By engaging with various cultural products such as literature, artwork, performance, fashion, and media. Students will use cultural products to create memories and to heal the injustices of the past.
Students will interact and critically analyze poetry by Cambodian American poets to connect universal thematic ideas of human experience/human condition, specifically to Cambodian diaspora.
In this lesson, students will gain an understanding of elements, purpose, and cultural significance of traditional Cambodian dance. Students will also explore why traditional dance is considered a crucial link to Cambodian history and how efforts to preserve it have been made by refugees. Finally, they will develop skills in using primary and secondary sources to express their thoughts both orally and in writing.
Students will listen to music as sociopolitical testimonies to analyze genocide—not only as physical violence, but also structural and cultural violence on a whole community.
Students will interact and critically analyze texts on Cambodian food as it pertains to memory and identity.
Students will be introduced to then analyze the work of Cambodians and Cambodian Americans throughout history. In doing so, students will analyze the importance of the Cambodian/Cambodian American individuals’ works. Students can further their research about Cambodian culture by making connections with the works of Cambodians and Cambodian Americans to Cambodian history and culture.
Students will learn why people seek refuge, understand what refugee camps are like and where they were for Cambodian refugees after 1975, grasp how resettlement impacts refugees and their places of refuge, and differentiate between asylum seekers and refugees.
After students learn about the Cambodian Genocide and how it was carried out, students will now learn about the strength and perseverance of the Cambodian people’s fight against continued displacement. Students will explore Cambodian displacement in Boeung Kak Lake, its connection to human rights violations, and the agency and resistance of the Cambodian people to fight displacement.
Through learning about attempts at bringing justice to those responsible for the Cambodian Genocide, students will learn about judicial systems and their ability to help prevent further crimes against humanity and hold people accountable for committing crimes against humanity. Students will determine the effectiveness of the ECCC in bringing about justice.
Students will gain an understanding of the impact of the Cambodian Genocide on its survivors and will examine possible approaches toward justice and peace.
