Forty years after thousands of refugees left Laos to settle in different countries across the world, a new generation of the Lao diaspora is redefining their relationship with their heritage and motherland. LLOTP sat down with Stacey Phengvath, a second generation Lao American who became the first non-military Lao American to serve as a U.S. Foreign Service Specialist at the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane. At her post, Stacey not only represents the U.S. government, but a unique segment of the Lao American experience. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your family. My parents fled Laos as refugees in 1975, and I grew up listening to their stories. It’s amazing how their story telling created a motion picture in my mind; while I wasn’t personally there, I could feel the pain they went through years ago. When I was born, my family moved to Danbury, Connecticut and struggled to make ends meet in a subsidized housing community. It was their experiences as refugees and their hardships in America that piqued my interested in entering public service. …