My name is Pha Meh and I was born in Dee Maw City which was in the Karenni State of Burma. The village I used to live in was a poor area, but we all had our own farm to grow foods to support our family. The house that I used to live in was made of woods, leafs and bamboo. I have 7 siblings and I am the youngest one. The one that I am the closest to was my 3^rd youngest one, because she was the only one that I felt more connected compare to any other of my siblings after my 2nd older sister passed away. My parents were farmer and our farm was on the hill,  because the area where we lived in was mountains area and water was far away from us. My parents would start working from 6am to 5pm.

I was over 10 year old when I started helping my parents. Part of my jobs were to help them with farming and taking care of pigs and chickens at home. When I got older I started helping them with growing peanuts. My parents were the one who taught me how to cook. I miss eating all Karen foods. It did not matter either the food were good or not, because eating on the farm tastes better than eating at home. We did not get to shop for foods in our village because all the villagers grow their own food.

I did not get to go to school as a child because there was no school or a teacher in our village. I lived in the village my whole life, so I never been to a big city. San Diego was the first and only place that I have been to. When I was with my friends on the farm, as a child we would play around there by trying to copied our parent’s movement as they work so that we could learn how to farm when we grow up. The heirlooms that I got from my parents would be the knowledge of knowing how to weave bags, cloths and the knowledge knowing how to do farm work. I got married when I was around 16 years old. I did not get to date as I grown up. I never met my husband before we got married, but our parents knew each other. After I got married, the hardest part was not to be able to work after having babies. I could not work as a new mom, but at the same time we didn’t have enough food. I have 7 children, the youngest one is 21 and the oldest one might be around 40. The celebration we had in my village was traditional festival such as “Dee-Ku”, “Ee-Lu” where we all gather together to eat and watch the traditional dances. My parents religion was Animist and same as my grandparents.

The saddest thing that have happened to my family in Burma would be when we had to leave our own land and it was the hardest thing, but at the same time living in our own land was also hard because everything that we have taken away by the Burmese soldiers. They would kill our pigs and cows and made our spouse as their worker to carry their materials such as guns and others. The Burmese soldiers would hurt them if they did not do what they asked them to do and soldiers would not let them eat at the same time. I remember the night we escaped Burma to Thailand. It was scary and my children were really young at the time. We walked all the way to Thailand; there was not enough food and water. My oldest one was in jail because they thought he supported the Karenni soldiers. We came to United State for a better future and education for my kids. The hardest thing of being here for me was not know the language.