On our return from America, I received this message through my website in May 2023:

 

“My name is Monique and I am the daughter of Khmer refugees, living in Sydney Australia. My father (Yothin) happened to see the video "Remembering the Border Camps, 1980" and at the 12:17 mark you show the photos of the dance class at Khao-I-Dang camp of the two girls - the rich girl and the not so rich girl. The not so rich girl on the right is my mother.”

 

Later, Monique sent me photos and the story of her mother, Mariya Oum (formerly Maryah Mattes), and family…

 

Mariya arrived in KID in December 1979 with her mother Kabo, brother Ra and cousin Ty. She lived in the same compound as the dance teacher in KID. She tagged along to watch the dance classes of the older kids, which included her brother and cousin. Mariya was too young to join the group and there was no family connection to dancing - the kids just did it for fun and to pass the time. After a few months, the dance teacher started to recruit younger dancers, and Mariya joined around March 1980. She was nervous at first, but quickly learned to love it, and looked forward to practising with her classmates three times a week. Mariya and her family left the camp in August 1980, for another refugee camp in Malaysia, Pulau Bidong. Since Pulau Bidong was mostly occupied by Vietnamese refugees, she had no opportunity to continue dancing. Her family were there for another three years. Finally they were sponsored by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Australia, and settled in Sydney in September 1983. After attending high school, Mariya went to a vocational college and graduated in secretarial studies. The Khmer community in Sydney was very tight-knit, they were all refugees banding together. There was an official group called the Khmer Community of NSW, and people of all ages got together to uphold their cultural traditions. Mariya joined the dance group in 1984 and for over three years, she took part in many performances and made many friends. She even performed for Norodom Sihanouk, who was visiting Sydney in February 1985. Yothin Som, who arrived in Australia in April 1983, enjoyed these events as a young reveller with his friends, and he later created an offshoot of the group for young adults, called the Khmer Youth Association. This is where Yothin and Mariya crossed paths, and fell in love. They went on to get married in June 1988, and had two kids - Roger, in 1990, and Monique, in 1992.