Summary Of First They Killed My Father

Narratives are essential to formulate a picture and set the backdrop of events that occur around the world. These narratives can lead to an abundance of events, but more likely than not narratives can lead to violence. Through interpreting First They Killed My Father, the stage is set for the events that transpired in Cambodia. By presenting the narrative of the genocide in Cambodia, I will explain how people have been able to cope with the atrocities that their country committed against them and their families. Additionally, I will connect it to the Jim Crow era in the US, demonstrating how we too, unwittingly, let narratives influence our actions.
The narratives of the events that transpired in Cambodia help outsiders understand why many
This included many minority groups of Chinese and Vietnamese (Youns) who were “considered racially corrupt” (Ung, p. 62). Some willfully participated and believed this narrative, and did not offer a counter narrative. While others took part in the killing of innocent people because they were threatened with death themselves and after having seen what the Khmer Rouge was capable of, they decided not to challenge the status quo (Enemies of the People). Not having a reliable and honest news source, people readily took all they were told to heart and took Cambodia down the dark path of genocide. As people were fed this narrative, others lived with the consequences of the leader’s actions. One of those people was Loung Ung, who lost her family as a result of the Khmer Rouge’s tough and unforgiving regime. She managed to cope by telling her own story to those who were willing to listen. When Ung first came to the United States she worked on disconnecting herself from Cambodia, but eventually found a way to express herself through a purposive narrative (Ung, p. 236). After years of therapy she wrote down what she had lived through in Cambodia and made the unimaginable horrors habitable and into a story that empowered her
In the United States, the Jim Crow era is spoken of in a way that makes it seem as if it is a thing of the past. The media highlights the strong activists to come out of that time such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Ruby Bridges, while not touching on the struggles that they had to endure – they are romanticized. Most people turn a blind eye with the pretext that that time in history is over and things have changed because now there are laws to protect the equal treatment of people. However, these atrocities happened a mere fifty years ago. Jim Crow is told in this past tense manner to differentiate from the New Jim Crow that is currently happening, but not widely spoken about. Racism is still rampant in the US and is continually and systematically not dealt with. Similarly, to the two men interviewed in “Enemies of the People,” those who partook in battering protestors during peaceful sit-ins in the US do not speak about their role because it is no longer socially acceptable to say that they played a part. History is not dealt with, nor are the events spoken about. I come from a small town in central Washington that lacks diversity. Jim Crow laws are never spoken of, other than what we read about in history books. I was taught about what happened in terms of Jim Crow laws in other parts of the US, most notably the South, but