Welcome
The Cambodian diaspora has dispersed our people into our adopted countries. For the past 35 years, we have assimilated to become successful in these countries distancing ourselves from the memories and culture of our foreparents. What ties us all together and makes us unique as a people is our language. This language has survived the French Colonialism and the Khmer Rouge. The French could not Romanize Khmer, but in a four year span, the Khmer Rouge systematically wiped out the Cambodian intelligentsia. No more poets, dancers, musicians, artists, engineers, leaders, and writers.
I had always overlooked this until now. Finding a translator who knew English and Khmer, an artist to make the drawings, a voice to read the story, a computer programmer, and an educator to connect these pieces, proved to be a challenge.
Some believe that the purpose of this endeavor is to preserve Khmer literacy, but I see a bigger picture. I see Khmer literacy as the strand that connects all of us together: parent to child; grandparents to grandchildren; young to the old; and Cambodian-Americans to Cambodians.
Ravin Pan, Ph.D.
panr@csus.edu
Sacramento, CA