Ma mere deng biography

Interview transcript (1 of 3)

Louise Whelan:
Pressed record?

Deng Adut:
Yes.

Louise:
Okay. So this is Louise Whelan interviewing Deng Thiak on 4 March 2014 in his office in Bankstown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Deng is a former refugee from Sudan. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for the State Library of New South Wales' Refugees And Migration Stories. Are you okay to proceed?

Deng:
I am okay to proceed. Thank you, Louise.

Louise:
Good. Can you just start with, do you know where and when you were born?

Deng:
I was born in Bor, a small town in South Sudan, and I was born in 1983. Back then, it was the Republic of Sudan, but now it's the Republic of South Sudan. So that's where I was born.

Louise:
Good. Can you tell me, do you know what your earliest memories are?

Deng:
Well, my earliest memories of being a child was just playing - playing outside my parent compound, and just playing during the night-time with a bright moon, and also being able to just having a family around me, a big extended family. It was the earliest time where I was pretty much a happy child, spending time with my stepbrother and half-brothers, and until - until '85-86, that's when everything went out of the door. My happiest memories is now all out of the door.

Louise:
an you tell me a bit more about your family, how many in your family and -

Deng:
Well, traditionally, my father was married to more than one wife. The first name of the first wife was Bol Anyuon - B-O-L, and last name is A-N-Y-U-O-N - and followed by another wife, which her name was Ayuen, A-Y-U-E-N, Kon, K-O-N, and followed by Alie A-L-I-E, Jok, J-O-K, last name. Then, followed by Nyan Thiuc Ayol. I believe it's N-Y-A-N, I think it'd have to be T-H-I-U-C, Ayol is A-Y-O-L. Then my mother was the last one - her name is Athieu, A-T-H-I-E-U, Akau, A-K-A-U. Of course, her father's name was - grand

Before she was a teenager, Achut Deng escaped civil war in South Sudan and life in a Kenyan refugee camp:

“I remember what my grandmother told me, 'Don't look back. It will slow you down.'”

Until recently, she carried that secret history with her.

“I chose to give my three boys something that I have never had," she says.

Today, On Point: Author Achut Deng's journey of survival from Sudan to America.

Guest

Achut Deng, author of “Don't Look Back: A Memoir of War, Survival, and My Journey from Sudan to America." (@achut_deng)

Book Excerpt

From DON’T LOOK BACK, by Achut Deng and Keely Hutton. Not to be reprinted without permission. All rights reserved.

Transcript

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Achut Deng was a child living through the Sudanese civil war. She was a teenager when she managed to escape Sudan to a Kenyan refugee camp. She was a young woman when she arrived in the United States as a refugee. And she was a mother still carrying the secret weight of her history when she decided to share her story with her sons. Just imagine that moment. Well, Achut writes about her life in Sudan and in America in her new memoir, Don't Look Back. She co-wrote it with Keely Hutton, and she joins us from Sioux Falls, South Dakota today. Welcome to On Point.

ACHUT DENG: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

CHAKRABARTI: First of all, how are you doing today?

DENG: I am doing great. A little cold outside. But I'm doing well.

CHAKRABARTI: Okay, good. I wonder if I could just start with this question. You know, before you decided to tell your sons about your whole story, about your life, before you came to the United States, did they know any of it at all?

DENG: All they knew was that mom grew up in the refugee camp as an orphan, and that was it. And everything else I hide from them.

CHAKRABARTI: Tell me why. For those many years before you decided to tell your sons,

Leader of China from 1978 to 1989

In this Chinese name, the family name is Deng.

Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 to 1989. In the aftermath of Mao Zedong'sdeath in 1976, Deng succeeded in consolidating power to lead China through a period of reform and opening up that transformed its economy into a socialist market economy. He is widely regarded as the "Architect of Modern China" for his contributions to socialism with Chinese characteristics and Deng Xiaoping Theory.

Born in Sichuan, Deng first became interested in Marxism–Leninism while studying abroad in France in the 1920s. In 1924, he joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and continued his studies in Moscow. Following the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and CCP, Deng worked in the Jiangxi Soviet, where he developed good relations with Mao. He served as a political commissar in the Chinese Red Army during the Long March and Second Sino-Japanese War, and later helped to lead the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to victory in the civil war, participating in the PLA's capture of Nanjing. After the proclamation of the PRC in 1949, Deng held several key regional roles, eventually rising to vice premier and CCP secretary-general in the 1950s. He presided over economic reconstruction efforts and played a significant role in the Anti-Rightist Campaign. During the Cultural Revolution from 1966, Deng was condemned as the party's "number two capitalist roader" after Liu Shaoqi, and was purged twice by Mao. After Mao's death in 1976, Deng outmaneuvered his rivals to become the country's leader in 1978.

Upon coming to power, Deng began a massive overhaul of China's infrastructure and political system. Due to the institutional

As the refugee crisis continues, there has been a chorus of fear in host countries that they will “drain precious state resources” by putting pressure on healthcare, education and welfare systems.  
 
But that’s not the only side of the story. I met an inspiring refugee during the Fragility Forum 2016 - Deng Majok-gutatur Chol – who is living proof of why we need to support refugees like him – especially children.
 
Driven from his village in South Sudan by a devastating civil war, Deng was one of more than 25,000 boys and girls who ran to safety, leaving their parents behind. Only 10 years old, Deng walked more than a thousand miles, traversing forests, deserts, and rivers in a journey that took nearly four months. He kept moving, at some points going thirsty and hungry for days, to reach Ethiopia.
 
The three years that followed brought mind-numbing horrors, during which many of his companions – other children – were shot dead or died of exhaustion, starvation, and dehydration. Unfortunately, Ethiopia was not safe for them when they became targets of the conflict there. They fled back to South Sudan and finally, Deng arrived at Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.

At home, Deng had taken care of the family’s cattle rather than going to school, and he remained illiterate until the age of 13. When given a chance to study in the refugee camp, Deng used trees as a classroom, sandy soil for a notebook, his index finger for a pencil, and his foot as an eraser while learning to read and write. He later taught himself English by comparing the Bible in English and his local language, Dinka, and wrote his own handwritten dictionary.
 
After a decade in refugee camps or on the run, Deng was one of nearly 4,000 boys and girls, known as the Lost Boys and Girls of Sudan, who came to the United States, where he currently lives. While he gained impressive academic credential