Death in Cambodia, Life in America Podcast Collection 0223, 2020-2023

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Summary

Abstract:
The Death in Cambodia, Life in America Podcast was created by Dorothy Chow. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, she began interviewing her father, Robert Chau, about his experience fleeing from Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge in the 1970's. She has continued to interview others in the Cambodian refugee community as well as journalists, artists, and historians whose work has addressed the Cambodian Genocide. The collection includes raw and edited podcast files, music and sheet music created for the podcast by Dorothy's brother, transcripts of podcast episodes, and related images and promotional materials. The collection also includes two folders of physical notes taken by Dorothy and her father during the recording of the podcast as well as the transcript of a speech Dorothy gave at Bryn Mawr.
Extent:
119.38 Gigabytes and 0.5 Linear Feet
Language:
English .

Background

Scope and content:

119.38 GB of digital files and 1 Hollinger (2 folders) of paper documents

Biographical / historical:

Robert Chau was born the fifth of five children in 1959 in Mongkol Borey, Cambodia. His parents were considered wealthy and thus a target for the Khmer Rouge, which rose to power in Cambodia during the early 1970's. Led by Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge was a communist party that carried out the Cambodian Genocide from 1975-1979 which wiped out 25 percent of the population in Cambodia. Most Cambodians were forced to work in labor camps to produce rice at an impossible scale. Others were imprisoned and executed.

Robert's family was separated and forced to work in different labor camps for three and a half years before managing to escape after the Vietnamese army's 1978 invasion and declaration of war on the Khmer Rouge. After moving to the United States, Robert followed in the footsteps of other Cambodian refugees and went into the donut business. He opened over sixty donut shops in Northern California and went on to found "B&H Bakery Distributors" as well as several other businesses in the bakery and donut industries.

Like many other "Donut kids", Dorothy Chow grew up working in her family's donut shop. She graduated UCSD in 2015 with a degree in Economics, and in 2017 returned home to join Robert in helping the family business. Dorothy started the Death in Cambodia, Life in America podcast in 2020 and continues to work to connect refugees and their families to resources to help process and heal from their trauma.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Location of this collection:
24255 Pacific Coast Highway
Malibu, CA 90263-4786, US
Contact:
(310) 506-4323
specialcollections@pepperdine.edu
Website