Bunseng Taing
Bunseng Taing arrived from Cambodia in 1980 after escaping from a Khmer Rouge concentration camp into Thailand. He was sponsored by his brother, who had recently settled in Bridgeport with help from the International Institute. Taing eventually established a painting business, which he has operated for 28 years.
On how and why I left Cambodia:
When the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975, I was 17 years old. So I was with my family when they got everybody out of their own properties ... They came to our house and told us we had to get out for three days, they told us just for three days and we will return back. ...We took whatever we could carry. [His family was forced to move from their home into the jungle, and then into an abandoned village] So they came last minute to tell you to get out, and if you didn’t get out, they kill you right there.
After he ran away from a work camp and was caught by Khmer Rouge soldiers he was told to get on a truck:
I saw that before, family after family, people are put in a truck and they brought you to somewhere and they kill you, OK? So when I got on the truck I knew, that, by the time I got on the truck it was 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening, I know that they brought me somewhere and they going to kill me, because the soldier is already on the truck.
Instead, he was brought to a "concentration camp":
They used me to dig the ground at the bottom of the mountain, to get some boulders. We had no tool and they just give us some bamboo, some other stick, and they force us to dig out boulder from the ground, and to carry out and they told us this is, we go, so collect water from a pond to grow black pepper, that's what they told us. But I think they told us to dig our own graves, that's what it is.
So we kicked the jail, we kicked the door and get out of the concentration camp. So when we get out of the concentrate camp, and we was caught in a crossfire, because I had no idea what's going on because everybody's running, we are running. And I was skinny, and no energy, no strength to run, and you would run and fall down, run and you fall down. So one of the guys he says, follow me, follow me.
We was in a refugee camp for one month, and the Thai government this time now, it's this time now it's another story, they come and force us, beat us up and put on the busses, and they send us back to Cambodia...They drove us to the border, on the top of the mountain. So they forced us down to the mountain and on the bottom of the mountain is all landmines. So they forced us, they gunned us down and we all went through that landmine, and 12,000 of them lost their lives. And I walked through that area, through a jungle for three months, and made it back to Thailand again on the second time, in September.
On coming to America:
So, and I was rescued and then I came to U.S. in April 1980...My brother came to Bridgeport, Connecticut, sponsored by International Institute. So when I came later and I found him, so he sponsored me to come to U.S.
I came only with my nephew because my nephew was 7 years old. His father was pass away during the mountain there, so his mother have 5 kids and asked me to take one of the sons to escape if we make it and the son have a future.
Come to Bridgeport, coming to the United States is like going to heaven to me. For us, yes, everything smells different, everything looks different, the food is different, the culture is different so it's like getting to heaven, just for me. I mean at the beginning, very strange, everything is so strange to us...everything pretty much opposite. So we learn to be adapted, new culture, it's the best country in the world. There's no place like U.S.
[I applied to the] ABCD Program. One of the best program, there is no place on earth that you go to school and you get paid for it... that they pay you to go to school! So I was went to ABCD program for I think between six and eight months, that's how I started to my English. So then I got a job General Electric, GE, Boston Post Road, the factory there. So I was working there for a while. And then I become a painter, I never painted before, but then I become a painter, so now I am owning my own business.
For me, we lived through a hardship and I told you come to the U.S. is heaven for us, and we would do everything, we would do everything just for food. Not just for money, just for food, because we were starving, you know ... Because during my time, we are starving, we just want to be survive, and the freedom, we don't want anything about money. Because you know, because we used to have a lot of money, and money is just useless. Money is useless, it's nothing could be used during that time, for five years. So if you ask any refugee that came from Cambodia, that we all want to be survive, we will do anything to be survive, freedom, to be alive. So for the refugee that just come to this country, I mean, for them, this country is full of opportunity, as long as you achieve you want to work hard for it, you will achieve, you have opportunity to be successful here.