our portraits, our families – akara seung

Akara Seung
w/ Duong Meas – mother

Images by Pete Pin

As a small boy in a Khmer Rouge labor camp, I stole a yam — a crime punishable by death. And while my mother had bartered jewelry worth tens of thousands of dollars for a single chicken to feed our starving family, I had kept the precious yam to myself. Decades later, safely living in the US, I am still shaken to tears when retelling the story of betraying my mother who saved our family from certain death.

When I was 18, I went to a porn shop in Stockton, California with a curious group of friends. Finding myself aroused by images of naked men, I realized then that I am gay. At 24, still struggling with my sexuality, I was pressured into an arranged marriage. Three years later, I came out to my family and left my wife. My mother accepted my coming out with neither open arms nor resentment; she simply understood I would be better off not being married to a woman.

Though socially liberal San Francisco is just 85 miles away, I’ve stayed in conservative Stockton to care for my aging mother. For me, filial piety is no more a choice than one’s sexuality.

Recounted by Pete Pin

At 24, still struggling with my sexuality, I was pressured into an arranged marriage. Three years later, I came out to my family and left my wife. My mother accepted my coming out with neither open arms nor resentment; she simply understood I would be better off not being married to a woman.

Through the photographer’s eyes

When he was 14, my uncle Akara arrived with his mother at a U.S. refugee camp after escaping the Killing Fields in Cambodia. With no possessions and no country, they quite literally had nothing to their name. The first piece of legal documentation came in the form of a refugee ID card. Though the card established his legal identity, it would take Akara decades to find himself.