On December 10, students, professors, and members of the Cambodian and Khmer-speaking community packed into Le’s Deli & Bakery in South Seattle to save a vital lifeline for Khmer language education on the West Coast. The gathering celebrated and discussed the future of the University of Washington’s Khmer language program.
As the official language of Cambodia, Khmer is only taught in seven universities in the U.S.—the University of Washington (UW) being one of them. Passionate students came to the College of Arts and Sciences to advocateed for a Khmer language class within UW’s College of Arts and Sciences, and in 2012, the department began the program with funding through the federal Department of Education’s Title VI grant.
With Washington state home to hosting the country’s third-largest Cambodian population, the Khmer language program thrived under this grant with university resources and interest in the language from students.
At the end of the last academic year, the Department of Education abruptly terminated its their Title VI grant. Funds were redirected to other priorities due to inconsistencies with administration goals and universities suffered from these losses.
“We lost all of our federal funding,” said UW Anthropology Professor Celia Lowe at the event., “$250,000 for programming and instructors, another $250,000 for student support…all disappeared.”
In response, the UW Department of Asian Languages and Literature worked exceptionally hard to pull together one year of funding. Their efforts were The effort was successful and the Khmer Language Program is currently active through this academic year.
“We didn’t want the language program to just end abruptly,” Professor Lowe said., “We wanted to buy one year of time so we could figure out how to handle this going forward.”
Today, however, the department is calling on the community to help keep the program alive. This academic year, the department even recruited Professor Nielson Hul from Cornell University, who is eager to continue the thriving Khmer program.
“Language is the breath of culture,” Professor Hul said., “It’s where culture lives, ,and how it’s transmitted between individuals. If we want to keep a culture, we have to keep the language alive.”
During the event, University of Washington students and alumni shared their own stories of diaspora and reclamation after participating in taking the Khmer language program. University students from the Khmer Student Association UW (KSAUW) particularly spoke about on how important it was to find and share space with other Khmer students.
KSAUW student Rumonny Oeun shared that, how like many other immigrant parents, many Cambodian parents often don’t teach their children how to speak Khmer. With pressures to assimilate into America, many parents are determined to give their children the best of opportunities.— they want their children to speak fluent English and cut ties from the Khmer language. Now as adults, many children want to connect back with their lost heritage.
“They really want to learn the culture,” Oeun said, “They want to know how to speak, but it’s really hard.”
The Khmer Language Program addresses this in its classes. The UW’s program teaches reading, writing, and speaking, but also explores Cambodian heritage through novels and history. Students get a chance to build camaraderie with each other, but are also given the opportunity to either connect back with their lost heritage or learn and truly preserve Cambodian culture.
“I love to see how people really like this community, which is my community,” one KSAUW student said, “And also love the ability to carry on the heritage.”
Oeun says she is very grateful to have grown up speaking the Khmer language around other Cambodian communities in White Center, but said however still speaks on how the class at UW was immensely helpful for her.
“It’s not only allowed me to talk more with my parents, but I’m able to fully understand the root meaning of certain words, parts of the culture and things that we did,” Oeun said., “I feel very connected now, and it just gives me hope.”
Alumni of the Khmer language program also shared stories about of how the program has helped them academically and in their careers. Andrew Hollister, a staff member at the Khmer Community of Seattle-King County, said says the classes he took continue to help him in his professional capacity serving their clients, elders, and families in the Seattle area.
“The language skills are still guiding my heart with that ability to speak to our elders and build relationships with them,” Hollister said., “The program is just so incredibly important in this community…it trains future community leaders and supports academic study in the university, just to name a few impacts that it has.”
A member of the community chimed into the conversation as a social worker who speaks Khmer. The language is still very needed in the medical and service field, she saidsays. King County is always searching for Khmer language interpreters and cutting the university’s program would not help the county’s already dire need for cultural understanding and interpreters.
The University of Washington is currently the last R1 university (meaning top-tier research university) on the West Coast to teach Khmer. If the Khmer Language program is cut, there will not be a program on the entire west coast.
“We’re trying to hold the line at us and stop the receding of language courses,” Professor Nielsen Hul said.
To help save the Khmer Language program, there are three things community members can do.
- Write to state legislators, the UW Board of Regents, the UW President, the UW Provost, and the UW Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
- Donate and contribute to the Center for Southeast Asia and its Diasporas. If enough funds are raised, a donation would contribute to the program. If the program discontinues, a donation will go towards programming for Cambodian studies.
- Sign up for Khmer courses at UW. Anyone can sign up. The higher enrollments, the more likely the university will save the program.
“The program is critical for building UW’s connections and supporting the Khmer community in Washington state,” Professor Lowe said, “We hope it can continue and we are confident it will thrive if it does.”
