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Soudhary Kittivong-Greenbaum helped organize SatJaDham’s seventh annual conference. Photos by Andrew Chow.

Conference Connects Literature, Activism

By Andrew Chow
AsianWeek Staff Writer

The nation’s only annual conference on Lao language and Laotian American literature convened in the Bay Area for the first time last weekend, tying in literary pursuits with a topic firmly rooted in the region: activism.

About 50 Laotian Americans from throughout the country gathered at Contra Costa Community College in San Pablo for SatJaDham’s seventh annual conference June 29.

The day-long event sought to link Laotian voices through literature and activism, said Soudhary Kittivong-Greenbaum of Pleasanton, who served on the conference’s planning committee. Other weekend events included screenings of Laotian American films and a reading by noted Laotian author T.C. Huo, along with a presentation by a local Laotian youth environmental group.

The call to encourage more Laotian American voices in literature serves as an empowerment tool for the largely refugee community that arrived in America mostly within the last 25 years, Kittivong-Greenbaum said.

Since that time, the community has continually battled the perception of an Asian “model minority,” said Prany Sananikone, director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity at the University of California, Irvine.

“Here’s a sad thing,” Sananikone told attendees during the conference’s closing session, a panel discussion on “Building a Common Voice.” “A year ago, the college board said to Congress [that] as far as APAs are concerned, they have no problems,” Sananikone said. It took one congressman from Guam to note that Southeast Asians “are at the bottom of the barrel,” he said.

Top: Poet S. Sengsirivanh Chansom (right) Middle: Toon Phapphayboun. Bottom: Prany Sananikone, director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity at the University of California, Irvine.

Putting thoughts to paper can help bring Laotian voices to the fore and raise the Laotian American profile, said Toon Phapphayboun of Morganton, N.C., who attended a session entitled “Getting Published.”

When a facilitator asked if anyone was working on short stories, poetry or plays, Phapphayboun was the only attendee who raised her hand all three times.

“I’ve been working on them forever,” said Phapphayboun, who teaches English at a community college and whose work has been included in previous SatJaDham publications. “I truly believe the best way to share your culture is through writing. And the best way to get Laos out there is through literature.”

SatJaDham — which means “the universal truth” in Lao — formed in the mid-1990s as an online portal to connect Laotian writers, poets and songwriters, Kittivong-Greenbaum said.

Many writers who escaped political repression in Laos now reside in America. S. Sengsirivanh Chansom, a poet and songwriter who arrived in the United States in 1991 after 13 years of imprisonment by Communists, led a discussion about Lao poetry at the Saturday conference.

“This is part of Laotian American heritage,” Chansom, of Clackamas, Ore., said through a translator. “Classic songs really bring back old memories of the Lao kingdom, and we can be proud of that. It also encourages Laotians [born] overseas — especially the young generation — to appreciate their ancestors.”

Chansom said he felt proud that young Laotian Americans are trying to keep the Lao language alive.

Still, more needs to be done to address other factors in Laotian empowerment, such as education, said Sananikone, who also works as a consultant for the California Youth Authority.

Sananikone noted that among California prison inmates between 11 and 24 years old, half are of Southeast Asian descent. More than half of those inmates are Laotian, he said.

“Who’s teaching them? Nobody. And this is the sad part,” Sananikone said.

Other attendees also voiced concerns about a gap in understanding between younger and older Laotian generations, and about setting up agencies to address Laotian concerns.

Such concerns may be addressed in later SatJaDham conferences, organizers said.

“We are the bridge,” Sananikone said about the Laotian American experience. “We know how it feels to come from that place. We know how it feels to dodge bullets.”

Regarding the importance of Laotian writers, Sananikone asked attendees to remember: “One light can become 10,000 — and can light the world.”

Reach Andrew Chow at achow@asianweek.com.