“‘Maayong gabi-i sa imong tanan’ (‘Good evening to you all,’ in Cebuano) Tonight is a celebration of struggle & survival. Tonight, we bring together two communities who have endured wars & colonialism, genocide, and extrajudicial killings, forced migrations. 

And we are still here.  

Through it all, music has been our sword & our sanctuary. We can think of no two better artists to remind us of this than the Southeast Asian American sisters we have with us tonight.” 

Professor Christine Bacareza Balance introduced the Musics of Southeast Asian America with this rallying call.  

Together in conversations with Tita Thess, Neak Kruu Hannah, and Professor Chris Miller, Professor Balance wanted to organize a concert featuring Filipino and Cambodian communities. The bridges between these communities were experienced in Balance’s own familial life in Southern California. When I came to Cornell as a graduate student, we both further appreciated how these communities could and do come and work together through shared Southeast Asian American sensibilities. Two artists came to mind to each of us: Ruby Ibarra and Bochan Huy.  

This spring, we hosted musical artists Bochan Huy and Ruby Ibarra at Cornell University through the Musics of Southeast Asian America event co-organized by Associate Professor Christine Bacareza Balance (PMA, SEAP, and AASP Program Director) and myself, PhD Student Brian Veasna Sengdala (PMA, SEAP). I was excited at the possibilities of what this could mean for my fellow Asian American students—and I knew that Professor Balance wanted as much for her students and the community, broadly. It was a busy period at SEAP: The event took place during Cambodian New Years and the water festivals celebrated throughout much of Southeast Asia in April; and though this meant that there were other events elsewhere both in Cornell and Western New York, we were excited to be able to welcome the New Year with everyone.  

Both of us came to this project through our own relationships—personal and academic—to music. Balance almost always teaches Ruby Ibarra’s music video “Us” as a powerful example of Asian American (and specifically, Filipino American) anti-imperialist critique and cultural resistance. Sung in both Filipino and Waray (to honor the artist’s mother’s native Bisayan tongue), Ibarra’s song spoke directly to a share heritage to Balance’s own Bisayan immigrant parentage. Likewise, Bochan Huy’s “Chnam Oun 16” is a music video I often present on and teach. In fact, it is very likely because of Bochan’s music that I am here at Cornell (and by extension, SEAP). I was studying for a PhD in (Ethno)Musicology at Rutgers on a very different topic and in my first seminar, I wrote a paper on “Chnam Oun 16” and Bochan’s use of language and aesthetic. Writing and the presenting that paper in a few conferences inspired a new project on Cambodian America which eventually led me to performance studies and then to Cornell.  

The evening was conceived as a celebration of Southeast Asian American women in music. Ruby Ibarra is a Filipina American hip hop artist born in Tacloban, Philippines before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area where she now resides. She wrote her own raps when she was younger and broke out with a viral YouTube video in 2012. From there, her career continued to grow with her mixtape debuted on Eminem’s Sirius XM radio station, music in Ramona Diaz’ documentary featuring Nobel-laureate Maria Ressa called A Thousand Cuts, and on the Fox television show, The Cleaning Lady. Likewise Cambodian American Singer-Songwriter Bochan Huy comes from the Bay Area—namely, Oakland—to which she fled from Cambodia in the 1980s with her family. She grew up learning and playing music with her father, a Cambodian rock musician. Her cover of “Chnam Oun 16” became a large piece of Cambodian musical discourse with her additions of lyrics in English and the artistic direction of the videography using many Cambodian icons. Bochan has remarked on the negative feedback she received in the past from people who disagreed with any changes to beloved songs like “Chnam Oun Dop Phram Muy,” but noted that now, comments on her videos (including “Chnam Oun 16”) have been positive, especially from younger Cambodian Americans who find themselves in her songs.  

The concert was in two acts. Bochan started the night with her set and performed with her longtime collaborator, Arlen Hart Ginsburg. Using the audiovisual capacities of the Kip, Bochan told her story from out of the Khmer Rouge period, laying out the context of the United States bombing campaigns in the region, making ties to the current refugee crisis out of Ukraine, and moving through a hopeful journey. She says, “I hope they connected with the story of loss and love as well as experience the healing and unity behind the music.” Bonnie Chung, a PhD Student in Literatures in English, says about the concert, “The vibe was great, and I was especially struck by how the concert brought people from the Cornell community together. It was palpable! All the songs were great, but the video/ visual presentation alongside the sonic performance was moving.”  

Bochan also reflected on the performance: “Doing the narrative and creating the visuals that I did for last night's show was really an amazing experience for me because I got to deliver, and history of the fact checks with my mom and go through it. And I think when I was growing up, my parents did such a good job of making us feel like everything's okay... I couldn't imagine having your family all executed. My mom at the time of the war was in college, she was in university, she would remind me of the 70s. It was the height of Cambodian music at that point, too, as we see in the documentary _Don't Think I've Forgotten_. And my mom's like, 'I have to go grab my bell bottoms and my baby dresses.' And then, boom, her whole life changes. 

I don't think I was able to grab that magnitude of trauma... until I did this project. I thought, 'Gosh! I need to give thanks to my parents so much more.'...We knew that we were war survivors, which kind of changed everything for me growing and it made me proud of it. And thats why [in] a lot of music... I can make a huge emphasis on being able to shift that paradigm from being not just the victim but the survivor. Because if you can view yourself in that way, it's so much more empowering. And yeah, so I think it just kind of taught me to really appreciate not just by parents' journey but most refugees. People come here and really struggle, and they start in a new country. And yeah, those are the joys that music brings in strange ways outside of people.” 

 Ruby Ibarra performed with her longtime collaborator, DJ ET_IV. Her set also told a narrative of her own story through the creative process writing her own raps and using her words to make a sense of her history, her narrative. Keeping the screen projection simple with her stylized icon “Ruby Ibarra,” she opted to use lighting effects and wove in her own narrative, even with a special shout-out to the titas of Ithaca (including SEAP faculty, Maria Theresa Savella, aka Tita Tess to her students and community). Audience members were especially engaged, joining in when Ibarra taught them audience responses to her lyrics and got their hands up.  

The next morning, guests were invited to an in-person conversation with both artists and the co-organizers. Audience members included, importantly, students in Professor Balance’s U.S. Cultures of War and Empire which was a large motivating factor in the organization of the Musics of Southeast Asia event. Both artists spoke to how they used music to make sense of the world around them. Ruby Ibarra, echoing a poignant remark she made at the concert, pointed to the importance of Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies for her and asked the students to think on this space:  

“Now, thinking about as an artist after taking courses like ethnic studies, I think I now am equipped with the vocabulary to be able to say, Now, ‘Okay, here are myself, reflections. But here are words. Here are things that i've learned after taking these educational courses of how it can kind of tie in my experiences with factual things that happen, and also providing myself with the knowledge to be able to analyze why I feel the way I feel sometimes.’ And now, as an artist after I think so consciously having music and lyrics that you do insert history into the songs…  

So. you know my, my hope is like with my music and Bochan's music that it'll inspire the next generation of artists to also share what their experiences are like…We’re still at a time right now where it's still not common to see ethnic studies on campus. It's still not common to see you know Filipino and Cambodian Americans in the media that we consume. So we are on stage, too. So I think that you know, having those conversations with our parents our family members, and learning about what it was like for them—you know, the experience in Cambodia and the Philippines. Those are important things that we need to continue through oral history, whether it's through the arts or even just you know, continuing those conversations and our families, because it keeps those experiences alive. I feel like when we write ourselves and our music, or we write over our own historians. We are making our existence known, and we're kind of giving some sort of permanence.”  

The Southeast Asian American sisterhood celebrated that night is not celebrated enough. We were proud to be able to host this space where students could rock out to these artists and see themselves. I, as a Khmer and Lao student at Cornell, look forward more events like this on campus and made accessible to our communities. Given the response and what I learned from the mere presence of the people there, I am not alone. We are not alone. “And we are still here.” 

NB: The co-organizers are also grateful for our co-sponsors who supported this event: Performing & Media Arts (PMA), Music, Asian American Studies Program (AASP), and Southeast Asia Program (SEAP). With generous funding from the Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) and Society for the Humanities (SHC) Humanities Impact Grant. The Musics of Southeast Asian American is also part of the ongoing Critical Moves: Performance in Theory and Movement series.