What’s Your Story? | Healing Through True Stories

What happens when a community decides to tell its own history?

For too long, the stories of many cultures have been told from the outside looking in. Today, we sit with the work of documenting the Cambodian diaspora, a movement of reclaiming narrative, rediscovering cultural pride, and creating a "prepared environment" for a community to speak in its own voice.

This is a meditation on intergenerational trauma and the quiet cultural renaissance that occurs when we reconnect with our heritage. It is an invitation to anyone exploring storytelling as healing or seeking to understand how personal memory can reshape our collective future. We look at the resilience required to hold these stories and the dignity of a truth told by those who lived it.

The Thread of This Conversation:
  • Moving from an "observed" history to an authentic narrative
  • The role of personal storytelling in healing the diaspora
  • Navigating intergenerational trauma through presence and pride
  • Stewardship of cultural memory for the next generation
  • How reclaiming a voice creates a narrative renaissance

---
From the Studio
This episode is part of What's Your Story?, produced by Story House. We believe story is a tool for meaning-making, not just performance.
Leave a voice message or reflection

The Letterbox
I read every letter. If something in this episode landed for you, or raised something you're still sitting with, I'd love to hear it.

Story House 
370 Mallard Loop Dr.
Clayton, NC 27527

Find the House

Presence over persuasion. Consistency over frequency. http://storyhousestudio.org

Creators and Guests

Host
J.D. Murgolo
Founder of Story House

What is What’s Your Story? | Healing Through True Stories?

What's Your Story? is a personal journal podcast dedicated to the quiet art of healing through storytelling. Hosted by J.D. Murgolo, we explore the true stories, hidden narratives, and fragile moments that shape our lives.

Through unhurried interviews and personal reflections, this show dares us to move from survival to meaning-making. Whether you are navigating life transition or looking for the language to describe your own journey, join us as we crack open the stories we carry and learn to heal out loud.

J.D.: [00:00:00] Every story begins somewhere. This one begins with Storyhouse Studios.

Opening Porch Vignette
---

J.D.: There's a difference between a story being told and a story being understood. Come sit. You can hear it in the quiet between words. Most stories travel through many mouths before they reach us. Each telling adds something. Each translation removes something else. Sometimes the story grows softer.

Sometimes it grows sharper. But sometimes without anyone meaning to, it stops belonging to the people who lived it out here. The porch has heard a lot of stories, some carried carefully from one generation to the next. Some scattered like fragments pieced together slowly over time, and [00:01:00] some have spent years waiting for the people inside them to speak for themselves.

You feel it when that finally happens? The voice sounds steadier. The details feel rooted, not perfect, not polished, but true stories told from within carry a different weight, not because they're louder, because they remember things no one else could. Tonight. We sit with that moment. The moment when a story comes home to its own voice, every story begins somewhere.

Let me tell you one.

Intro
---

J.D.: This is what's your story ? A hearth for the stories that ache to be told, were fragile moments. Find their echo. I'm jd. You are a storytelling alchemist. Here's story [00:02:00] number 104. Who gets to tell the story?

Vanny: Hi, jd. Thank you for having me on the show. My name is Vanny Wilo and I'm the host and producer of Kamaya Voices podcast. I started it in October, 2024, but I didn't, it didn't just start in 2024. It started in 2020. You know, when the pandemic happened, and I had this. I was going through this existential crisis what are we doing here? I was sitting in front of the computer working Because you couldn't do anything else.

Yeah, and [00:03:00] my 2-year-old daughter was put in front of the tv. My husband and I are both in front of our computers, and it just did not sit well with me, and I kept telling myself that it's temporary, but then as the situation went on. There was no end in sight,

J.D.: Yeah.

Vanny: so I, yeah, I just questioned what was the purpose of all this?

I'm working and my daughter couldn't be in daycare because daycares were closed. But even eventually when they started opening things up, I still had this itch in me to do something else and. The Black Lives Matter movement was happening then as well. And stop Asian hate, like all these injustices that were amplified because you know, I just had more time to.

To notice those things, whereas before I was, you know, out and about and working and socializing and stuff, and just kind of going through the motions of life and never really questioning like, what am I doing? [00:04:00] And I had these goals to I was in the wine industry or, you know what, I'll, I guess I'll share it.

I handed in my resignation last week.

J.D.: All right. I mean, I guess that, right? I don't know.

Vanny: Yeah I handed in my resignation last week. I was with the company for seven years and, you know, I enjoyed it. I was selling fine wines to the liquor board and private liquor stores and restaurants and just, it was an amazing portfolio and I had it good, but since launching my podcast in October, 2024, there, I created this community and. I wanna go back to like why I started it. I started because I was questioning what I was doing with my life. I just didn't see like why I would spend a minimum of eight hours a day in front of the computer, and then I just started questioning like. [00:05:00] Trying to figure out like who I was. And at that time, as I mentioned, the Black Lives Matter movement was happening too, and they were saying like, how they don't really, you know, there's their identity.

There was the question of identity as well. So I was online all the time and I'm like, you know what I, I don't know what I'm doing with my life, but I know this isn't what I'm meant to be doing. Yeah. So I just started absorbing information and then. I was like, well, what else can I do? And that's when I got the idea like, oh, well you know what?

Us Cambodian people, we've gone through a lot. I don't know if you know our history, but

J.D.: Not enough. Not enough to say. I mean, that's what, you know, before we started, that's what fascinated me was kind of the question that you had of yourself, that it was. You know, you kind of know it from an outside lens, and I'm the kind of person that, that bothers me, you know, because I know that there's another side of it that I'm not, either I'm not seeking out enough to find, or whatever's being given to me is [00:06:00] like a rose colored glass glasses kind of situation.

It's here's the only bit that you need to know. What did you, no don't forget. Forget that what you just heard. This is it right here. So no, I'm guilty of that as well. And fascinated at the same

Vanny: it's okay. You know what? We were silenced for a long time because, well, what happened was. What people knew of us was that we went through a genocide.

J.D.: Mm-hmm.

Vanny: Our people killed our own people, basically. So an auto genocide. But I didn't, and people also knew us from the Ancor area, Ancor Watt,

J.D.: Yeah.

Vanny: the largest religious temple in the world.

J.D.: Right.

Vanny: So there's two things. You know, the glory of our past and then the just horrific. Event in the seventies from 1975 to 1979. So I didn't know anything else about Cambodia, you know, it was just those that, that dichotomy and.

J.D.: Right.

Vanny: As I started just talking to people and reading more and just [00:07:00] trying to understand my heritage and roots, I understood that there was outside involvement that was never really talked about.

You know, like obviously I knew that we were colonized by the French, but I didn't know the events. Beyond that, and I didn't know the details beyond that, and I didn't know the US involvement. I knew that the US bombed Cambodia, but I didn't know like why. And so, you know, I started connecting all these dots and I'm just and I'm seeing a lot of parallels with what's happening now and what happened to us and of, and also what's happened, you know, in the nineties and early two thousands.

And it's just it's. It is heavy

J.D.: yeah. And it like to hear you say that, you know, here's somebody that, I mean, you know, like I'm sure people look at you and well, what do you mean you don't know? But like that tells a lot too and I'm sure we're all in some way, shape or form, you know, whether it's your own family history or just like the history of your [00:08:00] culture or even just, you know, the place where you grew up.

You know, we just kind of take it for granted, I guess is the word, the words that I'm looking for, that it's yeah, well. You know, that's not that important, or I'll figure it out along the way, but it doesn't work like that. You kind of have to seek that out no matter what, no matter where you were or who you are, or how involved We're,

Vanny: Exactly like I, I would hear, you know, stories from my parents and, but they would only give a little bit at a time. Like I wouldn't have the full details and would be the subject would be switched when it got too heavy. So I never had that. Full conversation with my parents with regards to what happened, and I just recently learned that my mom was taken away from her home when she was only 16 years old, taken away from her family, so I never.

And I'm thinking like, well, I never really understood that. I never understood the severity of war growing up. They would just talk about it in passing. They would, like my [00:09:00] mom mentioned a couple times or a few times, I remember that, you know, every time she hears helicopters it scares her.

'cause it brings back memories of the bombing bombings, I should say. But yes. Now that I've started this podcast it's been, and hearing stories of these, my people that have gone through so much I understand it more. I understand why, you know, there's gangs in newly established communities.

I understand why there's, why parents don't talk about what they went through and why the next generation doesn't know what happened with them.

J.D.: Yeah.

Vanny: And now that we have, now that, you know, information is more democratic, I guess you can say it's easier to figure that all out. But you have to kind of look for it.

J.D.: Yeah.

Vanny: I'm fortunate that I'm. [00:10:00] I have this opportunity to share our stories because as you mentioned, it was what we knew was always offered through the lens, the Western lens. So it was always some someone else writing about us and now I'm getting these stories direct from. Cambodians, the Cambodian diaspora, and I'm discovering that, you know, what I felt wasn't unique to me, it's universal.

And I'm listening to other podcasts that are similar, like that are not that, I guess, that are yeah, somewhat similar, but you know, from different communities and I see a lot of parallels in what they're going through in our community as well.

J.D.: I'm gonna put you on the pedestal, but, so I don't feel like you have to be like a spokesperson for everybody with, but just a curiosity. But why do you think that is? Because I completely agree and I can see it, you know, from my own self and I don't, I'm not a part of, you know, any kind of a community that can even come close to feeling that way.

But why do you suppose that [00:11:00] is that we put this kind of Western spin on. So many, you know, and sometimes it's so extreme that it's like you, if you didn't know enough information, it's yeah I don't know what's going on here, but I really feel the same hatred that this person's trying to portray for this culture that I know nothing about.

And sometimes it's just as simple as well, I guess it's not as interesting as I want to, I'm not gonna learn anymore. But either way, it's the same thing that it shuts the person off from going. Unless you really love to learn and really love to, to understand other people and be that empathetic which is what we should all be, you know, you can almost hear it that, you know, in, in the rhetoric that we have, it's oh, you want me to stop talking and thinking about this?

Okay. Why do you think that is? Like, why do you think we, we do that to certain cultures?

Vanny: For, I mean, for in, in our instance it's estimated that over 2 million people were killed. It's anywhere between 1.5 million to 3 million people, and the people that were killed were [00:12:00] mostly the mostly intellectuals artists. And people that would've led the country into prosperity. So in terms of, you know, being able to communicate our heritage and our culture and pass that down it, it was very, you, we, there wasn't. There weren't many people to that were able to do that. And in terms of accepting like the western the western voice, I guess it's because that is the one that is put on a pedestal and the one that is legitimized, right?

If you look at. If you look at research papers you can't just say that I learned this from my uncle or my aunt. Like these traditional ways of passing down information are not accepted as facts, you know? Whereas [00:13:00] if a researcher went to study someone else and they went through this.

Scientific quote unquote process, then that is a considered a fact.

J.D.: Oh, we believe that now, right? Yeah.

Vanny: So I think it's important to get our stories out there and have people hear it straight from our voices as opposed to Yeah, having someone else tell it. Because regardless if you're not, regardless of your intentions, if you're not from the community, it's still gonna be filtered your lens.

Midpoint Reflection
---

J.D.: I want to pause here for a moment. Notice what's happening in this story. It's not just about remembering, it's about authorship for a long time, many histories have been told by people standing outside the experience itself, sometimes with good intentions, sometimes with incomplete understanding. But there's something powerful that [00:14:00] happens when a community begins telling its own story.

Again, the tone shifts not away from truth, but toward ownership. Pain is still there, history is still complex, but the voice changes and that voice carries something new, not just survival, continuity. Keep listening for that. The moment when a story stops being about what happened to a people and becomes something they're shaping again themselves.

Vanny's Story Part 2
---

J.D.: And so how do you operate and kinda get that story to come out because it, you know, it says. On the same plane as somebody that has, you know, a, you know, a generational trauma of abuse or neglect or anything like that, but. At the same time on a slightly different plane that doesn't, you know, make it better or worse, or your story is more important, but [00:15:00] a slightly more challenging to say, okay, are you ready to talk about it?

'Cause just like with any story, I mean, it's. It's not up to us, you know, as the people that are receiving the story. It's up to the storyteller to decide that. And so how do you navigate that conversation? You have this like thought process. You went into this going, okay, I, this is absolutely a story that like people need to hear, but that might not be always the case, right?

With people that it's like yeah, I agree with you, but I'm not ready to say this for whatever reason.

Vanny: Yeah. You know, it's I actually found it easier than I expected. Like I didn't, so this podcast shines the spotlights on our achievements because when I was growing up, I didn't see that and I wanted, and I couldn't resonate, or the stories that I saw in traditional media I didn't resonate with. So I wanted to be able to provide that for, I guess, myself and future generations.

It just, you know, with natural conversation it comes out people will wanna share with what they want to share, and [00:16:00] I think that they wanna share for the community as a whole to let. The next generation and our peers know that you we're not alone and we're not alone in feeling this way.

And it's about uplifting our community. And I think people want to be able to extend the hand because they didn't have that when they were growing up.

J.D.: Yeah. And it sounds like, I mean, with even within your own family that here's a story from your mom that you weren't even aware

Vanny: No, I, well, I had to ask

J.D.: How did you go through that? Yeah.

Vanny: I still don't have the full story. I have to ask her, and I asked her like can we talk about you growing up? I don't know. I don't know. What your childhood was like. Whereas, you know, I know my mother-in-laws, my mother-in-law's English, and she's very, you know, open about her childhood and she had a good childhood and she's telling me, she tells me stories about her time in Singapore and Italy and stuff, and I.

[00:17:00] Whereas I don't know anything about my parents and I know my, my, my parents-in-law, I know their, the details of their life, so, yeah. Yeah it's hard to open, it's hard to share traumatic situations and, you know, I know that there. If you go and read up on what was done to people, you can imagine what happens during war.

So, I'm also afraid to open like a can of worms that I don't know how to,

J.D.: Sure.

Vanny: I don't know how to navigate.

J.D.: Yeah. I mean, I could just, I mean, putting myself in your shoes, just even the topic alone, I don't know how I'd be able to sit with the story either, you know, I mean, other than just kind of sitting back, which is, you know, which is okay too. But I mean, we, we don't have that experience, you know, it's not completely far removed from us, you know, as far as like when those kind of situations happened.

But I mean. I mean, I'm like, I mean a Afghanistan desert storm, like those are the [00:18:00] ones that come to my head. And even then, like I'm not at an age that you saw it, it was in the news, but it was still one of those well this doesn't pertain to me, so I don't need to hear it. Or, you know, your parents were, let's, no, I, you don't need to hear this.

You know, so it was one of the two. So it's still hearing somebody that's gone through it in the most extreme way. It seems like it's right out of the history books. I, this isn't happening to somebody that's sitting in front of me or it didn't happen. You know, I do the same thing when I see somebody that has, you know, even just like a hat or a sticker on their car that says they're a Vietnam vet.

I'm like how is that possible? You know, and what's your, what's going on with your life? You know, it's just, I can't even imagine, you know? So it's just you could just see the distance like happening. But I sometimes, I don't know. And I think we were talking about beforehand that. It's almost, I don't know.

It's like where our like generation is when it comes to hearing the stories of our ancestors. Whether that's a wartime story or just what did you do for fun. It's almost, I don't wanna sound like extreme and like pessimistic, but it's almost like we're not [00:19:00] interested in it. It's, we're so wrapped up.

And whatever's going on in our world, it's I don't have time for you,

Vanny: Yeah, it's a pity.

J.D.: can tell me how much you like jumping rope later. I, no,

Vanny: Do you

J.D.: I don't know. I mean, so.

Vanny: do you find that with your group of friends or your circle.

J.D.: For a lot of them. I mean, I mean even just, I mean, but, and even just listening to my wife and, you know, talking about you know, the, her coworkers it's just, it's very, but then even, you know, within my own, I mean, I can see, you know, the most extreme case of life, you know, situations from myself.

I mean, I can look at the date now on my phone of when people stopped talking and asking if I was okay after my father passed away. And it was like, at the best, like two, three days after. And it, you know, you can sit there and be like, you know, just angry and the like, why don't you care? But at the same time, you almost can't because it's just, we're just so caught in.

I had one, one family member just, I mean, he asked and I only remember it 'cause I was walking into the funeral home and that's when he said something. And by that time it had been [00:20:00] almost a week. And I know that they had spoken to my mom, which is more important than me.

But asked how I was doing, it was something like, Hey bro, or Hey dude, which was, you know, strange anyway to say to somebody after what they've gone through, but it was just like, you know, something like, what's up with you or how are you doing?

And I'm like, so I just, you know, kindly was about as best as we can be, you know, thanked him, you know, for being a family. And the next response was, I'll be going through the same thing as well. I understand. I'm like. I looked at my mom, I was like, ah, I wanna be upset at this. Because it's no, you're not.

You know, and I'm not trying to take away your grief versus mine, but there's d there is a different level. That's my dad. That's your uncle. You know? So it was like. Where's the awareness, and that's just so, and then you can just blow that up to the rest of the world. I just, you just feel it sometimes that it's like you're not interested in the generation unless you like, skip a generation and they want to go back through a whole genealogy like conversation and it's well, hold on a

Vanny: it's almost [00:21:00] like we're just focused on the wrong things, you know? Like we're not focused, we're not, we're so busy just going through the motions of life that you're. You're not realizing, you're not slowing down enough to see like how others around you are and

J.D.: Or in your case you know, I mean we're just talking about celebrating, you know, somebody, you know, it's not like you're trying to find the worst or ask for any kind of like sympathy. It's just, hey, I. If there's a whole nother like world that went on before you and you don't have to change your world because you now know that there was, you know, you don't have to do anything different.

You just now have to go, oh, I'll bank that in my filing cabinet now that I understand something a little bit better. And so, I mean, you know, just hearing just, I mean, without, you know, listening, just a handful of episodes myself. I mean, I, you could hear it and then you, it just reverberates. And just the way you mentioned you started this.

That it wasn't like a in your face, it was a, Hey, let's just talk, let's just, you know, hear what's going on. And I think that just changes the dynamic [00:22:00] right. Of, of how we appreciate, you know, other cultures, other people, other human beings.

Vanny: Mm-hmm. Yeah. This just talking to people I've developed a community around the world now, and I feel like I'm in this I used to be ashamed about being Cambodian because all I knew was the genocide.

J.D.: I can imagine.

Vanny: I'm like, why would we kill our own people? I didn't know that. You know, the US had was involved in that prior to that happening, and they basically made that happen, like

J.D.: Yeah.

Vanny: indirectly, but still I don't think they intentionally put the KH Rouge in power, but based on their actions, that's what happened.

J.D.: it feels that

Vanny: And, that I was ashamed. And now that I know the details prior to what happened during that period, I'm not anymore. And I'm like super proud of our community being able to basically rise from the ashes because not [00:23:00] only did the country had to start with nothing after 1979 so did the diaspora. Like we came, I came to Canada with nothing.

I was only. How old was I? Three and a half. And my mom's I only had $5 us. So, you know, we've had to survive and a lot of us are now thriving and I'm at this point in my life where, you know, I consider myself thriving. I'm able to leave my full-time job and start pursuing a more. Creative career that speaks to me that fills me with joy and that provides purpose.

J.D.: I was gonna say, I mean, it's gotta just feel, you know, fulfilling is the way I would describe it too. I mean, it's just, and being able to do that, I mean, it's, you know, certainly you could take it to the next level of, well, I'm gonna rewrite history and you're gonna know you know, what's going on.

And [00:24:00] my culture is history. But then where does that get you? It probably the same way as if you never spoke at all. Right. But finding this like ground of just. I want to be, I wanna understand it, I wanna feel great about it. I want to feel, you know, like this is something that I am, I'm ultimately like not ashamed of.

I think puts it in a different storytelling lens. And to me, the most appropriate one because it's just it's just education.

Vanny: like our culture is so beautiful. It's like ancient and I. And I see the, you know, the borrowing from other cultures and other cultures borrowing from ours, and it's gorgeous to see just the interrelationship between as far as India and China. Like we have elements of those civilizations, but we see that, you know, those civilizations, we influence them in a way as well.

So it's like we're all human, you know, we're not like this whole nationalism thing. It's. [00:25:00] It's nice that you know you're proud of your country, but it shouldn't divide you between humanity.

J.D.: Is that a strange, I mean, as you're talking to people, you know, is that something that you see? You know, can I can see that too, that, you know, going back to what we were just talking about, just not knowing the generation before you, but not even just knowing, you know, we'd like to say that we're, I'm Italian look at my last name, or, you know, my mom's from there.

But then if he went just a next step further. And ask 'em just a slightly deeper question, not necessarily give a history lesson. Then you find out where they really stood and nine times outta 10, I feel like that's where it stops. It's oh, wait a minute. You're, you sounded like you were proud about this.

Like where's the line? Then? Are you finding that people like that, it's unearthing this like true, like you just said, you know, you're not ashamed anymore. Like you're truly proud of the culture instead of just going that, well, they took it from our culture. Well, hold on.

Like this is beautiful that we all. Mesh together. Are you finding that's once you dusted things off like that is actually there, that people are, they do [00:26:00] find this pride, like it's just been kind of covered up by just these terrible situations

Vanny: Yeah. You know, there, there's this resurgence or I guess renaissance of Cambodian culture happening. We're celebrating and we see, you know, how far we've come. But there's always gonna be. Nationalistic pride, like wherever you go. And it's, I think it all comes down to talking to others and being aware of being aware of where they come from.

And you can't, I, when I, when there are people that are racist, like I actually feel sorry for them because they don't know. They don't know that we're really all the same.

J.D.: yeah.

Vanny: Like I like,

J.D.: wanna ask if they're

Vanny: yeah. They don't know that. They don't know that they come off as ignorant either, and just cruel.

J.D.: Yeah.

So j just to give that that more of a spotlight. Then if we had to [00:27:00] pull like one line from the history books that we're missing or this, you know, this westernized version of what we know about Cambodian people, what would you say? What would one like elevator kind of pitch that we're all missing and could really like, value in, in hearing to kind of jumpstart the story for those of us that.

They've either written it off and it's not like something we're interested in because it was never shown to us as being interesting or just have flat out never even considered that there are other human beings on the planet.

Vanny: well, I think one of my guests put it very well, he. The episode by reminding everyone that we come from greatness. So there's a lot that we can be, that we can do because it's in our DNA, like the resilience is in our DNA the artistry, the creativity. It's in our DNA, we come from greatness. So I'd like to remind everyone that's what we are.

We're great. We come from greatness.

J.D.: I love it. Well, Benny, thank you so much for just giving us a small portion of your story.

Vanny: Well, thank you for having [00:28:00] me.

J.D.: Yeah. I.

Closing Porch Vignette
---

J.D.: The night feels different now, not heavier, fuller, you realize something about stories as you sit there. They don't disappear when they're misunderstood. They wait. They wait in memories pass quietly across dinner tables and fragments. Parents struggle to explain and questions. The next generation finally asks out loud, and when the right voice arrives, the story begins to breathe again, not as history alone as inheritance.

You stand slowly. The porch board answers steady as always. Whatever story belongs to you, whatever truth has been waiting patiently to be spoken, it hasn't vanished, and it's been listening, waiting for its own voice.[00:29:00]

Thanks for stopping by, for listening to a story that chose authorship over silence. This has been, what's your story? Come back anytime.

Outro
---

J.D.: Thank you for listening. Tending to the stories that ask to be heard. This is what's your story? Where fragile moments find their echo. Until we meet again, keep listening for your own. [00:30:00]