"I Had No Idea Where I Would Be Or Where I Would End Up"

Davy Kosal

Age: Nineteen

Home: Apple Valley, Minnesota byway Battambang, Cambodia

Occupation: Student, nurse assistant

Battambang, Cambodia

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KHMER ROUGE

I’m from the village of Battambang, Cambodia in Southeast Asia, next to Vietnam and Laos. It was a village of ten wooden houses; they look like tree houses in a way. It was small, like one/two rooms. We didn’t have electricity, and in the center [of the village] would be a big lake area where you would bathe and do your laundry. In Cambodia my parents were farmers and my mom was also a teacher, and that’s [how] they made their money. Around the [late] 1970s [and early] 1980s we had a Khmer Rouge; it was a huge genocide led by Pol Pot. It was like a killing field, and we needed to get out [1]. My grandpa started to come over here [to America] and then my parents came. When they [her grandpa] first got to the U.S. they immigrated to Boston, and then my whole family went there. When we first got here, I don’t remember Boston specifically, but I remember when we moved to Minnesota. We moved to my aunt and uncle’s apartment with their younger kids. It was smaller and crammed and I remember sharing a room with everyone, being there all-together made us closer.

WE DIDN’T GROW UP WEALTHY

When my parents came here [1996] they had to go through immigration testing where they ask you one hundred-something American History questions. They have to study and take the test and it’s actually really hard. Once you pass the test you have to go through an oath and then you have do paperwork. It’s a lot; basically it’s just hard to get citizenship here. When my parents came up here they didn’t know any English, it was hard for them to get in the culture. I lived with my mom, dad, and my brother, who is a year older than me. We grew up in a trailer park area, we were really poor growing up. When I was in the 4th grade my family moved to Apple Valley and now my whole family lives in the Apple Valley/Eagan area. My cousins are my best friends and that’s whom I grew up with. My older cousins have been the biggest influence and that’s true for right now too, because they’re a couple of years older than me so they’ve been through college and the lifestyle; so that’s why I look up to them. My mom works as a housekeeper and she works at the same place I do, the nursing home. My dad works at Saint Jude Medical Center and he does assembly, which is really common for immigrants to do; my whole family does assembly. Because of that we didn’t grow up wealthy, they always sacrificed for my brother and I. My brother and I got a lot of toys and played with a lot of cool things, so they sacrificed their own. They rather have us have fun than them buying their own things.

DON’T HAVE TOO MANY FRIENDS

My mom influences me because she’s a hard-worker and she does a lot of things for my brother and I. She’s a good role model in the things that she does and the things that she sacrifices. My mom always said, “Don’t have too many friends.” She says it’s just good to keep a couple close to you and that makes sense [to me]. When she was telling me that before, I got mad and I was like, “No, I wanna have a lot of friends.” [My parents taught me to] always be polite and use manners. They taught me [to] listen more than I talk, respect your elders, focus on school and your work, and [to not] get side-tracked with other things because they’re not as important. When I was growing up they didn’t let me have sleepovers because they thought there wasn’t a point, so I couldn’t have any sleepovers with my friends. I could always have people sleepover at my house, but I couldn’t go over to someone else’s house. [I couldn’t] go out late, or go on different trips, or go somewhere far away like other kids. When I was really little, they always wanted me to come home before it was dark. But when I was in high school they were not as strict, and right now they’re not strict at all. It’s a lot different than before.

 KARMA

My family practice is Buddhism. We have a temple that’s located past Farmington, and we still go there for traditions and holidays and our New Year's, in April--at the end of the harvesting season, when we bring out like all our fruits.  If you go to the temple, they have a really big parade of monks. You give a dollar to them, because it’s donating to the temple, then you have to scoop white rice and when you scoop it you can’t have the spoon touch any of the bowls that they have, otherwise that’s bad luck. Other than that I’m not really religious. I just celebrate the traditions and I follow different traditions. I don’t really have a lot of cultural beliefs. I believe in karma and doing good, but not all the stuff about ghosts and [the] afterlife. [The people who practice Buddhism] are really superstitious [about] ghosts and the afterlife. They believe in reincarnation, so that’s all about karma. And you have to do good to live a good afterlife. You rub the Buddha belly for good luck, and you never want to touch someone else’s head; it’s called bap, which is rude. It's kind of, the main superstitions. They believe if you don’t take care of your body, your inner ghost will arrive and a lot of stuff about spirits. I think that’s just in general. We believe in the temple, there are monks there and they always have similar-type holy water. They spray you with--good water--to keep the spirits away, so it’s all about good spirits. 

Minnesota Cambodian Buddhist Temple - Hampton, MN

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WHITE BOYFRIEND

I have a boyfriend right now.  [We met] in middle school, [and] he’s white. We’ve been going out for six years. [If we were to get married] I don’t think we’ll practice Buddhism, maybe celebrate New Year’s and celebrate different holidays that we have. During weddings, it’s very traditional, when you first move into your house, you have to get it de-spiritized by monks. I know his family is Christian and I know he’s not religious, but his family members are, and I was really influenced by his family. I feel like I grew up with his family -- sometimes more than my own. I know that it’s different from a Cambodian guy, but when I bring him to my own Christmas or Thanksgiving holidays my family is really open to that, because my older cousins have white boyfriends too; so, it’s not anything new. 

WHY DO I HAVE TO DO THIS?

I see an American as being patriotic to their country and serving it. There are so many different cultures [in America]. We see America as being such a melting pot; it’s so diverse. For example, Americans are so individualistic and they’re so business-orientated and fast paced. I think I’m American because I fit into the culture of America. I believe in [the American dream] and I believe that other immigrants come here to work and prosper as a family; I feel that’s why my family came here. [In Cambodia] my mom was a teacher. They don’t really have an education system there; they don’t have institutions or supplies.  Most of the time they would write on the dirt or do math in the dirt, and that’s how they did their schooling. My parents weren’t educated growing up. When I was little I was put in ESL classes with other kids [who couldn’t speak English]. I went through speech classes, [because of that] I learned English just when I was really young so it wasn’t hard. When I was growing up, I hated school and learning; I was just like, “Why do I have to do this?” Now I can appreciate that I learned English that way, because I was only in there for kindergarten and first grade. I grew up in a school [without much] diversity, so that was definitely influential for me. When I got to college I met more cultural people, more diverse people, so it wasn’t until college that I became involved in CSAM and other Asian groups. [CSAM] stands for Cambodian Student Association of Minnesota. It’s about promoting our culture and preserving our generation, because as we’re all growing up, we’re being more Americanized. [America] is pushing our identity away. [CSAM] is here to host events and to let people know what we do in our traditions.

I WAS AMERICAN, I WAS CAMBODIAN, AND I WAS AUSTRALIAN

This past year I went to study abroad [in] Australia for spring semester, January through May. Over there I lived with a home-stay. I had a host mom, and then my host mom had different kids that lived with her. I lived with her and then we had different exchange students who were from France and Japan. Over there I had so many different identities, because I was American, I was Cambodian, and there I was Australian. When people asked where I was from, that’s where it got confusing. I’m like, “Well I live in the U.S., and I’m from Cambodia.” It was hard to explain to some people. Going over to Australia was a really big moment of [experiencing] different identities, because over there they’re really focused on what’s national identity and what makes you different. That was a lot of fun, but it was really eye opening, too. Australia is really, really diverse, which is interesting. There’s a high population of Asians and Irish people and different cultures too. I went to their Mardi Gras there and everyone is really open compared to over here [in America]; they’re more open to religion. Everyone is more [of] a collective society over there compared to over here, where everyone is really competitive with each other. I have a lot of tolerance for different people; I can understand different perspectives. I’m a lot more open-minded than other people are because I see a lot of people who are close-minded about certain things. 

Instructors

Gabe Guertler

Jayson Watkins

Chiong Yang

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[1] Pol Pot served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Kampuchea who led the Khmer Rouge