Making a Home in an Unfamiliar Homeland
In the late 1970s, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians fled their country as Khmer Rouge leaders turned it into a killing field.
Those refugees included Roeun Om's family.
"During the war, my mom, she walked on foot with me still in her stomach ... ducking and dodging bullets, you know, falling in ditches, trying not to get caught by the Khmer Rouge," he says.
Om — also known as "Lucky" — was born in a refugee camp and then moved with his family to Virginia. But he, like many other Cambodians, never became a U.S. citizen. And, because of a 1996 law, he could be deported if he committed a crime.
He says when he was 11, he "got gang-related" to escape being home with his alcoholic father, and he went to prison when he was 17. Then, he was deported to Cambodia — his native land, but a land he had never even seen. He knew almost no one there.
But Om and other deportees have learned to look out for each other, and they are now helping Cambodian drug users through a nongovernmental organization called Korsang. He has also welcomed a baby son.
For one month, he carried a tape recorder, documenting his new life. He talks about his fears, his work and his new family.
Listen Ozug's story on NPR.org.