Recording
Oral history interview with Bokanika Kan Moyle
The oral history interview with Bokanika Kan Moyle records the life of a marketing director who came to the United States as a refugee child from Battambang.[1] It belongs to Cambodian Americans – Oral History of 1.5 Generation, archived at CamCHAP and housed at the Historical Society of Long Beach.[1]
About the recording
Bokanika Kan Moyle was born in Battambang in 1975 and remembers very little of the Khmer Rouge period. After the Vietnamese entered Cambodia in 1979, she reached the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp in Thailand with her grandmother, her mother and three sisters. A cousin in Washington, D.C., sponsored the family, and they later moved to San Diego to be with an aunt.[1]
After high school she studied political science at the University of Denver and earned a master's degree in marketing. At the time of the recording she worked as a marketing director for a health insurance provider, with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. She shared her story so that future generations will not forget where they come from. She also wants others to understand both the opportunities open to refugee children in the United States and the effects of poverty and violence on their lives.[1]
The collection
The project records Cambodian Americans who were children when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. The narrators speak of childhood before and after the regime, of what they lost, of the journey to the United States and of adjusting to American life. The project also asks how survivors coped with emigration and how trauma affected their well-being. While giving a realistic view of what happened, the accounts are offered as a message of hope for future generations.[1]
Credits
Bokanika Kan Moyle is the narrator; no interviewer is named for this recording. Pacific Asian Counseling Services recorded the interviews from a mental health perspective, from a concept first developed by Cambodia Town, with funding from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health under the Mental Health Services Act.[1]
Access
- Recording: Historical Society of Long Beach video channel
- No item number or recording date is published.[1]