Yeah, That Happened: Topics in History

[chonies]

I didn't realize how messed up Kent State was--25 students were indicted for criminal misbehavior? Fuck that. This is striking really close to home because there was some unrest on my campus last week. I don't want to sound like an idiot, but my two dominant thoughts are a) I don't know if I could be a "rational, brave professor" and round students up in the face of imminent danger, and b) the students who were killed are the same students as the ones who I work with every day, who walk past the stapler and want help writing papers.

My dad was in Vietnam, too. The more I read about it, the more I understand why he never spoke about it.

[Kaleidoscope Eyes]

Yeah, what happened at Kent State is still truly hard to comprehend. And lots of campuses, including my own, erupted into violence or had peaceful protests in response to Kent State. Robbie Liberman has a book called Prairie Power about the reaction on other campii (?) that were not covered nationally, but which taken together had quite an impact. It's a collection of oral histories and a very interesting read and one I highly recommend on the era regarding the New Left and academia.

I want to see a segment on Nixon's carpet bombing of Cambodia and the genocide that ensued after the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot got in power. Hope something like that hasn't aired already.

[chonies]

These programs seem to stop with the end of involvement in Vietnam. Cambodia has only been mentioned in relation to its connection to Vietnam and US military action.

[Kaleidoscope Eyes]

Apr 28, 2015 22:14:39 GMT -4 chonies said:

These programs seem to stop with the end of involvement in Vietnam. Cambodia has only been mentioned in relation to its connection to Vietnam and US military action.

I kind of thought that might be the case, but I was hopeful anyway.

ETA: I only mention Cambodia because the genocide that ensued there in the 70s with the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot was caused by a domino effect that started with Nixon's Vietnam policies in the 60s and using Cambodia as a strategic geographic position to fight against North Vietnam. I thought maybe Cambodia might be included in some sort of addendum documenting the impact of the Vietnam War. Sort of a "what came after" kind of thing.

[Deleted]

Apr 28, 2015 20:55:28 GMT -4 chonies said:

My dad was in Vietnam, too. The more I read about it, the more I understand why he never spoke about it.

My dad was in Vietnam as well, he does talk about it but only rarely. I'm recording the Last Days of Vietnam documentary tonight. I've always been fascinated by the subject really because of my dad, because being in the Army and in Vietnam had such a big effect on who he is.

My mother I don't think was really closely effected by it, or if she was she hasn't spoken about that to me. She grew up in a small town and was really just so far removed from it all. She had one older brother who was in Korea but only after the Korean War ended, and he didn't go to Vietnam. Another older brother managed to get conscientious objector status so he didn't go either. And my mom didn't meet my dad until after he got out of the Army, and other than him I don't think she knows anyone else who was there.

[Ladybug]

There's an excellent documentary called New Year Baby about the Cambodian genocide. It's a very personal family story. I met the filmmaker a few years ago. I think the film is available for free on You Tube.

I worked for many years at a library devoted to the Vietnam War and as a result am pretty burnt out on the topic and the lingering politics around it.

[azaleaqueen]

I was in college in the 60s but it was in the South and I was pretty much surrounded by conservative people. I supported the war then but I now see how totally wrong it was. We had no business there and if we get involved further in the Mideast it's going to be the same damn thing over again, although now possibly worse.

[Kaleidoscope Eyes]

Apr 29, 2015 10:53:50 GMT -4 Ladybug said:

There's an excellent documentary called New Year Baby about the Cambodian genocide. It's a very personal family story. I met the filmmaker a few years ago. I think the film is available for free on You Tube.

I worked for many years at a library devoted to the Vietnam War and as a result am pretty burnt out on the topic and the lingering politics around it.

Thanks for the rec. I'll definitely check it out.

[Deleted]

I think I've mentioned on this site before that I was born in Cambodia. I don't know if I mentioned it was in the early 70s. Before the Khmer Rouge took over but after Nixon bombed the country. I was actually part of the first group of Cambodian orphans to be adopted internationally. Before the bombing, orphans did not exist there. It was so rare that my parents actually were waiting to adopt a baby from Vietnam. The adoption agency called my parents 2 months before and asked if they wanted a baby from Cambodia instead. They said sure and that was that. International adoption was very different in the seventies! When I was younger I didn't know any other Cambodians. Immigration from Cambodia still was not that common. When I was still a kid there was a refugee who ended up in my town and my Mom arranged for him to meet us. Apparently when he saw me he burst into tears because he hadn't seen a Cambodian child in so long. I was a shy kid and his crying scared me and I refused to even look at him. I don't remember that at all, I have no memory of the meeting. But I have always felt bad for that. In high school I did become friends with another Cambodian. She had actually lived through the genocide. She didn't like to talk about it at all which was understandable. Even today I don't know many other Cambodians which is a bummer.

As a kid I didn't really care too much about the history but as I got older I wanted to learn more. I've read and watched tons of stuff on Pol Pot and the killing fields. First They Killed My Father and Lucky Child by Loung Ung are excellent books about a girl who lived through the genocide and then dealing with the aftermath after moving to the United States. What I had been looking for recently is some books or docs on life there before 1970s. And then, I just read about a documentary that has come out recently about the Cambodian rock and roll scene in the sixties and seventies. It'd called Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll. Trailer is here. I really want to see it. Apparently they actually had quite the cutting edge music scene. Most of the artists are thought to have been murdered and a lot of the music has been lost. I'd love to see or read more things like this.

[Kaleidoscope Eyes]

When I lived in Texas, I had an acquaintance who escaped with her mother in 1978. She was just an infant, but her mother was in the camps and understandably, didn't like to to talk about it. My friend was at an age where she wanted to learn more about her family's history in Cambodia and Cambodian history in general, but her mother was still unable to talk about that time.

I'm intrigued by the trailer for the music scene doc. First They Killed My Father has been on my Amazon wishlist for awhile and after googling Lucky Child, it's now on my list too. This, like the Iranian Hostage Crisis is a topic I never tire of, I think because they're among the first news stories I remember as a child.