All posts tagged: prose & poetry

To All My Faux Aunties and Uncles…

Published by Saysomphorn Sisavatdy

Dear Aunties and Uncles: I now know the purpose you served… For years, growing up, it was never properly explained to me. Perhaps my parents lacked the words I would understand. Perhaps it was more than that. Because of that communication gap, I genuinely believed that everyone my mom and dad introduced me to, was my blood relative. That meant that when I went to my American grade school and people asked me about my family, I inadvertently lied. “I’m the youngest of 8. I know, big family. Both of my parents have like 13 brothers and sisters each. I haven’t even met all of them! Well, some died in the war, of course. I never knew my grandparents.” I guess I should be happy I grew up in a state surrounded by Mormons and Catholics. Big families weren’t anything new to them. But, for the skeptical others that dared to question my authenticity? I was sure self-righteous in my defense of my village-like family! At a certain point, I reached an age where I started questioning …

It’s getting Lao’d in here

Published by littlelaosontheprairie

Yesterday, you got a little taste of who we are as Midwest Lao Americans. And as writers. I guess I get a tad antsy labeling myself as a writer. I have nothing formally published and don’t consider myself a writer, much less a blogger. I simply write for the sake of writing, without a care for grammar or technical perfection. I’ve even been told by my professor at one point that, “Blogging isn’t writing, it’s graffiti with punctuation.” My friend Bryan the Worra advised, “Well then, you better be the Banksy of Blogging!” I couldn’t agree more. And that’s part of why I’m here. There are no barriers to writing and posting what I want on a clean slate. This is the beauty of blogging. So who am I? I’ll spare you the usual refugee immigrant story. That’s for another LONG post. I’ll tap in a little intro of myself in one sentence: I’m a 20-something who works in the glamorous nonprofit world, encounters daily stereotypical mishaps, hunts for simple humor, and casually writes for escapism. Enough …