Almost 200 students, families and members of the Seattle community gathered in room 210 of the Student Center May 9 to say “Soursdey Chnam Thmey!” or “Happy New Year!” celebrating the turn of the new year with Seattle University’s Khmer Student Association (KhSA). 

KhSA was founded in 2024 when the current club President Kate Sea formed the club with Vice President Ellana Meas, Financial Officer Sofia Eng, Public Relations Dalyce Caoagdan and Staff Advisor Darozyl Touch. Since then, the club has hosted dozens of events and general meetings that aim at highlighting and educating students about the rich history and culture of Cambodia. 

Two years later, with five board members and the addition of Secretary Hailey Hun, KhSA hosted their inaugural Khmer New Year celebration and cultural showcase. The theme for the night was “The Golden Age,” referring to the music, history and culture that was popularized in Cambodia during the 1960s. 

“Everything feels unreal. We were not expecting this crazy turnout,” KhSA President Kate Sea said. “Literally a couple weeks ago, it was just 40 RSVPs and then it grew to 140… I’m so proud of us, honestly.” 

The night kicked off with three members of the officer board, Sea, Meas and Caoagdan, performing a traditional Cambodian dance called Robam Jun Por, also known as the blessing dance. This dance is typically performed at the beginning of a ceremony to greet, bless and offer good wishes to the audience. The dance was created in the 1960s by the late Queen of Cambodia, Sisowath Kossamak, who formed the dance as a representation of Cambodia’s character. 

This performance was followed by a performance of Maha Yeak by Dany Srey-Snow, the artistic director of Srey Selepak SEA. Srey Selepak is a contemporary Southeast Asian dance project that focuses on channeling the divine feminine through ritual, movement and innovation. The project honors the lineage of ancestral traditions and reimagines them into a contemporary Western context, all while creating new pathways for cultural expression and collective healing. Srey-Snow is also a co-founder (along with her husband) of Studio 7117, a creative studio and safe space in Pioneer Square which sold Khmer photographs and t-shirts at the showcase. 

The first community speaker of the night was Bunthay Cheam, a community organizer and co-treasurer of the Khmer Anti-Deportation and Advocacy group (KHAAG). KHAAG is an organization that works on deportation defense for community members, specifically members of Cambodian, Vietnamese and Laos origins, as well as all those who may need help with deportation defense. Cheam touched on the importance of events such as these for creating connections across generations. 

“It’s events like this that have different generations showing up,” Cheam said. “You have the students obviously, then you have the grandparents that may have more of a cultural tie back to the homeland… This space creates that intergenerational connection.” 

In Washington, Cambodians only make up 0.37%  of the population. Still, Washington has the third-largest Cambodian population in the Nation, with 21,373 at the time of the 2020 United States Census. Seattle also ranks third in the nation for Cambodian population, with 18,000 Cambodians residing in the Emerald City. 

The night wrapped up with a dance performance of Neary Chea Chour by the Silk and Spice Girls, a Thai, Lao and Cambodian traditional dance group based in Portland, Ore. This was followed by a closing speech from Touch that was done in Khmer and English, ending with him telling the audience to “dance until your feet fall off” as DJ Techsavvy played popular Cambodian dancing tunes. 

The food was catered by Theary Cambodian Foods, a local Cambodian restaurant in Federal Way, Wash.  The menu consisted of Kroeung Coconut Chicken, Kroeung Khmer Beef Skewers, Cha Kroeung Monn, Khmer Nheoum and Kroeung Rice. Kroeung is a popular Cambodian spice and herb paste also known as Cambodian Lemongrass paste. 

Along with Srey-Snow, the showcase had four other vendors: Scrubbie Critters, a Khmer-owned small business that makes Khmer and pet-inspired stickers, t-shirts and bag reels, Nak Bou, a multi-disciplinary artist, Karuna Gem, a professional orthodontic clinician who does tooth gems and permanent jewelry and Neary Alchemy, a local small business owned by KhSA’s advisor, Touch, who sells herbal remedies. 

Another speaker for the night was Joe Bushnell, the deputy mayor of Tacoma. Bushnell comes from a mixed background, with his father being white and his mother being Cambodian. When Bushnell was first elected as a District 5 City Council Member in 2021, he became the first Khmer- American elected official ever in the state of Washington. Despite not always feeling connected to his Khmer heritage growing up, Bushnell has been an advocate for Khmer representation throughout his adult life.

“One of the challenges in our community is a lot of people can’t name where Cambodia is on a map,” Bushnell said. “But there are so many of us out here, and we do have an impact and we do have an influence on what happens in our cities and in our state.”