Khmer Emotions Project

A collaboration project with the Khmer Health Board and KCSKC to create a free language resource that organizes and translates emotion words in Khmer. The process of developing this resource, as well as the final product, aims to bridge cross-cultural and generational conversations for the Khmer community, and ultimately help strengthen connection and understanding.

Why is this important?

It is estimated that between 1975 and 1994, the United States accepted 157,000 Cambodians to resettle as refugees due to the Khmer Rouge genocide (Mak, 2024). According to the Pew Research Center, the Seattle area has the third-largest Cambodian community in America. This forced uprooting from Cambodia and subsequent resettling in the Pacific Northwest has created a rich cultural exchange, but has also ruptured family and cultural connections within the Khmer American community in King County. In addition to the intergenerational trauma of surviving genocide and displacement, this rupture has also been caused by (and contributed to) the loss of language amongst the younger generation of Khmer Americans, making it difficult for cross-cultural and cross-generational communication.

The Diasporic Khmer Emotions Project adopts a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach to develop a language resource that will organize and define emotions in the Khmer language to support conversations and connections within the Cambodian community. This method of research will enable the project to develop a novel resource created by the Khmer community in King County to benefit the Khmer community in King County.

Project structure

The project has two parts:

First, Cambodian seniors and young people fluent in Khmer will participate in facilitated discussions on Khmer emotion words, how they are used or not used in conversations, their definitions, and how they are organized. This will take place over multiple meetings and allow for the community to engage in exploring emotions in an intentional and trauma-informed manner. Below are the goals of the different workshops:

Workshop 1 (Friday 7/18/25 @ 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM): Collect Khmer emotion words

Workshop 2 (TBD): Collect Khmer emotion words

Workshop 3 (TBD): Organize the Khmer emotions

Workshop 4 (TBD): Define the Khmer emotion words

Workshop 5 (TBD): Define the Khmer emotion words

Second, data gathered from these discussions will be organized into graphics, media, and/or documents, and then fine-tuned by Khmer community members. Because we want it to be reflective of the specific community and cultural needs, the format of the resource developed during this stage is largely dependent on the results found from the initial data collection from the facilitated community discussions. Finally, a launch event will be held in which the resource can be introduced to the wider Khmer community in King County as a tool for connection.

How to get involved

Option 1: Participate in the workshops*

Youth: 13-25 years old with Khmer ancestry and some Khmer comprehension
Elders: 60 years or older with Khmer ancestry and fluency in Khmer (no English fluency is required)

* a modest honorarium will be provided for all participants

Option 2: Donate to the Khmer Community of Seattle-King County (KCSKC)

KCSKC is serving as the fiscal sponsor for our project. Please let them know you want the funds to support the project when you make a donation. Their website provides multiple ways to donate: https://www.kcskc.org/donate/

Option 3: Share our flyer with friends, families and colleagues.

Download the flyer here: Diasporic Khmer Emotions Project flyer.

Option 4: Sign up for the newsletter