SAN FRANCISCO, CA – “Throughout my school years I was trying to learn about my Lao heritage, which has always been a push and pull of understanding my parents and their values,” says Sandra Siharath. “I have taken courses in Africana Studies, Raza Studies, Native American Studies, Asian American Studies, hoping to piece together my identity as an Asian American, but I was never able to truly capture being Lao in America.”
Now Siharath and other young Lao Americans will have the unique opportunity to learn about their cultural heritage first hand through the Summer Study Abroad in Laos program (SAIL). The first U.S. based study abroad program of its kind will offer participants total cultural immersion through language lessons, country-specific course offerings, travel, social and volunteer opportunities. Sponsored by the Center for Lao Studies the program will be held at the Lao American College in Vientiane, Laos.
Those interested in learning about Southeast Asian culture are also encouraged to apply; the application deadline is March 15.
Currently there is close to one million people from Laos living in the U.S. Many of these were refugees who, like their neighbors in Vietnam and Cambodia, fled their country in the 1970’s and 1980’s when civil war broke out and new communist regimes assumed power. The war not only displaced 10 percent of the population, but left the country ravaged. During this time, Laos had been involved in a “Secret War” – an unprecedented bombing campaign backed by the CIA to stop North Vietnamese supply lines along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In a span of nine years, approximately two million tons of bombs were dropped, making Laos the most bombed country in world history.
While many Lao refugees have assimilated to their new country and home in the U.S., others have struggled to find success, and to retain their culture. Today, second generation Lao Americans are growing up speaking English and are fully Americanized with little emotional connection to Laos. As a result, intergenerational conflicts and miscommunication are common. However, like other Asian immigrants, many young Lao Americans have a strong interest in learning about their roots, but lack academic resources as Laos is rarely mentioned in history books thus leaving them with little knowledge of their country. Unable to explain who they are and where they are from, they are faced with an identity crisis.
Dr. Vinya Sysamouth, a Lao American who came to the U.S. at the age of ten, is familiar with the frustrations and cultural assimilation of the Lao community over the last 30 years. As the Executive Director of the Center for Lao Studies, Dr. Sysamouth saw the establishment of the program as one way to bridge the bi-cultural gap.
“The SAIL program aims to educate Lao Americans about Lao history and culture through eight weeks of cultural, volunteer and academic immersion,” said Dr. Sysamouth. “Many families don’t have the time or money to take their families to Laos, so we’ve provided a structured, safe, and instructive venue through which participants can visit their homeland, learn the language, understand their parents better, and create new memories for themselves.”
Although the program is open to anyone with an interest in Southeast Asian culture and language, response to the program has been strongest from Lao Americans.
Yaengsaeng Xayavong, a 25 year-old ethnic Lao-Lue (Tai Lue) who received a BS in Biochemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, sees the value of the program in raising awareness of Lao culture not only for herself, but for the greater community.
“Sad to say, I do not know much about Lao history, but I know there is no better way of learning about it than going to Laos and studying it,” says Xayavong .It is very important for me to learn about my heritage because it is something I would like to pass on to my children and grandchildren … I will have the opportunity to discover the rich culture of Laos, which will give me a better understanding of my community so I can become an integral part of it.”
Leslie Chanthaphasouk, an International Development Studies, and Asian American Studies major at UCLA, is enthusiastic about the academic opportunities of the program.
“In Orange County, there’s no place for me to study Lao, not even at the temple. Learning about my culture has always been a personal interest of mine, and I was excited to learn about the courses, such as Lao history, offered on the SAIL program,” said Chanthaphasouk. “I also think the program is pretty cheap compared to other study abroad programs now to Europe or even Thailand.”
Even with its reasonable price tag, the economic downturn has prohibited qualified candidates, including Chanthaphasouk, from applying. Scholarship funds are competitive, but are needed to help some participants offset the costs.
“It’s a shame that the financial crisis is affecting potential applicants as we launch the program for the first time” says Samantha Miller, who has lived in Laos for three years and is assisting with the SAIL program. “We’ve explored options to help students with the program cost, but Foundation grants are drying up too. We are now appealing to individual donors to sponsor applicants for whatever they can. Even $1,000 would go a long way!”
The SAIL program is part of the Center for Lao Studies’ greater mission to advance knowledge and engagement in the field of Lao Studies through research, education and information sharing. Founded in 2006 as an outcome of the First International Conference on Lao Studies, the non-profit has established itself as a resource center for both the general public as well as those of Lao heritage, and serves as a liaison to cultural and community organizations, universities, and academic institutions. Among its programs are the publication of an annual peer-reviewed Journal of Lao Studies, and forthcoming Lao Oral History Archive that will document the experiences of Lao refugees in the U.S. through audio and video media, and create an on-line archive of interviews, videos, and historical documents. For more information about the Center for Lao Studies, please visit: http://www.laostudies.org.
spell check your article
great article. I wish I could go on the program.
Wow, this article is exactly what I have been feeling about my Lao heritage. I recently went back with my parents for two weeks and wish I could have learned more. While there, I searched for books in English that would help explain the history of Laos but no such luck. I wish I could go on this program!
Folks:
This is precisely the reason AsianWeek online MUST continue, grow, and SERVE its legitimate community.
And “tuna,” “spell-checking” is fine, when you can afford copyreaders and researchers as well, but, bottom-line, ONLY the intent matters, whatever the lingo OR the academic purities. You are, I am afraid, far too brainwashed by the establishment of thye literati.
Vince and Chkristy, you don’t need to get on any “program” other thyan your own. You can, and likely will, make the better effort simpoly by following your own leads and needs. Good luck.
Ahh, the wise Uncle Frank strikes again. This program sounds similar to the Taiwan and S. Korea programs; although in my days, the young adults called them “the love boat” due to the many romantic connections. I never participated in the program simply because it didn’t “fit” my needs. My parents came from Hoiping, with a great grandfather who came here in the late 1800′s to work on the railroad. Although my parents inherited property in China, they say America is their home. Perhaps one day I will visit but it will never be the China that my ancestors knew.
Dear Linda:
Congrats on the full name signature here.
But, whiere the Hrll are all the “others”?
Dp tjjeu read? Dp tjeu care? Are “they” out “there”?
Or “nowhere.” as in participation.
Tjos vemie seemes, at long last, to be “alive,” and, with luck, “growing.”
And whiy the Hell not?
The Seattle PostIntelligencer has gone, in toto, online, where it is obvious the present AND future journalistic “action” will be.
So, AsianWeek could well also ride in the vanguard of said evoluotion.
And it’s “fre,” to both spoonsor AND client. Free, that is, with the diversions of adverts of one stripe or another. Which, of course, we are “free” to ignore.
The hucksers and merchants will always be with us, some of them “honest” even, as in product for payment or payment for service.
For the rest, read the fine print before signing on.
P.S.: Read today’s CounterPunch piece by Pam Martiens, who, in celebratin g Jon Stewart, who, by the way, appears to be a Leibowi6z and a fine one at that, for his bearding of the cable telly gurus of “high “finance,” tells it like it is, to wit: the villain in the Wall Street implosion isn’t the “toxic” “paper” empires, it’s in the TRADING thereof. Read it and weep. Or laugh, as the case may be.
Frank, thanks for the recommendation. I could probably go to Laos and learn about my own heritage on my own, but I just don’t know where to begin. I don’t know anything about my history and no one seems to care. just thought it would be better if i enroll in a more structured program to sort of lead me in the right direction
Vince:
Begin with your parents.
There can be NO truer beginning.
The “structured programs” out there are for those who have no faith in themselves.
You can, and must, “structure” your own program.
You don’t “need” anyone else’s help.
All the answers you seek, or need, lie within yourself..
Before you are Laotian, you are “human.”
Laotians are, very likely, like the “Jews” and the “Arabs,” brothers and sisters under the skin to your neighbors, the Thai, the Vietnamese, the Cambodians.
The point is that, culturally, it is a melding before it becomes a Balkanized internecine quarrel and conundrum as to who”s on first.
Go to the library. Or, online, try Wikipedia. In time, YOU may be the one to correct errors in the Wikipedia entry.
All those “experts” and “pros” out there know considerably less than they think or are credited for.
NO ONE knows for yourself better than yourself.
So, tell them, one and all, to screw off, and let you evolve to your own fullest and truest plotential.
Good luck.
P.S.: ALL “cultures” and ALL “races” are, arguably, “human,” in which case, what/s to fight over?
mmm…not sure if i want to take your recommendations by not enrolling in something structured. I see your point about independent learning, but I am not at that point where I could do it on my own yet. My parents are great. They are some of the clever people I’ve ever know, but they lack the knowledge about history. As a matter of fact, they were farmers and are illiterate in their own language.
we all can’t just start searching on our own without someone helping us first.. I need a little hand holding when it comes to learning about my own heritage…by the way, we call ourselves LAO not Laotian.
Uncle Frank, if you don’t mind me stepping in and putting in my two cents of advice. Vince, check out the US Embassy with Laos website at http://laos.usembassy.gov. There you will find many avenues in which to help you. If you’re young, you can participate in a student exchange program or if you’re older, you can teach English at one of Laos’s universities–get paid, meet new people, and learn about your mother country safely. Good luck.
Vince:
Forgive my ignorqnce.
Lao, it is.
In my day, “Chinaman:” was both epithet and insult.
But it is one I chortlingly agree to accept and appeqr under.
That and Americanized citizen of the world. Or so I wish.
Or hope.
But I give you 20 lashes with a wet noodle for denigrating your parents.
How DARE you put down “farmers”?
AND “illiterates”?
The former feed us. In more ways than one.
And each of us HAS to be “illiterate” in some form or fashiion or lingo.
Bottom line: you are WRONG about yourself as well.
By your own admission of inadequacy you PROVE your readiness to embark on your own personal and idiosyncratic flight to the freedom of your own self-realization and self-validation.
I repeat; the library, or, more at hand, the internet.
Search. Work. Sweat.
That’s what it takes.
And tiime as well.
But, the last, you have plenty to spare.
Get on with it.
KEEP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING.YOU GOT FULL SUPPORTS AND I AGREE WITH YOU ON
THE HISTORY SUBJECT.IT NEEDS TO TAUGHT ON EVERY SCHOOL SUBJECT.MOST LAO KID
THAT BORN IN AMERICA NEEDS TO LEARNED ABOUT OUR HISTORY AND HERITAGE AND WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE WHO REALLY TO THE WORLD.YOU ASK ONE LAO KID IN AMERICA
ABOUT WHERE HIS CAME COULD TELL YOU ANYTHING.WE NEEDS TO PRESERVED OUR
CULTURE AND OUR HISTORY EVEN IT DOESN’T GLAMORIOUS TO TASTE AT LEAST THEY
SHOULD BE PROUD OF HOW HARD IT TOOK THEIR PARENTS LIFE TO COME HERE TO
BUILT A BETTER LIFE FOR THEM.