Channy Laux, 60, is the granddaughter of a refugee from communist China who fled to Cambodia. She was 13 when the communist Khmer Rouge, which would eventually kill almost 2 million people, took over Cambodia in 1975. Her father and brother were shot trying to escape to Thailand through the jungle. Laux was sent to a reeducation camp and was tortured, raped and starved. She eventually reached the United States as a refugee with no English skills, studied to be an engineer, wrote a memoir, and now runs a Cambodian restaurant and food business in San Jose. "If you think that capitalism is bad," she says, "wait until you live under communism."