Bookproject: Khmers in Holland

Hello!

My name is Sam (Samboleap Tol) and I'd like to write you about my bookproject. It's an idea I've had in my head for about a year and I started speaking about it a couple months ago after a marvelous night out in Oss (a Khmer party for the young called AngkorNL, organised by Kakkada Nou also known as DJ Nouriginal!). Everytime I venture out to a Khmer event in our country (whatever it is - New Years or Pchom Ben or whatever!) I am proud of this revived spirit of entrepreneurism and I feel a really genuine pull from several individuals from our community toward wanting to function and create even more so together. Many different intiatives have influenced and flourished members across the country in the last few years contributing to a more knowledgable community and I felt like a rather pictorial book would be something that could tie the old and the young together.

It's cool, I feel like the circle's really closing, you know? Most of us are getting kids, having kids, some of us have to deal with parent's old age, sickness, death, seperation and migration. We've all have personal history to look back on and a generation to look forward to. In many ways, we are in the same phase of our lives as many of our parents were when they arrived here... The dust is finally settling, but we don't know exactly in what way...

Photo's are like deceptive timemachines. We can fantasize about a time where Khmers seemed a united community, where kids played and met at the farm in summer. Photos can crystallise long forgotten memories - say for instance, the asylum centre in Apeldoorn where all Khmer refugees had spent at least a couple of months, or photo's of the arrival. Photos can embody the spirits of those who aren't there anymore and can remind us of the diversity of our communities - some of the Dutch helpers have passed away a decade ago and some families are not in touch with their host families anymore. Ah, remember those summer road trips to Zeeland to fetch crabs?

We might just vaguely remember how Khmer afterschool class was like at de Kroeven and when Khmer youth from Roosendaal populated the high school Jan Tin Bergen College. Cambopleintje in Oss. When some of our dads were recruited into the United Nations' peacekeeping mission in '93. The first Sinterklaas celebrations for our parent's generation. Their first winters. Their first somewhat demeanour jobs. The racism in small town Holland. Continous flashbacks of Cambodia, family, Khmer Rouge and refugee camp Khao-I-Dang mixed with daily Dutch reality. Bureacratic issues, asylum family reunion policies, Vluchtelingenwerk, the first meetings of Cambodjaanse Nederlands Vereniging headed by Pen Dareth and Sokhom Phem, Sihanouk's visit to Holland, Cambodia's 2013's elections and how politics until this day still divides everyone. And how the roamvong, madison, Ros Sereysothea and Sinn Sisamouth still connects everyone - in the 80s, 90s, 00s and now.

I am proud to be part of this community. I've travelled far and wide and never found to ever have been part of anything that resembles the diversity, color and inclusiveness of our community. I've loathed it, opted out of it for years, had severe identity issues because of this community. Yet not much outside of this community has been so real to me. Our mental health issues, our amazing food, our deep love for black music, our love for dancing, our struggle for education, the suffication due to lack of funds, our resistance and embrace of traditional culture and rituals. I want to create an ode to our community in the form of this book. To give back my two cents.

If you like this story and my idea, let me know! I need a lot of help - and mostly need photos. I can travel to you (I have a mobile scanner) to wherever you are and can even convert VHS videos. Send me an email on samboleaptol @ gmail . com or send me a message on Facebook (search for: Samboleap Tol). Spread the word!!! Thank you!

Sources of photos:
Breda Archief
Settia Tin (25 Jubileum, Ik dans de Roamvong)
Nationaal Archief Den Haag
Vib Has
Sina Pol