“I escaped from Laos to Thailand at the age of 13 with my 3 sisters and my aunt and uncle.
A man, who we met there, drove us to the Thai Army station to continue the refugee process.”
“The Thai army men tried to rob us of our money, but we didn’t have any for them to take. Then they drove us to the Mukdahan Thailand Jail, where we stayed for 33 days. There we had to pretend our aunts and uncles were our parents, so we called them “mom” and “dad”. There weren’t enough clothes for us, so my aunt gave me one of her sinh to wear. My sister and I took turns wearing a shirt. I only had one pair of underwear, and no pads to use on my menstrual days.”
“The wives of the Thai police officers made us wash dirty dishes from their weekend parties and hand wash their laundry. We picked up trash around the police station. We rarely went outside. We slept on a hardwood floor and straw mats in small prison rooms along with four other refugee families.
“Our next refugee camp was Ban Napho in Thailand, where we stayed for 8 months. Compared to others like us, that’s a short period of time. My uncle was the head of the Lao Army that served Laos before the communist took over our country. If it wasn’t for my uncle’s network and connections we would’ve stayed longer.”
“We only had about
฿ 1000 Thai Baht, which was only worth about $100 US dollars back then. We decided to build a camp hut to live in with that money. While the camp hut was being built, we stayed in another hut with some distant family members who were also there living in the camp. They already had 9 family members living in that one hut, but managed to let us stay with them temporarily. The camp provided frozen sardines 3 times a week. We ate frozen sardines for almost every meal. Although there were Thai markets along the camp fence, we had very little money to spend.”
“After 8 months in Ban Napho camp, we stayed for 3 weeks in a transit camp. We had packed all our plastic plates, bowls, cups and a couple of thin aluminum pots. There we shared a room with another family. All the buildings in that camp were run down and abandoned with no proper doors or windows.”
“We didn’t have much food. The camp provided us with raw fish and meat for us to cook it ourselves. We had very little money to buy any other food.”
“After three weeks there, we were sent to Bataan Philippines Refugee Camp, where we stayed there for 7 months and were treated more like people. There was a bus, which always overflowed with students, that we could take to go to school.
“The camp provided a variety of appliances and food for us to cook, like salt, sugar, coconuts, and sweet potatoes.”
“They even provided pads for my menstrual days. Even though the disposable pads were cheaply made, I was grateful to not have to reuse fabric as pads anymore.”
“I had a group of friends to hang with and we would walk to school together. Eventually, some of my friends left the camp, moving on to live in the U.S. and not all in the same states, or went to live in a different country. There was not much social media back then to keep in close touch. We did manage to get the addresses of their sponsors to find a way to eventually get in touch somehow.”
“It was at this camp where I have fun memories of making new friends.”
“On April 26, 1986, we arrived at NYC airport where we were provided with winter coats because we only had thin clothes on our backs. It was cold. We got on a connecting flight to Rochester, NY to be with our family that settled before us. We didn’t have our parents with us, but it was just us, two sisters and one brother.”
“We were all poor. We received food stamps and welfare for two years. It was very little but it was better than nothing, until we could get on our own feet. We spent weekends picking fruits in the farms to earn a little bit more money. We found someone who owned an old car to carpool with to get to the farm.”
“Each day earning varied, but If we made $20 then it was a lucky day. ”
“At age 16, I started schooling in the 6th grade because I didn’t know much English. The following year, I took English Second Language courses, or ESL, in the mornings at an elementary school, then would commute to a junior high school to take math, English, and more ESL.”
“After grade school, I attended a community college to obtain my associate. I then continued on to a private university in Rochester, NY called the Rochester Institute of Technology. I only attended for two semesters and then quit because I had no money, no car, and not enough resources overall to support my schooling.
“Even having been under an school assistance program for students, with no additional income, the money was still not enough, so I quit school. I went on to work in a factory, got married, had a son, and continued living in Rochester for 14 more years before moving to Austin, TX in June 2000.”
“By the time I got married I still wasn’t much of a cook, but I had to cook more because it was my duty to put food on the table while my husband worked.”
“I was the youngest out of 10 children, but two have passed and now I’m the youngest of 8. I didn’t really learn to cook much. It wasn’t until after I left Laos that I learned to cook rice and the basics of making soup.”
“Over the following years, I began to build my passion for cooking. I’d watched cooking videos on YouTube, and watched so many for at least seven years before I decided to put aside my fears of never having done my own videos before or edit videos, and finally I started my own cooking channel on YouTube ‘Lao American Lady’.”
“My motivation was the thought of wanting my children to access my videos and learn how to cook our favorite Lao dishes when they’re away from home. I want them to have that comfort. I also want to help others learn to cook Lao food and learn about the culture.”
“As I’ve looked back at my first few old videos, I’ve deleted many of them because the production had been poor. I didn’t have a camera holder and my edit cuts were bad.”
“It took me 3.5 years to reach 1000 subscribers, but I never gave up. I just kept uploading videos. Some of the dishes I share are not Lao food, but it’s what I put on my table to serve my family. I would consider my Lao dishes to be at least 97 percent authentic. I hope people will enjoy my cooking nevertheless.”
