Cambodian-Americans Get an Online Home: An Interview with Phatry Derek Pan

August 23, 2011
Faine Greenwood
The Faster Times
Originally posted at: http://www.thefastertimes.com/cambodia/2011/08/23/cambodian-americans-get-an-online-home-an-interview-with-phatry-derek-pan/

Recently, I interviewed Phatry Derek Pan, co-founder of upcoming Khmer-American web portal Khmerican.com. Khmerican hopes to provide Khmer-Americans, Cambodians, and the online world with a one-stop online shop— compiling news, information databases, networking opportunities and more into a single location.

Further, Khmerican will give citizen journalists an outlet to share community happenings, opinions, and information, allowing Khmer-Americans — and the web site’s staff writers— to document and organize the rise of a relatively new and increasingly influential immigrant community.

For now, you can read Khmerican.com’s blog, located at this link. Following is my interview with Mr Pan.

- What prompted you to start Khmerican.com? Where did the idea come from?

Khmerican is a news and information web portal on Khmer America. The problem today is that there is no website that provides a comprehensive collection of original news, a calendar, photo galleries, announcements and other relevant information on and about Khmer America.

I came up with the idea to create Khmerican after 12 years working with students and community leaders. They had shared this problem with me, and I personally experienced the problem myself as a community organizer. When the concept became clearer, I reached out to Sophath Oun, a childhood friend and full-time webmaster.

- What’s the purpose of the site in your own words – social networking, an entry-point for Cambodian-Americans online, and so on? Are you going to hire staff-writers?

The purpose of Khmerican is to build a culture of citizen journalists among those who share an interest in Khmer America. I am a heavy user and early adopter of social media and web technology, and I realized that through my network of friends scattered around the States and abroad, I can tap into them to serve as informants, or I’d like to say, ‘cultural ambassadors.’

I feel that Khmer America is developing at such fast pace, and no one is trying to document this progress. Khmerican attempts to do this by its regular reports and news articles.

We just hired two writers: Vanndy Pan (no relation), of Providence, RI and Dahnie Tran of Boston, MA. We will hire up to 20 writers to diversify our coverage and reach. We are also looking for photographers.

- Have you taken cues from other American immigrant groups in creating Khmerican?

No, I haven’t. I am aware of community based newspapers and publications that focus on a particular immigrant community, but what will separate us are the online databases.

For example, Rajana Artist Database (RAD), is created specifically for artist professionals interested in networking, collaborating, and sharing with other like-mind individuals.

We will have other databases to serve other groups: master Khmer student organization (KSOs) directory, master directory of community based orgs (CBOs), etc. These databases are free of charge to non-profits and educational institutions, and are created to facilitate engagement and mobilize individuals around issues and causes.

- Do you think Cambodian-Americans have a reasonably strong support system in the USA? How so, and in what ways?

In my opinion, the support system is relatively weak and unestablished compared to larger immigrant communities like the Vietnamese, Chinese or Filipinos. It’s weaker because there is no media outlet that attempts to serve a national population like Khmerican.

On the local level, the larger Khmer populated communities like Long Beach, Lowell and Seattle are pretty strong to rally the community around social issues. Now, if Khmerican can become the online authority for all things Khmer America, I believe our voice and volume would be much larger.

-Do you think the website and Khmerican.com can enhance this?

Yes, we truly believe that Khmerican can strengthen communities on a local and national level. If I am trying to get my peers and younger friends to be more conscious of what is going on in their community, I think connecting them with a portal illustrating the progress of Khmer America would foster that type of engagement.

And the older generations, now in the late 30s to 50s range, are using computer more. They are always curious to know what other Khmer communities in other states are doing. Being able to learn from other communities failures and success is inspiring and empowering.

- What prompted you to begin writing about your experiences as 1.5 generation refugee, and a Cambodian-American?

Everyone, immigrant or not, should document their life experience. For me, it’s personal, as memorabilia to have in my family and for my future kids.

In the future, I would love to write a book covering the progress of Khmer America in the last 50 years. There is a pictorial book on Long Beach’s Cambodian Community that recently came out that I particularly enjoyed. But my idea would be more than just LBC, and more than just images.

But Khmer America to me, is only 36 years old. (1975 – present).

- How long have you been blogging and using social media?

Intermittently, I have been blogging since June 2004. My blog, www.phatryderekpan.com was only launched in March 2011 and will serve as my main personal page. It’s undergoing a complete revamp to be out by Fall 2011 with more features.

I have adopted social media ever since the days when community forums were popular. I started with khmerconnection.com, a now inactive website based in Long Beach.

I joined Facebook right after they expanded membership to university students in late 2003, Twitter in late 2008, Google Plus since beta testing. I read about web trends and social media just as much as I read on Cambodia/Khmer America related news daily – about 90 minutes a day. I consider myself a social media geek.

- Tell me more about your work as a community organizer for Cambodian Americans. How will the website work alongside this?

I was a student organizer as early as 1998 when I was an undergraduate at the University of Washington, Seattle. I played leadership roles with the Khmer Student Associations for all 4.5 years there.

I even started an all Khmer arts student organization my senior year called Rajana Society that lasted for 3 years. After college, I interned with a pan-Asian community museum and was an art instructor to under-represented youth centers in Seattle before I made the move to Cambodia in August 2005.

One of the biggest challenge in community organizing is having the resources to mobilize your constituents. At Khmerican, we have these powerful databases so if I wanted to rally people about a Congress bill to support Khmer Americans facing health issues because of ptsa, Khmerican will get the word out to a national audience.

And with a strong background in social media and web technology, I think Khmerican can really be a good model for other groups and communities.

- Do you think social media and the internet will be a useful tool for Cambodians in the future?

Yes, if local Cambodians can realize the real power of online mobilization, then it will be a useful tool. But there is not much effort from local NGOs or individuals like it was before when blogging was popular around 2005 to 2007. I am optimistic that Khmerican can indirectly effect the behavior of local Cambodians with social media. But time will tell.

-Do you think Cambodian-Americans can provide leadership or assistance in this arena? If so, what do you think is the best way to accomplish this?

Yes, I truly do believe that Khmericans (by the definition provided in our website) can foster that type of relationship for people and social media. The youth population is extremely open, progressive and curious about the outside world and America has a big influence on that.

If they see more prevalent Khmer Americans using the Twitters and Google Plus for social good, then the change will come. But I’m also against imposing my personal views on what local should or should not do.

I am serving Khmer America, but everyone knows that my heart has never left Cambodia, so Khmerican is my humble attempt to change Cambodia.