Alive in the Killing Fields

by Nawuth Keat

  1999

  The last Khmer Rouge surrender.

  2001

  Cambodia passes a law to create a court dedicated to trying members of the Khmer Rouge for the crimes they committed when in power.

  2004

  King Sihanouk abdicates the throne.

  2009

  Khmer Rouge trials begin.

  PHOTOGRAPHIC INSERT

  I am fourth from the left, posed with some of my siblings during happy times in Cambodia. From the left, they are Chantha, Lee, Bunna, me, Hackly, and Chanty. At the time the picture was taken, my oldest sister Chanya had married and moved away, and my baby sister, Chantu, was not born yet.

  During the rainy season, the Cambodian jungle floods. My father and I used vines and hooks to catch fish so we wouldn’t starve when we lived together in the jungle, hiding from the Khmer Rouge.

  This was 1981. I am on the front left posed with other children at the first Thai refugee camp I stayed in. The girl in the white blouse was a volunteer teacher at the camp for a few months. I had found the hat I am wearing, but at the time, could not read the writing on itU.S.A. I had no idea that one day I would become an American.

  Here I am in Oregon City (on the left), playing with three orphans who were born near my hometown of Salatrave. We had not known each other in Cambodia.

  Because of the war, I attended school for only a few years in Cambodia. After I came to America, I enrolled in Oregon City High School. I graduated in 1986 after three years of study.

  Farmers are planting rice in a field in the countryside. This is similar to what the rice fields looked like in my hometown, Salatrave, when I was a young child.

  Today, I am the proud father of three children. My wife Kelly and I are standing on either side of our son Brian at his 8th grade graduation in 2002. In front are our younger children, Anthony and Stephanie.

  Illustration Credits

  COVER: A modern Cambodian boy in Phnom Penh carries a basket similar to one Nawuth carried as a child: Mak Remisa/epa/Corbis

  INSERT: All photos courtesy of the author, unless otherwise noted below

  Jungle: Khoroshunova Olga/ Shutterstock

  Rice field: Corinne Martin/ iStockphoto

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