“Ma and Me” by Putsata Reang

Ma and Me is a vivid, compassionate memoir that made Lakshmi want to be a better person

While it's been more than half a century since the start of the Cambodian Civil War, the experiences of Cambodian refugees are still a relative rarity in the world of American literature.

That was one of the reasons an essay by Putsata Reang about her mother and their delicate relationship was one of the most memorable pieces published in the New York Times' famed Modern Love column back in 2016. Titled "At Sea, and Seeking a Safe Harbor," the essay describes the tight, sometimes suffocating bond between Reang and her Cambodian-born mother, who was heavily pregnant when she escaped with her family on an overcrowded ship filled with refugees heading for any country that would take then (the ship would be turned away at port several times as it navigated the Gulf of Thailand.)