INTO THE SHADOWS, I RAN

Chhay and Raudsepp tell the true story of a refugee’s flight from Cambodia to the United States.

Chhay was 9 years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power. Led by the ruthless Pol Pot, the regime would kill two million people during its brief reign, leaving Cambodia in ruins. Like all other city dwellers, Chhay and his family were forced to relocate to the countryside, where they labored as farm workers under the threat of death. They were the lucky ones; former government workers, educated people, and members of ethnic minorities were simply killed. When the regime was overthrown by the Vietnamese in 1979, Chhay’s immediate family reunited in their home city, but life did not return to normal. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Chhay recalls, “We knew we were free from that horrible village life, but it was hard to release the shackles that had been implanted in our minds. There was no structure or guidance, just our fight to stay alive, and we did not know what way of life lay ahead for us.” This memoir primarily recounts Chhay’s life following the Khmer period, a time during which he traveled the country as a boy merchant, fled across a mine-strewn border to Thailand, spent nearly six years in a refugee camp, and eventually made his way to a new life in Seattle. The authors capture, in Chhay’s understated voice, both the nightmarish landscapes of war and the new, unknown world of America: “I was amazed as I-5 went right alongside several tall buildings of glass and steel that reached way up into the sky. I had never seen such huge buildings before. All the cars everywhere amazed me as well. There were so many new, modern, and beautiful cars everywhere.” The memoir serves as an affecting reminder that even after conflicts end and dictatorships fall, the suffering continues. Chhay’s chronicle is a story about finding a way to live in the aftermath of catastrophe when the old ways of living are no longer possible.

A heartbreaking memoir, told with restraint, of oppression and its aftermath.