During and after the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, an estimated one million Cambodians sought refuge in other countries. Over 130,000 eventually settled in the United States between 1975 and 1985, often after long periods spent in refugee camps in Thailand. Many Cambodians settled in Washington state, with the majority of those living in King County. As of 2019, over 18,000 Cambodians live in Seattle.

Sarun Kong, pictured here in science class at Rainier Beach High School, arrived in the US in 1984 after spending 5 years in a refugee camp in Thailand. She grew up in rural Battambang province with her parents and five siblings, until the day that Vietnamese troops invaded, forcing the family to run from village to village for months. The family eventually decided to flee Cambodia, but Kong's mother, who had recently given birth to a daughter, died on the family's 5-day journey to the refugee camp in Thailand.

Caption information source: "Memories live on after the war" by Ashley Dunn, Seattle Post-intelligencer, april 28, 1985, p. F1
Caption information source: Cambodians in the US fact sheet, Pew Research Center, retrieved at https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/asian-americans-cambodians-in-the-u-s/
Caption information source: “Cambodians in the United States: Refugees, Immigrants, American Ethnic Minority” by Suchen Chang, Oxford Research Encyclopedia, retrieved at https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-317
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.