This profile on Cambodia Town community leader Laura Som, who is the executive director of The MAYE Center, is part of a series exploring the successes of immigrants in Long Beach. Immigrant Success is a collaborative podcast project between Long Beach Post and PalacioMagazine.com. Long Beach Post reporter Stephanie Rivera is the podcast host and Antonio Ruiz is the producer.
Laura Som is the executive director of The MAYE Center, a holistic healing center focusing on Khmer Rouge refugees in Cambodia Town, and 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 doughnut shop.
While 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.
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.