Meet Sokhary Chau ’92
PEG SHANAHAN
A LU M N I U P C L O S E
The United States’ first Cambodian American mayor aims to diversify city government BY RITA SAVARD
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okhary Chau ’92 experienced more by age 8 than most people do in a lifetime. He was raised in a middle-class family in Cambodia, his father a captain in the army. Chau’s world was turned upside down on April 17, 1975, when the Khmer Rouge, led by dictator Pol Pot, stormed into Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, and forced 2 million people to evacuate. Those who resisted were shot on site. Chau’s father was killed that day. For the next four years, Chau’s mother, Hem Hay, did everything in her power to keep her seven children together—including saving her two eldest sons from execution. Finally, she devised a plan to escape through land mine–laced jungles under the cover of night. Miraculously, despite hunger, sickness, and uncertainty, Hay managed to escort her entire family to the safety of a Thai refugee camp; they emigrated to the United States in 1981. “My mother’s courage gave us the hope and strength to survive, and then thrive in America,” says Chau, who, in January, officially became mayor of the city of Lowell, Massachusetts—and the first Cambodian American to hold the office of mayor in the United States. The symbolic importance of Chau’s own story is not lost on him. Like many Cambodian Americans in Lowell, his life is marked by the legacy of the Killing Fields, the five-year campaign of terror and genocide that left nearly 3 million Cambodians dead. Chau wants his story to highlight not only the struggles of
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ANDOVER | SPRING 2022
Mayor Sokhary Chau stands alongside his two sons, Phillip and Matthew, and his wife, Somong Rattanayong, during the Lowell City Council swearing-in ceremony in January.
overcoming adversity, but also how the next generation can be strengthened by diverse representation in governmental bodies small and large. “By including people from all backgrounds and working together, we can truly build a future that meets the needs of our communities,” explains Chau, who credits his experience at PA as an early introduction to international relations. A student in the Lowell public schools, Chau had a teacher who recommended Phillips Academy as an option for high school. He recalls his first time touring the campus with “eyes wide open.” “It was an amazing world, but mentally I wasn’t there yet,” Chau says. “Just coming out of death and into life in America, I was just happy to be alive. When you live through war, you set your sights on two goals: Stay alive. Stay together.” When Chau’s acceptance letter arrived, he hid it. But encouragement from his family, his teachers, and Bobby Edwards, former senior associate dean of admission and dean of the Office of Community and Multicultural Development, helped him follow a path that would influence his life’s work.
His first day as a new student was nerve-wracking, Chau confides, but seeing—and hearing—the Blue Key heads on the corner of Chapel Avenue, holding welcome signs and shouting positive messages, eased his fears. “What helped make me comfortable and settle in was meeting students from so many different parts of the country and the world,” Chau recalls. “When we started talking to each other, you realized that there weren’t many students who had the same background. Everybody was unique, and in those differences we bonded. To this day, I absolutely value what that grew in me.” Acknowledging his election’s significance to the wider immigrant diaspora, Chau hopes it will signal a time of new activism. “Lowell was built on diversity,” he notes, “but there are still feelings of exclusion depending on who you are and what neighborhood you live in. By prioritizing social justice in all city services, I believe we can eliminate the gaps, encourage every resident to trust that every vote does count, and empower them to be stakeholders in the future of their community.”
