Organization

United Khmer Students at UCLA


United Khmer Students at UCLA (UKS), formerly United Cambodian Students (UCS), is a student-run organization at the University of California, Los Angeles.[1] It has built community and education on Cambodian heritage at UCLA since 1992.[2] Its stated purpose is to foster a positive environment for Khmer students and Khmer culture at UCLA and to be an active voice for the greater Cambodian community and its issues.[1][3]

History

In the mid-1990s the club went by the name United Cambodian Students, and its officers of those years served under that name. It later became United Khmer Students.[3] Nimoal Sun, its president in 1998 and 1999, has said: "Keeping the Khmer Culture Alive is the reason I am proud to be a part of the UKS family."[3]

In 2003 the club started the Khmer Outreach, Retention and Education program (KORE), which mentors Khmer high school students on the way to college.[4]

On November 5, 2011, UKS and The Cambodian Family, a nonprofit in Orange County, co-hosted the Khmer Student Coalition Conference at UCLA.[5][6][7] The statewide student conference had been held since 2005, and this was its first partnership with a community-based organization.[7] About 175 people from 25 colleges attended the full-day event. They met in "family" groups led by alumni and spent most of the day in workshops on the Cambodian American experience and on how to start and sustain student groups. The theme was "We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For."[7]

Programs

KORE was created to counter the low representation of Khmer Americans in higher education, and it gives Khmer high school students mentorship and help toward college.[1][4] UKS members serve as its mentors.[8][4] A related Mentorship Program offers on-site tutoring, field trips and mentoring for at-risk Cambodian youth at schools in the Long Beach Unified School District.[1]

Each year the club holds Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Day, open to students, alumni and community members.[4][9] The event on May 16, 2022, laid out a timeline of Cambodian history before, during and after the genocide, showed a gallery of artwork by students and community members, and gave students space to share their own experiences of the genocide. It centered on healing while honoring past generations. Participants talked about ways to address intergenerational trauma as a community, including going to therapy despite the stigma around mental health in Asian communities.[4] During the COVID-19 pandemic, UKS held the day as a virtual commemoration, with an interactive online timeline, a public gallery of personal artwork and keepsakes, and a workshop and discussion with panelists and undergraduate students.[10] The event on May 20, 2025, included an art gallery, a short historical talk and a panel of community leaders and activists.[9] The club usually invites a speaker and people from across UCLA, so that students outside the Khmer community can learn why there are Cambodian refugees in America.[11]

Culture Night

Culture Night is the club's annual production on the UCLA campus. It weaves an original play together with classical, folk and modern Khmer dance.[12][2] Members write, produce, choreograph and direct the show themselves. Writers script the play over the summer, auditions and casting open the school year, and serious rehearsals run through winter and the start of spring quarter. Members take part as committee coordinators, in pre-production or in the main cast, and each year has a different theme.[12] The themes usually came from traditional folktales. In 2017 the club turned instead to the aftereffects of the genocide.[13]

For that 2017 play, "Lost in Translation," Melanie Tiang wrote the script after asking fellow members six questions on Google Forms about their families' Cambodian experiences. She worked in hardships that members had shared at club meetings. The play followed three Cambodian American high school students, Sam, Sophean and Tavy, as they came to terms with their heritage.[13][14]

"Reflection," written by co-director Vince Khauv, was staged at Schoenberg Hall in April 2025. It marked the 50th anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh and the start of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1975.[2][15] The story moves between present-day America and 1970s Cambodia. Samnang, a Khmer American high school student of Teochew descent, asks her father Heng about his life in Cambodia for a history project on her family's immigration. Heng recalls the 1970s and the traumas he still carries, and the dialogue moves among English, Khmer and Teochew.[15][2] Each of the three acts had a dance. Act I opened with robam yike homrong, a Khmer folk dance, and in Act II a modern dance to Kendrick Lamar's "United In Grief" expressed Heng's grief after the Khmer Rouge executes his friend Tam.[2] About 60 members took part. Costumes, clothing and jewelry came from Khmer Bridal, a Long Beach business, and the Cambodian rock band Sastra Moon played three songs before the show, with lead singer Rane Prak singing entirely in Khmer.[2] UKS puts the regime's toll at one quarter of Cambodia's population between 1975 and 1979.[15]

Productions by edition:

  • 16th (2012 to 2013): A mother tells her daughter bedtime stories: a woodcutter's magic millstone, two young lovers, and a prince stranded on an island of the Naga. She then recounts her own past under the Khmer Rouge, in a fictional account drawn from real-life experiences.[16]
  • 17th (2013 to 2014): "Moni Mekhala and Ream Eyso," adapted from the legend at the heart of buong suong, a sacred dance ceremony performed each April at Khmer New Year that tells the origin of lightning, thunder and the heavy rains. Johnny Sok played the lead.[17][8]
  • 18th (2014 to 2015): "Thoun Chey and the Golden Fish," which joined the folktales "Thoun Chey" and "Moronak Meada," a Khmer Cinderella story, with motifs from "Judge Rabbit"[18]
  • 19th (2015 to 2016): "Bring Me Flowers," about Dara Hean, a young farmer who hopes for a life in music in the late 1960s and 1970s, until the Khmer Rouge takeover ends that era of Khmer music[19]
  • 20th (2016 to 2017): "Lost in Translation," staged at Schoenberg Hall, with a script by Melanie Tiang about intergenerational trauma[14][13]
  • 21st (2017 to 2018): A story inspired by male dancers in robam, Khmer classical dance, and by the work of Prumsodun Ok and his troupe Natyarasa. Wu-Tong, the son of a palace seamstress in the Angkor Empire, dreams of dancing at the palace, where the royal art form allows only female dancers. The show featured original music by members.[20]
  • 22nd (2018 to 2019): A story about Cambodian deportation. Ponleak Sok, raised by a single mother after his family escaped the Khmer Rouge, is caught in the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline.[21]
  • 23rd (2019 to 2020): "The Golden Voice," not staged because of COVID-19. Member Brandon Soun made a documentary of the rehearsal process.[22]
  • 24th (2020 to 2021): A historical fiction play with classical, traditional, tribal and modern dance[12]
  • 25th (2022 to 2023): "Promise!!!," the first Culture Night after a three-year break, about Sovanna "Savannah" Sok, a high school student who helps at her family's donut shop and finds herself in the Kingdom of Angkor, where she meets the princess Amaradevi[23]
  • 26th (2023 to 2024): "My Morning Sun," set in 1980s America. Arun, an eldest son, gives up his education to support his family and is guided by the spirit of a Bokator warrior and trained by Lok Kru Meng.[24]
  • 27th (2024 to 2025): "Reflection," staged at Schoenberg Hall and marking the 50th anniversary of the start of the Cambodian genocide[15][2]
  • 28th (2025 to 2026): "Naga," an original comedic mystery written and directed by Allison Neak. At a wedding in a Cambodian resort, the groom's father is found murdered, and the guests race to find the truth. The play comments on the divide between the elite and the laboring class, and the club says it aims to widen Khmer representation beyond stories of hardship.[25]

Community

UKS offers a social space for Khmer and non-Khmer students alike, cultural education and traditions for its general membership, and leadership roles in members' own communities.[1] It is also a place for dialogue about trauma, higher education and healing.[4] Its work for Cambodian students at UCLA includes advocacy, educational and career services, and community building.[26] Members network with alumni, the UCLA community and Khmer student groups at other colleges.[1]

UKS is an active member of the Khmer Student Coalition, a network of Cambodian student organizations at California universities.[1] Members have also represented the club on the Asian Pacific Coalition.[8] In 2025 co-president Dahlia Keo said that taking up space and being proudly Khmer are political acts in themselves. The club builds ties with other Asian American groups at UCLA and encourages members to join events and rallies on issues beyond their own community.[11] It raises funds through the Ralphs Community Rewards program, which gives a small share of linked shoppers' purchases to the club.[1]

Leadership (1994 to 2026)

Officers and staff named in public sources, with their period of service:

  • Brian Ho Yam: vice president 1994 to 1995, president 1995 to 1996 (as United Cambodian Students).[3]
  • Vannary Yam: secretary 1995 to 1996 (as United Cambodian Students).[3]
  • Nimoal Sun: vice president 1996 to 1997, president 1998 to 1999 (as United Cambodian Students).[3]
  • Chantha Seng: external vice president (UCLA class of 2004).[3]
  • Johnny Sok: KORE mentor, then external vice president and Culture Night lead actor, 2013 to 2014.[8]
  • Melanie Tiang: Culture Night script writer, 2016 to 2017.[13]
  • Regina Hieap: advisor (2022).[4]
  • Roslynn Khin: president (2022).[4]
  • Aaron Tann: public relations officer (2022).[4]
  • Vince Khauv and Marissa Pe: Culture Night co-directors, 2024 to 2025, with Vince Khauv as script writer. Emily Ea was assistant director and Tiffani Pe producer.[2]
  • Dahlia Keo: co-president (2025).[11]
  • Athena Tea: internal vice president (2025).[11]
  • Allison Neak: Culture Night director and scriptwriter, 2025 to 2026.[25]
  • KORE staff, 2025 to 2026: Parissa "Naps" Lor-Tim and Emily Tan (directors), Nathan Choup (fiscal coordinator), Emily Huong (internal coordinator), Lily Aung (external coordinator) and Jasmine Tran (public relations coordinator).[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 United Khmer Students at UCLA, Home
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Daily Bruin, United Khmer Students' culture night remembers, reflects on Cambodian genocide (April 29, 2025)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 United Khmer Students at UCLA, Alumni
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 Daily Bruin, United Khmer Students at UCLA promotes community, cultural education for students (June 25, 2022)
  5. ↑ The Cambodian Family, Khmer Student Coalition Conference at UCLA (February 4, 2012)
  6. ↑ Khmer Alumni Association, Resources
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 KI Media, Malissa Tem, Khmer students declare themselves 'the ones they've been waiting for' (November 14, 2011)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Khmer Alumni Association, Alumni Spotlight, page 3 (April 2020)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 UCLA Asian American Studies, Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Day (May 20, 2025)
  10. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Day
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Pacific Ties, UCLA student organizations and their role in APIDA awareness and activism (April 2, 2025)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 United Khmer Students at UCLA, 24th Annual Culture Night (2020-2021)
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Daily Bruin, Culture night explores intergenerational effects of Cambodian genocide (April 6, 2017)
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 United Khmer Students at UCLA, 20th Annual Culture Night (2016-2017)
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 United Khmer Students at UCLA, 27th Annual Culture Night (2024-2025)
  16. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, 16th Annual Culture Night (2012-2013)
  17. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, 17th Annual Culture Night (2013-2014)
  18. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, 18th Annual Culture Night (2014-2015)
  19. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, 19th Annual Culture Night (2015-2016)
  20. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, 21st Annual Culture Night (2017-2018)
  21. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, 22nd Annual Culture Night (2018-2019)
  22. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, 23rd Annual Culture Night (2019-2020)
  23. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, 25th Annual Culture Night (2022-2023)
  24. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, 26th Annual Culture Night (2023-2024)
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 United Khmer Students at UCLA, 28th Annual Culture Night (2025-2026)
  26. ↑ UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies, UCLA Student and Alumni Organizations
  27. ↑ United Khmer Students at UCLA, KORE 2025-2026
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