Tory Jewelry Company
Tory Jewelry Company was the first Cambodian-owned jewelry shop in the downtown jewelry district of Los Angeles, opened by Jerry Young in 1978.[1][2] It was later renamed Inta Gems and Diamonds.[1]
History
Young had kept a jewelry store in Cambodia. In the spring of 1975, as the Khmer Rouge took power, he took a handful of jewels from the store and fled, walking and hitching rides to the Thai border, where he found his family again in a camp. In the United States those few cut rubies and sapphires became the seed money for a new business.[1] The family settled in Bellflower, California. A friend who, like them, came from Pailin province lent the family its first jewelry inventory, and in 1978 Young opened Tory Jewelry Company downtown.[2][1] Through the 1980s he and his family supplied gems, gold and advice to people hoping to open their own shops, and family members went on to open seven more jewelry stores.[2] As of 2017 Golden Gem Jewelry Co. Inc. occupied the space of Young's first store.[2][1]