As the first floor of Emens Auditorium filled, students clutched notebooks, pens and copies of "First They Killed My Father," anticipating Loung Ung's presentation which began at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Author of the Freshman Connections Common Reader, Loung Ung's visit to campus has been anticipated by students since the beginning of the academic year, Melinda Messineo, associate professor, Department of Sociology and chairwomen of the Common Reader Selection Committee, said.
"Students have shown that they were anticipating the authors visit to campus when we had the convocation discussion groups," Messineo said. "They already had questions that they wanted to ask her."
Throughout the program, Ung had the attention of almost every person in the audience, faces glued to her, not a sound in the crowd.
During the program, Ung used humor to lighten the mood on what has been described as a dark subject.
"For the non-native speakers [of English] in the audience, one piece of advice," she said. "Whatever you do don't volunteer to be a bingo caller. Especially if you are mildly dyslexic and tend to read things right to left."
Despite the comedic moments, Ung imparted some more serious wisdom.
"I am here as a living example that our past does not have to define our future," she said.
The main focus of her presentation centered around her life and how everyone can be involved in activism and volunteerism.
"I am going to share in the first part of the presentation, about my life growing up in Cambodia," she said. "And really try to drill in the point that all of us came into the world with the same dreams, the same goals, the same wants: family, peace, love, safety, culture, arts."
Tuesday afternoon, Ung participated in a classroom session with about 20 students in L.A. Pittenger Student Center, Room Cardinal Hall A, that was structured in a question-and-answer format.
When asked whether or not she had an idea about what she wanted for the book, Ung said, "I knew what exactly I wanted to tell."
Another question that was posed was how she reacted to the death of the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in April 1998.
"When I heard the news in my office, that Pol Pot died," she said, "I literally curled into a fetal position and had a good cry. Again it was a reawakening of all the pain and all the lives lost. All the voices that have been silenced, nobody hears them. And this genocidal mass murderer dies and everybody heard him, everybody saw him."
For some students in attendance at the presentation, hearing Ung speak made the book seem more real.
"For me it was absolutely amazing," freshman Veronica Corona said. "When I was reading the book I put myself in her shoes and now I couldn't even put myself in them. It was amazing to hear her talk and make jokes because we expect this depressed and emotional person. It shows you can recover and change the world. It makes the book even better."
Ung closed the presentation by giving examples of the derision that she has experienced in her work and added some final thoughts on peace.
"Peace is not an automatic," she said. "You are not entitled to it. Like anything in life you are not entitled to it just because you are American. It is not something you can wish your government could give to you. It is not something you wish the Middle East could settle on. It is something that you must commit yourself to. Take action."
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