Interview: Socheata Poeuv on Cambodian-Amercian Identity & New Year Baby

Photo: Socheata Poeuv

By CAROL TE

January 26, 2011

Socheata Poeuv speaks with Broad Recognition about growing up and starting a career as a Cambodian-American woman, and the effect this has had on her identity today.  Poeuv was born in a Thai refugee camp and immigrated to America with her parents and three older siblings, all of whom lived through the Khmer Rouge genocide. Having never heard her family’s story, Poeuv started filming New Year Baby. The film was one of the first attempts by a Cambodian-American to understand their family’s past and highlight the silence prevalent among Khmer Rouge survivors. New Year Baby has since received numerous awards, including a Movies That Matter Award from Amnesty International. and the 2008 iWitness Award from Jewish World Watch . 

Today, Poeuv is a Visiting Fellow at the Yale University Genocide Studies Program and a first year student at the Yale School of Management. She graduated cum laude with a B.A. in English literature from Smith College in 2002. Afterward, she worked at NBC News Dateline, ABC News World News Tonight and NBC News Today. Poeuv is also the founder and executive director of Khmer Legacies, an organization incubated at Yale University’s Genocide Studies Program that archives video testimonies of Khmer Rouge regime survivors.

Carol Te: Was Khmer Legacies something you always wanted to do or was it more of a whim?

Socheata Poeuv: The birth of Khmer Legacies was really off of the work I had done with New Year Baby. I had committed a lot of time and resources and energy creating the documentary film. And then we premiered [the film] and it would go on to air on PBS but I still wanted there to be a more substantial outcome. I wanted it to build up to something, to lead to something. I felt like when we were creating New Year Baby we had created a base of support, an audience. So there was this opportunity to create something to speak to this audience again, both in terms of donors and people who saw the film and were strongly moved by it and wanted to take some kind of action. I also felt like I was uniquely positioned to start something like this because I had the film already, I am a Cambodian-American woman, and I had a little bit of experience creating something and managing a team and attracting support.

CT: What was the feedback you got from New Year Baby that egged you on?

SP: For Cambodians, and especially Cambodian-Americans, the film would interest or spark curiosity in them about their own family history, and in some cases it really motivated people to ask questions about their own history, and I thought, “Wow, this is fantastic. This is what I wanted. So what if we could give them the structure and the support to do it?”

CT: I know that in typical Cambodian culture, women are supposed to be more subservient and docile, more “behind-the-scene” so to speak. Do you think what you do conflicts with these Cambodian cultural ideals?

SP: So much of what we understand to be Cambodian is mediated through our parents and part of my adult life has been understanding how to separate what is Cambodian culture and what are my parents quirks since I ascribe a lot of things to Cambodian culture that are really just my parents. Growing up I never had this idea that women had less power or less ability or couldn’t be leaders because my mother was such a strong-willed person and she wore the pants in the family. She expected us, as girls, to be even more responsible and intelligent and faster and smarter. And I think that was a problem for my brother because he didn’t have a strong male role model, so he had to figure out how to be a man, specifically an Asian man in America. Only when I go to Cambodia do I see that conflict. Like I may be stepping out by being particularly direct or assertive.

CT: What do your parents have to say about what you do?

SP: They’re really confused about me. They think I’m really bright and they wonder why I decided to use all of my brightness for working with the Cambodian community, which doesn’t have an economic pay off or even a satisfaction payoff. They know how difficult it is to work with Cambodians. They are not fully trustful of Cambodians. And like all parents they just want me to have a normal stable life.

CT: Do Cambodians in Cambodia look at you in a way that is more American than Khmer? What do they say about your work?

SP: I’m treated differently because I’m a Cambodian-American woman and each one of those has a different set of expectations that goes along with them. The combination of all of those has a lot of unique arrays and attributes associated with it. I generally find that a lot of Cambodians are not sure what to make of me (laughs). I’m pretty young also. I carry myself in a certain way that most Cambodian women don’t.

CT: Can you give a specific example of how you are treated differently by Cambodians as a “Cambodian-American woman?”

SP: One moment that made me uncomfortable was after we had showed New Year Baby and a man, who was about my age, came up to me, and he was addressing me with the most respectable kinship terms. He was very deferential and was keeping his head below mine and it just made me uncomfortable. I didn’t understand why he was trying to be so humble. So that was a bit awkward and strange. Only later I realized what made me feel uncomfortable about it. I realized he didn’t want to presume that he was a peer.  It was my relative privilege and therefore my power that I’ve never been treated badly because I’m a woman in Cambodia. But I haven’t lived there for a long period of time and I haven’t caused a lot of trouble. But I think if I stayed there longer I would cause a lot of trouble, like Mu Sochua.

CT: It seems to me that, ironically, Cambodian women are the leading human rights activists or the ones who are most active in spreading awareness about Cambodia as opposed to men (e.g. Somaly Mam, Mu Sochua, Loung Ung). Do you think that’s true?

SP: Yeah, I think it’s interesting. The model of the woman is a paradox in some ways because you’re supposed to be very gentle, very soft, not making any noise when you enter and leave the room, and there is also still a high value placed on women. For instance, this seems like a small difference but I think it has a lot of implications in society: the men are the ones that pay the dowry when there’s a marriage and that’s the opposite of, say India and China. Therefore women are not considered to be a liability and a drag on the family’s expense. In a way, the groom is paying to marry the woman, which is weird because you’re objectifying her by saying that she is mine now but at the same time you had to ascribe some value to her to begin with.

CT: Do you agree that there are more Cambodian female role models with integrity than Cambodian male role models?

SP: I think there are stronger female role models. There are lots of problems with dads being alcoholic and abusive, and if you’re a young man growing up in that community, you grow up resenting male figures in your life. As you become a young man you become conflicted about filling this role based on this model you hate. This creates a kind of despise or, if your dad isn’t there, lack of knowing who to be or how to be a man. And women look to their moms, many of whom are strong and resourceful.

CT: Do you think women are becoming more egalitarian in Cambodian society? That their roles are changing?

SP: I think so. Cambodian men and women have always been egalitarian in society compared to Chinese and Indians. The idea that women can and should work is not foreign to Cambodian culture, and especially as the textile industry is a top tier industry now, virtually all those workers are women. Women are increasingly the breadwinners, which means that there’s a lot of value based on them and their productivity.

As for their roles changing, I don’t know if there are any lasting consequences from the Khmer Rouge period. The Khmer Rouge tried to eliminate gender biases. Women were in leadership roles, and the expectation that woman would work just as hard — I don’t know if that sentiment has carried on. Women out-survived men during the Khmer Rouge period for whatever reason. It may be because women require fewer calories to survive. I don’t know. But they were the ones rebuilding the family and society in the years after the Khmer Rouge. There are all these examples of women demonstrating their strength and ability to hold their country together.

CT: Growing up, were you particularly aware of your ethnic origins/difference? Would you say you grew up with a bi-cultural identity?

SP: I had no outlet to in Dallas, Texas to explore my bi-cultural identity. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I realized that I was different. Obviously I knew that I was not white but it didn’t occur to me that people reacted to me differently because I was not white. Only when I was a teenager did I recognize that I was different, and that even if I didn’t feel I was different, the world treated me differently.

I remember when I went to college I was walking across campus and this older white woman said to me, “Excuse me, do you speak English?” I said, “Yes.” It didn’t occur to me that was weird because I was on a college campus. She proceeded to ask me directions and I happily helped her out and as I was walking away I realized that she wouldn’t have ever asked me if I spoke English if I was white. And that’s the assumption I bring into the room. Not all the time. But what percentage of people when I walk into the room wonder if I speak English? And that’s the baggage I have to carry that others don’t.

CT: Do you think this has proven to be an obstacle in your work?

SP: I don’t think it’s so much an obstacle because I address one community, the Cambodian community, but it creates a boundary between me and potential donors who are not Cambodian. Because I’m working on Cambodian issues there’s a perception that this is a narrow interest I have and the implication doesn’t go beyond this population, which I think it does. People believe these issues are not part of their identity, which is totally natural and I don’t blame people for it. But I like to think the work has broad implications because it’s about how people heal after having endured one of the worst acts that can be committed against man. This is considered the crime against crime and to me that’s a big question. Some people build their careers trying to build certain quirks in a website and to me that’s a narrow question and I feel as though I’m working on broad issues. But when I present my work, that’s perceived as narrow. People say, “Oh, you’re only working with 250 000 people in the U.S. (Cambodians).” I think this is one of the big hairy issues of our time. But sometimes people go, “Well… why should I care about this? What are the implications for me in my life?”

CT: You went to Smith, an all-girls school, for college, right? How do you think going to an all girls’ school has shaped you today?

SP: I would definitely recommend it for young women. I’m sure no one can identify with this but when I was a teenager in college I wasn’t allowed to date and so that option was off the table. And because I didn’t know how to engage the other sex at all that whole part of being a younger person was not available to me. Instead of saying I can’t have this, I convinced myself that I must be really terrible at this and decided that I would rather not think about and not worry about that and just go to a women’s college and focus on building great friendships and getting a great education. So I kind of convinced myself into it but when you’re there you’re like, “Wow, am I normal for being here?”

But one of the most telling moments for me was after I had been at Smith’s for a semester and I had come home for Christmas break. I remember watching a beer commercial with women in bikinis running around the beach, drinking Coors Light. I remember thinking, “This is so weird!” especially because I had been around a lot of women who were not running around but who were very smart, dedicated, and ambitious. So I had all of this data about women in my memory tank, about them being a certain way, then I was thrust into a world of mass media where their data was of a different set, and my reaction was just viscerally like, “That’s so weird.” And of course I had seen beer commercials before but I had never experienced that contrast until I went to Smith’s. And then it struck me: that’s why Smith exists.

CT: How has going to Smith guided you in your work today?

SP: There was this expectation at Smith’s that you will be great at whatever you do and you will make a great contribution morally, so there was a level of confidence instilled in you. The professors and staff kind of lifted you up to be a great person. And it was among the most supportive places I’ve ever been. Also, I think Smith’s was a little more like, “What’s the contribution you will make in the world?” and it doesn’t have to be the most prestigious thing available to you. And I don’t want to downplay prestige and its usefulness. It’s great but its not the end all be all.

CT: Do you plan on carrying on Khmer Legacies’ goals after you get your MBA?

SP: I see it as part of my responsibility. One of the big limitations on Khmer Legacies was that I never found a benefactor in the Cambodian community. Not only would I have benefited from their donations but it’s also a signal, not only to other donors, but that we can invest in our own community and we have support for these kinds of activities. So I want to be that benefactor for the next person who starts a Khmer Legacies-like project. I hope that not only will I have that impact in that area but that I can inspire future generations to identify with their ethnic identity and give back to their community. And the best way to do that is to create that example, which means I have to be wealthy enough to give, which is the reason why I’m getting an MBA.

CT: Do you have any insights you’d like to add given what you are learning in the School of Management and from your past work?

SP: One of the things we’ve been learning in MBA school is about the different styles of leadership. Many women in leadership positions feel as though they need to compensate for being a woman by taking on stereotypical male behavior like being particularly assertive or being particularly non-emotional (laughs). And I think that’s a dangerous thing because the leaders who have credibility among the people that follow them are those that are fully expressing themselves through their leadership and not pretending to be something else.

We were at some kind of women’s leadership panel and one of the female professors said that it would, “behoove you women (the young MBAs in the room) to learn about baseball and take up golfing,” and essentially to be a little more like a man so you can fit in. And I think that can help you to some degree but at the end of the day it has to be authentically you for you to be seen as a credible person, as a credible leader. You’re being looked to all the time, scrutinized and examined, and so in as much as you can have authenticity, that is the currency of your credibility.

Carol Te is a junior in Yale College.  She is a contributing writer for Broad Recognition.