All posts tagged: Advocacy

Rising Advocacy: A Conversation with Laotian American National Alliance

Published by Timothy Singratsomboune

It’s been a big summer for Southeast Asian America! Personally, I’m still on a creative high from the Lao American Writers Summit in Seattle back in June, and I am excited to hear about the amazing work that comes from some other Southeast Asian American-focused conferences this season. Namely, I’ve had my eye on the Southeast Asian American Studies Conference in Lowell, Massachusetts and the Laotian American National Alliance (LANA) Conference in Elgin, Illinois. Both of these conferences brought together Southeast Asian Americans who want to move and shake our communities forward. And I was devastated that I wasn’t able to make it to either of them. Lucky for me though, I was able to sit down and chat with LANA’s Executive Board Chair Dara Souvanna Phouma Stieglitz, as she traveled from the Jersey Shore to Elgin, IL for the LANA Conference. Dara is a passionate Lao American community builder, and you can watch me Laotian American National Alliance interview her on the LLOTP site. Thanks to the wonder of email, I was also able …

5 Things I Won’t Do in Trump’s America

Published by Timothy Singratsomboune

(Art by Daniel Hagerman) It happened. We have to recognize that Donald Trump has been installed as President of the United States of America by the Electoral College. We have to recognize this. But we don’t have to accept it. Or be silent about it. I’m sure many of us appreciate the fact that the U.S. has had peaceful transitions of power between presidential elections with no military coups or mass upheaval. But the peace of these transitions is a “negative peace,” as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would say. That is, it is a time without unpredictable physical violence, but also without justice. It’s not peace and morality, it’s merely law and order. To quote Dr. King exactly: I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace …