All posts filed under: Timothy Singratsomboune

Affirmative Action: Forging Our Own Identity

This is the last part on a series about how data effects Education and Affirmative Action. You can catch up with Part One here and Part Two here. Recap: We’ve discussed our need to be seen as a distinct group from the rest of Asian America and we’ve also highlighted some of the obstacles we’re running into, with regards to our push for personhood. As I noted in the last segment (part 2), creating our own Lao American platform, with a good amount of distance from the rest of Asian America, is not about hostility or division: it’s about priorities. As a less-resourced, less-accommodated ethnic group, we have to prioritize ourselves because the big players in Asian America (typically East Asian American groups) don’t seem to have our community’s concerns within sight. Luckily though, work to prioritize Lao Americans has already begun to take root, being championed by our own community members. Know Your Role I mentioned before that Southeast Asian Americans worked to win Asian American educational data disaggregation in Rhode Island. Lao Americans were part …

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 …