Oum Ry was born in 1944 on a Central Cambodian island in the Mekong River to a family of silver engravers. Most of his family was killed in the Cambodian genocide but he miraculously survived, in part because of his fame as a kickboxing champion. His immigration to the United States in 1980 was sponsored by an American pastor and in 1987, he founded Long Beach Kickboxing in California, one of the oldest kickboxing gyms in the United States. His gym has been open six days a week for the last 33 years, training several kickboxing champions and keeping countless kids out of gangs.

Zochada Tat is Oum Ry’s daughter, an author, and kickboxing instructor. She took her first steps in the ring at Long Beach Kickboxing and has trained with him throughout her life. She traveled with him to Cambodia in February 2022 and helped translate his oral history.

Addi Somekh is an author and an instructor of critical thinking at University of California Santa Cruz.

Michael G. Vann is a professor of history at California State University, Sacramento, who specializes in Southeast Asia during the era of colonialism and the Cold War. He is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empire, Disease, and Modernity and his work can be found in Jacobin and The Diplomat.