Introducin​g Sameth Mell of Seattle, WA

Originally published at http://khmr.cn/sameth-mell

What were your experiences growing up in regards to the Cambodian American community?

Growing up in a multi-cultural social environment, I was conditioned during my growing years to offset the interest upon the Khmer community because of the surrounding dominant culture via the importation of American ideals, education, social norms and idealism, etc. However strong the cultivating mechanisms were, through systems of indoctrination such as schools, social characters, political associations and so forth- the strong urge of my surfacing ethno-cultural imperatives formulated as an embryo during my first years in college.

During my younger years, my participation and interfacing with Khmer culture & tradition included: Khmer language class (one summer in third grade), New Year’s Celebration at community temples, traditional marriage ceremonies and spiritualistic gatherings.

If you could provide an example or two of what events sort of stuck out for you?

There became a time when I felt emotionally absent and disconnected from being “Khmer”, due to the lack of role models. I remembered that the only things that I’ve learned about being Khmer were through the “Khmer Rouge Genocide” narratives. This particular platform of information was readily available and served as a premiere program whenever people wanted to discuss anything regarding Khmer history. Despite the historical fact that Khmer Arts and history flourished tremendously throughout history, most of what is written and regurgitated through semantics and language syntax have always utilized this very dark period of Khmer history as a scope conversation starter and many times as a way to feel connection with Khmer people. I found this to be very unintelligent and one in which I personally do not accept as a point of reference for Khmer history.

My parent’s families have been executed by the regime and these personal traumas have become my secondary traumatic experience. However, I do not accept the filtered down version in which those who are the architects of control have manipulated and perverted the copulation of the existence of truth and perspective into their own narratives. I believe that there are very powerful people, who are in very high places, who control the web of life on earth and that have instigated systematically this debilitating event on Khmer life.

This engagement of warfare through the tool of genocide has symbolically castrated the Khmer genetics and in effect the offspring of Khmer potentiality. You can see this as “they” have branded Khmer golden era to be between 1950’s and 1970’s. A golden era is usually the epoch of a civilization. Once you reach the top of the mountain, where can you go from there? You start descending down the mountain, of course. This is not to say that we, as Khmer people will continue to plummet. As you can see, our civilization has built a monumental temple that continues to last up until this day. Life is full of peaks and valleys. In this current state of Khmer re-birth, I believe that we are witnessing the beginning of a Khmer Arts Renaissance.

How have those things shaped you in who you are today?

As I ingested and digested concepts of “identity” through my personal lenses I began to become more sensitive to systems of organization that have subjugated and oppressed me on a meta-physical level through the institution of class-ism, racism and the many forms of “isms”, which cannot be expressed verbally or thoroughly via the written language, but through the vessel of hyper-dimensional choreographs.

These personal testaments and inter-world phenomena between culture and the “spirit” breathed into existence the genesis stage of my identity politics. I’ve always felt that I needed to learn more and accumulate knowledge in the determination to activate and utilize that knowledge to ascend myself beyond my current inner-standing.

The rebellious attributes I have grown to accustom myself continued to manifest in all vital areas of my life. In this respect, the schisms that I have performed while growing up as a refugee born Khmer in a land foreign to my ethnic cultural background have given me a duality to entertain and to exorcise. This ritualistic dance has been a mediator in the disputes I have amongst the many paradigms my identity has bled itself into.

Do you feel that the Cambodian-Americans today, especially the youth, have had many role models to look up to in terms of doing good for themselves or for their community?

I believe that Khmer youth have been misled from their progenitors through the impact of assimilation and customary menus for their lifestyles, including where they derive their education, philosophy and personal beliefs. Through today’s a la Carte menu being served from the ministry of propagation, there are hierarchies in which role models are selected and administered. The media, in its 360 capacity, serves as the source of dictation towards youth. As a result, regardless of the skin color of the role models presented, either they are someone who does not resemble the image of the perceiver, or if the model is of similar background- all those models are like manikins. They operate as a quasi second hand experience for youth.

My experience is that the majority of Khmer-Americans have undergone a program that is as subtle as MK-ULTRA, in which many have internalized corrupted images of themselves based on what those in power have fed them. As a result, the race to the top of the pyramid continues to permeate the family structures and social ties within the community. This condition manifests itself in multi-dimensions, but one in particular is the worship of currency. Money has replaced loyalty and reality has become perverted.

There are very few person(s), in my opinion, who can be enthroned the honor of “role model” in today’s environment. I have come across many Khmer Americans who have looked outside of their ethnicity in exchange for the support of, and comfort from a role model who has a different background. I’m not implying that this is right or wrong, I just want to put it out there, that unless “we” as a Khmer people come together to construct and re-build a Khmer Nation, there will always be a lack of Khmer role models for our youth and the generations to come.

From a meta-spiritual perspective, I do not believe in that any role model is a good role model. Because I deeply have faith that the only person you are in search of is yourself. And until you have reached the beginning of your end and the end of your beginning, you will constantly be in search of anything outside of yourself.

Why do I feel this way? Because Khmer is a spiritual derivative, and until we go back to the beginning through the end, we will not ever come to the interface between who we are as a “people”, who “we” were and the possibilities of who “we” can become.

What type of work do you do nowadays?

I am a researcher in the paranormal, marginalized histories, a practicing meta-spiritualist, a community member, and in some respects- I consider myself an artist.

How/why did you choose to do what you do?

I have this connectivity with my higher self. I’m searching for truth through living reality. I’m learning to express and distill the qualities of my work so that it can be manifested in amounts I can project, and hopefully others, perhaps, can decode and decipher.

I have an affinity with being “Khmer” and more importantly with looking into beyond the obvious. I can never be satiated until I can uncover more trails of knowledge leading to where it all began, through dark matter material. And this journey is beyond the physical realm. I’m a believer in the belief that we are extra-terrestrial souls traveling through space in time via the body space suit. Our ancestors throughout antiquity understood this spiritual concept and as each generation moves into the “future”, our retaining this wisdom becomes too degenerative. This experience is pertinent and vital in the educational complex called “life”, and it is a unique journey for everyone.

Living in the US, do you see the disconnect between people living here and people in Cambodia? If so, what is the difference between here and there? Also, how do you hope to bridge the two worlds together knowing that KHMERICAN is really a symbolic representation of a piece of the Khmer diaspora (i.e. Cambodian-French, -Canadian, -Australian)?

There are disconnects between Khmer Americans living in America and in the United States of America. So, let’s address this issue first. United States of America is a corporation that exists as an extensional control web from the District of Columbia and operates through the involuntary submission of person(s)’ sovereignty. Now with that being said, the majority of the people live within the United States of America and on American land. So, there is this unconscious schism already. Adding onto this cerebral submission and tossing this into the diasporic equation with Srok Khmer; the disconnect is great! That disconnect is wider than the any geometrics nor can it be measured by scientific avenues. This disconnect does not exist in the tangible world, it is a disconnect on a spiritual emotional plane.

The difference between Khmer Americans and Khmers living in Srok Khmer is that there is an escalation of self-aggrandizing for Khmer Americans, and this might be true for the whole of the Khmer diaspora. Its is obvious that the economy in the US is stronger than that in Cambodia and that the social structures which incurred during the separation of Khmer people to America have become an instrument of measurement for status and survival modalities. In essence, perspectives of Khmer people in Srok Khmer are like the individualization of the Khmer community in America in terms of the socio-economical advantages.

As each Khmer generation comes into existence in America, I am beginning to see a degenerative mechanism in which language, culture and customs are not first hand experiences, but second or even third hand experiences. The youth are learning about their ethnic culture through second and third hand experiences. They become spectators instead of participants. And many of the newer generations are living within “parentheses” in which their lifestyles are conformed to protocols and policies of an order of operation. The majority cannot express themselves outside the boundaries and parameters that have been placed to lock them into a cerebrally submissive state.

Since the last time I have visited Srok Khmer, I have observed that there is a survival imperative present in every corner of the country. This is not to say that Khmer Americans are not struggling as well, however I am merely stating that Khmer folks in Srok Khmer are working very hard to adjust themselves accordingly to the rate of new age colonization that is taking place. It’s like, the interfacing with foreigners have induced Khmer people in Srok Khmer to trans-humanize themselves to be like the “other”.

While Khmer Americans are living in America, we do not have the privilege to interface with our ancestors the way Srok Khmer people do. We are not close to the heritage sites in which our ancestors built to lead us back towards the beginning. We are off shore observers and as close in proximity as we can get is through tourism, unless like the few are doing- they live as expats. Many times, unless we can consume and ingest the intelligence and the quintessential elementals of our culture, the essential of communicating with the ancestral effigy is lost.

On the other face of the coin, Srok Khmer people might not have the necessary access to what our ancestors built for us in Angkor Wat. Not everyone has the capacity to travel and the privilege to be away from their livelihood. On a more spiritual plane, not every Khmer person can communicate with the divine nature of those pictographs in Angkor Wat. Our ancestors knew that in order to bring us back to where we were they had to find a modality of communication that is outside of this so called “synthetic synchronicity”.

Language cannot be a vessel in and of it self. We had to communicate through pictographic projections, like psyche phenomena. The mind works in pictures and each of the carvings and artwork are to be broken down and decoded through our inner technology, which is our Khmer genetics that activates our connection to the divine ancestral spiritual energy.

In America we have the largest Cambodian community outside of mainland Southeast Asia (with the possible exception of Paris). Personally, do you think KHMERICAN can have a positive influence on Khmer-America and other communities internationally? If so, in what way(s)?

The KHMERICAN, in my humble opinion will become a portal of information and a hub of inspiration for Khmer communities across the globe. I am quite confident that the genesis of this project as it starts out in Khmer America, will continue to have correspondence with the larger Khmer Diaspora. This reach will in turn garner credibility and authenticate its existence within the global Khmer communities. I have really high hopes that this work is an agent of change and positive provocateur.

The readership of The KHMERICAN is roughly around the ages of 19-35. The KHMERICAN has an extensive reach beyond arms length in spurring dialogue to further inoculate the younger Khmer generations. I am very excited to see how the construct of Khmer identity will contend to in the next decade.

What strengths do you bring to the Khmerican? And what is one weakness you feel that Khmerican can develop or foster?

I feel that I am resourceful and I always bring with me a fresh, handful and innovative group of ideas and concepts. I have always been fascinated with symbology and how symbols and pictographs are subliminally categorized by the mind. As an online web based Khmer news agency, I am sure that there will be opportunities in levels of marketing, branding and advertising in which I will be participating. A pregnant idea, if given birth, can be an infectious virology that can be utilized to counter-act the ignorance, hate and fear that is being coerced into the world.

While at THE KHMERICAN, what do you hope to achieve for yourself and for the community?

I am quite confident that for myself, I can continue to process my academics, experiences and skills to further engage in the construct of Khmer identity. For the community, I wish to be a willful servant to provide shadow information and be a participant in the formulation of a new Khmer platform.