First They Killed My Father

The book’s early chapters set the stage for the rest of the book. It is important for the reader to know what life was like prior to the Khmer Rouge so one can sense the magnitude of the Ung’s fall to intense poverty. As Loung traipses around without a care in the world, the author depicts Cambodian life prior to the Khmer Rouge in the early 1970s as easy and carefree. Meanwhile, Loung captures the innocence of a five-year old girl when she asks her mother, “What are bombs? Who’s dropping them?” (11). Loung similarly captures the voice of a middle-class mother when she answers by saying, “You’ll have to ask Pa that” (11).

It is evident that Loung was a special child who spoke her mind and did things her own way. From the opening scene where she has trouble sitting still in the noodle shop, to her name itself which means “Dragon,” Loung shares her active and questioning mind throughout the first two chapters. While her mother tries to tame her and make her into a little lady like her sister Chou, Loung’s father encourages her free-spiritedness, especially when he describes her as a “diamond in the rough” and as having a “bright red aura, which means [Loung] will be a passionate person” (14).

The fact that the memoir is written in the first person brings the story to life. This choice of narration allows Loung to write about personal things in a natural way. She can make observations and give examples, like when she explains how when her father goes to work, “Ma does not have too much to do” (15) because of their maid. If she had chosen to write in the third person, Loung would not have had this freedom.

Although life is good for the relatively prosperous Ungs, it is important to note that the family is not necessarily representative of average Cambodians at this time in history. Starting in 1965, the U.S. launched regular bomb strikes in Cambodia targeting North Vietnamese troops stationed there. Yet according to journalist Brett S. Morris, who cites memoranda from the Nixon administration, the U.S. bombed Cambodia with “total disregard for civilian life” (Morris, Brett S. “Nixon and the Cambodian Genocide.” Jacobin Magazine. 27 Apr. 2015.) These campaigns helped destabilize Cambodia both politically and economically, with peasant communities most affected. Many historians even argue that these campaigns quickened the Khmer Rouge’s rise to power in 1975 by radicalizing the Cambodian peasantry. According to Ben Kiernan, a leading scholar on the Cambodian genocide, “[Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot’s] revolution would not have won power without U.S. economic and military destabilization of Cambodia.” (Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 1996.) Thus, the author’s sanguine memories of her youth in Phnom Penh in the 1970s somewhat obscure the broader political and socioeconomic climate of Cambodia in the early 1970s.