When Broken Glass Floats

When I was in 2nd grade I remember one day when Mrs. Thompson set us all down and told us we were getting a new classmate. It wasn't unusual to get a new classmate, but it was unusual that she sat us down to talk about it the day before with a serious voice.

She told us that our new classmate will be a girl, her name was Chue Va and that she just moved to the US from a country near Vietnam. I guess she expected that in 1980, we had heard of Vietnam. Sure, I had heard of it, but I didn't know where it was at that age. She told us that Chue and her younger sister had been through a lot and that they moved here with their father. Where they lived there was a war recently and because of this war, they were coming to the US. We were told that she would look different from us, (I was in grade school in central Wyoming, very, very white). That she would not speak English. And that the things she might do or say would be very different than what we are used to. I think Mrs. Thompson scared us more than informed us! I mean, we were all kids, we would play with and interact with any other kid our age.

Mrs. Thompson asked my friend, Jennifer, and I to stay in for recess that day after announcing that our new classmate would arrive tomorrow. This didn't bother me since I was a very introverted kid that would prefer to stay in and read rather than go outside and play with the other kids. I was also one of the top students. I finished everything, ahead of time and worked hard on projects and had straight A's. So when other opportunities outside of classwork arose, I often was offered them.

She told us that she had a new assignment for us. Jennifer and I were "assigned" to be Chue's new friends. She told us that the next morning we would get to go wherever Chue wanted. If it was in the middle of class and Chue wanted to go outside, we would take her outside, even though it was the middle of class. There would be two of us, so that if we needed help, someone could go get a teacher. We weren't to leave the playground area, or the school boundaries, but if she wanted to go to the gym, we could go there, or walk down the 6th graders hallway. I was naturally intrigued by this proposition and to meet this seemingly very strange little girl.

Finally the day arrived. A small, very thin man stood outside our classroom door with two little girls clinging to his legs. The younger would not be starting school, but would eventually be in my sister's kindergarten class. The older girl cried as her dad begged her to let go.

She had short, chin length, black hair. She had a round face and I remember thinking that even though she was also 8 years old. She looked vastly older than us. She was smaller than Jennifer and I. The thing that really stands out is that Chue was wearing a white dress slip, with nothing else. Some of the boys were giggling because she was wearing "underwear", but they immediately shut up with Mrs. Thompson's glare.

Chue and her father left for a little while and would be back after walking around the school. Mrs. Thompson chastized us for giggling. I remember her saying that to Chue and her father, this was a very pretty dress, how was she to know that it was supposed to be worn UNDER your dress? The class was silent.

A little later she and her father came back with Mr. Johnson, the principal. Chue was given a desk next to Jennifer and I. Her dad and sister left and Mr. Johnson left. I instantly felt for her as she sat there, not understanding a word of what was being spoken. The boredom was setting in. Chue got up and wandered over to the window. No one ever got up when the teacher was talking! Our eyes all shifted to her. Yet, the teacher kept talking like there was nothing wrong with her getting out of her seat. When she paused she signalled to Jennifer and I to go see her. We got up out of our desks and asked her if she wanted to go outside. Chue looked at us with a blank look, tears still in her eyes. We took her by the hand and led her outside to the playground equipment.

We started on the monkey bars, played on them. Her face was solemn as she played. We went to the swings, then the slide. It wasn't until we hit the slide that she cracked a smile. About the 3rd time down the slide, there was full on giggling going on. We had finally broken through with her. She liked the slide. She went up and down and up and down. Giggling and laughing.

I don't remember much else of that day, but I remember seeing Chue's face smiling as she stood there in her white slip. Parents of the girls in the class were sent home notes about our new student and if there were spare clothes or toys, please send them for Chue and her sister. On the next day she showed up "properly attired" and never again worse her white slip to school.

Over the next few months we taught her words for things, she learned quickly. Her English progressed and she was no longer assigned to be my friend, she was my friend. I remember the first time it snowed that year. Chue ran to the window and started screaming at the top of her lungs. She was trying to get the others to come and marvel with her. It was a huge spectacle to the class, we all went out and played in the snow with Chue. I don't know that she had probably even heard of snow before that point.

A few years later Chue and her family moved from Wyoming. I don't know where she went, but after reading the book, When Broken Glass Floats, for my August book club meeting, Chue has been on my mind.

I had no idea at age 8 where Cambodia was, or what the Khmer Rouge was, or even what war the teacher was talking about. Hell, at age 33 I knew very little about the atrocities commited under the Khmer Rouge and why Cambodians were taking refuge in the US in the early '80's. I read the book with intrigue, all the time with Chue's face superimposed on Thy Hin's younger siblings. I cannot even imagine a child witnessing and undergoing the horror of those 3 years. The loss of one's parents, brothers, sisters, etc. to pure hatred. The atrocities described in the book turned my stomach and at page 114 I was very close to putting the book down for good. But something told me to keep reading, it has GOT to get better. Not that the book was "bad" at all, quite the opposite, but as a mom, things had to turn around for these people. It tore my heart out.

I survived page 114, and the book lightened up a little. There was still death, grief, and suffering, but I could read it. Although I still sat there perplexed and hurt by humankind that people could do such things to other people.

I have had it very good in life. I was born in a country where poverty is not the rule. I was raised to that point, in a lower middle class home under loving parents. I have never had war in my backyard. September 11, 2001 was the closest I have ever come to war on my continent, and hope that is as close as it will ever come. At age 5-8 years, I was playing T-ball, swimming, running through the sprinklers, rollerskating in front of my house and worrying about what I was going to be for Halloween. The last thing from my mind was how was I going to survive.

At that time, on another continent, Chue's mother died (I don't know how), Chue was in a labor camp, there was typically not enough to eat, and I don't know that she didn't have other siblings that had died. Before she was 5, her life was very much like mine. The fact that one year a child is a child, playing and pretending, and the next they are removed from their families, tortured and forced to work in labor camps sickens me. And further more, this is, in some parts of the world, still going on. Yet the US's involvement is a double edged sword. Go and help and be accused of policing the world, don't help and be accused of supporting or enabling the persecution by not acting against it. I don't know what the answer it is. What I do know is that no child should have to endure that amount of death, should be working in labor camps, or struggling to find food.