"Writing and justice work go hand in hand," says MFA candidate Lalinne Bell. Bell would know: She was already at work on a memoir that confronted the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia when she won the Scribe for Human Rights Fellowship last summer. A collaboration of the Creative Writing and the Human Rights programs, the Scribe fellowship encourages writers to pursue human rights themes in their work: It allowed her to research the testimony of other Cambodian refugees to the United States and write a specific piece about the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, as well as better understand and frame her own family's story as survivors of the genocide. "I want to tell the stories of genocide because they need and deserve to be told," Bell declares. "Writers are the voices of the world, and that is a great power to have." Read more.1. After graduating from Gustavus Adolphus College, you worked 12 years in nonprofit and government agencies, supporting economically struggling families. What made you want to enter an MFA program in Creative Writing?
Growing up, reading was my escape. I grew up in a poor refugee family, single mom. I was always encouraged to pursue careers in law or medicine, not the arts, literature, and history, all of which I love. Though I enjoyed writing, I didn't pursue it as an undergraduate. After having worked for 12 years and achieving that financial stability I lacked in childhood, I realized that I had grown complacent and had lost passion for what I did. But I didn't just have myself to worry about; I am a wife and the mother of two small children. I debated hard before I quit my full-time job at Dakota County [Office of Employment and Economic Assistance] to pursue my dream of being a writer. I realized that ultimately, I want to pursue my love of writing and that I should do what I love.
2. What was the most important thing you learned as a Scribe?
The most important thing I learned from my interviews is that most survivors want the following:
1. for their stories to be heard and the injustices they experienced not to be repeated;
2. for the dead to find justice, have not died in vain, and be remembered;
3. to keep their pride as Cambodians and pass it on to their children.
I hope to be one of the voices through my writing that speaks for those who are unable to speak, to give the survivors and myself the above three things. I learned that I may not be the front-line activist working directly with victims of injustice now (in a sense I was when working with Minnesota's poorest families in Welfare), but I can do my part in my role as a writer to help rid the world of injustice by bringing voice to that unheard. I know first-hand that through writing we can empower ourselves, understand ourselves better, and have a chance at being heard.
3. Can you talk a bit more about the need to pass along pride in being Cambodian?
In my interviews, I heard many, many stories of the atrocities of humans against each other, of Cambodians against Cambodians, until almost half the country's population were annihilated in a mere four years. That is the legacy of my former country, of my people, and of my family. It shaped every lesson taught to me at home. All the great tradition, art, music, and culture of the centuries-old civilization of Kampuchea paled to nothing next to genocide. The Khmer people became a people shaped and defined by genocide instead of perhaps one of the greatest civilizations in Southeast Asia, the proud people who built one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Angkor Wat. Through writing, I can bring awareness to the Cambodians' horrific past. But I want to be proud of my heritage for its achievement, not its cruelty. I see the cycle of violence, how it perpetuates, and it must end. This is not the legacy I want to leave for my children.
4. Best book you've read recently and why?
The Disappeared by Kim Echlin is a star-crossed love story about a young Canadian girl and a Cambodian boy who comes to study in Montreal before the Cambodian genocide. After the genocide, he returns to Cambodia to look for his family. The girl waits for him; he does not come back to Canada. As a woman, she goes to Cambodia to find him. The love story is achingly sweet, set up against the backdrop of a war-torn Cambodia just recovering from genocide. The writer, though she is a Westerner, portrays the Cambodian mentality, misshapen by genocide, as if she were a native Khmer; and I understand both mentalities as a Westerner and as a Khmer.
5. Excerpt from the story you wrote as the Scribe for Human Rights?
I want to express my deepest appreciation to the Scribe program. I couldn't have written "Poan Bpro Peov" without it.
She works hard for two meals a day of a couple tablespoon of watery rice soup.
"You want a lot to eat but you do NOTHING!" a Khmer Rouge soldier bellows at her. To look at her is to see a thin ravaged soul with large hollowed eyes in a face of skin and bones. Gone is the bright and cheerful schoolgirl of a year ago. To keep you is no gain; to kill you is no loss! Within a year, her beloved Cambodia has turned into a hell that she cannot find the words to express. . . .
Sitha does not get to see her family, and being only seven years old, she misses her Mai and Pok fiercely. She cries herself to sleep every night and she must cry quietly or she is beaten for her tears. There can be no love or loyalty to anyone or anything other than Angka, the Khmer Rouge's government. Angka provides you everything!
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