Review: First They Killed My Father By Loung Ung

Tracing the journey from adulthood to maturation for Hana Brady, the central protagonist in Karen Levin's non-fictional narrative, Hana's Suitcase, is inevitably paradoxical in nature. Brady only lived to the age of 13, which is barely the cusp of adolescence. The truly sad aspect of this fact is that because of the gravity of the ordeals this young girl endured during the historical epoch directly proceeding and including World War II, she was forced to grow up and ultimately die far more swiftly than she should have. Therefore, it is all the more important to trace Brady's process of maturation since it was highly accelerated and was her only way of coping with the rapid loss of life that she and the majority of her family encountered. Doing so reveals a young girl caught up in adult circumstances that were terrifyingly beyond her but which she was forced to cope with nonetheless.

The setting and characterization of the central characters of First They Killed My Father; A Daughter Of Cambodia Remembers is represented in our book cover through a truck driving down a trail with helpless Cambodian citizens passing Khmer Rouge soldiers. We chose to show the entire family because

When they arrived in America a cowboy helped them settled into their new house. He paid the rent three months ahead. Mother could not believe his generosity until Brother Quang says the American government gives sponsors money, she was even more amazed by the generosity of the American government until Brother Quang says it’s all to ease the guilt of losing the war.” Ha and her family will now have to adapt to her new surroundings because it’s different from Vietnam. Most of the things will be unfamiliar to Ha because she has to learn English. Ha then started school at first it was ruff because she was getting bullied, “They pulled my arm hair, they threw rocks at me, they promised to stomp on my chest.” It twisted inside out, for her at school. The first person she told was brother Vu, she then asked him to teach her defense. After he taught her defense her life came back again, she started to understand English much better and no longer gets

Most children are not very fond of reading books in school. I was one of those children until I read a novel called, “The Other Side of Dark” written by Joan Lowery Nixon in the 4th grade. My school had held a book fair during the week of open house. As a child, all children want the toys and games they had at the book fair, not bothering to even glance at the books. My mother told me to look for a book that was not only easy for me to read but something that I would enjoy. I walked around our petite library, which was where the book fair was being held, and scanned the various novels that were displayed until one caught my eye. I was only 10 years old looking for a book without the knowledge of what types of literature that interested me. As I turned the corner at the end of the library I caught a glimpse of a hardcover novel called “The Other Side of Dark”. On the back of novel I read the synopsis which was about a 13 year-old girl who was shot and put into coma until she was 17 years old waking up to discovering that her family was also murdered by the same person who shot her 4 years ago. I was quickly captivated by this summary on the back of the novel and persuaded to read further. Open house was coming to an end and my family and I headed back to our house in La Mirada, California. One of our homework assignments was to read at least 20 minutes a night to improve our reading skills. We quickly arrived at our home and I

Loung Ung 's First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers follows her struggles as a child during the Angkar rule. Children in Cambodia directly suffered from trauma, which obviously dismisses the myth that children experience less pain than adults. The importance of Ung 's book is the emotional impact she has on the reader because she gives a voice to the victims and to the dead. As Americans, this topic, the Cambodian genocide does not get taught commonly in education. It shows the trauma that the citizens went through and how it affected the country.

The name of my book is across five aprils.The main character across five aprils are Jethro, Ellen, Matthew, Jenny, Bill, John, Tom, Ed turner, and Shad.In the being of the story the Confederates have fire on fort sumter. John, tom, ed turner, and bill went to war. Bill was the only person out of the creighton boys (john & tom) to go to fight for the confederacy army. The union army was losing the civil war at first because of Confederates general Robert E. Lee. But union general Ulysses S. Grant started to win key battles for the union army. One day tom wrote a letter to the family to tell them about the war. The letter was heartbreaking because ed turner couldn’t handle the war. Ed was

Kai and Faye adopted 3 children, a boy a two girls. I seems like they were from Vietnam because she say they had small faces and large dark eyes full of fear. It was noticeable the tragedies of war, death and poverty in their eyes. Time passed and everything seem to be working out, the kid’s faces are full of joy as well as Kai’s eyes. Faye deeply inside knew that she was everything to Kai, “To hi, she was the only woman, beautiful, complete, whole (38).”

Lindo’s upbringing was significant because her family was very traditional. As a result of her family abiding by tradition, Lindo was betrothed to Tyan-yu as a young girl. Lindo’s family treated her as if she was from a different family. When Lindo’s family lost everything in a flood, her father decided to move the family to Wushi. Lindo was old enough to move in with Tyan-yu’s family, so her family left her in Taiyuan with her future in-laws. When Lindo moved in with her new in-laws, Huang Taitai immediately put Lindo to work cooking, cleaning, and sewing. Lindo not only lost her family by moving in with the Huangs; she also lost her childhood innocence since she was forced to abandon playing with other children so she could be put to work. As a child, Lindo faced adversity due to her lack of American opportunities and therefore matured quickly.

In this narrative short story the author, Kayla Ravancho described her grandma’s experience in the Philippines during the attack of the Japanese soldiers in 1942. Lolo Poteciano was her great-grandpa and had seven children with his wife who was not alive at this time. Poteciano hid their children from the soldiers in a barn in their backyard. Her grandma brought her journal so she could write down exactly what she was feeling. The seven children were just sitting and were afraid to go outside, but someone came and knocked on the door, Poteciano didn’t say their children’s name aloud so he couldn’t gives their names away. When they opened the door for their father, he ran and gave them a huge hug and took them back home.

According to the book, this woman gave birth to a baby which was a symbol of embarrassment and humiliation not only for the villagers but for all the family. Even though this baby did not have any notion of what was going on, she was still a victim of Chinese norms. This baby also became forgotten being that she was not given the opportunity to be alive. Kingston’s aunt decision of killing the baby, had to do greatly with the fact that she was girl. As the book states “it was probably a girl; there is some hope for forgiveness for boys”. Without any doubt, if the baby was given the opportunity to live she would have been mistreated and condemned all her life. She would not have had the opportunity to developed her own identity or raise her “own voice”.

In 1975, The Khmer Rouge became the ruling political party of Cambodia after overthrowing the Lon Nol government. Following their leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge imposed an extreme form of social engineering on Cambodian society. They wanted to form an anti-modern, anti-Western ideal of a restructured “classless agrarian society'', a radical form of agrarian communism where the whole population had to work in collective farms or forced labor projects. The Khmer Rouge revolutionary army enforced this mostly with extreme violence. The book “First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers”, written by Luong Ung, is the author’s story of growing up during this time period. She was five years old when the Khmer Rouge came

If you were suddenly ripped away from the only life and comfort you have ever known only to be thrown into a war-torn world with no warning, how would you survive? In the memoir First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung, the Ung family lives in Phom Penh, Cambodia. They are forced from their home and moved around during the Cambodian Genocide. The memoir follows Loung Ung's journey through the Cambodian Genocide, through the loss of her family, through camps, and through the escape that led her to America. During this time, Loung loses both of her parents and two of her siblings. She has a tough time carrying on without them, but learns to use her memories of them to help her survive. She is especially hurt by the death of her Pa, who she loved

"Did you hear?" A loud voice booms across the market plaza "The first shorts were fired today at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The war has begun." My stomach was in my throat. I didn't think this would happen again; at least not in my life. I rush home and see my father hugging my mother. "Dasiy... Honey, I must go and fight for the Union." My father walks towards me and pulls me into an embrace filled with love. He pulls away and I look into his eyes, it was the first time I was able to see our terror in them. He was scared.

One of the main characters in the story was Loung Ung, a 5 year old and a second last born who comes from a middle class family of eight children. She was a daughter of a former member of the Cambodian Royal secret service and they lived in Phnom Penh. Loung's father loved gambling and used to win most of the times until the day he went too far and bet all his money and house on a game to the extent of almost losing his own family. The Khmer rouge was a group of communists who stormed Phnom Penh city in 1975 which forced the Ung family to flee their home and move from one village to another in order for them to hide their identity for safety. Not only is the Ung family fleeing, other families that lived in the city were also fleeing the area

#### this is a very poorly written personal narrative ###### Once upon a time there was a little girl who was born in February 14 and is named Valentine Lin. She has long dark hair and her eyes brown and she has an older brother his name is James Lin who has a dark hair and a light kind greenish eyes. James was born in January 30. But James went away to study abroad and he left Valentine she was five years old. When James left he was only nine years old. He was a nice kind brother that had always been there to look after Valentine when she was sick and had a weak body. Her mom Mary Lin was a very kind mother who took care of Valentine when James went on to study abroad.