Book
Pheap Thon: Stories from the Khmer Diaspora
Pheap Thon: Stories from the Khmer Diaspora is a collection of resilience stories edited by Christine Su for the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association.[1][2] The stories come from the personal experiences of Khmer people in the diaspora.[1]
About the collection
The title is the Khmer word for resilience, ភាពធន់ (pheap thon), the ability to recover from or adjust to struggle.[1] Each story is shaped by its writer's own experience, and the collection holds that people process and express those experiences in different ways.[1] The first edition gathers stories together with audio and video, photographs and cooking recipes.[1] It is an anthology credited to the association, with Christine Su as editor.[2]
The association's gallery includes an entry for the collection, and it appears among the featured works of the association's Literary Arts Festival 2026.[3][4]
Editor
Christine Su's research and community activism have centered on history, culture and identity in Southeast Asia.[1] She founded the Khmer Generations Project, a digital oral-history project that records stories from Khmer people across generations.[1] Her work documents Khmer stories and histories through community oral-history and cultural projects.[5]
In the classroom
The Cambodian American Studies Model Curriculum lists Pheap Thon in its lesson on Cambodian American poetry, among the works students may choose to read and annotate on their own, with a link to the association's website.[5][6] The lesson ties Cambodian American writing to the reclaiming of community histories through art and culture.[6] Its aim is to connect universal ideas about human experience with the Cambodian diaspora.[6] The curriculum pairs the material with Cambodian American history, including the genocide, displacement and resettlement of Cambodians in the United States.[6] The Khmer translation of the lesson lists the collection as well.[7]
Access
See also
- Christine Su
- The Stilt House: Genealogy Stories
- The Stilt House: Food and Identity
- Voices of a New Generation: Cambodian Americans in the Creative Arts
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Cambodian American Literary Arts Association, Pheap Thon
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Beyond the Mekong, Khmer and Cambodian authored books, part 2 (April 17, 2024)
- ↑ Cambodian American Literary Arts Association, Gallery
- ↑ Cambodian American Literary Arts Association, Literary Arts Festival 2026
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 UC Davis, Cambodian American Studies Model Curriculum: Cambodian American Poetry
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 UC Davis, Cambodian American Studies Model Curriculum, lesson 4.5: Cambodian American Poetry (PDF)
- ↑ UC Davis, Cambodian American Studies Model Curriculum, lesson 4.5 in Khmer translation (PDF)