The idea of eating alone in public doesn’t sit well with Sierra Chhoeun. This perhaps explains in part why her favorite dish is yao han, Cambodia’s spicy, coconutty answer to hot pot.
Chhoeun grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts, home to the state’s second-largest Cambodian population. At home, the 19-year-old rising Northeastern University sophomore would make yao han with her mother, sister, grandmother and aunts, and “just cook and eat for hours,” she told Northeastern Global News.
“Food is meant to be eaten with people. It’s more of a social thing to me than the actual eating,” said 19-year-old Chhoeun, who is a Cambodian-American.
The connection to her culture goes beyond food. She grew up with her second, third and fourth cousins, heard the Khmer language of Cambodia wherever she went, participated in Buddhist customs and showed respect by using honorifics like ming, for aunt, and po, for uncle.
But Chhoeun felt a marked difference when she left home and arrived on Northeastern University’s Boston campus, just 14 miles away.
“It was crazy not seeing another person who can relate to me like that here,” said the rising sophomore who is studying marketing and finance with a psychology minor.
While Northeastern has a variety of student groups dedicated to Asian and Asian American communities, none are specific to Cambodia or Khmer, both the people and the official language of the country. This inspired her to create a new student organization called Cambodians in Diaspora.
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“What I wanted to do is to reconnect us to what it is to be Cambodian, to Cambodia in general, to Khmer and everything – and do that through community,” she said.
Cambodia is a Southeast Asian country on the Gulf of Thailand, bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north and Vietnam to the east. It has a population of about 17 million people who largely practice Buddhism. It was part of the Khmer Empire that spanned from the 9th to the 15th century, out of which came the vast Angkor Wat temple complex, which today is the largest religious structure in the world. The country is also known for its silk weaving that creates fabric with complex patterns, and traditional apsara dance, which is a style of Cambodian ballet that tells a story.
Irena Sambo, a 19-year-old Northeastern electrical and computer engineering major, was eager to reach out to Chhoeun after seeing an inviting flyer in the Stetson East dining hall during the spring semester. On it was a Cambodian flag, a QR code and a message that sought those interested in creating Northeastern’s first Cambodian student organization. “The beginning of something great starts here,” the flyer said.
Sambo was born in Cambodia and moved with her parents four years ago to Lowell, Massachusetts, which has the largest Cambodian population in the state. Missing home, she said she was looking forward to finding that connection to Cambodians on Northeastern’s campus and sharing it with whoever is interested.
“Ever since coming here, I was able to learn about other cultures and I really appreciate that and being able to try their food as well, so I’m really hoping to do the same to show how amazing my culture is and be welcoming to all the people who are interested,” she said.
The group, which is awaiting approval from the Center for Student Involvement, has about a dozen members. Sambo and Chhoeun said the group is at work coming up with events like Khmer New Year in April and the Water Festival, or Bon Om Touk, in November. Chhoeun also wants to offer cooking classes for dishes like mee katang, a flat noodle stir fry, or bor bor, a rice porridge dish with fish sauce, as well as for the Khmer language that she didn’t formally learn growing up.
Annique Un, an associate professor of International Business and Strategy at Northeastern, also reached out to Chhoeun to offer support as an adviser after seeing her flyers on campus. They met and spoke about their shared culture.
“Cambodian students often get folded into broader Asian student groups and can lose that specific sense of community,” Un said.
Un was born in Cambodia. She was 6 when the country was under brutal, totalitarian Khmer Rouge rule in the mid- to late 1970s. The regime sought to make an egalitarian and agrarian society, forcing Cambodians like Un from their homes. She worked in rice fields and was taught propaganda songs, she said.
People died of starvation or were killed for being educated, she said. The genocide resulted in the death of at least 1.5 million people, including her brother and everyone from Un’s father’s side of the family, except her father, she said. Her family fled to a refugee camp, and then was sponsored by a family in Minnesota as part of the Refugee Act of 1980, which increased the number of refugees allowed to enter the U.S. each year and created a broader public-private system to help refugees settle. She had not yet turned 12. Decades later, Un would research the resilience and resourcefulness of refugees who she believes can contribute to global workplaces with innovation and value.
Resilience, she said, is a deep part of Cambodian culture, as is kindness, gratitude and forgiveness. The new group wants to help the “koun Khmer,” or the “children of Cambodia,” reconnect with this culture.
“I want these students to feel validated, and to know that the gaps in how people see their community usually come from a lack of exposure, not truth,” Un said.
