Mona Sang is a 1st generation Cambodian American chef, mom, and daughter who is the owner of Khmai Cambodian Fine Dining in Rogers Park, Chicago, IL. Mona was born in a refugee camp where she lived with her mother and siblings after fleeing the Khmer Rouge. Resettling in the U.S, Mona witnessed her mother use cooking to support the family. Her passion for food and cooking led her to work for Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, Chicago’s largest restaurant group to now owning her own restaurant. Using her mother’s recipes, Mona hopes to showcase Khmer culture, history, food, and strives to share her and her mother’s story of survival.

In this episode, Mona shares about her and her family's survival stories and resettling in the States. You will hear about her special connection to food and how it's brought upon healing in her mother's life leading them to the food industry.

Maryann Samreth is a trauma writing coach helping people write their trauma stories, heal through the process, and reclaim their power. She has published over 100 poems and personal essays online and has reached over 1 million people on TikTok and through her memoir podcast, Mental Breakthrough. She is the founder of Sincerely Miss Mary, where she hosts group and individual coaching programs to help people write personal essays, memoirs, and social justice pieces.

In this episode, Maryann takes us through her writing process that became a catalyst for her healing journey. We discuss topics like intergenerational trauma and healing, mental health, and what it means for us to heal as second generation Khmer/Cambodians.

Music: Sunny Days - Anno Domini Beats

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Siha is a 2nd generation Khmer American who grew up in Chicago.  He is a father, husband, musician, and story teller at heart  professional career in business development, content distribution, and sales engineering.

In this episode, Siha talks about his family's journey to Chicago after being sponsored as refugees from Catholic Charities in the late 70's, and early 80's. He brushes over shame, identity, adjustment challenges, and how his father was a core part of the community. 

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Want to share your story? Email diaspeiropodcast.com or DM IG: @diaspeiropodcast 

Music: Easy Saturday - Bad Snacks

Laura Houcque (originally Ouk) Prabhakar is a Southeast Asian educator in Chicago. She represented the Cambodian Association of Illinois on the steering committee led by Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Chicago that advocated for the TEAACH Act in Illinois. Laura is currently involved with building curricular resources to provide Illinois educators with implementation tools. Generational trauma has motivated Laura to break the cycle and to rewrite the narrative as she hopes to also raise awareness of the Cambodian diaspora in general.

In this episode, Laura describes her upbringing from France to the U.S navigating what it means to be Khmer in a family that assimilated to American culture for survival. She also speaks about advocating the TEAACH Act in Illinois and the importance of advocating for SEAN voices within the Pan-Asian Diaspora. 

Music: Late Truth - Audio Hertz

In this episode, Sotheara and I discuss our experience in the Khmer-American diaspora and where we are within the bigger Khmer-American context. 

Sotheara Lim is a a second generation Khmer American from Cambodia Town, Long Beach, CA working in Marketing. His passion project is @Khmer_Renaissance. It is an Instagram page where he write essays on Khmer culture, as well as encouraging discussion and community amongst my followers. His goal with this page is to highlight and amplify Khmer voices, break down institutional stereotypes, help our community heal from their generational trauma, and really just uplift other Khmers who are doing something positive.

Music: Summer in the Neighborhood - Bad Snacks

Vannary Kong is of Cambodian and African American descent. She is currently a graduate student at Harvard University majoring in International Relations and a Research Assistant at Princeton University focusing her research on U.S. Populism Foreign Policy. In this episode, Vannary shares some challenges she faced with being biracial and how it's shaped the way she views herself now. She also discusses how generational trauma motivates her to be a cycle breaker.

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Music by: Dehydration by Loxbeats https://spoti.fi/34tPBBO Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: http://bit.ly/-dehydration Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/ns2NUq-1Ctg

Tina Kramm is a student at Moody Theological Seminary in the Clinical Mental Health Program. Tina has a multiracial and multicultural background. Her father is from Madagascar and mother is ethnically Hungarian from Serbia. Tina moved to the U.S. from Hungary in 2011 and considers herself an expatriate here. Her multicultural background has allowed her to understand her racial and cultural identity in a unique way and she hopes to encourage others through their journey of discovering and processing their racial and cultural identities.

In this episode, Tina discusses the challenges of being biracial and multicultural in a different cultural context. She discusses her learning journey relating to race relations in America and how it further developed her identity as being Black/African and European. 

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Want to share your story? Email [email protected]

Music: The Truth - Anno Domini Beats

Marlon Finley was born and raised in Chicago. He is passionate about working with and mentoring youth at risk. He has been with organizations like UCAN Chicago for the over 20 years.

In this episode, Marlon walks us through his shoes, discusses the needs of his community, and dismantles negative perceptions about the Black community.

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Want to share your story? Reach out to [email protected]

Music: Like That - Anno Domini Beats

Melissa is a second generation Filipina American campus minister to FilAm student in Chicago. She was born and raised in Southern CA, and after graduating from San Diego State moved to Chicago to start Filipino American-specific campus ministries with her husband, Justin. She enjoys to caring and empowering the next generation of FilAms through the campus ministry work she does through helping them intersect their Catholic/Protestant faith and Filipino American identities.

In this episode she shares her experience of internalized oppression within her family system, and the way it has impacted her upbringing.

If you feel led to share your story DM @diaspeiropodcadt on Instagram or email [email protected]

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Music: Easy Sunday - Bad Snacks

TW: Genocide, fleeing, shootings, bombings

In this episode, Sophia shares her parents' genocide survivor stories. 

Sophia Lee is a second-generation Khmer-Chinese American registered nurse in the greater Boston area. She is one of the authors (out of many great authors) of the history book

Asian Texans: Our Histories and Our Lives, edited by Irwin Tang, which chronicles the long and fascinating history of Asian Americans in Texas. (Book sold on Amazon). She teaches Khmer folk dance & language through her church, and is obsessed with Japanese Kit Kats.

Follow her blog at http://searchingforsubstance.wordpress.com.

If you would like to share your story please DM @Diaspeiropodcast on Instagram.

Music: Drop - Anno Domini Beats