All posts filed under: Education & Politics

An Iu Mien Story Pt.1 – #FreeSaelee, The Secret War, and Resettlement

“I would never think that we would have that many supporters,” Naichann Saechao says, referring to the nearly 200,000 signatures collected online to free her nephew Kao from ICE detention.  In fall 2020, the internet was shaken up by the Guardian’s story about an Iu Mien American refugee named Kao Saelee from California. Despite Kao’s service fighting historic wildfires just before finishing his 22 year prison sentence, he was handed over to ICE for deportation to his birth country of Laos. Instead of reuniting with his family who had come to take him home, Kao was taken to an ICE detention facility across the country in Louisiana. Despite calls for a pardon by California Governor Gavin Newsom, Kao is still in ICE detention today. With the massive reaction to Kao Saelee’s story, more people are talking about the plight of young refugees finding their way in America. However, the visibility of these refugee experiences, especially for communities like Iu Mien Americans, remains low. According to Iu Mien Community Services –Iu Mien are a vibrant ethnic …

Beyond Black Ops: Laos in Video Games

November 15th marks the anniversary of Operation Commando Hunt. The goal of the operation was to interdict men and supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail, through Laos into South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and coincidentally very close to the 73rd birthday of the AK-47, which was on November 13th. November 13th is also the anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. This is a small point of trivia to note as we saw the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops, Cold War on November 13th, which has a mission in Laos set in 1968. This will be another entry in the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, which began in 2010. Some of us will be watching with interest in the zombie option for many of the maps. One trailer seems to confirm that players will be able to fight zombies during the Vietnam War-era with weapons of varying realism levels. Players in the past have been able to modify many variables in these games, but not …