julia, I'm sorry to
(33:42):
interrupt, but I'm talking aboutin terms of the cultural shift,
not necessarily like individualteachers.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
So when you see the Department of Education getting
the funding cut and when you seestudents who are being
politically active gettingthrown off campus and getting
expelled.
Active getting thrown offcampus and getting expelled.
When you see teachers who arestanding up for genocide getting
fired.
When you see um us fightingagainst funding students having
(34:11):
free lunch but we're trying toget teachers to carry guns right
, like there's somethingfundamentally wrong and I just I
wonder if what happened in thekilling fields is going to
happen here.
It's just that the way it'shappening is much slower.
That's kind of what I thought.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
I know.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Erica, you had yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I just want to mention the things that really
emerge forwards for me arenumber one we talk about the,
the vilification right on asystemic scale.
When I think about thevilification of science, the
vilification of teachers,there's the, you know, the one
(34:53):
thing that's absent isvilification of the rich and the
political class right in theUnited States.
I think everyone and thelisteners can recognize the fact
that the targeting has been aprogressive thing in order to
undermine legitimacy anddiscourse and dissent, Like.
(35:26):
I think that in any of theseexamples, what we see is an
elimination of dissent andfundamentally, if we eliminate
the dissent, I mean the USeducation system has already
been suppressing information.
Anyone who has come frominternational spaces can tell
you all of the things that theUnited States of military has
been doing around the world,including, you know, Vietnam,
(35:46):
Cambodia, all like so manydifferent Latin American
countries, like Guatemala, right, Like it, our education system
is already insufficient, isalready showing a narrative that
puts the military in a positionof being like um, like idolized
, uh, and, and so I would saythat in some ways, we've already
(36:10):
been in that position for apretty long time.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
yeah, if I could add to something that, to that too
as well.
Erica, julie, this actuallyhappened in your class, I think
you you may have heard ustalking about it, but but we one
of the groups had done a.
They had looked at theecological impact of genocide,
of the genocide in Gaza, and Ihad found on my phone, because I
(36:33):
was trying to help them out Ifound an article that talked
about the, the zoo, for example,and like how 95% of animals in
the zoo had been killed and howthe damage it was doing to like
the wildlife and the water andland and all that stuff.
And I had showed it to one ofthe students and I said pull
that, you know, pull this up andread it when you're doing, when
you're doing your research.
And she went to pull it up ongoogle.
(36:55):
It didn't exist and then wecouldn't find it right.
So, like I'm thinking myself tomy phone was safari and I did,
I didn't make that connectionand she's like I can't find it.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I'm thinking when I looked at my phone, it was
Safari.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
I didn't make that connection.
She's like I can't find it.
I'm like well, type in the nameof the article.
I'm trying to help her find it.
It is not popping up.
One of the other students triedto look it up and it wasn't
popping up.
Then somebody said do you thinkit's Google?
I said I never thought aboutthat.
We pulled up Firefox and it wasthe first thing that popped up.
Google had actually made thearticle not there and it was not
(37:26):
.
It wasn't like an opinion piece, it was an actual article, like
a scientific article, about thedamage and the impact that it
was happening to the ecology inthe area.
I was blown away by that.
So we were already seeing it inthat level too, where they're
censoring information that we'regetting.
We know that Google is heavilyinfluenced by Zionism.
(37:49):
I will say we know that.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I also feel like I know you had mentioned to in
class.
You had recommended me to watcha movie and I had told you and
I forgot the name of the movie.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
I don't remember what the movie was.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, it was for our group project.
It was for a group project.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
I totally don't remember what it was.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
For our final and you were like, jules, you guys
should look up this movie.
And I was like, wait, Iremember that I had another
professor actually tell me towatch the movie as well, but I
remember telling you I couldn'taccess it, I couldn't open it,
and you were like you weresaying like, oh, they do that.
Like you have to try and findit on a platform where it allows
(38:33):
you to watch it.
And I was like, well, I couldhave swore this platform worked,
it allows you to watch it.
And I was like, well, I couldhave swore this platform worked,
but it didn't an hour after shehad posted the video for us to
watch.
So I think it just shows you tolike there are a lot of things
that like, like even with theCambodian genocide like.
So I took, I took actually agenocide class in high school
and the professor at the timewas one of my.
(38:55):
I've always loved history andhe was one of my favorite
professors, or my favoriteteacher, not professor at my
high school and he had me teachthat part of genocide, the
Cambodian genocide.
But he kind of like reallyskimmed like the Cambodian
genocide when he was teaching it.
But I had one professor inhistory at CCRI, who actually
(39:21):
was the only professor and theonly history teacher that I've
met that had mentioned that thatCambodia was bombed by the U?
S like no one ever knew likethis happened that like wow,
like the U?
S like bombs other countries.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I think it would probably be easier to make a
list of the countries the UnitedStates has not bombed.
It might actually be shorter,right, we can probably do that.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
At this point.
But those are the things wedon't talk about.
Or, like I know I talk aboutthis with, like my fellow
students, like why don't we see,you know, the black community?
And like slavery and like whatthey went through, why is that
not genocide?
Or how about the nativeAmericans?
That's a genocide in itself,but on our land we don't want to
(40:06):
see it that way.
It's kind of like theglorification of like we're like
great and we're like perfectand we don't do anything wrong.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
This entire country is funded on genocide, and
that's how.
That's how it happened.
And then the Native Americansand the African Americans.
I was reading a biography theother day.
Well, actually it wasn't abiography, it was a.
What do you call it whensomebody else writes this?
I guess it would be a biographyright, Because it wasn't an
autobiography.
(40:34):
Yeah, I was right Of one of thefirst freed slaves in
Connecticut who actuallypurchased land and property, and
I was reading all thedocumentation in this book about
it and it was just disturbingthe stories that they don't
teach you about what wasactually done to the slaves and
(40:54):
it wasn't there.
He had also referenced Irishishslaves as well, which I I don't
even know that I knew was athing, yeah, so there was quite
a lot of information in therethat I thought how come we're
not told any of this stuff?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
yeah, well, I think too, like part of like
immigration too is that it comesin patterns, like I remember
remember doing a projectrecently on St Louis and I
forgot in what years, but likethe Irish and the Italians, they
were the newer immigrants thatwere coming into the US and they
(41:31):
were doing the jobs that at thetime people were like we don't
want to do them.
They were like doing the coalmines they were doing.
And you know, when we look atthe time, people were like we
don't want to do them.
They were like doing the coalmines they were doing.
And you know, when we look atthe pattern of immigration, this
is what it is.
It was built on the hands ofimmigrants that essentially did
not want to do the jobs thatpeople currently don't want to
do.
Now, you know it's it's it'slike that dirty work, you know,
(41:54):
like one of the things that, um,you know it's kind of not
spoken about as well as actuallythe Chinese immigrants Chinese
were slaves, so it's morepopular on the West Coast where
that history is very lucrativein that.
But they built train tracks.
They were in charge of buildingtrain tracks, and my mom
(42:16):
actually, so she was actually onthe Newport Preservation
Society for a few years.
She's no longer on there, butshe was on there to educate
people on the fact that Asianpeople built all of this.
They built railroads, they'vebuilt things, and they weren't
granted citizenship.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
No, and then what we also did and we do this as well
with many minority groups isthey were then targeted, as part
of the opiate crisis, ascausing the opiate crisis.
They brought in opium and itwas all their fault.
Because we do that?
We've done that with everysingle group that we don't like
we vilify them and then we saythat they're coming in and
(42:58):
they're spreading drugs andthey're raping people and
they're doing all this stuff.
It's the same story ondifferent faces, when the
reality is, the only people whoare doing that are the
colonizers.
They're the people who havebeen doing it since day one.
Big pharma.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
The biggest legalized drug trade I've ever seen in
this ever right.
They do that legalized drugtrade I've ever seen in this
ever right.
They do that and we we,historically have been the ones
that have been enslaving andraping everybody, not not the
groups that have been coming into like help.
It's infuriating.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yes, no, it and it's, it's, it's, it's really true.
Like we, we see all of this andyou know withrican-american
community too, like we look atthem and it's like it didn't end
for them after slavery.
It continued.
You know, like they had so manyother things that they had to
go through in battle.
You know as we taught, you knowas we learn in like oppression
(43:50):
and you know diversity.
This is a lot of the things welearned, but also, too, like the
killing didn't stop either.
Like they were lynched, theywere killed, they were targeted.
It was violence, were alwaystowards a group of people, and
them too, specifically at thistime.
You know it's just, it's likethis cycle julie, you have said
(44:15):
so many powerful things.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
really you have.
I can't thank you enough forcoming on and talking about this
and we've seen I think we'veseen the parallels.
We've talked about theparallels.
When you were talking about thelandmines, I was thinking about
how North Korea does that.
right, they make it impossiblefor people to get out and they
use all sorts of ways, includingspies within their own people,
(44:38):
which you've also referenced.
That which, minus the landmines, I mean we're pretty much doing
the same thing here.
We've got ICE, we've got allsorts of informants all over the
place.
Like you, never know what'shappening, and it's really scary
.
You talked about fightingamongst themselves.
I mean, that's what this wholecountry is about is being as
divisive and tribalistic aspossible, and as long as that
(45:00):
continues, we are never going tobe unified.
And as long as we're neverunified, we're going to continue
to be torn apart.
And the idealizing ofpoliticians.
I saw something the other day Iknow I've talked about Bernie a
lot, but he pisses me off a lotis that he's saying the right
stuff and his, his followers arelike sycophants.
They're like oh, he should bepresident.
He's like the greatest personin the world, blah, blah, blah.
(45:21):
He still can't say genocide.
I actually saw an interviewwith him the other day where he
was dodging the word, likedodging it.
He was trying not to use it andat one point he said it doesn't
matter what we call it.
No, it absolutely matters whatwe call it so stop pretending
it's not genocide.
Yeah, he is just as bad as therest of them and I'm sick and
tired of people.
(45:41):
Putting them up on thispedestal pisses me off.
I think they're worse than megapeople.
I really do yeah, because theyare so delusional that, yeah, he
is this great guy and he's notsorry, that wasn't a soapbox.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
No, no, I know I feel like every Bernie follower I've
met.
I'm like you guys are like, sodown my throat, like with all
this, like Bernie stuff.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
They're delusional, they're absolutely delusional.
They just they think he's thisgreat guy.
I mean, at the beginning he wasclosing this door on people's
faces when they were trying totalk to him about genocide and I
still, to this day, cannotbelieve Marjorie Taylor Greene
is one of the people, of thevoice of reason right now, which
just blows my mind.
(46:24):
I don't know what planet I'mliving on at this point.
And I do want to add to this Imentioned to say that I emailed
my senator who is Glumenthal andhe's in Connecticut.
It is my opinion that he is araging Zionist.
That is my opinion and I thinkit's pretty well supported.
But I sent him an email sayingthat I do not support my tax
dollars committing genocide andthat Israel is an apartheid
state, and blah, blah, blah,blah blah.
(46:45):
And he basically responded backand said October 7th blah, blah
, blah, I will always supportIsrael.
I don't care what you know, youknow, basically, I don't care
what the constituents say, Iwill always support Israel.
I don't care what you know, youknow, basically, I don't care
what the constituents say, Iwill always support Israel.
And that was, that was the gistof his email.
So then I called his office andI said well, he clearly didn't
read the email, because therewas nothing in my email.
(47:05):
They were supporting Israel, itwas the complete opposite.
And I don't even think theycared what I said, because you
know they don't work for usanyway, they work for Israel.
They don't work for us anyway,they work for us they don't work
for any of the voters.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
Yeah, oh my god, yeah I, it's like you.
You look at, like this patternand it's like we're given, we're
taken, our rights are takenaway from, like talking about it
right, like we're not allowedto talk about it, we're not to,
we're not allowed to do this,like as students, we can't
mention it, like there are justso many things that work against
us.
But it's like, at what pointare we going to open the door
(47:39):
and realize that, like, we'rehurting innocent people, like
people are affected by this, andit's not even people, it's
literally children, it's, it's.
It's just so, it's just soupsetting and like, like we've
said, like history alwaysrepeats itself.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
Erica, what is your reflection?
Speaker 1 (48:01):
I wanted to circle my reflection when you're, when
you're talking about like it'speople, like it's innocent
people, and I I'm reflectingback to Julie, the moment where
you said they would like strapsomeone down onto a bed and and
torture them and starve them,being like, give information,
give us a yeah, like.
And when you think about thestories of palestinians coming
(48:22):
out of these torture prisons, um, that israel has where it's
like you know you work for hamas, like who do you know?
What do you know?
And, to be honest, like, do youhear those stories about
american soldiers, um, in iraq,in afghanistan, like asking,
like doing these things wherethey were?
(48:42):
Like I was told in this roomthat there was information to
get out of this person and thereare soldiers who, like look
back on that now and some of thetimes they're like I honestly
don't know if that was actually,that was, that wasn't, that was
where I needed, yeah, that thatperson was not involved or did
not know those things.
And you know, like the unitedstates engaged in torture,
(49:07):
israel in engages in torture.
Uh, the united states, hereright now with the ice condition
, like conditions of the ice andprison concentration camps, is
engaging in torture.
And if we do not name thisspecifically and explicitly, we
are going to continue to live indenial and continue to be in
(49:28):
this space where the ethics ofhumanity just has been dissolved
.
And I am not like none of usare willing.
We're not okay with it, andthat's why we're not okay with
it, and that's why we're havingthese conversations right.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
I agree 100 with you.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Yes not okay with it one bit, and I I talk about it
every day and I'll continue totalk about it every day until
they kill me.
I don't care.
Right, like seriously, likethat's just the way it is, and
it's gonna be the way it is yesso, julie, thank you again.
(50:09):
and then I did want to um spend,because we're doing the end of
every episode.
Yes, one was absolutelyheartbreaking.
They're all heartbreaking,actually.
But the last five journalistsin Gaza were killed, and their
names I'm going to probablybutcher the names Anas al-Sharif
, mohammed I think it'spronounced Quraik Ibrahim Zahir,
(50:31):
mohammed Nofal and MohamedAliwa are the five journalists
that were killed in Gaza.
One of them left a note for hisdaughter, so I'm going to read
it as he wrote it, and I willput a link to this as well.
(50:51):
This is my will and my finalmessage.
If these words reach you, knowthat Israel has succeeded in
killing me and silencing myvoice.
First, peace be upon you andAllah's mercy and blessing.
Allah knows.
I've gave every effort and allmy strength to be a support and
a voice for my people.
(51:13):
Ever since I opened my eyes tothe life in the alleys and the
streets of the Jabali refugeecamp.
My hope was that Allah wouldextend my life so I could return
, with my family and loved ones,to our original town of
occupied Ascalon.
But Allah's will came first andhis decree is final.
(51:34):
I have lived through pain inall its details, tasted
suffering and lost many times,yet I never once hesitated to
convey the truth as it is,without distortion or
falsification, so that Allah maybear witness against those who
stayed silent, those who acceptour killing and those who choked
(51:54):
our breath and whose heartswere unmoved by the scattered
remains of our children andwomen, doing nothing to stop the
massacre that our people havefaced for more than a year and a
half.
I entrust you with Palestine,the jewel in the crown of the
Muslim world, the heartbeat ofevery free person in this world.
I entrust you with its peopleand with its wronged and
(52:18):
innocent children, who havenever had the time to dream or
live in safety and peace.
Their pure bodies were crushedunder thousands of tons of
Israeli bombs and missiles, tornapart and scattered across the
walls.
I urge you to not let chainssilence you, nor borders
restrain you.
Be bridges towards theliberation of the land and its
(52:40):
people until the sun of dignityand freedom rises over the
stolen homeland.
I entrust you to take care ofmy family.
I entrust you with my beloveddaughter Sham, the light of my
eyes, whom I never got thechance to watch grow up as I had
dreamed.
I entrust you with my dear son,salah, whom I wished to support
(53:00):
and accompany through lifeuntil he grew strong enough to
carry my burden and continue themission.
I entrust you with my belovedmother, whose blessed prayers
brought me to where I am, whosesupplications were my fortress
and whose light guided my path.
Whose supplications were myfortress and whose light guided
my path.
I pray that Allah grants herstrength and rewards her on
(53:21):
behalf of the best of rewards.
I entrust you with my lifelongcompanion, my beloved wife Umm
Salah, from whom the warseparated me from many long days
and months.
Yet she remained faithful toour bond, steadfast as the trunk
of an olive tree that does notbend, patient, trusting in Allah
(53:44):
and carrying the responsibilityin my absence with all her
strength and faith.
I urge you to stand by them andto be their support.
After Allah Almighty, if I die,I die steadfast upon my
principles.
I testify before Allah that Iam here with his decree, certain
of meeting him and assured whatis Allah is better and
(54:06):
everlasting.
Oh Allah, accept me among themartyrs, forgive my past and
future sins and make my blood alight that illuminates the path
of freedom for my people and mymercy.
Forgive me if I have fallenshort and pray for me with mercy
, for I kept my promise andnever changed it or betrayed it.
Do not forget Gaza and do notforget me in your sincere
(54:30):
prayers for forgiveness andacceptance".
And again, that was written byAnas al-Shadaf.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
And so is the importance of journalists.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Yeah, and as a moment just to reflect on that, the
scary part is that if the fiveremaining journalists in Gaza
are dead, who is going?
Speaker 1 (55:04):
to be reporting what's happening now.
I just wanted to Matt it's thefive remaining journalists of
the last Al Jazeera team.
So there are other journalists.
Thank you for clarifying that,but it is very much so that he
was in areas reporting in areasthat would have been recording
(55:28):
what is now happening in GazaCity In the Israeli invasion of
the city.
Ground invasion of Gaza City.
Speaker 3 (55:36):
Thank you for clarifying that, erica.
Thank you, julie.
Erica, were there any finalthings you wanted to say for
Julie, or ask Julie?
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Julie, I am glad that you are here.
Aw, thank you, I mean likeanyone who emerges, who survives
right, and the birth that comesafterwards.
So you existing is a beautifulthing.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (56:08):
And an example of human resilience and human
resistance.
So thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
And thank you for sharing this story.
Thank you for sharing thisstory.
Thank you for sharing this storyof your family thank you, thank
you so much for having me andgiving me the space to share,
because it is, it's.
It's again I know we've said ithistory repeats itself and
we're seeing it now and I thinkit's.
It's up to us to say, like,enough is enough, like when,
(56:35):
when does it stop?
Because I think in this day andage, like all we want is peace
and we don't want to see anymore violence.
I mean, like I said, cambodiais under attack.
They just want peace there.
There can only be so muchviolence that people see in a
lifetime and it's, it doesn'tneed to be passed on, and that
(56:57):
generational trauma and thethings that we hand down to the
next group of children.
It needs to stop, it needs toend.
Speaker 3 (57:09):
Very well said, Julia .
Thank you.
Thank you, Erica, Helloeverybody, and thank you again
(57:35):
for listening.
This is just a reminder that nopart of this podcast can be
duplicated or copied withoutwritten consent from either
myself or Wendy.
Thank you again.
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