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The 1st Annual Spean Rajana Khmer Arts Summit at UW

SEATTLE, WA - Spean Rajana directly translates into
"the bridge to artistic creation." The summit answers the question,
Who is Khmer American? The summit strives to strengthen Khmer America's
voice so that all people understand the immediate necessity to empower
refugee communities as well as their children. The summit is for non-Khmer
people to get to know local and national members of the Khmer community.
The summit is for the Khmer community to come together and cultural
engage with each other in a prejudice-free atmosphere.
The Khmer arts summit is open to the public, so make your presence known.

FEATURED ARTISTS AND GUESTS
praCh - A Khmer American rap artist from Long Beach, California
with powerful lyrics used to educate the young and old about the
Cambodian genocide and the lifestyles of Khmer Americans.
He has been featured in Newsweek, PBS Frontline, and L.A. Times.
ANIDA YOEU ESGUERRA - A Khmer Muslim American woman from
Chicago, IL who is a co-editor of Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of
Asian American Images, an anthology which won ForeWord
Magazine's Gold Book of the Year Award. She is a recipient of
Insight Arts' Creative Movements Festival Award for contributions
to dialogue concerning social justice and human rights.
MIKE SIV - A Khmer American filmmaker from San Francisco,
CA who has completed a full-length documentary entitled, Refugee,
featured on PBS, along with his short film entitled, Who I Became.
DARAN KRAVANH - A Khmer American writer and accordionist
from Tacoma, Washington. He is a man who survived the killing fields
of the Khmer Rouge genocidal regime and now plays music with other
previously captured artists. Alongside Bree LaFreniere, Kravanh vividly
tells his story in the novel entitled, Music through the Dark.
THE 2ND LANGUAGE - A Tacoma-based rap trio whose music speaks
to young Asian Americans with hip hop influences intertwined with the
struggle to maintain dialogue about their Khmer heritage.