Growing Up as a Child of Refugees

By Brittany Ou

I grew up missing my parents. There was an unmistakable weight that I carried around as a child; I felt in my chest. This weight wasn’t the only symptom. There was also the waking up at night, the spontaneous tears, and the feeling of impending doom.

Thing is, my parents hadn’t gone away. Just as most parents do, they worked. Mine worked every day, all day, just to make enough to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads.

I spent a lot of time with my grandparents while my parents were working. Looking back, I can see how lucky I was to have them. At the time, I went to them kicking and screaming. Watching my parents disappear behind elevator doors on a Sunday night, realising that they were leaving me at my grandparents’ apartment indefinitely, happened often. I cried every time.

It happened a lot. The pangs. The doom. Despite that, I still saw my parents' smiling faces, blue-grey pools painted beneath their eyes. Their weathered fingers gripped my small arm so strongly when I ran astray.

I am a child of refugees. Like so many Khmer children, I was born and raised on foreign soil outside of Cambodia. Our parents came to Canada with little English and little money – their baggage was mostly emotional.

The Cambodian diaspora is the result of the brutal genocide that occurred in the 1970s. Our dad would tell us stories of how he escaped, being chased by the Khmer Rouge soldiers, of how he couldn’t sleep for a week while running from them through the dense and deadly jungle, exhausted and distraught. Other soldiers shot at my mom, gently grazing her with their bullets. Later, my parents met in a refugee camp in Thailand.

When they landed in British Columbia, Canada, they tried to get on with their lives, but it was hard. Things in this new place were confusing, and they did not have the resources to properly heal from their traumas. When they had my sibling and me, we quickly had to learn the world and translate it for them.

My childhood was a blur of empty fridges, except for the occasional containers of fermented fish and pickled vegetables – nothing to soothe the appetite of the kid who grew a liking for Big Macs and fries. I’d often sleep hungry. My hand-me-down shoes were too small. They were my sister’s old K-Swiss shoes. I was happy squeezing my little feet into them.

With our mother absent at home and present at work, my older sister raised me. She taught me about hygiene and the importance of showering regularly. We were little girls turning into young women without a proper compass. I learned about anti-perspirant and how to control my bedhead before going off to school to see my friends, who often had their hair braided for them. Big sister usually prepared us the ‘Cambodian struggle meal’: rice and eggs (sometimes it was just rice and soy sauce).

One time, my group mates wanted to feed the class tacos for a project about the country of Mexico we were doing at school. While I loved the idea, I couldn’t contribute monetarily. I felt terrible, a feeling which only worsened when I heard them all talking about my inability to contribute behind my back. Alone, I questioned how rich our culture was when we, ourselves, only had pennies.

One day, in the old apartment we used to live in, I became so frustrated with the way things were. I hadn’t slept well after being the breakfast, lunch and dinner of the bedbugs that had found their home in our mattresses. I remember telling my mother that I was tired of living like this, that I blamed her for this life she had given us. To this day, it is my biggest regret.

Often, my sister and I were woken up at three in the morning, our parents pleading for us to speak to family on the other side of the world. I always hated it. I couldn’t speak Khmer like I knew I should have and promptly ignored the call or pretended to be dead asleep. I wish I had spoken to them more. Now, some of them are gone forever.

With the wisdom and understanding I have gained over the years as I’ve gotten older, I regret each tantrum in the supermarket, each gesture of ungratefulness. I love our food. I don’t care if people tell me I smell like it. Most importantly, I began to understand that my parents, no matter how strong and hardworking, are not immune to the feelings of impending doom – they must have grown up missing their own parents with that same unmistakable and unshakeable weight in their chests.

I am proud of my culture, proud of my heritage and proud of where I am. Most of all, I am proud of my parents for their bravery and for the life they have given me.