Memorial service for Kry Lay, a founder of Long Beach’s Cambodian community, will be held...

Considered one of the founders of Long Beach’s Cambodian community, Lay died on June 27 in his daughter Suny Lay Chang’s Virginia Country Club home in Long Beach due to complications with Alzheimer’s, a disease he lived with for more than a decade. He was 79.

In the 1970s, Lay laid the groundwork in Long Beach for Cambodians seeking social support services, religious institutions and educational curricula that allowed refugees to better assimilate. Today, the Cambodian community has grown its political presence to the point that it helped elect the first Cambodian American elected city council member last year and is now campaigning for council redistricting that could further consolidate Cambodian votes.

While Lay didn’t influence these changes alone, his loved ones and colleagues believe his contributions were both instrumental and monumental. His efforts included helping establish the Cambodian Association of America and the city’s first Cambodian Buddhist temple and implementing a bilingual Khmer/English program in the Long Beach Unified School District.

Chang, 45, the eldest of three daughters, plans to honor her father during a memorial service on Saturday morning at Stricklin/Snively Mortuary. As a Buddhist scholar-philosopher, Lay spent most of his time serving others. Chang wants to share memories about her father that might best capture the selfless, humble and resourceful person he was.

“He was a renaissance man,” Chang said. “He did so much for the community, he did so much for our family. He led his life with integrity. It was a life of service.”

Escaping the killing fields


Like many other Cambodian refugees in the 1970s, Lay’s journey to the United States was a product of survival.

Born in the city of Oudong in the province of Kompong Speu in Cambodia, Lay and his four siblings grew up poor. His parents died when he was young. Having been presented with many obstacles in his life, he was “scrappy,” Chang said, and he found joy in solving problems. For money, he’d do odd jobs like climbing trees to pick coconuts, all while attending school, she said.

For his studies, he’d reuse paper, soaking it with an ink blade and letting it dry, Chang said.

As a youth, Lay was ordained in Kompong Speu and served as a monk for 12 years, while studying at the Higher Pali School at Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University, the oldest and most prestigious school in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, according to family.

During his monkhood, Lay wrote three books, the first titled, “Ariya Dravya,” (translates to Noble Wealth) which drew a letter of compliment from King Norodom Sihanouk.

Excelling in his studies, Lay then earned a bachelor’s degree and taught Pali, a Buddhist language, at his university the next year. Lay subsequently received two scholarships from the Cambodian and Indian governments to continue his studies, earning him a master’s in history and political science in 1970 from the University of Poona in India, where he met his wife.




The Lay family, from left, Munika Lay, Sudhir Lay, Phansuna Lay, Kry Lay and Suny Lay Chang, sit together for a portrait on November 2019. Photo courtesy of Suny Lay Chang.


But while he pursued education, Cambodia was falling. In 1973, assailants from the Khmer Rouge invaded his hometown of Oudong and murdered his three older brothers. Chang said his doctoral studies in India were cut short after the genocide forced him to seek asylum in the United States in 1975.

Lay ended up in Long Beach, and he noticed that he and the thousands of other refugees needed help assimilating. Having been stripped of arts and culture in Cambodia under its genocidal regime, he also wanted to create a community in Long Beach that allowed them to preserve and honor their identity.

A Long Beach legacy


“He was very aware of mental PTSD,” Chang said.

One of his first endeavors was to create infrastructure in Long Beach for other refugees, a hub for social services that could address the needs of Cambodians. Lay and his wife also sponsored people to help them immigrate to the U.S.

He and other founders helped establish the Cambodian Association of America in 1975, the oldest and largest Cambodian organization in the country. Services range from citizenship assistance to job placement help to mental health counseling.

Current CAA Executive Director Kimthai Kuoch said that with the help of Lay, who had served as chairman, the organization turned an annual budget of $350,000 to $3 million in just over a year by creating a strategic plan and applying for grants.




Kry Lay sits with a student in a Long Beach classroom on March 27, 2001. Photo courtesy of Suny Lay Chang.


The funding allowed the organization to expand the services to thousands annually and to other ethnic groups, including other Asian communities, Latinos, African Americans and Whites.

Kuoch led the diversification and held dear the “encouragement and advice” Lay always gave him. He said Lay would use Buddhist principles and stories to tell him ”to keep on going when I’m going through obstacles.”

“We have a great loss [of] one of our Cambodian leaders,” Kimthai Kuoch said.

Lay, who knew six languages, and his colleagues developed a bilingual English and Khmer program in LBUSD called the South East Asian Learners Project, having translated many textbooks. And for more than two decades, Lay taught and counseled Cambodian children in the district.




Kry Lay poses for a photo as he helps students at a Long Beach classroom on March 27, 2001. Photo courtesy of Suny Lay Chang.


“He’s a great man,” Kuoch said. “He cared about the community. He cared about the children.”

A Buddhist ceremony memorializing Lay was held at Khemara Buddhikarama, commonly known as “Watt Willow.” One of Kuoch’s last memories of Lay was seeing him pray at the temple this past spring.

Judy Seal, the former executive director of the Long Beach Education Foundation at LBUSD who worked there with Lay, said calling Lay a founding father in the Cambodian community in Long Beach “is a modest statement.”

Family and colleagues say he’s helped so many people, perhaps changing many destinies.

“Long Beach is so much better because of his life,” Seal said.

Lay is survived by his wife, their three daughters, his sister, four grandchildren and numerous nephews and nieces.

The memorial service for Kry Lay will take place at Stricklin/Snively Mortuary on Saturday, July 10 at 10 a.m.

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