This Buddha statue has been something important to my family, but not to me. It has been in my family for almost fifteen years now, and will continue to be in my family, my mom bought it from Cambodia and brought it here to America in the early 2000’s. To my family it is something we must not disrespect even if we don’t believe in it because it is a sacred object. It is treated as a fine piece of jewelry, and if we want to touch it we must never touch the head of Buddha, for there is a saying that if you do touch it, it is to show that you are a bad and an impolite person. Sometimes I sense that this object might be a miracle, for instance; one day my house was in flames and everything burned down, everything except for the statue that we have today. In my family traditional, there should always be a shrine just for Buddha. They said it was to keep the unwanted spirits away, and I was convinced by that back then since I used to watch a lot of Cambodian ghost movies. Every night you would have to burn these incense sticks and pray to Buddha. I’m pretty sure that other buddhist families probably do something similar to this, but I’d just like to say that this object is something that my family would never ever throw away.

– M.M.

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant