Nonotuck Hosts AAPI Session

The Nonotuck community was honored to recently host Nurse Practitioner Chhan Touch, M.S. as part of our celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. Touch is a Ph.D. candidate who currently works out of the Lowell Primary Care Center, as well as a survivor of the Killing Fields in Cambodia.

From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia was responsible for millions of deaths. The sites where citizens were murdered and buried by the regime came to be referred to as “the Killing Fields.” Touch spoke at length of the horrors of the Killing Fields—including witnessing the death of his own family members— as well as his subsequent escape across several countries and settling in America.

He also spoke of his dogged determination to succeed here, first going to school at night to first get a GED, and subsequently earning his associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degree before becoming a PhD candidate today.