Book
A Refugee's American Dream
A Refugee's American Dream is a 2023 memoir by Leth Oun, a Cambodian refugee who became a United States Secret Service officer, written with Joe Samuel Starnes.[1][2]
About the book
Oun was born in 1966 and grew up in a poor, close-knit neighborhood of Battambang City in northwest Cambodia. His father was an army lieutenant, and his mother sewed clothes and rolled cigarettes for a living.[1] After the Khmer Rouge took power in April 1975, the family was forced out to labor in the rice fields. Because his father had been a soldier, Oun changed his name to hide who he was. He got by as a mechanic and by catching rats and insects to eat. He was separated from his mother, and the Khmer Rouge held him for three years, eight months and ten days, under torture.[1][2]
He escaped to refugee camps in Thailand and in 1983 resettled in Maryland, near relatives. He became a citizen in 1990.[2][1] He learned English while washing dishes for $3.15 an hour, and he finished high school and then Widener University in 1998, with a degree in sociology.[3][1] After work as a correctional officer, he joined the Secret Service Uniformed Division, where he became a canine specialist and guarded presidents and vice presidents under four administrations, in 49 states and over a dozen countries.[1][2]
Oun told The Whit that the book is less about himself than a record of what Cambodians lived through, and that he hoped it would be translated into many languages.[3] Kirkus Reviews called it harrowing yet upbeat, a story of sheer determination.[1]
Publication
The full title is A Refugee's American Dream: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to the U.S. Secret Service. Temple University Press in Philadelphia published it in February 2023.[1][2] Starnes, a novelist and former editor of the Widener alumni magazine, met Oun at Widener about a decade before. By then Oun had already drafted 50,000 words, and the two built the book from hundreds of interviews.[3] The authors said proceeds would go to schools and children in need in Cambodia.[3]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Kirkus Reviews, review of A Refugee's American Dream (February 10, 2023)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Temple University Libraries, author event for A Refugee's American Dream (March 1, 2023)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Paige Britt, "RU professor co-writes memoir with Cambodian refugee", The Whit (Rowan University, October 18, 2023)