Witnesses to Cambodia, past and present

Nancy Carbonaro (right) with her photos of Cambodia at the Wellesley bakery run by siblings Sambo Rattanavong (left) and Mara Nuon; their family's story includes fleeing the Khmer Rouge. (Mark Wilson/Globe Staff)

October 9, 2008
By Rachel Lebeaux
Boston Globe Correspondent

"The first time I went, four years ago, I was not prepared mentally or emotionally. I stayed in my room for a day and a half. I thought things were getting better, and I was shocked . . . and depressed ... It was so emotional to see people living like they were, and the government does nothing." - Mara Nuon

Regular customers of the Wellesley Bakery & Café on Washington Street know that the business is a family affair.

The Nuon family's cookies, soups, sandwiches and croissants - as well as their smiling faces behind the register - have attracted many admirers over the past 14 years. Yet many of their customers are unaware of how the family came to America - a story both horrifying in the struggles that Cambodians have faced, and inspiring as a testament to the strength of family bonds, human perseverance and a continued devotion to one's homeland.

Started in 1994 by Phoumara "Mara" Nuon, the bakery in Wellesley has served as a second home for Nuon's siblings - there are eight in all - and cousins, many of whom grew up behind the counter and put themselves through school, in part, thanks to their earnings there.

"If you're a family member, you come here and work, and it helps pay for your tuition and books," said one of his sisters, Sambo Rattanavong, 32.

Nuon, 38, who worked in a number of bakeries while studying chemistry at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, said that promoting education through baked goods was his plan from the start.

"My sisters didn't have jobs, so I thought, 'Why not find a place that my sisters could work?' " Nuon said. "When you're the oldest in the family, you say, 'I have a good degree, and I want [my siblings] to have an education and good families.' That's how it's supposed to be . . . you bring up the next generation of good human beings."

Photographer Nancy Carbonaro was one of those customers who knew little about her local bakers.

"I'd been coming here for years and years and had no idea of their nationality - I just knew that they had great food and a warm, welcoming atmosphere," said Carbonaro, a West Newton resident who has a portrait studio in Wellesley.

But in the past few years, her photography has taken her far from Wellesley. In 2005, she traveled to Cuba to study with photojournalist Ernesto Bazan.

"When I went to Cuba, it was an eye-opening experience," she said. "It was during this trip that I was able to understand that my camera was not a technical piece of equipment, but a way in which I could connect and communicate with others."

In March 2007, Carbonaro took a 12-day trip to Cambodia, where she used her camera to document the dire conditions she witnessed: families living in abandoned warehouses, children barely subsisting in an orphanage, girls working on old, manual spinning wheels at a sewing school.

Carbonaro returned to Wellesley determined to share her images and increase awareness regarding conditions in Cambodia. When she realized that one of the paintings adorning the walls of the bakery depicted Cambodia's Angkor Wat temple, she asked Nuon if he would be interested in displaying some of her photographs, and in the process began to learn more about his family's harrowing journey.

Nuon's family lived in Cambodia in the time of the Khmer Rouge, the communist party that ruled the country from 1975 to 1979. Under the leadership of Pol Pot, the regime was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million people, or roughly one-fifth of the country's population, through torture, execution and starvation in its campaign to remake Cambodia into a radical agrarian society.

His father, Kheun Nuon, was a director of the country's transportation system, placing him squarely on the Khmer Rouge's elimination list. Fortunately, a year prior to the Khmer Rouge takeover, he was transferred from the capital, where the eradication of the country's leadership began, to Battambang, on the Thailand border.

But the Khmer Rouge campaign eventually reached the remote province, and the Nuons fled, moving their pack of children from place to place across the country, often in the middle of the night.

"We went through the whole thing - you remember everything," Mara Nuon said. "It was years ago, but it feels like yesterday. If you were to ask a Holocaust survivor, they would say the same thing."

Nuon remembers scrounging for food - fish, rats, bugs, anything that he and his siblings could find - in order to survive. Three of his siblings died, unable to withstand the harsh conditions. "Everyone has some close family members that didn't make it," he said.

The family's surviving members eventually made their way to a refugee camp in the Philippines, then came to the United States in November 1982, thanks to the sponsorship of a Stoughton family who let the Nuons live in their guesthouse. The Nuons later moved to apartments in Brighton, then Allston, then a house in Roslindale. Their father died in 1987; their mother now splits her time among her children's homes in Bellingham and Hyde Park.

With the bakery thriving, Nuon said, the business has already served its primary purpose. "My family members all graduated from school. My mission is accomplished," he said.

Now, Nuon is shifting his focus toward bringing that same generosity to his homeland - a mission in which Carbonaro's photographs are playing a role.

Since hanging her photographs in the bakery, Carbonaro has sold three and donated the proceeds - about $500 - to the Sharing Foundation, which operates an orphanage in Cambodia that she visited, and to which Nuon has donated as well. The images will remain on display until the end of the month.

"They catch a lot of people's attention and give them some sense of self-reflection," said another sister, Pisey, 27. "They're thought-provoking."

"That was my mission," Carbonaro said, "to get people thinking about all of the wealth we have in this country, especially this neighborhood."

Each January, Nuon travels to Cambodia, bringing with him money for family members and a suitcase filled with over-the-counter medications. It is not an easy trip.

"The first time I went, four years ago, I was not prepared mentally or emotionally. I stayed in my room for a day and a half. I thought things were getting better, and I was shocked . . . and depressed," he said. "It was so emotional to see people living like they were, and the government does nothing."

With his family in America, safe and financially secure, "my hope now is to play a part in Cambodia," Nuon said. "When you've been there, you're not going to say, 'I've made it, the hell with you.' I'm looking for an organization where I can go and be effective, and do whatever I can do to make a difference."