Daranee Khoeun

A research project on Cambodian refugee children in Lowell and their families’ struggle to get them an equal education changed the direction of history major Daranee Khoeun’s life and career, she says.

“It singlehandedly shifted the axis of my life,” says Khoeun, an Honors College student whose parents came to the United States from Cambodia as refugees. “Ever since I started this project, I know I will never let this go. I just care about it.”

Khoeun, who grew up in Lowell attending Catholic schools, knew nothing about the tensions between some white residents and the Southeast Asian refugees who flocked to the city in the late 1970s and 1980s – until she applied for a research position with Emeritus History Professor Robert Forrant for fall 2023.

Over a year and a half, working with Forrant and Chrisna Khoun ’17, a researcher at UMass Boston’s Institute for Asian American Studies, Khoeun helped to interview people knowledgeable about the lawsuit brought by Hispanic and Southeast Asian immigrants against the Lowell School Committee and the city over school segregation. 

The resulting research paper includes some nearly buried history, including the 1987 drowning of a 13-year-old refugee boy, Vandy Phorng, after he was pushed into the Pawtucket Canal by an 11-year-old white boy. 

That hit close to home for Khoeun, who lives with her family in the same neighborhood.

“I was shocked. This happened in my own community,” she says. “If I had lived during that time, I could have known him.”

Khoeun has presented the paper at conferences in Boston and Lawrence and guest-lectured on campus.

For her honors thesis, Khoeun is researching the English-only movement in Lowell, which culminated in a nonbinding referendum on the 1989 ballot that was supported by 70 percent of city voters.

As a senior, she is also working on two paid research projects: processing oral histories for UML’s Southeast Asian Digital Archive from a spring 2025 student exhibit marking the 50th anniversary of Cambodians in Lowell, and digitizing work permits for Greek and Turkish immigrants who came to Lowell for jobs in the textile mills during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“I nerd out on these things,” she says.

Khoeun says graduate school is “on my horizon.” But first, she wants more work experience, especially in archiving. 

Her research experiences with UMass Lowell faculty, especially with Forrant, have given her confidence, direction and a professional network that will help her with whatever comes next, she says.

“Career-wise, I’ve experienced so much more than I thought I would,” she says. “Because of this project, I’ve met so many incredible people.”