Hello there! My name is Sokvy, and I am an international student from Cambodia. I’m a rising Sophomore and an intended economics major at the University of Portland. This summer I had the great honor of interning at the Research Justice Institute at the Coalition of Communities of Color (CCC) in Portland, OR.
The Coalition of Communities of Color is an alliance of culturally specific community-based organizations around Oregon. The CCC supports a collective racial justice effort to improve marginalized communities through policy analysis and advocacy, culturally appropriate data and research, environmental justice movement-building, and leadership development in communities of color.
As a research intern, I am supporting a multi-year research justice study project that seeks to have a clear understanding of the lived experiences, needs, and desires of communities of color in Clackamas County, Oregon. My work consists of conducting secondary research on culturally-specific organizations, events, and websites that serve Southeast Asian Communities in the County. I reach out to learn about their engagements, studies, or reports regarding the Southeast Asian communities and to disseminate the information about this project to more community members. As part of the project, I also do primary research – for instance, meeting and building relationships with Southeast Asians, mainly Cambodian-Americans, and interviewing the community members about their experiences of living and/or working in the County.
With the great support of one of CCC’s senior researchers, Dr. Mira Mohsini, I have learned how to integrate relationship-building into research and have a much deeper understanding of how critical and powerful it is to empower the community leaders and members in research. The research team has provided me with presentations to learn about exploitation and oppression through research practice and how to address it. The team also presented me with different methods and tools used for data collecting, organizing, and analysis.
This internship has allowed me the privilege to learn about different issues facing the Southeast Asian communities in the County and build meaningful connections with some of the community members that I met, specifically Cambodian-Americans.
I have greatly enjoyed my work and am more than grateful for the opportunity to work with the Research Justice Institute at CCC. I look forward to the rest of the summer working with them and learning more about the lived realities of communities of color in Clackamas County.