All posts tagged: Asian American

Progress on the Hmong and Laotian Veterans Memorial

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March 29th marked the last of the  Hmong and Lao Veterans Commemorative Memorial fundraising campaign. The Hmong and Lao fundraising committees raised the State-required matching funds for the project. The Monument bill is backed by Senator Foung Hawj, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Al Franklin, and many city and state officials. Throughout the last year the community convened many fundraising benefits to meet the private donor requirements established by the state. The State of Minnesota is expected to appropriate $450,000, with the expectation that another $150,000 from private donors be contributed in support of the effort. Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton expressed his intent to support the appropriation, which was created by a capital bill proposed by House committee chair Rep. Alice Hausman of St. Paul. With approval later this year, the monument has an anticipated completion date of 2015, the 40th anniversary since the beginning of the Hmong and Laotian diaspora. The memorial will be built next to Minnesota’s Vietnam War memorial off of John Ireland Boulevard in Saint Paul. Community organizer Saysana Pommalth said “Finally, we …

Crowdfunding the Lao American imagination

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One of my big projects this season has been crowdfunding the deluxe edition of my new book, DEMONSTRA, a book of Lao American speculative poetry.  I wanted to work with the acclaimed Lao American artist Vongduane Manivong to help our community gain a renewed appreciation for the classic Lao myths, and to celebrate and rekindle Lao imagination. My publishers at Innsmouth Free Press were gracious enough to give me permission to take a question to my readers: Do people really want a book of speculative poetry, especially one with art, from a Lao American perspective?  It sounds like a tough sell to a lot of people. We were successfully funded in 24 hours, and we’re well on our way to getting almost a dozen more original illustrations commissioned for the book. It will be the first I released since representing Laos as a Cultural Olympian during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. I’ve done my research. I know the numbers. Depending on how you figure it, in the US there are between 200,000 to 400,000 …