2 Khmerican Sisters

09/17/2022

SF vlog now up! 🌁
Link in bio ☺️

08/14/2022

Hi everyone 👋🏽 At the moment, we are working on re-designing our entire website and will make an announcement as soon as it’s ready. Thanks to those who have been checking out and referencing our content! 🙏🏽

07/08/2022

👋🏽👋🏼 Popping by to say hello and hoping everyone is taking the self care they need from everything going on in our lives and in our world. Sending our love 💌

06/23/2022

Introducing Kylie Long. ⬇️ www.kahenmei.com

When she was younger, Kylie’s family immigrated from the Canto region of China to a small, predominately white town in the suburbs of New Jersey. Growing up, Kylie recalled when she and her sibling would prefer their American school lunch over their parents’ home-cooked food.

Fast forward to today, Kylie has a stronger curiosity and sense of pride in her family’s culture and heritage. She founded Kahenmei, a baking business where she aims to balance her Chinese and American identities together by incorporating ingredients from both of her childhood cuisines! 😋 Thanks for sharing about you and your business with us, Kylie!
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Our Features section was one of our favorite segments on IG/our website. We got to feature 109 individuals from our PoC communities - highlighting their achievements, reflections, and experiences! Thanks to our family, friends, and followers for being a part of this special project. This proves that anyone has a meaningful story to share and has something valuable that they are giving back to the world. 🎉

06/17/2022

🥹 It is bittersweet to announce that we are officially ending our podcast with this last episode. We are grateful for the opportunity to spread our voices and messages on this platform and create a community on our podcast and Instagram where we could connect with other amazing Khmer/Khmer American individuals and teach non-Khmer people about our stories, cultures, families, and struggles. We have talked about a range of topics and issues - tough ones like our family’s refugee experiences escaping the Khmer Rouge Genocide, mental health, racism/discrimination, and intergenerational wealth. We have also sprinkled in fun videos where we got to learn about each other as sisters and highlight people who are making a difference in their roles and communities. 🙏🏽

We want to thank anyone who has ever listened to our podcast, shared an episode, interacted with us on social media, guest appeared with us, and supported us along our journey these past two years. It’s truly special that we’ll have these recordings to live on forever for new listeners and future generations within and outside of our family! Let us know what your favorite episode(s) were and please leave us a review on Apple Podcast.

We’ll continue to be active on Instagram to uplift PoC/Khmer voices, communities, and businesses. We’ll use this space to share our ventures moving forward as the 2 Khmerican Sisters and as individuals. We hope many people will continue listening to our podcast and we hope to continue finding speaking and teaching opportunities where we can reach wider audiences!

This has been the 2 Khmerican Sisters Podcast. We encourage you to use your voice to tell your stories and ask questions with loved ones and strangers to engage in deeper conversations. 💕

06/14/2022

Jasmine celebrated 3 graduations over the past few days, including her kindergarteners’ promotion to first grade! We are wishing all grads from 2020-2022 an amazing summer & a bright future ahead of you. So great that we are able to do in-person ceremonies now. We made it through these tough past 2 years! 🎉🎉

06/03/2022

Thank you to Ms. Alice Lippitt for inviting and welcoming the both of us to the Community Changemakers event at Maple Elementary this afternoon. ☺️

We had a blast seeing the third graders’ excitement, sharing about our professions, and connecting with other amazing leaders in our Seattle community. We hope that we were able to inspire the students to pursue their future goals and dreams! 🎉

05/27/2022

Mellissa & recently met up with our amazing friends from the East Coast. ☺️ You may have heard of them: & ~ thanks for visiting! We had a blast! You guys are even more hilarious in person 🤭🤣

05/24/2022

Laura, our fellow Khmer/Vietnamese colleague, guest appears on our newest podcast episode to share her thoughts around the need and retention of educators of color, AAPI history and ethnic studies, and more.

We’re honored to have connected with Laura through our IG community over the years. She is doing amazing work with pushing for AAPI History to be taught in schools.

Her roles extend to being a Collegiate Seminar Instructor & Senior College Counselor, AAPI Affinity Space Facilitator, TEAACH Trainer, Education and Impact Coordinator .argyle, and Curriculum Writer . 👏🏽

Thank you, Laura, for being a part of our conversation around the need for more teachers of color. ❤️

05/23/2022

🎧Eps. 65 is now LIVE! More teachers of color are needed in America. In this episode, we recount our experiences as students growing up through the school system where we did not have many or any teachers who looked like us and came from similar backgrounds. With schools becoming more diverse and teaching staff remaining predominantly white women, we discuss the benefits of schools having more teachers of color and how to best retain them in this crucial profession. Jasmine discusses the challenges of becoming an educator and the qualities all educators should have nowadays to be anti-racist and advocates for social justice & racial equity.

Thank you to our friend, Laura Houcque Prabhakar, who is a teacher of 10 years and shares some insights around being an educator of color and the importance of teaching about AAPI communities for our younger generations.

05/21/2022

To teach about Khmer New Year in person this year, Jasmine finally got to have her students decorate beautiful coloring pages from Cambodia Town Film Festival’s Volume 1 Coloring Book! ❤️

Thank you to CTFF and the Khmer artists who came together to create these wonderful pieces of work to share and celebrate our culture with our younger & rising generations. 🇰🇭

05/20/2022

✨It's time for a book giveaway!✨

"Ma and Me", a memoir written by Putsata Reang, explores the long legacy of inherited trauma and the crushing weight of cultural and filial duty. With rare clarity and lyric wisdom, "Ma and Me" is a stunning, deeply moving memoir about love, debt, and duty. We are excited to be partnering with and to give away a copy of "Ma and Me" to 5 LUCKY winners!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdwz30hrUWY/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

For your chance to win this prize, here's how to enter:
▪️Must ❤️ the Instagram Post
▪️Must be following these 3 Instagrams:
▪️Must tag 3 or more friends

Additional info:
▪️Last entry will be accepted Thursday, May 26th at 11:59 pm pacific time.
▪️5 winners will be randomly selected & announced Friday, May 27th on Instagram
▪️Open to U.S. residents & must be at least 18+ years of age. Not affiliated with Instagram.

05/18/2022

Putsata Reang’s latest memoir, Ma and Me, is a captivating story that brings you along the complex journey of a refugee’s escape and survival from the war and the intergenerational challenges and trauma that follows. The relationship between Putsata and her Ma emphasizes the ongoing complexities of the cultural and generational differences among the Cambodian Diaspora.

We are incredibly proud of Putsata’s courage and vulnerability to share her truth and story of finding herself despite familial and societal expectations. We were also moved by the strength and determination of her Ma and Ba to leave everything behind, provide support for other Khmer families and friends, and adjust to their new lives in America.

As Cambodian-Americans, we are thrilled about the increase of Khmer representation in Asian American literature. This memoir was beautifully written by Putsata, and it will make you cry, smile, and laugh throughout your journey of reading along.

05/09/2022

🎧 Pod Eps. 64 is now LIVE on all major podcast streaming services! Ba takes us back to the late 1960s-1970s to share what it was like growing up in the rice fields to hiding in his classroom from bombs and missile attacks during the Vietnam War, and witnessing the horrific events that took place when the Khmer Rouge Communist Party took over Cambodia. He had lost many family members, including his own father (who was a General for the former Government) in the killing fields. It was also not an easy process for him to talk about his Ma, who needed to care for 5 kids as a widow. Ba has had a very hard life, and this was his first time sharing his story with us and with the world. Thank you for listening!

05/09/2022

Happy Mother’s Day to the coolest Ma ever! Thanks for raising us to be fierce, independent women. We love you so much! 🥹💕

05/03/2022

Please wish Mell a happy happy birthday today! ✨ You’re welcome to check out & follow her other IG project .n.mu! 💛 Always so grateful for the memories we’ve had & excited to see where life takes her next.

Love, Jas

04/20/2022

***REPOST*** Khmer New Year is not quite over yet. The Khmer Student Association UW will be hosting a live virtual New Years show, inspired by the popular Saturday Night Live. The virtual cultural show will consist of skits, dance performances, interviews, and a cultural fashion show with the help of the KhSA UW Officer Team and the local community.

WHEN: Saturday, April 30,2022 4PM PST
WHERE: Livestream via YouTube (info coming soon)
TICKET INFORMATION: Admission is FREE; donations kindly accepted during the show.

All are welcome to watch and attend KhSA’s New Years Show.

For any concerns and questions, please DM on Instagram or email them at [email protected]. Come explore Khmer culture and celebrate with us!

04/17/2022

In 1975, when Putsata (Put) was 11 months old, her family fled war-torn Cambodia, spending 23 days on a navy vessel meant for 35 people yet holding over 300. On board, Put's mother cradled what appeared to be a sick and lifeless baby in her arms. When the ship's captain confronted her, worried that the baby would infect the other passengers, she faced the unthinkable decision to either throw her bundle overboard as instructed or resist and save her child's life. That baby was Put. “I had hope, just a little, you were still alive,” Ma would tell Put in an oft-repeated story that became family legend once they settled in Corvallis, Oregon.

An unbreakable bond crystallized in that moment, leaving Put burdened by intense gratitude as well as guilt. Over the years, Put would work to repay her life debt by becoming the perfect Cambodian daughter. But Put's efforts are no match for Ma's high expectations. When Put comes out to Ma in her twenties, it's just a phase. When she fails to bring home a Khmer boyfriend, it's because she is different from her siblings, the black sheep of the family. When, at the age of 40, Put tells Ma she is finally getting married—to a woman—it severs their bond in two. Now, she must choose between sacrificing an essential part of her identity and losing Ma for good. But that same hope is still alive in Put—hope that her mother will one day understand her, and that they'll survive the journey together.

Putsata, a celebrated journalist, has traveled the world reporting from Afghanistan, Thailand, and her homeland of Cambodia. Yet, Ma and Me is by far her most personal story yet. Based on her viral Modern Love essay (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/fashion/modern-love-bisexuality-cambodia.html) and weaving together folklore, fables, and interviews, this is an intimate look at the tension between the traditions and cultures we are born into and our innate desire for freedom and selfhood.

➡️Pre-order Ma & Me at https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374720056/maandme. The special interview with Author Putsata Reang is now available on all podcast streaming services 🎧🎙

https://anchor.fm/2khmericansisters/episodes/63--A-Conversation-with-Author-Putsata-Reang-e1gvdmu

04/13/2022

It’s a beautiful moment when multiple generations have a chance to be united in the same room and share similar journeys with one another. Thank you to & for helping to bridge that gap & giving our community an opportunity to ring in Khmer New Year, the traditional way! They recently hosted a spectacular cultural show! 🎉

04/11/2022

What’s the emotional toll of frequent moves during childhood & teenhood? For us, moving to a different school meant that we needed to embrace the unknown and adapt to our new situation fairly quickly. In leaving our established lives behind, we sometimes lost connections with our old friends whom we had seen regularly before. In order to survive as a new kid in town, we had to figure out how to fit in, make new friends, and integrate into the new school culture and system. It wasn’t easy to embrace change, but it gave us the ability to have a growth mindset and to persevere through tough and uncomfortable situations.

🎧Tune into the newest podcast episode “62: Moving as a Child”, where we talk about having to move around often as a kid/teen and how we navigated through this major life transition.

04/09/2022

Happy Khmer New Year! Last year, we learned a Khmer classical dance off of YouTube! We’ve been sharing this video with family and friends ever since, and it’s something we’re super proud of! Be sure to check it out ~ link in our bio. 🇰🇭🎉

04/07/2022

Such an amazing show! Loved coming together as a community to celebrate Khmer New Year. ❤️💙🇰🇭

04/05/2022

Looking for a book to learn/teach about the Khmer culture & language? Support our fellow Khmerican & artist, Kiri, who has created a Kickstarter project for her book, "ABCs of Cambodia"! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1943032835/abcs-of-cambodia

An illustrated alphabet book to help kids of all ages learn about Khmer culture.

04/01/2022

Happy early Khmer New Year! We will be celebrating all month long with family & friends in our local community. ☺️🇰🇭 Who else will be at the Khmer New Year Village Festival: Bon Phum 2022 | សួស្តីឆ្នាំថ្មី បុណ្យភូមិ tomorrow?

03/28/2022

🎧Eps. 61: Adopt Not Shop is out now on all major podcast streaming services! This episode is dedicated to Amumu, Mellissa’s 6-year old rescue mutt. Growing up, we only had goldfishes and coi fishes as pets. We attempted to have a dog once but couldn’t get past the learning curve, and we also realized we weren’t ready for all of the responsibilities that came with being an owner. Adopting a dog is absolutely a lifelong (~12-18 year) commitment. They become part of your family. Unfortunately, many dogs, cats, and other animals end up in the shelters due to the lack of research and understanding by the potential pet owners. This episode, we’ll share the process of adopting a rescue dog and transitioning him into our lives. There are endless reasons as to why it’s awesome to have furry babies! Adopting rescues just require a little more love, time and patience.

03/26/2022

Spring, a lovely reminder of how beautiful change can be 🌸

03/15/2022

Posted • Announcing: 🇰🇭KCSKC's Khmer New Year Village Festival: Bonn Phum 2022 on Saturday, April 2, 2022 from 12:00-4:00PM at featuring our own sharing their traditional Khmer dance and music talents! Come celebrate Khmer New Year with us! 🎉
Registration comes with a free Khmer meal! $30 suggested donation. Save your seat now, as we have limited seating in-person🙏bit.ly/bonnphum2022

03/14/2022

🎧Eps 60 Walking Down Memory Lane is out now! As Millennials, we grew up during the explosion of the Internet aka the DotCom Bubble. In a way, we were able to experience the best of both worlds. We recalled our childhood memories of playing outside and coming up with creative games for entertainment to trying out social media during our teen years. Our lives have changed drastically as technology continues to advance. If you’re an 80’s or 90’s baby, what do you remember about life before or during the internet boom? What were some of your favorite moments? ⬇️

🎧

03/12/2022

🇰🇭 Khmer New Year is coming up! Throwback to last year of when we learned Neary Chea Chour and had the amazing opportunity to dress up in traditional attire. How are you celebrating Khmer New Year this 2022? ⬇️ Comment below & share any upcoming virtual, in-person or hybrid festivities so we, and our communities, can be in the know!

02/28/2022

Life is unpredictable and fleeting. Losing someone you love and care about is a difficult and major life transition. At some point in our lives, loss is something we will all have to face. In this episode, we will talk about our experiences dealing with loss, how it has influenced our perspectives on life, and how we have been able to move forward with peace and acceptance.

We came together to record this episode in late 2021, and light of recent world events, we want to give our thoughts & hearts to those in Ukraine who are suffering from loss - loss of their homes, lives, families, and much more. 💔

Pictured above is our Ma Yey from our Ba’s side. Our fondest memories Yey Thom is remembering how dedicated she was blueberry picking and always making delicious Khmer food whenever we made it out to Oregon. RIP Yey Thom.

02/23/2022

Need a guest speaker or workshop facilitator for your next school, work or leadership event? Get in touch with us to learn more!

We’ve led several different workshops on the topics of racial equity & inclusion, identity work, podcast 101, through organizations like the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association , UCLA United Khmer Students , Executive Development Institute , and the SEA Community School. 🙏🏽

Our focus areas include, but are not limited to,
▪️Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
▪️How to Launch a Podcast centered on the PoC community
▪️Oral Storytelling from a Cambodian-American lens
▪️Our Personal Journeys, i.e., Being an Educator of Color & Navigating the Corporate world as a Woman of Color

Do you know of anyone within your network who might be interested? Share this post or tag them below ⬇️

Thanks for your support!
💕Mell & Jas

02/16/2022

📚Need a book recommendation? Currently on our reading list is “Ma and Me” by Putsata Reang. Grab yourself a copy today, or read the book excerpt (link in bio). After we both finish reading it, we will share and discuss our thoughts in a future post. We look forward to having this chat with you!

"Ma and Me is an important new entry in the growing body of American refugee and immigrant literature, shining a fearless light on the experiences of q***r people whose families have survived the trauma of war. It also stands apart as a work of lyrical beauty, exploring culture, duty, guilt and family with heartbreaking clarity."
—BookPage

“A book as close to perfect as any I have read in many years. Lyrical, emotional, and profoundly moving, Ma and Me is in equal parts a love story between a mother and her daughter, and a family’s tale of survival, war, and the inherited traumas. I read Ma and Me in two days, and that is only because I forced myself to slow down to savor Putsata Reang’s sharp, poetic prose.”
—Loung Ung, author of First They Killed My Father

“At a time when there are more refugees than ever in history, and borders are places of violenceand cruelty, two essential stories of our time converge in Ma and Me: Americanization’s multigenerational costs, and the way this converges with le***an life. Putsata Reang expands both literatures with this openhearted memoir that grapples emotionally and historically with the profound consequences of displacement on future lives and relationships. A book that opens the door to include q***r descendants of war survivors into the growing American library of love.”
—Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show

02/14/2022

Eps. 58 | Tough Love (Breaking the Cycle of Intergenerational Trauma) is now available for your listening pleasure!🎧

As 2nd generation Khmer-Americans, we deal with intense pressures and expectations to do well academically and professionally to honor our family's sacrifices and make them proud. We were taught to put others before ourselves, follow the status quo, work hard to survive, and internalize our behaviors and emotions. Tough love, tiger parenting, whatever you may call it… has impacted us in a number of different ways. In this episode, we share more about our learnings and how we would approach parenting, if we were to start a family one day.

📸 The image seen above is of our ma yeays, buu, ohm, ma & ba during the 1980s.

02/05/2022

Visiting Cambodia in 2007-2008 had so many highlights!✨

Just to name a few…
▪️Meeting my grandpa and family for the very first time!
▪️Falling in love with Cambodian food, especially street food
▪️Feeling connected to my family’s roots
▪️Being forced to speak Khmer and becoming fluent during my trip
▪️Learning to be humble, practical & grounded
▪️Exploring, learning & living in the moment

Hope you enjoyed this week’s podcast topic! If you’d like to see more of our travel experiences, let us know below. 😊

02/04/2022

Have you checked out our Ep 57: Life Lessons during World Travel? 🎙 Let us know your thoughts as an Apple Review and/or in the comments!

Here are some pictures of Jasmine’s solo trip to Venice in 2015. Traveling solo allowed her to get out of her comfort zone, like making friends with strangers along the way. ✨

02/04/2022

Have you had a chance to read Amira Noeuv’s short story, “Girl with the Sak Yon Tattoo” published on Amerasia Journal? Amira is a PhD Student in Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego and has been a guest speaker on the 2 Khmerican Sisters podcast twice (Eps. 19 & 43)! We are so, so proud of Amira for publishing her first short story & hope to see more of her brilliant work in the near future! 🇰🇭🇺🇸

It was incredibly refreshing for us to read a story that was highly relatable, made us laugh, and feel represented as Cambodian Americans. We are more than just survivors and descendants of the genocide and war. A story like this is so powerful and makes us feel more human. We hope many others feel the same way when they read “Girl with the Sak Yon Tattoo”. To learn more, click on the link in our bio. ⬆️

01/31/2022

🎙Eps. 57 | Life Lessons through World Travel is now available to stream! This episode can be played on podcast platforms like Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcast, and more.

Traveling internationally has a multitude of benefits like improving your mental health, communication and social skills and deepening your knowledge and understanding about the world around you. We will share our personal experiences on what it was like to study abroad during our college years at the University of Washington of Seattle

For Jasmine, she'll share about studying Communications in Italy for 3 months, while Mellissa will share about her social work experience in Cambodia for 1 month. Once it’s safe to travel more, we hope this episode encourages you, including our youth, to plan your next adventure in a country where you might not have set foot before. Take a risk and travel on the unbeaten path! 🌎✈️

01/06/2022

Get to know us a little better through our recent interview with about the 2 Khmerican Sisters podcast!

Thank you for your thoughtful questions and giving us the opportunity to share more about who we are, our mission & objectives, and where we see ourselves in the future. Read the full article ~ link in our bio.

Tuk Tuk Box is a mission driven, first generation Southeast Asian women owned and founded specialty food retailer whose mission is to create economic opportunities, advocate, and uplift the Southeast Asian community through the use of food and storytelling as a catalyst for social change.

For a limited time only, use promo code FUNKMEUP for 10% off your next order. ☺️❤️

01/02/2022

Happy 2022! Season 3 kicks off tomorrow with Episode 55: Redefining Success & Happiness!

If you enjoy listening to our podcast, be sure to take a moment to review & rate us on Apple podcast and share our episodes with your network.

We have a great lineup of topics this season. Can’t wait for you to tune into them soon! A new episode will release every other Monday 💕