Cambodian silk and gold jewelry is hard to come by in Portland, Maine, so each piece worn by the young students learning traditional Khmer dance from Sokhoeun Sok is shepherded back from visits to the country about 8,500 miles away.
Making sure their precise dances are equally authentic is just as laborious. Beyond a few grainy YouTube videos, there is no lesson plan to follow. Technique must come from a knowledgeable teacher like Sok, who for years has shared her craft with students in a basement gym and traveled New England for Cambodian festivals and celebrations.
Sok has always faced a common cultural challenge: Many of her students are among a new generation of Cambodians born in the United States who can find TikTok more compelling than traditional art forms. But in the past year, the federal government has introduced additional obstacles.
The National Endowment for the Arts has threatened federal funding for diversity initiatives, a concern for the treasured apprenticeship program in Maine that supports Sok’s efforts. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended on the state this month, targeting its small but diverse immigrant population.
Sok, who immigrated to the United States in 2005 and is a naturalized citizen, is focusing on what she can control: each bend of the wrist, extension of the arm and kick of the heel.
“Classical dance is not easygoing, it’s not easy,” Sok said, adding, “It’s like sound that you are never familiar with before.”
Maine began its Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program in 1990 to preserve art practices through one-on-one instruction. Early iterations focused on Indigenous basket weavers. A handful of those dwindling artisans have trained a new generation, including a recent winner of the MacArthur grant.
Over the past few years, the program has become synonymous with the immigrant communities that make up 4 percent of the state’s population and 11 percent of Portland’s, its largest city. Recent grants have supported a Mexican dancer, a Somali Bantu basket maker and a Congolese tailor, among others.
Half of the state’s annual arts budget, which is about $2 million, comes from the National Endowment for the Arts. The federal money is disbursed by the Maine Arts Commission to support programs across the state, including a majority of the funding for the apprenticeship grants. Each mentor receives up to $3,000, and can use it to cover teaching fees, supplies or travel costs.
The support goes a long way, said Kathleen Mundell, who oversees the apprenticeship program in partnership with the Maine Arts Commission.
“They pass their skills on to the next generation,” Mundell said during a panel about the program. “And in doing so, an entire community’s sense of continuity and connection is renewed.”
Sok’s first thought of Maine was the winter.
There would be snow, which she had never seen in Cambodia, and a lot of it. She was excited and nervous, but had reassurance from a growing number of people who had already immigrated to New England.
Some of the Cambodian refugees who fled the Khmer Rouge massacre, primarily in the early 1980s, were drawn to Maine by a mutual aid organization and a makeshift temple in a house. As the community grew, so did a desire to preserve Cambodian culture, including celebrating holidays like Khmer New Year with traditional dance. A group sponsored a visa for Sok so the professionally trained dancer could move to Maine and become a teacher.
That was about 20 years ago. Sok has since become a citizen, gotten married, had a child and bought a house just outside of Portland.
During the week, she works mornings at a nail salon and second shift at a lab for animal testing kits. But most in the Cambodian community know her as “Neakru,” a loose English translation of the Khmer word for teacher.
Even as mayors and business owners in Portland and Lewiston denounced the influx of ICE agents this month, which Senator Susan Collins said on Thursday had come to an end, Sok continued teaching weekend dance classes in a temporary location that was considered safer.
Through the apprenticeship program, she has had the help of four older students. They still hone their craft in Sok’s classes, which are run through Khmer Maine, a Cambodian community group, but also perform in additional events and assist the younger dancers.
“Sustainability becomes an issue,” said Marpheen Chann, the executive director of Khmer Maine. “Kids graduate and you don’t have any students anymore or the new crop, or the new generation, doesn’t show as much interest.”
Sok is doing her best to change that.
Crocs, Uggs and Birkenstocks piled up in the corner one Sunday morning as roughly a dozen of her students filtered into class. The girls, wearing white T-shirts, wrapped swaths of blue, red and purple fabric around their waists and between their legs before fastening it with a gold metal belt.
They sang “Happy Birthday” to a dancer turning 13 and took selfies on Snapchat. One student said she was excited about getting fitted for new skis; another looked forward to a school spring break trip. With a clap, Sok assembled the class.
The group continued working on a blessing dance it will perform at a Khmer New Year celebration in April. Sok demonstrated the correct flick of their wrists to mimic throwing flowers, and how to shuffle in one line without swaying their hips or dragging their feet. Then the four apprentices, including Sok’s daughter, splintered off to learn their own piece.
From the side of the room, the younger girls watched. Two bamboo sticks were hit together, then to the floor, then back together in a rhythmic pattern, as the apprentices jumped in and out in a double Dutch-like sequence. On a break, the younger girls tried it themselves, mimicking the rhythm and the routine.
Sok learned Khmer traditional dance, whose choreographies tell distinct stories, at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
“When I teach them, I teach mixing my language and English language,” said Sok, whose first language is Khmer. “So I told them, ‘Learn to listen’ when I talk my language to them. And I learned English from them.”
A majority of her students were born and raised in the United States and think of themselves as more American than Cambodian.
Sarita Sam, 15, was born in Maine and rarely learned about Cambodian culture. It was at a Khmer New Year festival a few years ago that she was inspired by a group of Sok’s dancers.
“Before I started my dancing, I wasn’t really close to my culture. I was really into the Western stuff,” Sam said. “Then as I got into dancing, I kind of learned how beautiful my culture is and how important and meaningful it is to me.”
Performing can also be a bridge with past generations.
“It’s made me feel a lot closer to my Cambodian side,” said Thyda Kimball, 17, one of Sok’s apprentices. “My grandparents are very proud of me for it and I like that.”
In late October, the apprentices were among a group of performers at Mayo Street Arts in Portland for a daylong showcase of local immigrant artists. The day was intended to be a celebration, a big talent show of sorts. But decisions being made in Washington were reverberating in Maine.
Last year, President Trump proposed a budget that would eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, prompting grant terminations and the end to longstanding programs. Funding for state arts councils remained intact, so the apprenticeship program was spared.
There was collateral damage, however. Mayo Street Arts had a grant revoked, and Mundell received her first rejection letter, for a proposal that would have brought a Cambodian ceramist from Massachusetts as an artist-in-residence.
The recital was not publicly advertised because of worries about immigration arrests. Months before ICE agents began their latest operation in Maine, community members were already concerned by an uptick in apprehensions. A few performers were not citizens, and the arts organization did not want to risk an ambush by federal agents.
A cross-section of Maine’s immigrant communities — a Rwandan dancer, drummers from Guinea, a Ukrainian accordion player — performed at the showcase. Sok’s apprentices helped one another get ready piece by piece, with two bracelets on each wrist and two anklets on each ankle. Opening the small clasps with their long acrylic nails was a feat in itself.
Ahead of Khmer New Year, the apprentices were drilling down every last move of a blessings dance. As they knelt in a row onstage, Sok watched from behind a plastic folding table, clapping her hands to the beat.
Michaela Towfighi is a Times arts and culture reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early career journalists.
The post In Hostile Times, Maine Immigrants Cherish Artistic Traditions appeared first on New York Times.
