Channy Chhi Laux joins us to discuss her perspectives on communism, free speech, individual rights and responsibilities, and contemporary challenges to liberal values. Channy was just 13 when the Khmer Rouge seized Cambodia in 1975. She endured 4 years of starvation, forced labor, and disease before arriving in Lincoln, Nebraska as a Cambodian refugee who spoke no English and who had been denied 4 years of education. Channy went on to earn an advanced degree in Applied Mathematics and spent 30 years working in Silicon Valley as an engineer. She is the founder of Angkor Cambodian Food, and works with schools and other organizations, like the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, to promote awareness of the Cambodian Genocide.

Podcast Notes:

Channy’s memoir: Short Hair Detention: Memoir of a Thirteen-Year-Old Girl Surviving the Cambodian Genocide(Bloomington, IN: Archway Publishing, 2017).

Learn about the California Collaborative for Holocaust and Genocide Education: https://holocaustcenter.jfcs.org/california-collaborative/

Access a preview of Channy's Cambodian Genocide educational materials: https://cambodiangenocideresourcecenter.com/lesson-plan-download/

See Channy's Victims of Communism page here: https://victimsofcommunism.org/speaker/channy-chhi-laux/

Check out Angkor Cambodian Food:

https://www.angkorfood.com/

New Beginnings and Old Fears: Channy Laux on Escaping Cambodian Genocide