Recording
Clip from Interview with SivHeng Ung
Clip from Interview with SivHeng Ung is an excerpt from a 2009 video interview in which SivHeng Ung tells of her escape from Cambodia to Thailand.[1] It belongs to the Cambodian American Community of Oregon Oral History Project and is held in Special Collections at the Portland State University Library.[1]
About the recording
In the clip, SivHeng Ung explains why she left Battambang for a refugee camp. She could not stay, and after hearing on American radio that people were escaping to Thailand, she decided to go.[1] The journey was hard. Vietnamese soldiers shot at the group, and then the Khmer Rouge shot at them, and Thai bandits robbed them of everything before they reached the border. They walked all day.[1] She traveled with her younger brother and with the man who later became her husband, and in time they came to the United States.[1]
The collection
The Cambodian American Community of Oregon developed the project to record the experiences of survivors of the Cambodian genocide of 1975 to 1979. The interviews were conducted in Portland, Oregon.[2]
A later interview
On March 25, 2019, Elizabeth Mehren and Sankar Raman recorded a longer oral history with Sivheng Ung for The Immigrant Story, an organization that documents and archives the stories of immigrants and refugees.[3] She speaks of a happy and affluent childhood in Battambang, her education, life in Phnom Penh in the early 1970s and the Khmer Rouge takeover of the capital in 1975. She tells of the forced march of Phnom Penh residents to a labor camp, the conditions there, her ordeal under the regime and her return to Battambang after Pol Pot was overthrown, where she was reunited with her surviving family.[3] She also describes her escape to Thailand in 1979 with her brother and her future husband, life in a refugee camp, and how her trauma affected her adjustment to life in Portland.[4] She and her brother came to the United States in September 1979.[5]
The recording, in English, is two audio files totaling 4 hours, 17 minutes and 40 seconds. The Immigrant Story gave it to the Oregon Historical Society Research Library in June 2021, where it is collection SR 12332 and is open for research, with the audio online in OHS Digital Collections.[4] Elizabeth Mehren's article "Be a Blade of Grass, Not a Tall Tree" is based on the interview.[3][6]
Credits
SivHeng Ung is the narrator and Sophorn Cheang conducted the interview on April 4, 2009. Patricia Schechter transcribed the clip on September 9, 2014. The clip runs from 27:22 to 30:45 in the full interview.[1]
Access
The library offers the digital access copy as streaming media for personal, educational and non-commercial use within fair use under United States copyright law. It may not be reproduced, distributed or screened for commercial purposes.[1] As of 2026, Special Collections at the Portland State University Library answers questions about the recording at specialcollections@pdx.edu or (503) 725-9883.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 PDXScholar item record
- ↑ PDXScholar, Oral History Interviews
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Oral history interview with Sivheng Ung
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Archives West, Oral history interview with Sivheng Ung
- ↑ Never Again Coalition, Stories of Survival (April 6, 2019)
- ↑ The Immigrant Story, Be a Blade of Grass, Not a Tall Tree (December 24, 2021)