Capturing Stories of the Generations

Our In-Country Coordinator, Pheaktra Phouen, has been working closely with our peer leaders across Cambodia to collect powerful personal narratives from communities throughout the country. Since January 2025, thanks to his leadership and tireless efforts, we’ve received 400+ high quality and life-impacting interviews from Cambodia.

We’re thrilled to welcome Dr. Timothy Davis as the new Project Director for the Cambodian Oral History Project. He succeeds Dr. Dana Bourgerie, the project’s founder, who will continue to offer support and insight in his new role as Project Director Emeritus given his recent retirement. With Dr. Davis now heading the project, we look forward to the continued growth and impact of the project under his leadership!

By Debra Roderick, Project Assistant – Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of April 17th, 1975, the beginning of the Khmer Rouge Genocide. Since visiting the killing fields at age 14, hearing stories during my missionary service, and now coming to the close of my time on this project, I am still struck by the horror that took place in that 4 year period. The experiences that the interviewees shared during my time as a project assistant have touched me in a profound way. I wept with them in their retellings and laughed with them as they shared funny stories about their childhood. These accounts are invaluable to their posterity and incredibly powerful for those who have the opportunity to hear or read their story on the COHP website. I feel privileged to have been able to learn from many interviewees firsthand.

We're excited to welcome recent team members to the Cambodian Oral History Project! Our ever-expanding translation and indexing team now includes Hannah, Brittin, Devon and Ethan, who all recently shared some of their thoughts about the project with us.

By Debra Roderick and NEN Pichmonyroth, ភាសាខ្មែរខាងក្រោម –

By Janet Alexander – When I walked in the door for my first day on the job at Sonoma Valley Hospital in 1988, the last thing on my mind was that, on that day, I would meet and start a life-enriching friendship with one of my co-workers.

By Dana S Bourgerie, Project Director – As I have read recently posted interviews, I have been in awe of the resilience demonstrated in the stories. The narratives are often painful and harrowing but also inspiring. Many are epic stories of survival and of unimaginable heartbreak.

We are thrilled to announce the addition of a new life story to our project! This compelling account chronicles the life history of Sok Tann, a Cambodian refugee who settled in Utah after fleeing the Khmer Rouge. Sok Tann’s life history is a unique type of story for our project, as it was meticulously penned by his friend Randolph Taylor, rather than being done orally like many of our other interviews. Even so, Sok Tann’s interview offers a poignant glimpse into life in Cambodia during the upheaval that marked the Lon Nol and Khmer Rouge era, and recounts his harrowing escape from Cambodia to America in the aftermath of Pol Pot’s regime.

The Cambodian Oral History Project recently published its 50th translation, which marks an important milestone for the project. Although COHP's main focus has been collecting and preserving the oral histories of Cambodians in their homeland and heritage communities in the United States, the last couple of years have witnessed an unprecedented acceleration in translating and sharing these special stories with our English-speaking project supporters. As of December 2023, the project has now officially published 50 translations (20 of which were completed this year alone) and is looking forward to the publication of nearly 20 more in the next couple of months.