Laura Som Is Working to Save Lives and Memories in Cambodia Town

Replay: Laura Som Is Working to Save Lives and Memories in Cambodia Town

Laura Som is the executive director of the MAYE Center, a holistic healing center focusing on Khmer Rouge refugees in Cambodia Town. She is also a community leader focusing on empowering residents through civic engagement and activism. Som was inspired to create the healing center following her own journey in self-healing due to the trauma she faced as a child refugee under the Khmer Rouge.

Following an unstable childhood that included living in an orphanage and refugee camps, Som and her mother moved to Long Beach when she was 10 years old. While attending school she worked early on, including in a garment shop alongside her mother and then in her teens at a donut shop.

At Poly High School, Som took courses at Long Beach City College in order to raise her grade point average and qualify to apply to a university. After graduating with a degree in biochemistry from UC Riverside, Som went back to Cambodia to understand her roots. At the end of that self-discovery journey that lasted over a decade, Som developed the elements that would be the foundation of healing at her center: meditation, agriculture (gardening), yoga and education.

Laura Som was interviewed at the MAYE Center by Stephanie Rivera of the Long Beach Post as part of a series, Immigrant Success, produced in partnership with PalacioMagazine.com. Antonio Ruiz is the producer.

Show Notes:

00:56 Laura talks about growing up under the Khmer Rouge regime and living in refugee camps.
11:23 Laura discusses life in America and balancing school and work with PTSD.
23:43 Laura talks about her journey to Cambodia to heal and rediscover her roots and creating The MAYE Center.

“My long journey home in this country started at the age of 6 years old when I was brought to the orphanage in Cambodia. At 10, I immigrated to Long Beach in 1992 as a refugee of the Khmer Rouge Genocide. I was not allowed to reunite with my father due to immigration policies. My father passed away in 1996 before we were reunited.” Laura Som

More on Laura Som

Laura Som had lost her memories and suffered from PTSD when she arrived at LAX from the refugee camps. She accepted any jobs that were available for immigrants- garment shops, donut shops, a restaurant at the age of 10. Som attended high school and worked concurrently. In the summertime of high school, she enrolled at Leach Beach City College to catch up with her academic completion so she could attend a UC. Laura Som graduated from Poly High with 4.0, completed her bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and pre-med from UC Riverside.

Her passion in the medical field and self-healing (the only means for immigrants without money) led Som to developed the MAYE Center and build an integrated Holistic healing center in Long Beach. Som’s community activism resulted in passing Measure DDD in 2018 that ended gerrymandering in Long Beach.