Recording
Khmer Oral History Project: Interview with Loeung Bun
The Khmer Oral History Project interview with Loeung Bun records the life of a self-taught Cambodian musician who survived the Khmer Rouge years.[1] It is one of 15 interviews in the Khmer Oral History Project, recorded in St. Paul, Minnesota, in July and August 1992.[2]
About the recording
Loeung Bun grew up in Mongkol Borei and Battambang. He was orphaned at 16 and taught himself music, and he plays a number of Cambodian stringed instruments. He traveled with a band, and he was living in Sisophon with his family when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975.[1]
The family was separated. The Khmer Rouge spared his life so that he could play music at their performances, where Cambodians in the audience were often killed. From 1979 to December 1981 he lived in several Thai refugee camps, and then he came to Minnesota. He recalls being taken advantage of by a sponsor and a landlord there. At the time of the interview, his wife and two daughters lived in the United States and his son still lived in Cambodia.[1]
The collection
The Khmer Oral History Project grew out of a mock trial of the Khmer Rouge leadership for genocide. The Minnesota Lawyers International Human Rights Committee held the trial at the Minnesota State Capitol on June 9, 1990. Members of Minnesota's Khmer community served as witnesses and told of their lives from 1975 to 1979, years in which an estimated 1.7 million people were killed under the Khmer Rouge-led government. A panel of Minnesota public officials, sitting as an "International Court of Justice," found Pol Pot and his agents guilty of genocide.[2]
In the project that followed, community members were interviewed on videotape about the genocide years, the refugee camps and their emigration to the United States. The 15 interviews run 16 hours and 24 minutes in all. Each has a transcript in English and, where appropriate, Khmer, for a total of 414 pages in English and 81 in Khmer.[2]
Credits
Loeung Bun is the narrator. No interviewer is named for this recording, and the project lists its interviewers as various. Copyright in the interviews is held by Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights.[1][2]
Access
- Minnesota Historical Society collections: interview record
- No item number, access restriction or online recording link is published.[1]