All posts filed under: Loy Khambay

MIA Erasure, My Reflection

To much fanfare, the exhibit Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975 opened in Minnesota at the Minneapolis Institute of Art this month and will run until January 5th, 2020. It’s billed as a way to look at “the innovative ways artists talked back, often in the streets and other public venues. The exhibition presents nearly 100 works by 58 of the period’s most visionary, provocative artists.” For Southeast Asians of Vietnamese, Hmong, Laotian, and Cambodian descent, and active military veterans, you can even see the exhibit for free. It’s been a long time since I’ve been given free admission to an art exhibit to witness the complete erasure of my community’s perspective and reactions to the Vietnam War, the Secret War, and the Killing Fields. For Minnesotans, who arguably have one of the most deeply tangled relationships with Southeast Asia than almost any other US state, this ought to be a stirring and profound exhibit: one filled with so many heartbreaking memories and reflections on themes and issues addressed over four decades ago, …

Lao America’s 2017 Year in Review

What a year?! Perhaps propelled and fueled by covfefe, it really felt like the personal and the public occupied some blurred lines in 2017. This year showed us what happens when you throw enough water particles into a vat of hot oil the size of a planet. Is anyone left innocent and unshaken? To those that can make that claim…share that medication before it’s re-allocated to the rich! Take a look below and let us know what we might have missed! January After the US Presidential Election slammed to a close, one of our staffers at Little Laos on the Prairie felt it prudent to address the shocking results…and its massive implications. Not surprisingly, we weren’t the only ones shocked with the results. The Laotian Times also addressed the elections. On January 24, “A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA” by Joshua Kurlantzick made its way to print. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia W. Patrick Murphy visited the Lao PDR on Jan 16 and 17. He outlined several …