Music and Family: Field Study

    

    For this field study on 'Music and Family', I decided to interview my Mother. She was born in the late 70s in what she believes to be the Siem Reap province located in the Northern part of Cambodia. It's hard for her to remember much because she immigrated to the United States at the start of the 80s, when she was around the age of 4 or 5. Something that I will go in more depth about in the next Big Blog is the history of Cambodia, specifically in the last few centuries. In the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-1979), a cultural movement enforced by a group of radical communist Cambodians, somewhere between 1-2 million Cambodian civilians died or were killed. In the process, one of their main goals were to destroy Cambodian culture and anyone contributing to keeping it alive, which included artists, dancers, musicians and even monks. My Mother doesn't really remember much of her homeland, although she does recount vaguely being on a refuge camp with her parents.

In the years leading up to the suppression of the Khmer Rouge by outside forces, such as Thailand and Vietnam, my Mother and her parents somehow escaped with the help of an American family to California. This was really common in the early 80s as many people were looking for a way out of the country and California being the closest American state, already had Cambodian immigrants there. After California, they moved to the New England area and ended up in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Roger Williams Middle School 

Hope High School

Music was never really a significant part of my Mothers life. When I asked what kind of music she listened to growing up she responded with silence. She stated that she "didn't remember listening to music until late middle school." Her earliest memories of music come from her middle school days, (pictured above) where she listened to music played in class. Outside of school she would listen to music in car on the way home or when she would go grocery shopping with her parents. One song she does remember listening to is a song by Sinn Sisamouth (pronounced Seen Sisahmoot), a Cambodian singer who grew in popularity in the 1950s and is widely known as the "King of Khmer Music." The song is titled "Kung Prous Srolanch," which is a little difficult to translate in English but a super rough translate would be "Man who is agitated by love." The song itself is basically about a guy who is so madly in love with someone that he would die and fight for them.

Throughout middle and high school, my mom wasn't really interested in listening to music. Her main focus in school was sports--volleyball and basketball and academics. She mentioned a few artists that she listened to in middle school and some she listened to as she progressed through high school. In her words "Middle School was more Stevie b and Johnny O, your Titi (aunt) was the one to blast it in the house, High School was 90s RnB like Monica and Jodeci." If you've never heard of any of these artists, you're missing out. She continues to listen to these artists and even when I was growing up she would play them while cleaning the house on Sundays. Stevie B for example, is a Latin artist from Ft. Lauderdale, that completely dominated the Southeast Asian populations in Providence, RI. My Mother mentioned that at the parties she did attend his music would be played frequently.  I've included two of her favorite songs by him: 

Spring Love 

I Wanna Be the One

Her music interests haven't really changed over the years, she's stayed with RnB, however just expanded liking new artists in the genre. Some of her favorites include Mary J. Blige, The Weeknd, Toni Braxton and Sade. (I've been slowly sneaking her into liking alternative RnB but she doesn't give it a chance. She also thinks I only listen to Classical music all the time.)

Sade - No Ordinary Love 

Mary J. Blige - Just Fine 

    My last question to her, "What is your relationship to music?", was answered pretty vaguely. "Music is something that I don't really know about but I know that you do music. I listen to music during my day when I'm working but its not the same as what you do because you make it. It's only something that comforts me or it's for fun."