Former U.N. Ambassador Tells Lawrenceville School Students 'No Matter What Happens, Never Give Up Hope'

Sichan Siv’s American story began in Cambodia.

The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations grew up in Cambodia during the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge. On Friday (April 15), Siv shared his story – a story that took him from work camps in Asia to apple fields in Connecticut to the floor of the United Nations – with the students and staff of The Lawrenceville School.

“This is not my story,” Siv said. “It’s your story. It’s our story. It’s an American story.”

Siv described his home village, the school room with yellow walls, the boat festival held every year. He said his first job after graduating high school was as a flight attendant. The airline often stopped in China.

“When I opened the plane door I saw a different planet,” Siv said. He never imagined what he saw there – people oppressed under communism – could spread over to Cambodia.

But sure enough, war spread and brought with it atrocities Siv hadn’t imagined could reach his home country.

Siv said a turning point for him was President Gerald Ford’s address to a joint session of Congress on April 10, 1975. In the address, Ford said the situation in Cambodia had reached a “critical phase.”

“When I heard him say that my heart sank because I knew the end would come soon. But we didn’t know. We didn’t know until the end of the war.”

The war brought the Khmer Rouge into power and conditions immediately began to deteriorate. People were forced to provide all their own food, while others were killed simply because they wore glasses or spoke French.

Siv said he changed his identity, throwing away his glasses, and, at his mother’s urging, ran.

After multiple run-ins with the Khmer Rouge’s strongmen, Siv ran, walked and crawled his way across the border into Thailand. After being jailed for illegal entry, he was placed in a refugee camp, where he taught English to the thousands of dispirited refuges.

He said that through it all, his mother’s message to him kept him strong. In his book, “Golden Bones,” the message plays over and over. “This is the message from the book – that no matter what happens, never give up hope.”

Siv didn’t give up hope, not even when he arrived in Connecticut in 1976 with just $2. He worked odd jobs – everything from picking apples to working at a burger joint to becoming a New York City taxi cab driver.

“I just kept doing everything I could to the best of my ability,” Siv said.

That included earning a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1981, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1982 and volunteering to work for then-vice president George Bush’s campaign in 1988. When Bush’s campaign proved successful, Siv was invited to work in the White House.

“That was quite an overwhelming experience,” he said modestly.

Siv worked his way up to being the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. He got to travel back to Cambodia several times, but he said his proudest achievement was walking into the United Nations as the United States’ and the American people’s representative.

“Golden Bones” was a difficult task for Siv, however. He said that at first he was reluctant to write the book and relive his painful memories from Cambodia. He explained that the title came from a Cambodia phrase. In Cambodia, someone with “golden bones” is a very lucky person.

Siv said he does consider himself lucky, not only for having escaped Cambodia, but also for the positive things he experienced in America and through telling his story.

Michelle Mui had a special appreciation of Siv’s story. The Lawrenceville School student had heard Siv speak before she decided to contact him and ask him to come tell his story to her fellow students.

“He just has a dynamite presentation,” Mui said.

She brought Siv in as the kickoff event of her new club: Southeast Asia – U.S. The club aims to start a dialogue on the relationship between Southeast Asia and America.

“He seemed like the perfect person to bring,” she said. “Much remains to be learned and understood about cultures around the world… This promotes both better understanding of the world around us and our own country.”