Children of the River 

 

What Inspired the Author?

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Linda Crew, what inspired you to write this book?
Many people might wonder how Linda Crew was able to write such a culturally rich book about a race of people that she did not even belong to. At the time Crew wrote Children of the River, she was a married, Caucasian, woman of means  in her thirties. Writing from the point of view of a Cambodian teenage girl in America would have been quite a challenge. However, Linda Crew got a first hand experience of the lives of Cambodian immigrants in America. Crew and her husband owned a small farm in Corvallis, Oregon where they grew fruits, berries, and other produce. As a result, the Crews needed extra help for the harvest. Linda Crew was acquainted with a Cambodian family in 1980 that had immigrated to America in 1975 due to political unrest in Cambodia. This meeting inspired Linda Crew to write this story of a Cambodian immigrant family in Oregon. She desired to raise awareness amongst teens on the issues of the issues concerning political unrest in Cambodia and the difficulties of becoming integrated into American culture. Crew spent a year researching about Cambodia history and interviewing countless Cambodian immigrants. The inspiration for Sundara did not come from one specific person, but from many different Cambodian teenagers that Crew met. The story line of Children of the River came from Crew’s  own son (who was three at the time) reaching the impressionable age of adolescence and falling in love with an Asian girl. Little did she know that she was unwittingly writing out future events for Linda Crew’s son did end up marrying an Asian woman!