About the Editor/Publisher

Samkhann Khoeun was born in Phum Svay Chrom, Srok Sangkae, Battambang Province of Cambodia in 1964 to Mr. Khoeun Pang and Mrs. Chhom Oeun. He is the second child, but the oldest son, among the 7 brothers and sisters. He received his early education in Cambodia and lived through the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979. He was enslaved with the youth mobile brigade until the regime was toppled in 1979. He and his family fled to Thailand in early 1980, living in the refugee camps of Khao-I-Dang and Sakaew II until the latter camp was closed in mid-1982. He and his family were then transferred back to Khao-I-Dang camp and remained there until 1983, when they were granted political asylum. He lived in the Bataan Refugee Holding Center in the Philippines for six months while awaiting resettlement in the United States. He and his family of twelve members arrived in Chicago, Illinois, on November 5, 1984.

Samkhann has been active in the Cambodian-American communities of his first-adopted Windy City of Chicago, as well as the Mill City of Lowell, Massachusetts, where he currently resides. He was Program Director at the Cambodian Association of Illinois from late 1993 to early 1995, and Executive Director of the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association of Greater Lowell from 1995 to 2002. He has helped organize a number of cultural festivals including the Lowell Southeast Asian Water Festival; Khmer New Year Festival; and Cambodian Expressions, a film and arts festival which features established and emerging Cambodian artists. All of these cultural events serve to help heal the community and to forge improved communications among generations of Cambodian immigrants as well as with mainstream American communities. He was instrumental in the successful production of the contemporary Cambodian opera, “Where Elephants Weep,” in Lowell in April 2007. He continues to be involved in a multitude of community projects and has been a strong advocate for the Cambodian-American communities in Greater Lowell and throughout New England.

Samkhann has been married to Sina Phou-Khoeun, a former fellow refugee, for 17 years and they have a son and three daughters. Currently, he works at Middlesex Community College as an educational advisor for the TRIO Educational Talent Search, a federally-funded program designed to aid low-income students from first generation families as well as other college-bound students. He graduated from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1991 with a degree in Electrical Engineering, after earning a degree in Engineering from Wilbur Wright College in 1988. He also holds an advanced degree in Nonprofit Management from Northeastern University, Boston.