“This was a photo of my father at our home in Hawaii in a neighborhood called Kalihi. He was so proud of his Audi. I’ll always remember his heroism for risking everything to leave his homeland of Laos to pave a new life for our family. We arrived in the U.S. as a complete family. Tragically, in 1987 he died of an unknown sleeping death syndrome. My mother became a widow and single parent of three children to raise on her own in a foreign land.” -Ova Saopeng

Hawaii, 1986