When Pran arrived in the United States he settled as a photographer for the New York Times. Dith also founded the Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project to inform people of the history of the Khmer Rouge Regime and the history of what he went through. He was diagnosed with cancer which he spoke about saying he was determined to fight against the illness and the odds of him surviving it. While he was sick, he spoke and wrote about his experiences with the Khmer Rouge. Three months after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer he died in New Brunswick, New Jersey on March 30, 2008.

Dith Pran became an interpreter and assistant for Schanberg in Phnom Penh. He raised a family there which needed to be removed from the country because the communist forces had come for Cambodia. The capital fell during this time and Pran was forced to stay within the country. For 4 and a half years Pran spent life in the killing fields held captive by the Khmer Rouge where he tried his best not to show he was educated. He escaped by walking to Taiwan where Schanberg later found him and brought him to the United States with him.

Dith Pran was born on Septemeber 27, 1942 in Seim Reap, Cambodia into a family where his father was a public works official. He attended school where he learned French but later taught himself how to speak english. At a young age, he was hired by the US army to be a translator but later on switched to become a part of a British Film Crew.