Former UBC English professor Dr. Y-Dang Troeung was thrust into the spotlight at an early age. As a member of one of the last families to escape genocide in Cambodia by seeking refuge in Canada, photos with Pierre Trudeau and countless articles told a story of her family that she spent much of her career reclaiming.
Throughout her life, she was expected to be many things. As a refugee, she was supposed to be grateful for a chance to start over in a new country. As a daughter, she was supposed to be dutiful to the parents who put their lives on the line to protect their children. As an academic, she was supposed to be objective in her work — but how could she possibly distance herself from the very war her family survived?
In her memoir Landbridge, Troeung pieces together memories, retellings of historical events and letters to her son, observing the ways these different facets of her identity interact with each other.
“It really is a way to comprehend the war and its aftermath from as many angles as she possibly could, even through her own body and the illnesses of her body,” said Troeung’s husband, Dr. Christopher Patterson.
When Troeung was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2021, she gave Patterson a document of her writing — hundreds of thousands of words, collected over a lifetime — and told him to “‘reorder it, try to figure out if any of this is any good.’” She thought that he might only be able to find a few pieces to submit to journals, but it gradually evolved into the larger work that is Landbridge.
Despite going through rigorous treatment at the time, Troeung was still eager to be involved in the editing process. Patterson and close friend Madeleine Thien read it aloud when Troeung did not have enough energy to do so herself. She put together the final draft of Landbridge from her hospital bed, before she passed in November 2022.
Having the opportunity to share her own story, as well as those gathered from the people that surrounded her, was critical in supporting Troeung during her final months. Patterson believes that “being able to write something that was so authentic and so true freed her from all of that performance that she was meant to do, and that she felt compelled to do.”
As someone who has been expected to represent Cambodian refugees since before she could even speak for herself, Landbridge, for Troeung, was “partly an effort to take control of narratives, not just for her, [but] for her family and for so many other people,” said Patterson. “That's better than the alternative, where it's more speculation — it leaves things open for exploitation, for people to circulate those narratives in their own way.”
Before Landbridge, Troeung had attempted to publish a book about Cambodian art and history, but was rejected by a press’ editorial board.
“In their rationale, the board stated my work was not academic enough, that its subjects — Cambodia’s civil war, the US bombings, the Khmer Rouge takeover, work camps, genocide and its aftermaths — were too minor for a scholarly book, unless these issues were ‘ported’ to speak to histories and places closer to the West, “ Troeung writes in Landbridge.
“But their most devastating comment was that I, as an author, could not claim to be an expert on the subject matter — that is, on my own history.”
“There are so few scholarly, research-driven books about Cambodian experience authored by Cambodian refugees themselves,” writes Troeung, as she points out the constant pressure she feels to educate others, and to do so flawlessly — “If we fail, we fail not just ourselves, but our entire history.”
In Landbridge, Troeung steps away from the persuasive rigidity of most academic writing, opting instead for non-linear fragments that are carefully worded, yet ambiguous in their interpretation.
“I think Y-Dang’s real writerly gift that shows all throughout Landbridge is that she doesn't try to convince the reader to think a certain way, to take on a certain argument,” said Patterson. “She would want people to walk away just with a better understanding of what refugees go through and what happened in the war, and trust in the reader to do their best with that information.”
Above all, Landbridge is a love letter to Troeung’s family. She is not afraid to be vulnerable, recognizing both the good and bad, the hurt and healing, the hardship and joy.
As she recounts how she watched her parents and brothers comb through graveyards searching for earthworms to sell to fishermen, Troeung acknowledges that she and her siblings had to grow up more quickly than other kids they knew. But even when “deprived of leisure or vacation, we created our own magic. We turned hardship into opportunity, labour into fun, worms into gold.”
Snippets of conversations with her therapist reveal Troeung’s difficulties in dismantling intergenerational trauma, and building an environment where her own child would not be forced to take on the same responsibilities that she held.
In letters to her son Kai, Troeung shares her dreams of the shape his life may take, but emphasizes that she hopes he “will come to these letters to give [him] life, not restrict it.”
Whether that be connecting with his Cambodian heritage among the trees of Angkor Wat, or venturing to the Philippines to learn about the other side of his ancestry — she assures him that she is there, supporting him, in some form.
“Your father likes to say that I will one day see the impact of my work, but I will be inhabiting the soul of a different body. Perhaps I will be a child in your present,” Troeung writes.
“Perhaps my new self will pick up one of my books and some part of me, deep inside, will understand that I am not alone.”
This article won the Canadian University Press’s 2024 John H. MacDonald Arts and Culture Writing Award.