Dith Pran, the Cambodian Journalist depicted in The Killing Fields film, is dead.
I re-watched the Killing Fields after living in Cambodia for a few weeks, and was struck by it's effective portrayal of the Khmer Rouge's brutality, the dynamics of an expat-Khmer relationship, and the chaos and social upheaval of violent revolution.
After watching it, I lent it to my Cambodian colleagues at DDD, one by one. After watching it, many came back with their family's story. One manager watched it with his mother, who broke into tears mid-film, and proceeded (for the first time, I believe) to share her story with her son.
I asked an older manager if he thought the film told the story well.
"It was worse in real life, he said. Much worse."
Loisaida is a term derived from the Latino (and especially Puerto Rican) pronunciation of "Lower East Side", a neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City. Loisaida Avenue is now an alternate name for Avenue C in the Alphabet City neighborhood of New York City, whose population has largely been Hispanic (mainly Puerto Rican) since the late 1960s.
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