Monica Mitchell

In community and collaboration with Sophia (@sophiaasxm ) and Janhtria 💕🇰🇭 Koun Khmer representing banteay meanchey, batambang and pailin. So many memories walking up and down samway market’s aisles as a child, I’m eternally thankful cornerstone places for the culture still thrives!

Growing up Cambodian American meant walking a tightrope between two worlds. One, where my friends shared inside jokes from sitcoms I didn’t watch, and another, where my mother, a quiet storm of resilience, cooked with herbs I couldn’t name and a memory she rarely spoke of. Our house smelled of lemongrass and shadowed silence. Affection wasn’t warm hugs or whispered “I love you’s” or “knomn sralang” it came in the form of jasmine rice kept hot until I got home, grilled beef skewers marinated just right, and cut fruit placed gently by my homework. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized love looks different when it’s born out of survival. In many ways, being a Cambodian American child meant piecing together an identity from fragments, hand-me-down traditions, unspoken grief, and an American culture that rarely saw us. It meant making sense of a mother’s silence and learning to hear the love in every dish she cooked. Relearning her story gave me back more than her past; it gave me a deeper love for her present. She’s never been just a survivor in my eyes: she’s a child of resilience. A girl who once had crushes in the market. A mother who grieves in silence but shows up with a warm plate after school. A soul who has loved me more fiercely than I ever understood. She has passed down the traits I possess, equally the good and bad but ever so much all the ingredients that make me, me. Most importantly she’s given me the wit, humor and sharp tongue I so struggle to keep at bay. I admire her view of the world, her art of just noticing. Big thank you for to @byemilyun for capturing these memories at @studio.7117 💞

Someone said ETHEREAL and ethereal we gave✨ The tantrum I would’ve thrown if I couldn’t work with Peyton and her new red hair. Thankssss so much for trusting me and my dead butterflies!! … …. …. #colorfulphotography #cinematographer #seattlephotographer #seattlecreatives #buildandbloom #fairycoreaesthetic #under100k #seattlemodels #portraitphotographer #portraitphotography #seattlecreatives #gardencore #photographyposes #viewfinderzwa #viewfinderz #777luckyfish #colorfulphotography

Soft Launch: The Ruom. Thank you to all who came out to support the space and gifted so much energy and vibes for our first hosted event in the space! Official opening on June 4th for the @pioneersquare Art Walk. Our hearts are bursting. Showroom feature: @lord_giz // Cambodian Creative: @monimedia__ // Band: @theprinceon // DJ: @kbcs Greg D’Elia // Pioneer Square Artists Eli Lara @elinotlara and Richard Springer. @springerartworks #softlaunch #seattle #eventspace

Bouncing back from my rest period and I’m testing the waters in the pop up world by grilling up some Khmer beef skewers heavily inspired by a little restaurant called Yi Nget on a random corner of Siem Reap. There’s a specific smell in Siem Reap that stayed with me: smoky, herbal, and sweet. For this pop-up, I wanted to recreate that core memory: • Kroeung Beef Skewers: Marinated in kreoung with lots of lemongrass and galangal, charred just right. - thanks @aluc.oiii for letting me borrow your grill set up!! • Beurre Num Pang: A buttery almost custard like take on the classic crusty buttered baguette. • Chrouk La Hong: The essential crisp, pickled papaya crunch. I’ll be at @thewaylandmill with @aluc.oiii and friends celebrating AANHPI month, Sunday 05/03, 5-8 or sellout! See yall there 🇰🇭🌸 . … ….. #SachKoJakak #CambodianFood #KhmerCuisine #SeattlePopUp

Hi friends! I’m so honored to be part of the 2nd annual Khmer New Year exhibit at @studio.7117 . For my contribution, I’m highlighting 3 photos from my time in Srok Khmer in my ongoing project: The Living Time Capsule. I wanted to embed this collection with physical labor: the kind of quiet, repetitive effort that feels so familiar to our community, yet so often goes unseen. I’m quite enjoying the rhythmic labor of framing our history in the materials that sustain us. Come through for the art, the music, and the intentionality of koun khmer. There are so many people contributing to this event! 📍 @studio.7117 | 117 Cherry St, Seattle 📅 April 26 | 1 PM - 5 PM

04/18: To this day, the team has not been made whole, 2 former employees remain unpaid, he didn't meet the contingency requirements of the strike. His former bar, Oliver’s Twist, was closed and faced eviction for over $120,000 in back rent, The lawsuit between Karuna Long and his former partners have been settled in court, resulting in confirmation that Long has admitted fraud and breach of contract, alleging he forged signatures, misused business funds, and hid debt resulting in a $346,000 judgment. Former employees for both Oliver’s twist and Sophon are navigating avenues to hold Long accountable for falsified w2’s, bounced checks accruing fees, unsafe working conditions, and falsified insurance policies. Our community is our safety net. Many of you have asked how you can support the staff of Sophon and Oliver’s Twist following our collective resignation. While we are fighting for legal accountability and some awaiting unpaid wages, the reality is that rent and bills don’t wait for investigations. We have launched a Mutual Aid Fund to support our team—many of whom are navigating the “slow season” in the industry with no safety net of unemployment due to the Karuna Longs failure to file our taxes. How to help: The go fund me is CLOSED! THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT. OUR COMMUNITY RAISED $10,017 for all the employees navigating this. 📣 Share this post to spread the word. 100% of these funds go directly to the displaced staff to cover housing, groceries, and any medical medical costs. Thank you for standing in solidarity with the workers who built this space.

The truth behind the “reopening” of Sophon. 03/20: To this day, the team has not been made whole 2 former employees remain unpaid, he didn't meet the contingency requirements of the strike, and blocked all former employees. To our Seattle community, our regulars, and our neighbors: As of February 20th, the entire former staff of Sophon has unanimously resigned for Good Cause. We did not leave by choice; we were forced to leave because of a systemic collapse of the legal and ethical standards we were promised. If you have dined with us, you know that this crew is something special. You’ve been met with some of the most hardworking, talented, and funniest people in this industry a team that excelled in customer service and hospitality every single night. What the community didn’t see was that we were maintaining those high standards while navigating a crisis behind the scenes. We showed up for you even when the business wasn’t showing up for us. Why we reached the breaking point:  Admitted Dishonesty: In a recorded meeting on 02/17, the owner admitted to a pattern of “avoidance and lying” regarding the business’s financial health. Missing Tax Records: Our 2025 wages were never reported to the state or federal government. To the IRS and ESD, many of us show $0 in earnings for the past year. To this day employees are still trying to navigate the system. Stolen Benefits: Healthcare premiums were deducted from our paychecks, but the owner admitted they were never paid to the insurance providers, leaving staff without coverage.  Unresolved Wages: While some staff received back-pay after we took collective action, members of Karuna Long’s former employees remain unpaid for their labor to this day. We take immense pride in the work we did here. We weren’t just serving food we were sharing our family stories and our heritage. But heritage and culture can never be used to excuse the exploitation of workers. To reopen the doors while these debts to the staff and the government remain unpaid is a choice that we cannot support. We are deeply saddened, but we are standing together. We choose integrity over “avoidance.”

03/20: To this day, the team has not been made whole 2 former employees remain unpaid, he didn't meet the contingency requirements of the strike, and blocked all former employees. Karuna Long’s (sophonseattle karu1001) public “apology” *now deleted* failed to acknowledge or address the staff directly as we already have a mediated agreement and discussion scheduled, and his continued absence from the restaurant has only reinforced the sense that our well-being is not a priority. At the same time, he has a track record of predatory behaviors, telling employees behind closed doors that they will be fired if they don’t show up, wage theft, healthcare fraud, among other issues, while the staff are navigating legitimate concerns addressed to you on a daily basis: food scarcity, houselessness, anxiety-feels predatory, exploitive, coercive and dismissive. The staff has every right to be upset. What we are seeing in Karuna Long’s post is a focus on protecting public image rather than taking meaningful accountability or offering real support to the people who keep the business running. Accountability requires direct communication, presence, and respect not statements made for optics. We have documentation ready to share, and several current and former staff members are willing to speak on the record. Update 02/14: Many of our team members some who have worked full time have discovered upon applying for Unemployment that their hours were never reported to the state. The owner, Karuna Long, failed to file quarterly reports for nearly the entire duration of our employment, reporting only a single quarter. What this means: By failing to report our hours, the owner has made it appear as though we haven't worked enough to qualify for the benefits we are legally entitled to. Taxes and dues were deducted from our paystubs, but it appears they were never sent to the state agencies intended to protect us. This is a deliberate failure to follow the most basic legal requirements of business ownership, leaving workers vulnerable and without a safety net during a crisis he created. Check out Sophon x KL highlights for on going updates.

Tuk Tuks of Cambodia Follow my journey back to the homeland via Substack, link in bio <333 #cambodia #siemreapcambodia #khmer #batambang #phnompenh

My ears hear the grind before I’m fully awake. The street is already alive. Engines sputter. Gates lift. Plastic chairs scrape against concrete. People are working before the heat settles in. There is no slow start here. Life begins in motion. Homes double as shops. Kitchens double as businesses. Living and earning happen in the same few square meters. Someone cooks while a child gets ready for school. Someone sweeps dust that will return in an hour. Work never really leaves the body. People aren’t chasing more. They’re chasing enough. Enough for rent, food, gas, school fees. Enough so nothing goes wrong, because when it does, there is no cushion underneath. The work is physical and constant. Standing all day in the heat. Carrying, fixing, serving. Rest costs money. Sick days are a risk. And still, there is care. A bag is tied carefully so it won’t spill. A meal is plated with intention even when the line is long. The grind isn’t poetic. It’s tiring. Repetitive. But it’s steady. #streetphotography #phnompenh

I am a child of immigrants. Support for immigrants is framed through exploitation: they do the jobs no one else wants. As if that alone justifies their existence. As if their worth is tied to how much they can endure. But immigrants don’t need to earn their humanity through exhaustion. They deserve to be seen not as tools, not as statistics, not as scapegoats but as full people with inner lives, with joy and rage and tenderness and complexity. Your business is political whether you acknowledge it or not. Stand ten toes down on supporting your peers. It is an extension of your values, your silence, your choices. What you profit from, who you protect, who you ignore all of it speaks. To claim otherwise is a luxury reserved for those who have never had to fight for recognition just to exist. Needless to say: FUCK ICE.